Pornography is seemingly everywhere. You can access it from your work computer or your personal laptop. Smartphones have entire apps dedicated to it. And, still, there are non-internet porn options like magazines and streaming services. With all of this access, there’s a lot of opportunity for porn use. But how do you know when pornography viewing has gone too far?
What is porn addiction? It’s when you find that you can’t stop watching porn, and it’s disrupting your life. Millions of people worldwide experience porn addiction. There are effective methods of pornography addiction treatment, like that at Begin Again Institute, that can pinpoint the root cause of the addiction and help you heal.
You’ve tried to quit watching porn, so why do you keep going back? In this Clinical Conversation, Begin Again Institute therapist Matthew Russell, MA, LPCC, explains what happens in the brain with repeated pornography use, why tolerance and escalation become part of the cycle, and how the brain can heal with time and the right support.
Not sure where you stand? Take our free, confidential porn addiction quiz.
What is Porn Addiction?
Porn addiction is when a person compulsively views porn to the point that they become emotionally dependent on it. They can’t stop, and their pornography habit affects their everyday life. Porn addiction is a hypersexuality disorder, which refers to an obsession with sexual fantasies or urges.
You’re experiencing porn addiction if it becomes a major focus, interferes with your daily life, and you can’t quit, despite trying. If porn has disrupted your relationships, finances, or work, it’s time to get help.
Like other addictions, porn addiction operates through the principles of operant conditioning. The more you watch porn, the more the behavior is reinforced. You experience pleasure from watching porn which keeps you coming back for more. You become dependent on the “reward,” which influences you to continue the behavior.
People don’t commonly discuss porn addiction, but the rates of those affected are climbing, estimated to be anywhere from about 4.5% to 10% of people. So, what makes porn addiction so easy to fall into? It comes down to the “triple-A” impact: accessibility, affordability, and anonymity.
Despite being a private or intimate activity, almost anyone anywhere can access porn whenever they want. With one click, you can connect to endless content. While some porn sites charge a subscription, many operate for free or low cost. With private browsers and a quick “erase history,” records of porn use are gone, making it seem like it’s easy to hide from others.
Signs of Porn Addiction
Watching porn can quickly escalate from a habit to a debilitating addiction. If watching porn intensifies to the point of compulsive, uncontrollable behavior, it can cause long-term damage that takes time and effort to repair.
When porn gets in the way of day-to-day activities and plays a central role in your life, it may be time to get help, especially if you find you can’t stop on your own.
If you’re concerned about your porn consumption habits, there are signs you can look for to determine if you’re experiencing porn addiction.
Signs of porn addiction include:
- Increased porn use
- Feeling guilty about watching
- Inability to control your urges
- No longer enjoying sex
- Watching porn in inappropriate settings
- Spending excessive time watching porn or money on porn
- Feeling an insatiable need
- Increased tolerance for more extreme or violent porn
- Consuming thoughts of porn
- Neglecting responsibilities to view more porn
- Feeling like you need a porn “fix”
- Experiencing low self-esteem
- Losing sleep
- Having difficulty controlling your emotions
- Losing track of time due to watching porn
- Hiding your porn watching from loved ones
- Lack of interest in socializing
- Experiencing sexual dysfunction
If you think you may have a pornography addiction, but you aren’t sure, take our porn addiction quiz. While the quiz isn’t a diagnostic tool, it can help you get a better understanding of whether your porn viewing is cause for concern.
Causes of Porn Addiction
For some people, the draw to viewing porn doesn’t just stem from wanting to feel aroused. A person can use pornography to soothe or calm themselves in stressful or challenging situations. It serves as a temporary escape, but it fails long term at making a person feel better or eliminating issues. The longer porn use continues, the more difficult it is to stop.
Reasons for pornography addiction include:
- Coping. When you experience an orgasm from watching porn, your brain gets a “high.” You feel a release of endorphins and attach that feeling to the pornography. Porn can make you feel better temporarily, but it’s not a permanent solution. The longer you continue using porn as a coping method, the higher your tolerance becomes.
