Is there a single point in time to which I can point and say: this is when I became a pornography addict? Or was I simply born this way; doomed right from the start?

I guess it depends on how far you stretch the definition of addiction. I don’t believe I became obsessed with pornography until my early teens, but there were plenty of signs before then that suggested, at the very least, I had an unhealthy interest in sexual imagery, both in my developing personality traits and in my actions.

I don’t remember this but my mother tells me that, when I was a very small boy, she took to hiding her travel brochures because she’d find me browsing through the pages looking for pictures of topless sunbathers. I was three years old.

My earliest experiences in this area that I can actually remember are from the age of about nine or ten. I recall flicking through my auntie’s fashion magazines looking for pictures of scantily-clad ladies. I also remember skimming through my grandparents library books, hoping to find passages that described sexual behaviour.

Maybe it’s not so unusual for a young boy to have a curiosity about sex, but what strikes me as unusual about this behaviour is that I did these things, KNOWING that what I was doing was wrong.

Again, a boy misbehaving may not sound unusual, but you must bear in mind that I was paranoid about not doing anything that could get me into trouble. This in itself suggests I wasn’t a healthy boy, non the less, my parents had taught me right from wrong and I stuck rigidly to those principles even when tempted otherwise.

For example, when on holiday with my grandparents and browsing in a shop for toys, my Grandma suggested buying a gun that fired ping-pong balls. Yes, it looked like a very cool toy, and yes, I really wanted it, but I turned it down because I knew my parents didn’t want me to play with toy guns.

It wasn’t just the fear of being found out that moulded my behaviour. Even if I did something wrong for which I had no chance of being found out, I carried round a crushing sense of guilt until I admitted my indiscretion to one of my parents. For instance, when in primary school I broke an ornament by accident. The teacher was fine about it, but I still tortured myself mentally about it till I told my Mum two months later.

So why did these fears not stop me from hunting for risqué material? And why did the guilt that resulted not prompt me to confess my actions to my parents?

I can’t answer those questions definitively. Maybe my behaviour struck me as so wicked that I was too scared to talk about it, preferring to live with the guilt. Or, maybe even then, I was subconsciously protecting the access to my drug.

Those early experiences eventually became redundant as I reached teen years. I progressed to magazines, late-night cable TV, and eventually the Internet.

Could I have done things differently? If I’d confided in my parents early on, would my progressive obsession still have developed? Those are the kind of questions that can drive you mad.

I can’t change the past; I can only allow what it taught me to inform future decisions. I’m not yet at a point where I can claim that I’m completely abstaining, but I’m closer than I’ve ever been. And I’m no longer too scared and guilty to talk about my illness.