Porn addiction statistics indicate that around 21 million Americans suffer from a pornography addiction. This addiction can lead to negative consequences in someone’s life, marriage, job, self-esteem, health, and spirituality. These consequences often lead people to seek porn addiction recovery so they can overcome it.
The addiction recovery process for someone struggling is often an uphill battle without getting the right tools in place. In this blog post, we’ll discuss the most effective approaches to helping you find freedom from porn addiction, as well as discussing approaches you might want to avoid.
By getting the right tools and information, people can permanently overcome their addiction or habit and live a life with strong marriages and families, feeling peace, confidence, and satisfaction.
What is a Pornography Addiction?
An porn addiction is a compulsive need to view pornographic material. This can be magazines, videos, pictures, or the internet. For someone with an addiction, these images become more important than anything else in their life.
Porn addiction is a type of behavioral addiction and is sometimes thought to be called a “sexual addiction” because of the high level of sexual arousal and pleasure that is felt when viewing it.
Men addicted to porn will continue to seek out this material even though they know it’s causing them harm. They might spend hours a day or week watching porn and feel like they can’t stop. The consequences of this behavior often affect every area of their lives.
The World Health Organization does officially recognize porn addiction as a legitimate struggle millions of men have, and it falls outside of other addictions or mental health disorder categories that are recognized by other professional groups.
What is Sex Addiction?
It describes a progressive intimacy disorder characterized by compulsive sexual thoughts and acts. While it shares similarities with other types of sexual addiction, sex addiction takes the experience of addicts to a higher level.
Someone can be addicted to pornography, but not necessarily addicted to sex. Sex or porn addiction doesn’t fall under the category of mental health disorders or other mental health conditions – the behavior is just a symptom of an underlying root cause that needs to be addressed.
Is Pornography Addictive?
Just like gambling, overeating, or any other behavioral addictions, internet pornography can be just as addictive, if not even more so because of the powerful endorphins and sex hormones that are released in the brain when you view porn.
This can lead to out of control sexual behaviors, compulsive masturbation, and compulsive porn viewing despite the negative consequences that often go with this habit, and uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms often follow.
What are some Consequences of Pornography Addiction?
It’s important that you are aware of the warning signs and how excessive pornography use can have a negative impact on your life so you aren’t blindsided by the consequences later on down the road. Some people who struggle with porn addiction may often experience these problems:
- Relationship Problems & Divorce
- Job Loss or Unemployment
- Feelings of Shame, Guilt, and Embarrassment
- Low Self Esteem and negative feelings Issues – Financial Difficulties
- Career and Personal Life Problems
- Sexual dysfunction and a decrease in sexual satisfaction
- Mental health conditions / physical Issues (E.g. Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Erectile Dysfunction, Depression, Anxiety) or other withdrawal symptoms
- Loss of Faith in God/Loss of Spirituality
Help is Available
Porn addictions may lead to some or all of these consequences, so it is important to get help to work through them. If you treat porn addiction, you can find freedom and your self-confidence again, but it takes time, effort, and the right tools. Just be aware of the warning signs and don’t give up on yourself on your recovery journey!
Many men no longer want to view excessive porn and recognize their porn use has spiraled out of control, so seeking treatment with an effective approach is critical.
One of the best steps you can take in the beginning is clearly identify the root cause of your behavior. Here’s a powerful podcast episode to help you do that so you know how to approach the process of overcoming it.
What Is the Best Approach for Porn Addiction Recovery?
There are a variety of different ways for porn addicts to seek treatment in order to stop watching porn. In this section, we’ll discuss some of the most common approaches people take as well as their pros and cons.
Eliminating Your Triggers and Urges to Watch Porn
The best type of individual counseling focuses on helping men effectively deal with their triggers, because without knowing how to identify and eliminate them, you’ll always be vulnerable to another relapse.
For example, let’s say you see an attractive woman at the gym and it triggers you to think sexual thoughts about her. Later on at night it can turn into scrolling on your phone looking at pictures, which eventually leads you to porn. Before you know it, it’s already too late because the temptation is so strong and you mess up again and feel guilty about it.
