How to Get Help for Porn Addiction

What started as a view here or a look there has become something you can no longer control. Now pornography viewing is taking up more and more of your time, and you’re thinking about it when you aren’t viewing. You fear you’ve developed a problem, but you can’t seem to stop. Now you need to know how to get help for porn addiction.

What Is Porn Addiction?

Pornography addiction is when a person compulsively views porn to the point that they become emotionally dependent on it. They can’t stop, even when they try, and their pornography habit affects their everyday life. Porn addiction is a hypersexuality disorder, which refers to an obsession with sexual fantasies or urges. 

The compulsive need to view pornography, despite its negative consequences, often begins as a coping mechanism for negative emotions resulting from unresolved trauma. You look at pornography because it temporarily makes you feel better. But before you know it, you can’t stop this behavior, and it’s causing you distress. 

Signs of porn addiction include:

• Increased porn use
• Feeling guilty about viewing pornography
• Inability to control your urges
• No longer enjoying sex
• Watching porn in inappropriate settings
• Spending excessive time watching porn or money on porn
• Increased tolerance for more extreme or violent porn
• Consuming thoughts of porn
• Neglecting responsibilities to view more porn
• Hiding your porn watching from loved ones
• Lack of interest in socializing 
• Experiencing sexual dysfunction

Some men who try to stop watching porn even experience porn withdrawal symptoms and find themselves returning to their old habits.

How to Get Help for Porn Addiction

You can recover from pornography addiction, but you may not be able to do it on your own. It may require you to seek pornography addiction treatment. Here’s how to get help for pornography addiction.

Admit the Problem

If you’re reading this post, you’re probably taking a step in the right direction. The first step in getting help for pornography addiction is admitting that your porn viewing has gotten out of control and something needs to change.

This step means understanding pornography addiction, recognizing the signs in yourself, and admitting that you can’t stop on your own.

Seek Professional Help

Pornography addiction won’t just go away on its own. The addiction changes your brain. It requires professional intervention to help you identify the cause of the addiction and heal from it.

So, the next step in getting help is seeking treatment for pornography addiction.

Rally Support

Porn addiction is not a moral failure; it’s a mental health issue. But you can’t recover alone. Social support is critical in overcoming addiction. That means you should identify trusted loved ones who you can call on for help during the challenges of treatment and recovery. 

Be Realistic

Pornography addiction doesn’t happen overnight, and you won’t heal from it that quickly either. It will take time to recover from porn addiction. You have to go through the stages of porn recovery. How long that takes will depend somewhat on the effort you put into healing and the depth of the addiction.

Adopt Measures

Before and during recovery, there are some things you can do on your own to help stop porn use. 

To help stop or  control porn use, consider:

• Removing Access. Clear all electronic porn and install porn blockers on your devices. Take away the temptation of having pornography readily available at your fingertips. 
• Avoid Triggers. Understand hypersexuality triggers, or things that make you want to view porn, and avoid them.
• Reflect. Journaling can help you track setbacks, reminders, and patterns in your behavior.
• Engage in Healthy Habits. Replace porn viewing with a healthier habit like a new hobby or exercise, which releases endorphins that improve well-being.
• Practice Meditation. The simple habit of mindful meditation can help you live in the moment and recognize your emotions without judging or acting on them.
• Use Breathwork. Breathwork can also help you connect your mind and body and work through exposure to triggers or other situations that are emotionally difficult without turning to pornography.

Porn Addiction Treatment

The good news is that you don’t have to live with porn addiction. Help is available. A variety of effective methods for porn addiction treatment exist.

Porn addiction treatment options include:

• Psychotherapy. You can work with a mental health professional to understand the past events that led to your addiction. Over time, you can recognize maladaptive behaviors, determine your unmet needs, and implement coping strategies.
• In-Patient Treatment. An in-patient treatment center can help you remove the stressors of daily life while you work with mental health professionals on healing and recovery. In-patient treatment also addresses any additional mental health issues that may exist aside the addiction.
• Intensives. Intensives help you become steeped in the work of recovery for a short, intensive healing period.
• Support Groups. Talking to people with similar experiences can be extremely validating, empowering, and healing. 

Since trauma is the root cause of most addictions, it’s essential to look for a treatment center that is trauma-focused, said Sako Barbarian, Primary Therapist at Begin Again Institute. 

Sako also said an intensive can help jump-start recovery.

“Treatment provides new and more effective tools for combating urges to act out, deep healing through intensive trauma work, and an incredible running start into a lifetime of recovery,” he said. “Effective addiction treatment encounters the brain, body, and emotions. Mere education is not enough.”

What Happens if Porn Addiction Is Left Untreated?

If you choose not to get help for porn addiction, it won’t go away. Instead, it’s likely to get worse and continue negatively impacting your life.

The consequences of porn addiction may include:

• Mental health issues, like low self-esteem, anxiety, or depression
• Relationship problems
• Sexual dysfunction
• Sleep disorders
• Job loss
• Financial concerns
• Decreased productivity
• Social isolation
• Engaging in risky behaviors

In other words, porn addiction will continue impacting every facet of your life, harming your mental and physical health, and your relationships, unless you seek help.

How Begin Again Institute Can Help

Getting help for porn addiction isn’t an easy thing to do, but recovery will change your life for the better.

At Begin Again Institute, we recognize the courage it takes to admit addiction and seek help.

BAI is the oldest sex addiction treatment facility in the United States. We have a proven track record using the TINSA® (Trauma-Induced Sexual Addiction) model, a perspective for the treatment of sexual addictions that focuses on treating the root of addiction rather than the symptoms. 

We offer a 14-Day Men’s Intensive to help you stop destructive behaviors, heal from the root cause, and jumpstart your recovery. If you’d like a faith-based recovery option, try our Boulder Recovery 14-Day Christian Men’s Intensive. It provides the same foundational healing methods, but it is steeped in the Christian faith.

Healing is possible. Take back your life and experience the freedom of recovery. Contact us today.