How it all started

When I was 10-11 years old, I was exposed to pornography. I moved elementary schools recently during my younger ages because of my mom finding work during those times. So I didn’t really fit in most of the time and didn’t make long lasting friendships during those times When I finally settled down in 4th and 5th grade in the same area for schooling, I met a few friends which I thought were good friends at the time. And unfortunately, it went down hill from there. One guy I met during that time, I thought was cool and we hanged out pretty much all the time. Even had sleepovers and nerf wars and talked about crushes at school. But he showed me what he wanted to do and what he saw on the internet. In this case. Pornography… Knowing that I didn’t know much about it of course (a child shouldn’t know about these things at all) I thought it was normal to find out what these things were. And so every time we hung out, the conversations were sexual and always was about porn for a while. This was when I was 10. He showed me what his likings were and I thought not knowing much of it, I was embarrassed about it. So I did my own research. The next time I hung out with him, I showed him the things I found out and was weird and we just kept searching through the internet. Fast forwarding to middle school, him and I ended our friendship and sadly, he made me look like I was the weird one in school. And he used that to gain popularity in school. But the one weird things that makes this grind my gears, is that he kept talking sexually through middle school and I don’t know if he still does to this day. Sadly, that friendship drove my addiction and I kept finding myself diving deeper into an ocean that I couldn’t seem to get myself out of. Especially when I wanted a girlfriend at the time because I thought that was what love was. And I was totally wrong for seeing it that way. Fast forward to today, I’m getting clean again. Because I have tried to quit before twice which lasted 6 months every time. I enjoyed the benefits of it and would like to quit forever. Because now I know what love is, what intimacy is suppose to feel like. And I loved how clean my mind was during those times when I was clean. I ask you guys on how you are trying to quit or how you’ve quit before. What are your strategies and how did you guys pass the strong cravings?