- Avoiding. People who use porn to avoid feelings of intimacy may have difficulty forming or maintaining intimate relationships. You may feel disconnected during sex or irritated that real sexual acts don’t match your fantasies. It can cause distress and strife in relationships if you blame your partner for these issues, even if those problems stem from porn addiction. Detaching from true intimacy and preferring porn to real life is at the core of avoidance.
- Escaping. Someone who experienced abuse, neglect, bullying, or other trauma may use porn as a way to escape. Porn creates a fantasy world. Watching porn can make you feel desired, wanted, powerful, or even loved. If you haven’t experienced these feelings in your actual life, it can be freeing to escape to the virtual world of porn. It feels safe.
Porn Addiction and the Brain
It’s more than just pleasure bringing you back for more. In fact, many people with porn addictions say they don’t enjoy watching porn but still can’t stop. That’s because watching porn affects your brain’s neurochemistry.
When someone has a porn addiction, it hijacks their brain’s reward system. The reward system processes dopamine, one of the body’s neurotransmitters. Porn hardwires your brain into thinking continuous dopamine stimulation is normal. The next time you watch, the brain remembers that stimulation and reacts accordingly. The more you watch, the more reinforced the behavior becomes. Your reward system becomes trained to expect porn and expect it often.
Additionally, oxytocin and vasopressin, hormones related to memory, tie the memory of viewing porn to sexual pleasure. Repetition of the behaviors means these chemicals are continuously released. It’s difficult to stop something that feels good to your brain.
When you continuously experience bursts of dopamine, the brain goes into overdrive, overproducing more dopamine than it can handle. It starts to become desensitized to normal stimuli, meaning you need more extreme porn to get the same fix. You’ll start to experience downregulation, which is when receptors make your brain and body less receptive to the substance you’re seeking. Essentially, you build tolerance by shutting down the receptors in your brain.
You begin to develop cravings, and they’re impossible to control. The brain forms a chemical dependence and tolerance for these cravings, and they increase compulsively. It’s all about recreating that initial dopamine high and satisfying your cravings.
When you repeatedly expose your brain to porn, it causes the frontal lobe to shrink. This portion of the brain is responsible for decision-making and willpower. It becomes more difficult to recognize the negative impact porn has on your life and take action against it.
To fulfill your cravings, sexual behavior can escalate. The typical porn that used to make you feel good doesn’t do the trick anymore. You might seek out more explicit or violent porn. This response can lead to risky sexual behaviors in real life. Suddenly, the problem isn’t confined to your computer screen but has real-world consequences.
Recognizing Withdrawal Symptoms
Like any other addiction, cutting off porn for good has negative side effects that can be uncomfortable and disrupt your life. It’s important to recognize common porn withdrawal symptoms and how to overcome them to help you on your road to sobriety.
Nate Geyer, Primary Therapist at Begin Again Institute, said a person can identify the symptoms of pornography withdrawal by considering how they feel and noting how those feelings align with what they know about the addiction.
Withdrawal symptoms can manifest in various ways, Nate said.
“Under the surface, pornography withdrawal can impact one’s emotional and mental well-being,” he said. “Those experiencing withdrawal will notice increased irritability, higher anxiety, depressed mood, lack of presence in the moment, lack of empathy, and ultimately cravings for more pornography.”
Other porn withdrawal symptoms include:
- Sleep disturbances
- Headaches and stiffness or pain in other parts of your body
- Fatigue and weakness
- Agitation
- Lashing out at people around you
- Lack of focus or concentration (brain fog)
- Nausea, fever, and other forms of sickness
- Little or no sexual desire, known as a “flatline”
- Excessive sexual thoughts
- Depression, despair, and other forms of sadness
- Mood swings
- Avoiding socializing
- Flashbacks or dreams about pornography
Managing Porn Withdrawal
Coping with pornography withdrawal symptoms can be challenging, but overcoming setbacks is possible. If you’re struggling with withdrawal symptoms, remind yourself of your goals and why you made them. You are more than your porn addiction, and you do have the ability to overcome it.
