Confessing my addiction and seeking help

TW: Blunt talk about sex/fantasies/etc. I assume ya'll know that's coming, given the section of the forum we're in, but I still felt I should say it.

So, here we go. I've never told anyone this before, I don't think, but I'm coming clean about it now. This might sound like I'm making it up, but I promise, I'm not.

Ever since watching the animated Disney version of Pinocchio way back when I was a kid, I've been turned on by the idea of people being turned into animals. I don't know why. At first, I just got aroused and masturbated to the donkey transformation scene. Then I realized that tails really turn me on, and I started to look at animal tails online.

I know. It's strange.

That was, say, 18 or so years ago. I've been addicted to it ever since. I don't want to turn into an animal, nor do I want to have sex with animals, but my addiction has evolved to looking at artwork or reading stories of people turned into animals and having sex before, during, or after the transformation. I would NEVER have sex with an animal in real life; I think that's cruel and disgusting.

There's other things that are, frankly, gross, but turn me on. People wearing diapers or underwear and going to the bathroom in them. Spanking. Crossdressing. CBT. I don't know how to stop. These addictions that I have are nearly 20 years old, and even though I've had periods of my life where I've white-knuckled it through a certain length of time and haven't looked at it, I've still wanted to.

I know that it's disgusting (even though I've become numb to that aspect of it, if that makes sense). I know that it's abhorrent to God, and I wish that that alone was enough to make me run from it with fear and trembling. Instead, I think, 'Oh, man, I wish I could stop wanting to look at this, but I can't.' And then I start to think, well, rather than just cutting it out cold-turkey, I'll cut back on it.

I went without looking at inappropriate content from...oh, it was early October when I quit, and I didn't look at any until Tuesday, I believe. Tuesday, I spent a few hours and masturbated like 4 times. I told myself, okay, that's it, no more. Wednesday came and I did it twice more.

I want to do it so, so badly, even though I know it's wrong. It's an addiction. It feels good. It's something that I've used ever since childhood as an escape, something to help me manage my anxiety. I need God's help in even wanting to stop. My prayer right now has basically been, 'I'm sorry that I'm not sorry.'

Do you guys quit cold-turkey? Do you cut back gradually? I've tried the cold-turkey thing with booze and with food (I struggled with addictions to both) and it never worked. I just white-knuckled it through a few days or weeks and then the dam broke and I chugged or stuffed my face because I'd felt so deprived.

Ugh. This is so, so hard. I feel like such a horrible person for letting myself become numb to this, even to the point that I enjoy it, and I feel terrible that I can't feel terrible about it...if that makes sense.

Thank you everyone for your feedback. I'll admit, I've sort of been white-knuckling it lately, and even if I haven't actually looked at inappropriate content on the computer, sometimes I think about it and fantasize about it in my head, but...I'm trying. That's all you can do, isn't it?

I think part of my problem is that I've been using it for so long, as a coping mechanism to fill the void(s) of loneliness, boredom, a lack of general intimacy, etc, that I fear giving it up because it's like, 'What will I do instead?' And I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that I need to 'do' God instead. Obviously inappropriate content is what I'm more accustomed to, but I recognize that it's not something God wants me to do, and for that reason alone, even if there was nothing else, I need to change.