A man from High Wycombe has encouraged anyone with a pornography addiction to ‘not hide in the dark' after he revealed his dependence on X-rated content ‘nearly ruined his life’.

The man in question, who has asked to remain anonymous but lives in the town, also spoke about the ‘mental loneliness’ he endured, whilst also expressing his concerns for future generations due to how ‘easy’ accessing adult videos has become via the internet.

According to www.uk-rehab.com, a pornographic video is uploaded online every 39 seconds, whilst the adult industry has an estimated net worth of £60b.

In addition to this, out of the world’s 50 most frequently visited websites, seven focus on sexual content.

The gentleman said: “It feels strange talking about it because it’s something I’ve kept from everyone for years.

“I can’t remember the exact age, but I was certainly under 10-years-old when I accidentally found some VHS tapes at a relative’s house which weren’t in a box and they didn’t have a sticker on, so I wasn’t sure what was on them.

“I put one in the VHS player, and it was a porn video from the late 1990s/early 2000s – it had the music, corny lines, you name it.

“I didn’t know what I was watching as I had never seen something like that before, so when my relative came in and saw [they walked in the room], they were horrified.

“They immediately ejected the tape out of the player and said that I wasn’t allowed to watch stuff like that.

“But it stayed with me - it stayed with me for years.

“By 12, I was reading top-shelf magazines after school, I found the adult channels on TV, and when I was 15, I had moved onto stuff via the internet.

“The latter was a coping mechanism as my family were going through a rough patch.

“We had a cancer diagnosis, and then a relative died of a heart attack.

“This happened within two months, and I was still going to school messing about with my mates.

“Porn was an escape from reality as I wasn’t talking to anyone about my home life.”

The man in question also revealed that when he left school aged 18 and entered the workforce, he continued to watch adult videos due to 'boredom’, and realised he had a problem in 2015/2016, but was ‘unsure who to talk to’.

He continued: “There were days where I would watch it from the moment I got up, to when I went to bed like it was nothing.

"My mind was being corrupted because of boredom, and I was sleepwalking in to disaster.

“At this point, I didn’t understand why I was struggling to find women who were interested in me.

“Now, I know it's because my mind had become warped.

"I was looking at everyone like a sex object.

“I was so lonely and I was damaging myself beyond repair.”

He finally admitted his problems during the Covid-19 pandemic in May 2020 to his girlfriend and has since attempted to abstain from watching pornography altogether.

He continued: “I told my partner about my problems one day during the pandemic.

“It was in lockdown and it came up in conversation.

“I just burst out crying - it was something that I had been hiding for years.

“It was time to not hide in the dark.

"I began to talk about it and I couldn’t stop – I remember it well.

“When I first started watching porn, it was exciting and 'naughty', but the older I got, I was filled with guilt, shame and embarrassment.

“I always had this façade of being happy but I had a horrible secret, and that secret was watching porn for the sake of it.

“Looking back now, it was so damaging.

“I’m now worried for the next generation as it’s so easy to find porn online.

“People, from what I’ve seen, have no shame and are openly telling people where they can go to find X-rated videos.

“It’s now mainly individuals on social media, and it’s not good - it’s not something to be proud of.

“I really hope people get help because the long-term ramifications are dire.

“Being addicted to porn is horrible and it nearly ruined my life.

"I struggled to talk to people, I was pushing people away, it was mentally suffocating me."

If you have been impacted by this article, visit www.beginanewlife.info/pornography.