How Do I Know If I Need Help
Behavioral addictions like porn addiction may not seem as debilitating as other dependency issues, but dont be fooled: these types of addictions can be consuming and compulsive.
If your relationships break down because of porn , an addiction might be the reason. When looking for help, its best to talk with someone who has experience treating behavioral addictions, as they will know the best course of action to follow.
Group Coaching Calls Per Month
The opposite of addiction isnt sobriety, its connection. . Using technology, we host 6 one hour group coaching calls that me and my team run per week thats 24 times per month for you to connect with your coaches and other men. I personally run 3 of these calls.
You access these calls via landline, smartphone, desktop, etc Here you can ask questions, ask to be held accountable, share your successes and your struggles and connect with other men. These calls are sometimes used to discuss and work through volatile relationship issues . Many men find accountability partners on these calls. Valued at $4,000.
Each call is moderated by a Certified Mindful Habit Coach . These coaches are beyond successful in their own right Adrian has a Masters Degree in Clinical Psychology and has been on the BBC.
Each of The Mindful Habit Coaches have been personally trained by me and they all have 3 things in common:
Desensitisation And The Acquisition Of New Fetishes
Tolerance may also mean you are forced to escalate to new and more shocking genres of porn in order to experience the desired buzz. This may mean you begin to watch porn of a violent or even an illegal nature. Some may transition to porn that does not match their natural sexual preference. This may mean a straight person begins to watch gay pornography or a gay person may begin to watch straight pornography. Remember, shock, surprise and anxiety are capable of elevating slumping dopamine levels. Japanese anime Hentai is a perfect example. These cartoons depict sexual scenes that are too vile or violent to
Remember, shock, surprise and anxiety are capable of elevating slumping dopamine levels. This may explain why this occurs. Japanese anime Hentai is a perfect example. These cartoons depict sexual scenes that are too vile or violent to act out in real life. Within a relatively short period of time, the Internet porn addict acquires more and more vile fetishes due to desensitisation.
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What To Do If A Loved One Has A Pornography Addiction
If your loved one is struggling with an addiction to pornography, encourage them to get professional treatment. Finding a therapist who has experience treating sexual addictions like pornography is important, and can often help your loved one determine the right kind of treatment for them. No one specific type of therapy works for everyone, but people with more serious addictions to porn or other substances may require inpatient or intensive outpatient treatment.
Manually Screen Professionals For People Who Appear To Be Porn
You can get some clues about the suitability of these therapists for porn addiction treatment from the way they describe their services.
It may be a bad sign if the therapist you are researching uses dogmatic language, clearly expressing a porn advocacy bias. For example, sex addiction can sometimes be an attachment disorder is a much more hopeful sign than sex addiction is always an attachment disorder. The same may be true if the terms intimacy disorder or trauma disorder are used in the same way.
The pre-Internet model of addiction uses statistics that support the view that the vast majority of sex addicts are addicted as a result of some trauma in their past. Be cautious about therapists who still subscribe to this view, which may be outdated in the age of almost universal access to endless online porn. In fact, if a clinician doesnt mention porn addiction but only talks about sex addiction it is possible that they believe the two problems are identical. The use of the word porn or pornography or porn addiction is probably a good sign. But talking of sex and porn addiction could cut either way. Make sure that they differentiate them theoretically, rather than just semantically.
Feel free to ask questions of any therapist you are considering consulting.
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Install A Good Filter Or Accountability Program
Along this journey, youre going to need to gain some self-control in the face of sexualized images everywhere, but that doesnt mean you cant give yourself some reprieve when you can. Download a filter or accountability program such as Covenant Eyes on every device you use phone, tablet, laptop, work computer and dont forget to put some safety controls on your TV, as well.
These will help you avoid gateways to binge sessions, as well as find some space to focus on more important things. Like the next thing on the list.
Activities That Speed Up Your Reboot
Hypofrontality also reverses, but this takes time. You may speed up this process by engaging in activities such as meditation that are known to engage your frontal lobes. This will help reverse hypofrontality and thus strengthen your willpower. This will mean urges will become easier to ignore and healthy choices such as exercising and socialising will become far more appealing.
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Porn Compulsion Vs Porn Addiction
So many people across the United States are recovering from porn addiction. Yet, the question must be asked, is this a true addiction, or is it simply a bad habit or compulsion? The two really are different things. If you look at the definition of addiction, youll find that there are many options. Most would agree that an addiction is a compulsive, relapsing condition that is also considered a disease. However, does pornography really fit that definition? Its difficult to say. A habit or a compulsion is a pattern of behavior that is acquired because of repetition or exposure. It happens involuntarily, and it can become an addiction. However, that doesnt necessarily mean that it is an addiction. Either way, pornography is still extremely destructive. It hurts the person experiencing the addiction and it hurts the spouse and family.
