Help For Pornography & Sexual Addiction

The other day I was reading and responding to a popular forum for pornography addicts. I ran into a couple interesting posts. One man who had been trying to get rid of his pornography addiction for quite some time was to the point of complete despair and was suicidal. Another young man had just decided it was time to fess up and stop his porn addiction and was hopeful in beginning his journey.

The young man said that he knew he could do it by himself through willpower and spiritual help alone. The suicidal man, once hopeful, said that he had been already trying for a long time, given up hope, and was so discouraged that there wasn’t any point any more. Why do I relate this story?

In recovering from porn addiction one must realize that they cannot do this on their own. Willpower alone is not sufficient. Using willpower alone is a defense the brain creates to always have “an excuse” to look at porn and act out again in the future. “I’m strong enough. I’m in control. I can quit anytime I want.”

Trying to do this by control and willpower alone is what leads a man to want to give up due to so many failures at the willpower thing. It is only when we admit that we need help and cannot do this by willpower alone that we can begin true recovery. This attitude is the beginning of surrender. One must literally give up “fighting” and realize that the addiction is more powerful than themselves. One must respect the power of pornography addiction and learn to accept that they will have addictive desires for the rest of their lives. The desires are normal and not the problem. What human being doesn’t have daily desires?

The key is learning to live a happy and productive life without fighting the addiction but rather learning to respect and live with the addiction. The attitude of fight is like cutting tearing off the leaf of a tree. The tree still lives and grows despite the “power” of tearing off a leaf. The path to recovery is about learning about the roots of the addiciton and digging directly at those roots. It takes time but it is possible. This is the attitude of recovery that enables the porn addict to gain the power to lean into the pain of desire without acting out on those feelings. As such sobriety is possible!

Learn more about addiction and how it affects you.

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It is important to understand at the outset that pornography is extremely addictive by its very nature. Pornographers understand this very well and know how easy it is to manipulate people by their material. Pornographers are making millions of dollars off the natural vulnerabilities of people. What they offer destroys meaningful relationships quicker than anything else I’ve seen in my clinical practice. 

Those who make this private part of their lives public lose a part of themselves in the process. Those who view the private sexual lives of others through pornography also have something drawn out of them. Clients have described it this way to me,“When I’m viewing pornography I feel like my positive energy is being sucked out of me and then replaced by this negative energy that leaves me feeling heavy, dark, depressed and ugly.” Read the complete article at: http://www.innergold.com/addict.cfm