The key to finding freedom after you’ve identified the trigger is to reprocess it internally in a way that eliminates the power it has over you. You might have any number of different triggers, but the process is the same.
Developing the ability to remove the intensity or emotional pull of your triggers is the only way to become free, because you can’t just avoid stress at work, quit going to the gym or grocery store, stop watching TV or seeing attractive women when you’re out. So if those external triggers don’t create the urge or desire to watch porn or compulsively pursue sex, you won’t ever begin the search in the first place.
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Sam Tielemans, has developed a unique approach to help men reprocess their triggers to eliminate their urges and cravings for pornography, which is often the reason why men end up relapsing, despite their best efforts to stay strong.
If you want help identifying and reprocessing triggers so you find freedom from your compulsive urges, this podcast episode outlines the steps to this approach so you can try it for yourself.
Why Do Men Return to Porn Addiction if They Want it Out of Their Life?
The reason why a porn addict returns to old habits for years is because there’s an inner conflict – a part of him doesn’t want to look at porn, but another part of him does in the moment he feels temptation and urges.
Removing the desire and cravings resolves that inner conflict and makes it so they can make the right choice every single time and not have to battle anymore.
How Long Does it Take to Overcome Addiction With This Approach?
People who go through this process describe it as “life changing” and “eye opening” once they can remove their triggers and desire for porn. This can be accomplished through specialized counseling sessions, and it often takes less than 90 days.
Men become able to create satisfying relationships with their wife or partner, develop a satisfying sex life, rebuild trust, get their self-esteem back, avoid wasting time watching porn, and instead live a more meaningful life.
The downside with this approach is that you can’t do it by yourself. You need professional help with somebody who is trained to identify your triggers and the reason why you have the desire for porn (and it’s not because you have a high libido). The underlying issue is usually something you’d never think of or realize on your own.
That being said, for most men, getting professional help to permanently overcome this issue outweighs the financial and time commitment of 6-10 sessions it takes to break free, which is far less costly than in-patient rehab facilities.
Specialized Couples Therapy is Another Effective Treatment For Porn Addiction Recovery
You might be wondering how couples therapy can help someone overcome a porn addiction? Author Johan Hari, in his highly-acclaimed TED talk, said, “the opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety, it’s connection.”
In other words, for sustainable porn addiction recovery, we need to disconnect from pornography use and reconnect with the significant people in our lives. Doing couples therapy to help you communicate without fighting or criticism, connect on a deeper level, improve their sex lives, and find fulfillment together can be extremely valuable.
It is important to note that not any form of couples therapy will help a man/couple who is struggling because of the effects of porn.
Traditional approaches to marriage therapy often fail miserably when working with the impact of porn addiction because the advice and suggestions don’t repair the deeper damaged caused by an untreated porn addiction.
Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy
There is a specific type of therapy called Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) that is based on “attachment theory” that is shown to have a 93% of improvement in couples, which is remarkably good when compared to the 50-60% improvement rates with other methodologies.
The reason why it’s so successful is because it helps couples reconnect in ways that other approaches cannot, as it gets beneath arguments and resentment to help couples feel understood, accepted and enough in their marriage.
Fighting in Marriage Can be Trigger for Excessive Porn Use
EFT can also help couples to break out of patterns of fighting, anger, criticism, and defensiveness so a man doesn’t need to avoid difficult conversations anymore for fear of fighting and making it worst.
The con with this approach is that it requires a mental health professional to not only be trained in EFT, but also specialize in porn addiction recovery and also knowing how to work with betrayal and mistrust from the wife.
There are lots of moving parts and it requires a high degree of skill to navigate the complexity of this situation, but it is possible with someone who is trained.
Jaime’s Story on Permanently Overcome Pornography Addiction
Jaime had become addicted to porn when he was just a teenager. He was exposed to porn sites when he was young and got hooked. He felt so much shame and embarrassment about his struggle that he didn’t tell anyone.
He eventually got married and though that it would go away since he and his wife could have sex, but he was discouraged to find out that the addiction crept back in after a few months of marriage.