Methods for managing porn withdrawal include:
- Taking care of your physical health through sleep, healthy diet, hydration, and exercise
- Not isolating yourself
- Learning about your withdrawal symptoms so you understand them and what to expect
- Changing your environment and removing temptations, such as electronic devices
- Practicing meditation
- Confiding in loved ones
- Journaling about your experiences
- Joining a support group
- Finding replacement hobbies
- Seeking professional help
Treatment for Porn Addiction
Healing from porn addiction is possible, but you may not be able to do it alone. If you want to try or at least start on the road to recovery, there are some steps you can take.
Individual approaches to stopping porn addiction include:
- Remove Access. Clear all electronic porn and bookmarks from your devices. Take away the temptation. If it’s no longer at your fingertips, it’s less likely to become your default habit.
- Block It. Install anti-porn software on your computer to prevent you from going back. You can’t access it if your devices don’t allow it. Asking someone else to install it can help with accountability.
- Pre-Plan Activities. If you know you’ll experience the urge, find a replacement. By planning stimulating activities you enjoy, you can trick your brain into replacing the feeling of watching porn.
- Avoid Triggers. Know what your triggers are and avoid them. Reflect on your habits and when you feel most tempted. Stay away from images, places, or feelings that could cause you to relapse.
- Control Use of Devices. Use your devices, like your cell phone or laptop, in public places. It’s more difficult to be discreet in front of others. Hold yourself accountable, and don’t let your device use become private.
- Seek Support. Find an accountability partner. Confide in a trusted friend and ask for help. You’re more likely to stick to your goal with someone encouraging you.
- Practice Self-Reflection. Journaling can help you track setbacks, reminders, and patterns in your behavior. Celebrate the wins you have each day.
Despite your best efforts, you may need to seek professional treatment to overcome porn addiction long term, and that’s OK. You’ll probably need help identifying and treating the root cause of the addiction to truly recover. Otherwise, you’re just attempting to stop negative behaviors without an understanding of how or why they originated. You need deep understanding and healing to overcome addiction of any kind.
Effective treatment for porn addiction may include:
- Attending individual and group therapy
- Learning about the root cause of the addiction and healing from it
- Identifying your triggers, or what makes you want to view porn, and avoiding them
- Being aware of relapse signs and having a plan of action
- Monitoring any porn withdrawal symptoms and having a plan to cope with them when they happen
Porn addiction requires a multifaceted approach to healing, said Ed Tilton, President of Begin Again Institute. He said it starts by being honest about how the addiction affects you and those you love. Then, you have to commit to recovery.
“We lie to feed and justify our behavior,” he said. “The first thing you must do is get honest with yourself. Then you can start to see what kind of change is possible.”
Nate said it’s critical to seek community support during recovery.
“Community provides a space for voices to be heard and experiences to be validated. It can be a space that nurtures, heals, and empowers. I truly believe in this mantra: ‘We do addiction in isolation, but heal in groups.’”
How Begin Again Institute Can Help
Healing from porn addiction is a learning experience. You must keep an open mind and be prepared to make lifestyle changes. It will take self-discipline to relearn behaviors and unlearn habits. But ultimately, it will be worth it, and your quality of life will improve.
If porn addiction has consumed your life, damaged relationships, and made you unhappy with yourself, it’s time to change. At Begin Again Institute, we recognize the courage it takes to accept your addiction and seek help. Recovery is always possible, and we have the tools to help you achieve lasting results.
Begin Again Institute is the oldest sex addiction treatment facility in the United States. We have a proven track record using TINSA® (Trauma-Induced Sexual Addiction), a perspective for the treatment of sexual addictions that focuses on treating the root of addiction rather than the symptoms.
Begin Again Institute offers 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 is steeped in the Christian faith.
BAI also offers a free virtual Partner Support Program to help your loved ones heal from the betrayal caused by your addiction.
