you are at a crossroads
Gutsy question. Thoughtful replies. Good thread.
I started in this "hobby" in much the same fashion. Bad breakup. Too much cash on hand. Blew through roughly $50K the first year or so. (Wish I had that back.) Faced with a decision much like yours, I got over my obsession with an exquisite stripper/escort by dating other strippers and escorts. I dove deeper into the hobby. I learned to get better value, more variety. And I learned to blunt my emotional side by controlled drug use --- a neat little trick I was taught by another stipper/escort. This enabled me to focus on (and heighten) the physical enjoyment while temporarily free from the emotional issues.
Of course I also paid a price for my decision. I went for years without another "real" emotional-personal relationship, thereby moving not closer to but further from the original objective. And I rewired the synapses in my brain to expect sex-and-drugs as a package. As a consequence, I'm now only interested in one when the other is present. That's fucked up. That's me.
From my perspective, you are standing at a crossroads. You can go deeper into this hobby, and learn to either spend less or get more for your month. Or you can go back out in the "normal" world, face your fears, and move on with whatever personal/emotional challenges life deals you next.
If I had it to do again, I would have quit this scene after that first crush. I think I'd be in a better place personally now. I've probably spent more than couple hundred grand on "the hobby" and pharmaceutical accessories in the ensuing decade. (I'll leave it to others to add up what I could have bought for a quarter mil.) And worse, I'm basically a big case of arrested development. Rather than move on from that emotional space, I've pretty much lingered there --- sometimes very happily, sometimes with some regret --- for a decade.
I wish you well in whatever you choose. Thanks for the honesty.
Crackhead.
