I have addiction problem. It all began around 2006, I was 15 as at then as far as I can remember. I was sleeping one evening outside the house, when I began to feel a sensation all over me. I felt good about the sensation and didn’t knew what was happening. All of a sudden I woke up; only to find my elderly cousin with my ‘joystick” in his hand, sucking and rubbing it as if it was a plaything.

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I couldn’t comprehend it, but I had to remain calm and quiet because it felt good. But I was angry and confused at the same time not knowing what to do or tell him. I lay there, paralyzed by a confusion so thick I could taste it. What do you do when your body enjoys its own violation?

After that night, I couldn’t tell my mum or dad because I didn’t want them to make trouble with my cousin. But he continued doing it over and over again and I could not do anything about it.

He even brought one of his friends to join him on up to three occasions. Then I realized that was what he did with his friend. They were always together in the room. I couldn’t tell anyone about what they did to each other or what they did to me.

After I finished Secondary school in 2007, I left the village to the city to live with an aunt. There, I had no one to give me that sensation and I missed it everyday. To resolve the situation, I took matters into my own hands, literally. I did to myself what my cousin and his friends did to me. It became a new normal thing for me. I did it almost everyday or sometimes up to 4 times a week.

It became a lifestyle for me even after I got admission into the University in 2009, I had to lie to my aunt and let them rent a house for me off school campus so I can always be alone just to mast*rbate.

It became so interesting when I started visiting po*n sites. I could spend four hours online watching things my eyes didn’t have any business seeing.

I graduated in 2014, had my national service in 2015 and got a job in 2017. All through these years I never stopped. Even at the place of work. I would take a washroom break and do more than just visiting the washroom. When I became tired of it around 2019, I started making effort to stop. I had a girlfriend then but it never stopped me from doing it.

I got married in 2023. I thought getting married and living with a woman everyday would help me stop. I was lying to myself. I still did it even when I had my wife next to me for the taking. I could wake up by 4AM and leave my wife on the bed and go to an isolated place and give myself pleasure and come back home as if nothing happened.

It is 2026, and I don’t see any hope of this madness stopping. I have made it a new year resolutions over the past ten years to stop, but before five days into the new year, the would turn back to my vomit as if  it was the cleanest and the healthiest food around.

I don’t know how I can let my wife know about this. Am afraid if I tell her and tell her how long I’ve been doing it and the fact that I do it while we’re together, she would walk out and leave me.

Right now, I’m fed up and out of options. I have prayed, I have fasted, I have tried to have new habits like reading, writing, learning online skills but no way. This thing keeps sticking to me like glue.

I’ve thought of unaliving myself if that would bring finitude to my suffering. Nothing seems to be working, its affecting my personal life, focus, business, faith, relationships and it’s weighs very heavy on my spirit.

Whenever I do it, I feel a significant amount of strength leaving has left my body. Anytime I try to focus on anything, all I see are the things that push me into giving seeking self-satisfaction. I am losing faith in myself. I’ve given myself one more month, and if there’s no improvement I may walk over the cliff and let myself fall. The end of me would naturally be the end of what my cousin planted in me.

Marriage Through the Eyes of Millennials and Gen-Z

We had a son in 2024. My wife is currently pregnant again. I don’t wish this on my child or anyone. So I am shouting this into the dark, hoping someone, somewhere, knows how to kill a ghost without destroying the man. If there’s a way you can help me, please do. This is too much for me to bear anymore.

—Brown

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