Healing is possible for anyone willing to take the first step. Take back your life and experience the freedom of recovery. Contact us today for help that will improve your life.
Video Transcript: Understanding Porn and Sex Addiction | What's Happening In Your Brain
Clinical Conversation with Matthew Russell, MA, LPCC
Begin Again Institute
Greg (00:08): One of the questions I get asked more than almost any other is why is this so hard to stop? I’ve tried, I’ve deleted the apps, I’ve blocked the sites, and then I’m right back. Today I’m sitting with clinician Matthew Russell from Begin Again Institute to answer that question with actual science. Because when you understand what porn does to your brain, the failure isn’t about willpower. It’s about neurology. And that changes everything. Matthew, can you walk us through in plain terms what actually happens in the brain when someone watches pornography regularly over time?
Matthew Russell (00:46): Yeah, you gotta keep in mind that oftentimes this happens at a young age, a formative age. You know, the developmental process of youth and so, exposure to pornography content is very stigmatizing and stimulating to a young mind. And it’s also, you get a high dose of dopamine. And so you gotta understand the impact that is, you know, on the neural level of this young mind. And so they’re exposed to it. They start going to it because it makes them feel good, this huge dopamine that is much higher than just the normal relational, meaningful relationships that they have. And so automatically they’re gonna be drawn to this content without any work being done. And so you do that over and over and over again, getting that dopamine hit, you know, with no effort, always accessible, it shapes you. It shapes your hardware inside. And it becomes to the point where you actually need it and what we call your nervous system’s hijacked. You’re no longer getting the reward from just meaningful relationships, being vulnerable, being authentic self. You’re now isolating yourself for this high dopamine, high reward behavior, also isolative. And so now you have these dual worlds, so to speak, these dual lives. And this one secret, and this one’s public. And that’s the beginning of the addiction formation in childhood, basically.
Greg (02:18): You know, it sounds like drug addiction to me. Is it different than that?
Matthew Russell (02:24): Actually it’s the exact same. The only difference is you’re tapping into your internal pharmacy versus going out to the store to buy alcohol or going to some place else to buy a drug. And where you have to take in. This is you’re just looking for a stimulus, a certain kind of stimulus. And this is well oftentimes why objectifying another person comes into play. You no longer look at a person for the person. You look at it, or them or her, what can they, how can they stimulate me? And that’s where it starts developing.
Greg (02:57): That phrase internal pharmacy is interesting. So neurophysiologically, what does early exposure to pornography do to the developing brain?
Matthew Russell (03:08): It has a huge impact on them. It’s basically free access to the dopamine, but it has to come from a form of, you know, provocative content. And it’s, you know, like I said earlier, instead of finding it in normal healthy relationships, meaningful relationships, it’s hijacked and it is pornography content that’s like heroin, it’s like heroin for the nervous system. And then the more you do it, the more you need it. And then we fall into the realm where you know your frequency increases. You need more intensity to get the same high. Your duration, the time you spend in this behavior, it becomes longer, it takes more time, and then ultimately the novelty. You’re always gonna need something new in order to get that same high. And that’s when people really start touching on their value system, right? And depending on the person, you’re gonna start crossing that, which is gonna cause open the door to a lot more discrepancies. Now you’re living in a state of cognitive dissonance. This is not my values. I know I shouldn’t be doing it, but I need to do it. And that creates a lot more shame and a lot more secrecy. And so you see the worlds starting to grow more and more apart and you’re having to spend more time over here neglecting everything that was once meaningful.
Greg (04:31): Yeah, that’s really interesting. This cognitive dissonance. Like can you explain that a little bit more? What do you mean by that?
Matthew Russell (04:38): Yeah, so cognitive dissonance can be explained that you know you shouldn’t be doing something, but you’re doing it anyway. So it goes against your value system and you can’t hold two of the same things in the same space, right? And so they have to do something to justify, and that’s where the justification comes in. And whatever they do to justify, make themselves feel better, they gotta go and do it. Even though it’s still gonna be incongruent.
