[Rant/looking for advice] Addicted to ED meds - How can I stop using them? They work really well but I can't seem to function without

Hey guys

I lost my viriginity at 26 after a year+ of intensive therapy and personal growth. I had always really struggled with intimacy due to various reasons growing up and sex/dating had never happened for me until I took an active effort.

Now 27, I have been on 70+ dates, had 2 longer relationships and a bunch more casual ones or one off flings.

I understand myself, women, dating, relationships, intimacy and sex so much better now and feel a lot more comfortable with all these aspects than I used to.

However, I am still having issues.

A bit of background:

Early on - with the first 2 girls I had sex with, my penis wouldn’t work - in retrospect very understandable as I was anxious and super stressed out and had no idea whatsoever of what I was supposed to be doing.

Additionally I had just gone 2 years+ with mostly no porn and masturbation, which while according to the internet was an excellent idea to boost libido in hindsight was complete bull excrement as that made my body forget how to be sexual.

What made things worse is that these 2 girls ended things with me, because of my lack of experience coupled with me seemingly not being able to get an erection. I was just in my head so much and so stressed that nothing worked. These superhot women would be using all their efforts to work me up and my penis would be more flaccid than after a prolonged ice bath. Needless to say, they weren’t into it.
Being so inexperienced I wasn’t even able to please them in other ways either at that point so that didn’t help either.
They really liked me so we kept trying multiple times but in the end they couldn’t take it anymore. One of them ended it telling me she felt I didn’t find her attractive and no amount of talking convinced her otherwise.

I got checked by my doctor and my testosterone was very high, no physical problems, all looking healthy and normal. Besides things worked just fine on my own. However things were still not working with girls and this was really taking a heavy toll on me. So I got started with ED meds. Viagra, Cialis and Stendra.

The progress:

I started using Mojo, having more sex (at first without much luck, even with ED meds), talking about my problem, both in therapy, with friends and girls, and becoming more comfortable with intimacy and myself. I had my first long-term girlfriend which was mostly supportive, this helped a lot after what happened with the first two girls.

At first ED meds wouldn’t work, at some point I was so exasperated seeing how frustrated the girl was that I took a combination of 20mg Cialis, 100mg Viagra and 200mg of Stendra, all in the same night, and I still didn’t manage to get hard. Luckily I didn’t die as that was probably dangerous and I ended up feeling like shit for 2 days after.

That really showed me that my problem was all in my head rather than in my body.

Over time, as I got more comfortable, tried different dosages and medication timing, I’ve found that 100mg of Viagra or 20mg of Cialis always do the trick, without exception. Now, whenever I take them, it’s practically bulletproof.

I get rock hard, can go multiple rounds and leave women super satisfied, in fact often to the point where they start getting sore and are impressed by my super-human abilities.

The problem today:

The issue is, that now I have used Viagra or Cialis every time I have successfully had penetrative sex in my life, which is probably 150+ times at this point.
I keep several boxes of each at my home at any one time, and pills spread out across my house, jackets, wallet and car.

Needless to say, I have mixed feelings about this. While it’s great to not have to worry about ED anymore, I don’t like having to rely on some external drug to have sex. That doesn’t feel right nor natural to me - especially given my age and that all is supposedly fine health-wise with me.

On a few occasions, I tried to reduce my dosage of ED meds, to say 50mg viagra or 5mg/10mg Cialis (with the intention of cutting them out over time). Unfortunately those days brought back memories of my first times having sex, as I would lose my erections so much more easily and could often not complete.

Other times, things would not work at all. For example, I had some amazing sex (100mg Viagra) with a girl one night for multiple hours. Then the next day, after Viagra had worn off, she got going again and despite my keenness, it was like my penis was completely dead. An hour of foreplay to no avail. In the end I ran to the bathroom, popped another one, went down on her waiting for it to kick in, and I was back into it.

The problem is also with spontaneity, for example I went camping with my ex-girlfriend, she got in the mood and we started going at it in the tent. Except my Cialis was at the bottom of my backpack and I couldn’t reach it. So needless to say it didn’t work without despite trying for a really long time.

Looking for advice

I am not really sure where I am going with this, but if anyone has read this so far and has had similar experiences, I’d love to get some advice.
Mojo and therapy have helped me, but only insofar as making ED meds work while they didn’t before. While I am glad that at least I found something that works for me, for some reason I still struggle getting/keeping hard without them. It feels like I somehow built a link in my mind to meds, where if I don’t take them, my penis won’t work.

I should add that this is still not a physical issue as I have no problems getting rock hard on my own, and in fact this happens much more often now than it used to - usually daily.

Where do I go from here? I’d like to break this link. I don’t want to have to be dependent on big pharma for the rest of my life to have sex.

Has anyone had a similar experience? Would love to hear how you’ve dealt with it.

1 Like

Very similar experience here, but I’m afraid I don’t have any success stories to share with you. I’m trying to figure out how to walk away from the meds too. Hopefully just knowing you’re not alone will be somewhat helpful. I’ve found that seeing how many people share common issues with me on these forums has really helped me feel less like some freakishly unmasculine failure and more just like one of the boys. Good luck out there.

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Feel your pain. Think it might be in your head. Also, you have probably built up a tolerance towards the ED meds. Doctors say that after 5 years, meds stop working.

I tried Cialis once, it worked pretty well but the side effects were horrible. Thought I was going to have a stroke or heart attack and that was only a 9 mg pill. Be careful with the meds, they can be dangerous.

My erections have improved since I stopped watching porn, ate better and lost weight but still not where I want it to be. Good luck.

@net-gold-beaver Thank you for the highly-detailed story. It made me feel like I’m not alone.

I have been using medication for almost four years with my girlfriend, and I totally understand the mixed feelings of getting rid of ED but at the same time losing the spontaneity that you talked about.

A few things that I learned in the process:

  1. “Not to be too hard on myself.” Although I want to stop using them at a certain point, I’m not treating the topic as a life or death situation. It’s an infinite game where every day I try to get better. So far, I have improved from taking 10mg of pills to even a fraction of it, 1-2 mg, and still manage to get an erection. This sounds great, but it’s not perfect. This means that you need to accept that you’ll be on the border of failure, and it will not work 100% of the time. I think there is a lot of learning with the “failure” episodes because at the end of the day, what you want is to create a thick skin and handle them like a big man: breathe, smile, and move on. Next time it will be better.

  2. It’s not only on your side. Your partner has as much responsibility to get you excited as you do. If the way you engage in sex does not work for you, keep searching for ways to improve it. Not alone but together with your partner.

I could list other points, but these two points are the ones that helped me the most.