His wife was devastated when she found out. It destroyed her trust, put a wall between them, and decreased their sexual satisfaction and fulfillment in the marriage.
The Beginning of His Recovery Was Rocky
He wanted to change but he just didn’t know how. It took Jaime years on his porn addiction recovery journey before he found the right help.
He was really ashamed that he struggled with viewing porn and resisted seeking professional help for a long time. He tried quitting porn by using willpower, prayer, becoming more disciplined, but nothing that he tried really helped him long term.
He tried traditional family therapy but during the family therapy sessions he just couldn’t connect with the therapist because he felt blamed for using porn which had become a coping mechanism for stress and difficult emotions.
The Key That Changed His Porn Recovery
After seeing too many therapists who weren’t able to help him overcome his issues with pornography use, Jaime realized that there were underlying issues of shame, low self worth, and feelings of not being good enough that fueled his compulsive behavior.
Jaime met with a specialist who helped him not only work through the deeper negative feelings he had about himself, the therapist also helped Jaime to eliminate the other triggers he had for porn and made it so he didn’t have more urges or cravings for porn.
Removing His Triggers Changed How He Felt
In the past, he’d get triggered every time his wife would leave the house. The thought of being alone would excite him and once the opportunity presented itself, he would fall back into problematic porn use.
But after a process of rewiring how he felt and experienced these different triggers, he no longer would relapse while he was alone, if he got into a disagreement with his wife, or was stressed at work.
Finding Freedom Changed His Life
After 5 years of success, not feeling triggered, and developing a better relationship with his wife, he finally feels fulfilled and excited about life again.
He and his wife have a strong connection together, have a fulfilling sex life and is no longer an addicted person. He doesn’t feel the need or temptation to consume pornography, and his everyday life is much more filled with peace and joy instead of the guilt he constantly carried around due to his addiction.
Life On the Other Side of Addiction
A porn viewers who successfully overcome his addiction and become a reformed porn addict, he no longer carries around guilt and shame. He can look people in the eye and not want to shrink or avoid being ‘found out.’
He can allow his wife to look at his phone without the anxiety of what she might find. His mind is clear and can be more focused at work, home, and in his relationships with people.
There is no other addiction or any type process addiction that distracts him from living a life of purpose and meaning, but instead he is excited about the day, feels at peace instead of depressed and empty.
You’re Not Alone If You’re Struggling
There are many men who are struggling to find freedom from their compulsive behaviors. Finding the right treatment approach for you is key, so getting resources to help help you understand addiction and tools to combat it is important.
Freedom is Worth the Effort it Takes to Start
Taking the first step to get help can feel scary at first, but as author, James Clear, stated, “Are you willing to be uncomfortable for 5 minutes? Exercising is easier once you’ve started the workout. Conversation is easier once you’re already talking. Many rewards in life will elude you if you’re not willing to be a little uncomfortable at first.”
Taking that step to get the tools you need helps you to ultimately achieve the life that you want and leave addiction behind you for good.
Other Traditional Treatments With Lower Success Rates
More traditional approaches to addiction recovery often don’t focus on the underlying causes of addiction. The approaches tend to address the symptoms to give tools to battle against urges, fight off temptation, or suggest you avoid triggering places or people.
This is very difficult to do, and most men just want to feel normal and live life without worrying or thinking about addiction, so constantly being on guard or avoiding things is exhausting.
Should I Seek a 12-Step or Support Group
A sex addicts (or porn addict) anonymous (SAA) group approach is the most traditional way of combating addiction. The SAA group is a spin-off of AA, which was designed to help men struggling with drug addiction or drug and alcohol abuse. However, most men have a hard time making and sustaining progress using this method.
Dr. Lance Dodes, author of “The Sober Truth,” argues that 12-step programs don’t work for most people and that the scientific evidence backs him up.
Dodes spoke about his research with NPR:
“There is a large body of evidence now looking at AA success rate, and the success rate of AA is between 5 and 10 percent. Most people don’t seem to know that because it’s not widely publicized… AA has probably the worst success rate in all of medicine.”