Greg (05:10): Yeah, that makes sense. So you mentioned time. You mentioned this concept of needing more over time. Why does the, why is that tendency there? Like why is there a tendency to escalate over time in terms of this behavior?
Matthew Russell (05:25): Yeah, you know, we do a lot of comparison to alcohol and drugs and it’s the exact same thing. You’re hitting the dopamine rewards this cycle and it’s tolerance. It’s a tolerance issue. We have bodies that are amazing and adaptive, but over time it’s going to require more. It’s going to require more to get that same felt high, that same experience. And so everything has to increase. And when you’re locked into it and you’re away from it, you find yourself, you know, not only feeling void, absent, maybe angry and anxious, and so you go to it to feel better. And it’s just a constant cycle and it just gets worse and worse and worse.
Greg (06:05): So almost the same analogy with someone who might be abusing opioids or another drug, as time goes on and they are continuing to use that in greater volumes, their tolerance for that goes up and they need more and more to find the same result. In essence the brain is being changed. When what you’re describing is that the person’s brain is being changed by this chronic use of the substance, which in this case is porn.
So the question is, can it change back? Can it be healed? Like what does it look like to heal the brain neurologically from problematic porn use?
Matthew Russell (06:43): Absolutely. You know, to preface that, the human body is amazing and adaptive and what we call neuroplasticity. The brain can recover from addiction if you allow it to. Now it requires a bit of discomfort and sacrifice, right? You have to detox. You have to completely detox from technology and you have to have help, you know, acknowledging that you have a problem. But to answer your question, can the brain heal and recover from addiction? The answer is yes. It just takes time and support.
Greg (07:20): Well, that’s great to know that there’s hope there in that sense. So what would you want a partner or a spouse to understand about what’s happening to a man’s brain neurologically? You know, because I think partners are often in a position of asking those questions and looking at their loved one and wondering, you know, what’s going on and how do we get out of this situation?
Matthew Russell (07:43): Yeah, totally. And oftentimes the partners think it’s something they did or it’s at their fault. And I want to assure them that oftentimes, more likely than not, this addiction was formed or created prior to their spouse, prior to their families. And so they drug this coping strategy or a maladaptive coping strategy into the relationship and then things just got worse for them. And so it’s not reflective of their love for you. This is an addiction and it’s a problem that was created before you.
Greg (08:20): That’s a really powerful sentiment. You know, I hear you saying that if you’re a partner and your loved one is using porn in a problematic way, what you’re saying is that that person brought that addictive behavior, that maladaptive behavior into the relationship. That that isn’t a result of the relationship or a result of some symbol of how the relationship is going or the person’s love for you, but rather that is something the person brought with them.
Matthew Russell (08:53): Exactly. Right. Which hopefully takes some pressure off of the partner that you know, they love you and they still love you. They just have a problem neuro neurobiologically and it’s predated you and they have to contend with that and they can’t do it without support.
Greg (09:11): I think a lot of people believe that the reason they’re watching porn too much or can’t stop watching porn is that it might be a character flaw, some sort of defect. But what I’m hearing you say is that it’s a neurological reality, that a person’s brain has been conditioned and conditioning can be undone with the right help.
Matthew Russell (09:31): Exactly. Well said. Yeah, it is a condition and it can be undone, but it does take time.
Prior to becoming a mental health professional, Matthew served a distinguished 20-year career in the military that brings a unique blend of resilience, discipline, and compassion to his counseling practice. Matthew’s journey began with the 82nd Airborne Division, where he served his first four years as a combat medic, honing his skills in leadership, crisis management, tactical combat casualty care, and cutting his teeth in the beginning of the war against terror in Afghanistan shortly after the 911 attacks. Fourteen of those years were spent as an Army Special Forces Medical Sergeant (Green Berets), a role embedded with high professional demand and expertise in unconventional warfare and unwavering mental fortitude. Serving in several combat zones and other austere environments, Matthew is no stranger to hardships and challenges, testing the limits of the human resilience.