A Decline In Dopamine: A Loss Of Grey Matter
When you watch Internet porn on a constant basis, nerve cells eventually say enough is enough. Nerve cells achieve this by removing dopamine receptors and by producing less dopamine available to transfer to adjacent dopamine receptor cells. This causes weaker dopamine signals and hence less excitement when you continue to watch Internet porn.
Overtime, over-exposure to Internet porn may cause permanent structural change, such as a decline in the number of nerve connectors or synapses. The branch-like parts of nerve cells begin to fade away. Since the branch-like parts of nerve cells appear to be grey, this is known as loss of grey matter.
Loss of grey matter translates into fewer nerve cell connections, less dopamine connections, less dopamine and a corresponding need for greater stimulation to fill this void in dopamine loss. This condition was demonstrated in a 2014 you can read here. This study concluded that regular use of Internet pornography more or less wears out your reward system and that consumption of Internet porn causes the individual to seek out novel and more extreme material.
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Therapy For Porn Addiction
The main form of treatment for compulsive pornography use is porn addiction therapy. Many therapies can help people achieve freedom from pornography use.
Like many behavioral addictions, porn addiction affects brain chemistry. Porn addiction treatment using antidepressants or other medications that regulate brain chemicals is rare. The physiological irregularities related to addictive behavior can nearly always be addressed by a reversal of the behavior that provoked them.
Treating Porn Addiction And Co
Both substance and behavioral addictions frequently co-occur with other disorders. Sometimes one condition drives the development of another, while at other times, multiple conditions can derive from a single cause, such as a traumatic experience or a period of elevated stress.
Depressive and anxiety disorders are the most common mental health conditions in the United States. Unlike conditions primarily driven by genetics and biochemistry, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, anxiety and depression can be caused by changes in cognitive processes alone. In other words, while stressful or demoralizing circumstances cant make people bipolar or schizophrenic, they can make people depressed or anxious. When people do not already have one of these conditions, the stress, stigma and neurochemical effects of porn addiction can cause them to develop.
Related Topic: Pornography and depression
Unfortunately, despite their prevalence, many people are never diagnosed or treated for anxiety or depressive disorders. When untreated, co-occurring mental health conditions, substance use and addictive disorders can heighten the risk of several negative outcomes, including medical, legal, occupational, financial and interpersonal problems. People with comorbid conditions also have a higher risk of hospitalization and suicide.
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Causes Of Pornography Addiction
Due to the controversy surrounding the idea of pornography addiction, researchers have yet to identify a clear set of causes.
A 2015 study found that believing oneself to be addicted to pornography, not actual pornography use, was the more significant cause of associated distress.
This suggests that the very idea that porn addiction exists could be a major cause of the anxiety that some people experience when viewing porn.
Meanwhile, experts and advocates who endorse the existence of pornography addiction argue that, like other addictions, this is a complex issue with a range of possible causes. Some of these causes may include:
- Underlying mental health conditions: A person might use pornography to escape psychological distress.
- Relationship problems: Pornography can be an outlet for sexual dissatisfaction.
- Unhealthy cultural norms: Ideas about how people should look and behave during sex, the types of sex that a person should enjoy, and similar norms may draw some people to pornography.
- Biological causes: Certain biological factors, including changes in brain chemistry when a person views porn, may increase the risk of addiction.
How To Find Help
Those who are addicted to pornography may have many of the same challenges in getting help as someone addicted to drugs does. First, they might feel guilty or ashamed, not knowing how to admit this issue to someone else. In some cases, they may not believe they have a problem at all, considering themselves in control of the habit. But if pornography is getting in the way of your relationships, careers, health, or other vital aspects of your life, its important to realize that youre not alone, and its possible to get help.
Many addiction recovery and mental health providers offer assistance for behavioral addiction. You might want to look for providers that offer treatment for porn, sex, gambling, video game, or internet addiction. Providers who are experienced in treating behavioral addictions are more likely to recognize a porn addiction for what it is and have the tools and knowledge to treat it.
Treatment typically includes cognitive behavioral therapy or other proven methods to help you discover the root causes of your addiction and create new habits and coping mechanisms for living a porn-free lifestyle in the future. Professional counselors can also help you understand if you have co-occurring issues, such as depression, that might need to be addressed.