12-Step Doesn’t Eliminate Cravings or Address The Core Issue
The main problem with 12-step groups is the fact that they don’t address the underlying reason why someone struggle with addiction in the first place, nor do they help men remove their desire for pornography.
In fact, the founder of the 12-step group “AA,” Bill Wilson, asked for whiskey on his deathbed, and the nurse treating him at the time was “shocked and horrified.”
This goes to show that the cravings were intense for the founder of the movement, which is not freedom from the problem. While it’s nice to have people you can talk to and relate with about your struggles, that alone doesn’t resolve the underlying cause of addiction.
So whether it’s for substance abuse, drug abuse, behavioral addictions, drug addiction, sex addictions, other addictions, or compulsive porn use, the 12 step approach might not give you the result you’re looking for.
In-Patient Rehabilitation Programs
In general, inpatient treatment programs for porn addiction tend to last longer than outpatient rehabilitation programs because clients remain at a specific treatment center for the duration of the program (anywhere from 30 days to 6 months).
These types of programs often include detoxification and follow-up addiction treatment services.
The benefits of inpatient porn addiction treatment
1. Inpatient programs provide a residential setting where clients can live and receive treatment for their addiction. This allows for around-the-clock care and support from staff members who are trained in addiction treatment.
2. An Inpatient treatment facility offers a variety of services, such as detoxification, counseling, professional medical advice, and support groups. These services can address the specific needs of the addicted individual and help to build the skills necessary for sobriety. Working with a specific treatment provider can help support you.
The Cons of In-Patient Porn Addiction Treatment
- The cost of inpatient rehab can range from $20,000-$65,000 and is prohibitive for some people.
- Inpatient rehab requires a significant time commitment, often 30 days or more.
- Clients who enter an inpatient treatment centers must leave their jobs and family members, which can be difficult.
- It is a very high-surveillance type of an environment, which doesn’t creating internal changes for most men, so when they return to their normal lives, the changes made in treatment often don’t stick.
Are Software Filters Effective and Necessary?
There are many different types of software filters available to prevent you from internet access or looking at porn. However, they are ineffective in two main ways:
- They don’t remove the desire for porn, they simply make it hard for you to access.
- Software filters are often easy to get around when you’re triggered, which makes them an ineffective in the long term.
Addressing the Root Cause Is Critical For Long-Term Success
It is much more beneficial to address the root cause of your addiction than to rely on filters. If you are struggling with a porn addiction, it is important to seek professional help in order to overcome your addiction and build healthy coping mechanisms.
Does Pornography Addiction Overlap With Alcohol or Drug Addiction?
Some research that suggests that there is a relationship between pornography use and drug or alcohol addiction, and there might be biological factors when it comes to substance abuse.
When it comes to the overlap between these two types of addictions, some people believe pornography addiction may not act as a gateway to substance abuse or addiction, but further studies are needed for this relationship.
It’s important to note that the underlying causes for pornography addiction and other behavior addictions are the same – unaddressed underlying issues or negative emotions, and internet porn just becomes an easy way for seeking pleasure and escaping these issues.
The more people turn to porn as a way to numb out their feelings, the more the become addicted to porn and it becomes a real addiction. Resolving the underlying issues will help you to find permanent freedom from porn, so it’s critical to identify them and develop a game plan to overcome them.
There is Hope!
Porn addiction recovery is possible! It can feel overwhelming seeking addiction treatment help, but with the right kind of help and effective tools, you can overcome your addiction and learn how to find freedom. Don’t hesitate to reach out for help if you are struggling!
If you’re experiencing harmful consequences in your life and have been unable to quit on your own, it’s important to seek help and get tools and resources designed to help you find freedom, such as podcasts, programs, or therapy.
As with other types of addiction, pornography addiction can be very difficult to overcome alone. It’s important for people struggling to reach out for support and seek professional guidance.
For more information on pornography addiction treatment options, contact a treatment specialist today. You’ll be provided with direction and support from a therapist who specializes in treating your specific concerns.
