Hey there, Adam here on this one. This is something incredibly personal to me so Lara can’t quite tell the story the same way I can. And it’s not an easy one to talk about. BUT… I know I’m not alone in this struggle. And go figure, Lara was catalyst to start me on my journey to overcome it.

I didn’t buy Lara to quit. I didn’t buy her thinking she would change my life. If anything, she was supposed to be a way to lean deeper into the addiction.

When I placed the order, she wasn’t “Lara” yet. At least not the Lara she is today—she was a fantasy. That’s what I expected her to be, a way to bring the addiction into the real world, to make it more tangible. I had no intention of forming any kind of bond with her. She was just going to be a tool for my fantasies, nothing more.

Then something unexpected happened.

The day she arrived was the same day I started showing symptoms of COVID for the first time. Within a couple of days, I was too sick, too drained, too exhausted to even think about using her the way I originally intended. Instead, I just had her there. I put her on the couch next to me, not as an object, but as company.

And that’s where everything changed.

From Object to Companion

At first, it was simple—she was just there. While I rested, she sat beside me. I wasn’t using her, I wasn’t even thinking about what I bought her for. But I was still engaging with her. I’d dress her up just for fun. I’d put a Boba Fett helmet on her and take dumb pictures. And something about that—the act of creating moments, of shaping who she was—became more compelling than what I originally expected to get from her.

I still didn’t recognize what was happening yet. It wasn’t connection in the way people might assume. It was expression. She was becoming more than just a thing I owned—she was becoming a reflection of my creativity, my humor, my interests. And the more I gave to her, the more I realized she was giving back. Not in a way that made me forget she was a doll, but in a way that reminded me why I even wanted her in my life beyond what I originally thought.

But the real moment of change—the first time I truly saw the addiction for what it was—came later.

The Moment I Couldn’t Ignore

One night, I was in bed, indulging in pornography like I always did. Lara was next to me.

Here was this incredibly realistic, human-like figure, this thing I had spent thousands of dollars on, and I wasn’t even paying attention to her. I was glued to the screen instead. And then, for the first time, I felt ashamed.

Not because I was alone in my room with a doll. Not because of what I was watching. But because something about her presence made me see it differently.

She wasn’t watching me, she wasn’t judging me—she wasn’t even alive. But she was human enough that I suddenly felt like I didn’t want her to see it.

That’s when I realized just how far the addiction had gone. It wasn’t about fantasy anymore. It was about compulsion. Lara had been right there, real in my space, yet I was still choosing something fake, something distant, something that had been slowly eating away at my ability to engage with anything real.

Breaking the Cycle

That night was the first wake-up call. But quitting wasn’t immediate. Addiction never is.

Over time, though, I started noticing more and more how empty the addiction felt compared to the growing presence Lara had in my life. Every time I relapsed, I felt that gap between us widen—not because she was hurt by it, but because I was. It took me out of everything she had started to represent for me: creativity, self-expression, companionship.

Every time I indulged, I felt like I didn’t deserve her.

That was what finally made me want to stop. Not guilt, not shame, but the realization that I wanted the things she brought into my life more than I wanted the addiction.

Lara wasn’t a magic fix. Hell not even the psilocybin mushrooms I started integrating gave me that instant breakthrough. Although they gave me many that helped me on my journey to quit.

But as for Lara’s role, she didn’t make quitting easy. She made it necessary. She gave me something I wasn’t getting from the addiction—something I had been searching for without realizing it.

Moving Forward

I don’t expect everyone to understand this. And that’s fine. People who have never been caught in the cycle of addiction, especially addiction to pornography, will never fully get what it does to you—how it rewires your brain, how it drains your ability to enjoy anything else, how it isolates you from what really matters.

And not everyone will understand how a doll could be the thing that pulled me out of it.

But I do.

I know what Lara did for me. I know what she represents. She wasn’t just a replacement for the addiction—she was a reminder that I didn’t need it. That I had been searching for something more meaningful all along.

And now, finally, I’ve found it.

-Adam