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.
Is porn addiction real, or is it just a bad habit? In this Clinical Conversation, Begin Again Institute therapist Matthew Russell, MA, LPCC, explains how porn addiction develops, what intimacy disorders have to do with it, and what to look for if you’re questioning your own behavior.
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: Is Porn Addiction Real? | How to Know When It's a Problem
Clinical Conversation with Matthew Russell, MA, LPCC
Begin Again Institute
Greg (00:08): If you’ve ever Googled, “Am I addicted to porn?” at two in the morning and then close the tab before you finish reading? This video is for you. Today I’m sitting down with Matthew Russell, a therapist at Begin Again Institute, to answer the question that stops most men before they even start. Is porn addiction real? Matthew, clinically, how do you define porn addiction?
Matthew (00:35): Well porn addiction if you really want to conceptualize it was just a manifestation of what a bigger problem is. And the bigger problem is it’s an intimacy disorder. They’re sacrificing meaning, that’s sacrificing meaningful relationships for counterfeit versions of connections. And pornography addiction is just one facet of that.
Greg (00:55): So that makes sense. How do you know then if what you’re dealing with is an addiction versus just a bad habit? What makes it an intimacy disorder?
Matthew (01:05): So it’s a great question ’cause it’s a deep answer. But ultimately, is it interfering with your personal life? Is it interfering with your professional life? Are you finding yourself more isolating and spending more time with self-soothing behaviors, i.e. pornography or other versions of that, than you are with your children or with your spouse or with your friendships? And those are tough questions that you have to ask yourself and be honest. You have to be honest with yourself. And if the answers are yes, then you might have a problem.
Greg (01:40): That makes a ton of sense. So if that’s the case, if these things are interfering with someone’s lives, how does that happen? Like, when does it move from habit to addiction? When does it move from normal behavior to problematic? Is there a cause?
Matthew (01:56): Yeah, then and the causes likely happens in early childhood. And that’s why we really have to delve into what was your childhood like? What was home life like? What was your relationship with your parents like? And that’s the formative years where usually the introduction to content like pornography is introduced, which can be overwhelming to the young mind. And so a lot of the addiction formation, the pornography, the sex addiction, ultimately what I say the intimacy disorder, is developed then and carried on through young adult life.
And these things are often predate your spouse, predate your partner. And so you’re you’re carrying this addiction. You know, we might not show up as an addiction because it’s so secret, but it carries on into that relationship and usually manifests even deeper until eventually a discovery.
Greg (02:47): So it’s starting early on in my life. Is it just because I watch it, all of a sudden I am addicted to it? Or is there, are there other factors? Like why would why would me being exposed to it early in my life mean that I would develop an addiction, so to speak?
Matthew (03:03): Yeah, you know, it can be compared similarly to the, you know, drug use or alcohol use. Not everybody gets addicted to it right away. However, those are good sources for, you know, making yourself feel better or a coping strategy. What we call sometimes a maladaptive coping strategy. And porn is no different in that sense. It’s just different because it’s a internal pharmacy that you’re tapping into, not an external like alcohol or or or drugs.
But how you access that internal pharmacy is use of counterfeit versions of connection, women or men or sex. And so it starts off using it as self-soothing behaviors. And then you use it as a bad habit, of what I’ve heard and understand it is. It starts off that way, but it turns into a vice, it turns into a place where they can go feel better about themselves. It’s secret, it’s very accessible, nobody has to know about it, and you can do it all by yourself. And then it turns into an addiction.
Greg (04:11): Yeah, that makes sense. There’s a you know, skeptics might say it’s just porn. Millions of people watch it. Why is it a big deal? What like from a clinician’s perspective, what are your thoughts on that?
Matthew (04:22): Yeah, I mean, like I said earlier, I compared it to alcohol and drugs, you know, not everybody gets addicted, and that’s true for pornography too. But it’s also a slippery slope. It’s dare I say more accessible, especially for children and adolescents, than it is alcohol and drugs, where it’s literally on their phone. It’s on their computer. Look, mom and dad are away so I can go access whatever I want, and it can turn into something that is very prominent in their life.
Greg (04:56): Yeah, that makes sense. I’m hearing you say, right, like it’s ubiquitous in a sense. It’s everywhere and it’s very easily accessible. And some people end up using it, you said maladaptively, right, as a soothing behavior. I wonder why some people move into it becoming problematic. Like for some people it becomes problematic and for others it doesn’t. Like, what are your thoughts on that?
Matthew (05:21): Totally. And that’s where we really have to delve into like, what was your childhood like? You know, what were your relationships like with your parents? Cause going into the attachment style lens, you know, we need to connect.
As humans, we all need to connect. We need that nurturing nature from mom. We need that model from dad. We need that affirmation, validation. Am I being seen? Am I being heard? Am I being loved? And in healthy relationships, those build meaningful relationships, which gives us a reward, right? And a child never questions who they are when, they’re when they’re properly loved, when they have that secure attachment.
But in the absence of all those meaningful relationships of what makes a meaningful relationship, they seek for something similar. And that’s where pornography or sex comes in, which completely hijacks their nervous system. You know, they find that instant gratification without the work of building a relationship. And so you know, in the absence of that they’re gonna find it. And it’s again accessible, it’s easy to get, it’s gratifying, and it’s also a counterfeit version of love. And so it’s like a heroin hit, right?
Greg (06:37): Yeah. Yeah. That makes a ton of sense. It it’s almost like if I if what I’m hearing is it’s not about a person being born with some genetic predisposition to be addicted to pornography, but rather it’s a result of experiences in our early life and then the presentation of that self soothing tool that gives us the joy or the gratification or the validation that we’re looking for. For some, depending on what they went through in their early lives, it can become problematic.
Matthew (07:08): Absolutely. Yep. And then you compound that with let’s say a person is bullied all the time. They’re feeling isolated already and so they’re gonna find something to connect to. And what’s ever readily available is more likely what they’re gonna cling to and especially for young young men or young boys, you know.
They are very visual creatures by nature. And so just being exposed one time by, you know, these exotic images and content, it’s gonna be drawing. It’s gonna make them feel good and feel connected. Even though it’s a counterfeit version of connection, they’re drawn to it and then they’ll continue to go to that.
Greg (07:45): That resonates. Yeah. Well, so if you’re standing in front of somebody who’s trying to figure out if this is problematic for them, what would you say to somebody who’s trying to understand that?
Matthew (08:00): Yeah, you have to really look at yourself and ask yourself some hard questions. Is it interfering with the relationships that are meaningful to you, your spouse? If you’re a father or a mother, is it interfering with your relationship with your children? Are you finding yourself, you know, difficult to concentrate at work? Are you isolating yourself from, you know, your friendships? Are you starting to fill that void inside? You know, even though you’re doing well on the outside, are you filling that void, that numbness, that disconnection?
And if you ask, if you answer those honestly, then it might help you understand that you might have a problem, an intimacy disorder. Are you lacking the meaningful relationships in your life? What happened? Where did it start? You know? And those are some symptoms though of that you might have a problem.
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.
