Porn Addiction
If you’re addicted to porn and find that it’s taking over your life, you aren’t alone. About 12% of all websites are porn related and almost. 30,000 people are watching porn at any given second.
Aside from being an enormous waste of your time, porn addiction can lead to a broken relationship or job loss. What’s more, if your spouse or partner finds out, they may start to believe that you think they’re not good enough for you. As a result they will feel confused and their self-image will be threatened.
Left unchecked, it could weaken your brain’s capacity to exercise willpower and you will find it harder to overcome porn addiction.
How Porn Becomes Addictive
Your brain is full of neural pathways and learning something new creates a new pathway. The more you perform the activity, the stronger the neural pathway becomes.
Porn addiction rewires your brain, creating a new neural pathway. At the same time a chemical known as Dopamine is released to help you remember this new pathway. Dopamine reminds you of things which are most pleasurable in your life.
The more porn you watch, the stronger and automatic your neural pathway becomes. Eventually, the pathway becomes a quick and easy route for accessing dopamine.
Recovery from porn addiction requires you to stop watching as well as stop thinking about it. Fantasising about porn triggers the dopamine pathway. When you stop watching porn, the pathway becomes weaker. However, you have to develop other pathways for accessing dopamine repeatedly making the new pathways stronger and stronger.
Warning Signs You May Have a Porn Addiction
When addicted to porn, you will find yourself spending long hours on porn websites instead of focusing on important tasks around the home or spending time with friends and family members.
You will start to feel emotionally detached during sex and the strong emotional bond you have with your partner will decrease in intensity and may even break altogether.
Some of the warning signs you may have a porn addiction are:
- Thinking of porn even when you’re not watching it.
- Being unable to quit despite trying
- Viewing porn at work or in other situations where you can be caught out
- Continuing to watch porn even if you feel guilty or ashamed about your habit
- Unable to watch porn even though it is beginning to have an impact on your relationships and job
- Not feeling fully satisfied when having sex with your partner or spouse
- Hiding your porn habit from a spouse or partner
- Feeling angry or upset when you’re asked to stop using porn
- Losing track of time while viewing porn
Treatment for Porn Addiction
When you’re addicted to pornography, it may seem impossible to stop. Fortunately, just like thousands of other men and women who struggled with pornography addiction, you can completely get rid of the habit, form meaningful relationships and live a richer life.
If your porn viewing habit has become compulsive and you find that it is interfering with desire to feel emotionally fulfilled and live a normal life, the first step is to acknowledge that you have a problem.
The best way to overcome your addiction is to speak about it out and explore how to overcome it.
That’s where I can help.
An expert in the area, I can accompany you on your journey to achieving a full recovery.
Together we will identify what you’re going through so you have a clear picture about your current situation. I will help you understand what may have caused your compulsive behaviour in the first place.
We’ll work through any difficult feelings you may be experiencing and set realistic goals for you to achieve at every stage of your journey. I will also help you with effective coping mechanisms which are required to change the way you relate to pornographic materials.
You will be able to train your brain to derive pleasure from real experiences with a spouse or partner, rather than seek fulfilment by watching porn.
Over time the sensitised porn pathways created in your mind will weaken and desensitisation will disappear.
The new pathways involving stimulation by a partner or spouse will overtake the old and unhealthy pathways in your brain. You dopamine hits will be received from real-life interactions rather than porn.
Preventing a Relapse:
Aside from learning how to overcome your porn addiction, you will discover how to identify triggers which can lead you back to the pron addiction cycle.
This is important because your brain is wired in a way that remembers how your natural desires are satisfied. It remembers how your sexual craving was satisfied in the past and pushes you to seek the same thing out in future.
When you have had a porn addiction in the past, dopamine triggers a sharp focus in your mind to look for porn. The triggers which can lure people back to watching porn are different for each one. You could set off a trigger by watching a provocative image of a man or woman…which reminds you of a porn clip watched in the past. A smell, taste or even wanting to feel loved could set off a trigger to watch porn.
If you are serious and committed to getting rid of your porn habit, I welcome you to contact me, so I can help you get your life back on track and begin enjoying the intimacy of a loving relationship.
To make an enquiry or book a consultation call
1300 814 427 or Click Here to send an email.