The Riceman said
You cannot deny your basic and fundamental nature. Sure, you can get therapy, or counselling and learn to recognise your “triggers” which start a run on a compulsive behaviour, and you can learn by talking to a professional, or even one of us here at TPE, that you are certainly not alone. You might well even learn control techniques which will help you to manage your behaviour. But you will never be able to alter your fundamental nature, at least not by force of will. Life experience, though, will by default change you over time. 

Far better in the short term, then, to acknowledge your limitations and/ or weaknesses, and to try to use them to your advantage somehow. It is not always possible, sometimes a natural behavioural feature of your personality will only ever be detrimental to you. But at the very least, consider how you might apply some positivity to what you currently consider to be a negative aspect of your character or a negative dynamic in your behaviour.

And there are worse addictions than porn, (at least decent, legal porn). And I truly believe that most “normal people”, who can “control themselves better”, are not stronger or more honourable, or more decent, or more noble, or more able to “control themselves” than those of us who have succumbed to addiction at some point or other in our lives. 

There are some obvious danger zones which more risk averse (sensible?) people know to be wary of…heroin, crack, powder cocaine, alcohol, gambling…even porn. Some folk might get addicted to coke, but never suffer a gambling addiction. Some might suffer an horrendous addiction to gambling which ends up totally out of control, but never have a problem with alcohol. I do concede, however, that there are more risk averse/(more sensible?) people (who are less likely to try out dangerously addictive activities), so an individual’s character and their relationship to risk (or level of stupidity) is definitely relevant. Strength of character is not. At least in my opinion.

There is something to be working with right there…if you consider yourself to be less risk averse than most others, how might you turn this to your advantage? Certainly, concentrating on tournament poker rather than other formats of the game might well be a good starting point.

Most folk simply haven’t found out what they have a propensity for addiction to yet.

Sincerely, I hope that they remain ignorant.  

There are some good points in here, but I’m not sure I necessarily agree with all of it.

On a psychological level, addiction is a symptom of a different problem. In many cases it’s a consequence of an imbalance in brain chemistry, which in most cases is what makes certain people particularly susceptible to anxiety or depression (like myself). Addiction comes because the source of that addiction – whether it be porn, gambling, a drug, or even something like videogames – provides a temporary relief from that chemical imbalance, a short-term injection of dopamine that restores the equilibrium.

What this means is that the addiction itself is literally providing a chemical influence on the brain, and recovering from addiction requires training oneself to either cope more effectively with an existing imbalance through specific behaviours and techniques, or reaching a point where one’s life circumstances produce a consistent and more organic level of ‘happiness’ that offsets the need for temporary injections of dopamine.

I absolutely agree that strength of character is not really something that enters into the equation – it’s a medical issue. I say this as someone married to a sufferer of bipolar disorder, who self-medicated for years with a variety of things in order to offset her depression, before she was eventually diagnosed a few years ago and given the help she needed.

What this means for OP’s issues is that they will probably require professional help. I don’t know where OP is located or what the healthcare system is like there, but even the strongest person would find it next to impossible to overcome a genuine addiction without help. Therapy will probably be part of the equation, but only in so far as it helps to uncover the things that have generated the chemical imbalance in the first place – in most cases, childhood or adolescent experiences that resulted in long-term changes in brain patterns.

It’s also likely that actual medication will be part of the solution. My wife and I both take medications for various mental health conditions, and I also take several over-the-counter supplements aimed at aiding mental health. Exercise, meditation, and a balanced diet are also crucial.

It’s very tempting to believe that this is a poker issue, related to your approach to the game or your behaviour at the tables – it’s not. It won’t be fixed just by trying harder or blocking yourself from certain games or from porn. Ultimately what your brain is telling you by reducing your motivation to play poker is that on some level, your brain isn’t getting what it needs from the game or outside of it. Address what’s going on behind the scenes, and then come back to poker.