Read more:Porn Addiction Rehabilitation and Treatment
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Make It Harder To Access Porn
Think of willpower as a limited reserveand work to conserve it when possible. Make it harder to give in to momentary urges and temptations by adding parental filters or blocks on your devices or by placing your computer in a public part of your home or office. These small steps can act as a safeguard for the inevitable times when your willpower is low.
What Happens In Sex/porn Addiction Rehab
In most ways, sex and porn addiction rehab mirrors the work done in substance abuse treatment, typically relying on the same behavior and accountability focused approach. The primary differences are: the nature of the addictive behavior, and how we define sobriety.
With substance addictions, sobriety is generally defined by long-term abstinence. With sex and porn addiction, however, permanent abstinence is neither feasible nor desired. Instead, sex and porn addiction are treated more like an eating disorder, where the goal is learning to behave in healthy, non-compulsive, non-problematic, life-affirming ways.
That said, sex and porn addicts are usually asked to stay abstinent during treatment, and sometimes for a period of time afterward. Usually, this period of complete sexual abstinence lasts anywhere from 30 to 90 days. This time away from all sexual behaviors creates space for addicts to see their sexual behaviors more clearly, to break through denial, and to develop some healthy coping skills they can turn to instead of their addiction.
At Seeking Integrity Treatment Centers, we work toward the following goals with sex and porn addicted clients:
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Psychological And Emotional Needs
It is important to remember when working towards recovery that your addiction is routed in complex emotional and psychological causes.
Treatment must identify and address these causes. It is also essential that you maintain a focus on these causes as you continue your recovery. So it may not be always easy for you to quit porn cold turkey or gradually on your own.
You may need to alter your life in other ways to help you in your recovery. There may be certain relationships or habits in your life that jeopardize recovery.
It may also be necessary to consider how you process and express emotions and how you communicate with those around you. A professional treatment centre will help you to do this.
Good treatment centres will also offer porn addiction aftercare services which will help you to maintain your focus on recovery.
Dont Beat Yourself Up If You Fall Off The Wagon
Trying to break a habit or recover from an addiction is a journey. Unfortunately, on that journey, you might find yourself slipping back into old habits. Whenever that happens, dont waste any time beating yourself up.
Do your research, try more coping mechanisms and treatment options and get back on the wagon.
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How I Overcame My Porn Addiction
I saw hardcore pornography for the first time around the first or second grade. The effects it had on my life were similar to those of abuse.
I was reintroduced to porn at a bookstore as a middle-schooler. Those were hard years for me and porn felt like a relief something good in the midst of something bad. I was hooked.
Learn real solutions to overcome hurts and struggles, and start to thrive in life.
I came to Christ at a young age and grew up in church, but there was always a dark side to me. I began feeling guilty in high school but learned it was better not to talk about it. I thought I needed to figure it out on my own, just Jesus and me.
Maybe youve fought a similar battle. Maybe youre fighting one now or know someone who is. Youre not alone.
When I was 21, I attended Bible school in Austria and later entered full-time Christian ministry. I brought my pornography addiction with me. I lived two lives, and my shame started to grow. I didnt understand why I was powerless over this sexual darkness, so I hid that life at whatever cost.
I took a year away from ministry to focus on restoration. It was a great year, but it didnt help with my addiction. I attended counseling, but that didnt help with my addiction.
I can now say Ive had three years of solid sobriety with no acting out. Im taking what I learned from Ted and teaching others because this topic is something people are desperate to hear.
What Does Withdrawal From Porn Look Like
Like any other addiction, theres an emotional, physiological, and even physical dependence, and people can experience withdrawal symptoms from quitting pornography.
Symptoms include signs such as:
Sudden irritability, mood swings, or depression: Since a lot of extreme porn abusers may use sexual content to cope with other negative emotions in life, the early days of sobriety can bring up these suppressed feelings. Its not unusual for an addict to feel irritable, depressed or even anxious after theyve gone without porn.
Insomnia: The longer youre away from pornography, the more you may think about it. Initially, addicts may have trouble sleeping at night or feeling to need to masturbate.
Intense feelings of loneliness: Sometimes, porn usage can mask underlying issues that addicts may have, especially related to emotional or physical intimacy.
Without the release that explicit sexual imagery provides, feelings of loneliness and longing for a physical connection can begin to bubble up.
A desire to use another addiction to replace pornography: With a porn addicts coping mechanism gone, they may begin searching for a new one, especially when theyre new to recovery.
As a result, this can create a cross-addiction, where they turn to another substance like alcohol, drugs, or food to cope with the uncomfortable emotions theyre experiencing.
After witnessing bizarre and intense sexual intercourse scenes, having a soft, romantic experience may not seem enough or attractive.
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