Porn Addiction and Treatment | Seeking Integrity

When Porn Takes Over Your Sexual Life

Porn addicts spend countless hours (usually at least 11 or 12 hours per week, and sometimes double or triple that amount) searching for and looking at pornography. And loss of time is just the beginning of porn’s negative impact on the addict and their loved ones. Porn addicts often couple their porn use with compulsive masturbation. They may also link their porn use to other compulsive sexual behaviors, such as webcamming, sexting, casual hookups, affairs, prostitution, etc. That said, porn addiction can be and often is a standalone form of addiction.

Diagnosing Porn Addiction

Porn addiction is diagnosed based on three primary criteria:

Preoccupation to the point of obsession. Porn addicts spend hours, sometimes even days, fantasizing about, planning for, pursuing, and eventually using pornography.
Loss of control. Most porn addicts try, usually repeatedly, to quit their use of pornography. Sometimes they even succeed for a short while. But before they know it, they are back at it.
Negative consequences. Porn addicts typically experience issues at work or in school, relationship woes, shame, depression, anxiety, loss of interest in previously enjoyable activities, isolation, arrest, etc.

If you identify with these criteria, it is ikely you are addicted to pornography. If you are uncertain, we suggest you take this anonymous 25-question sex and porn addiction screening test.

“Not Porn” Is Still Porn

For porn addicts, “not porn” is imagery of people who are not nude and not actively engaged in sexual activity – i.e., not pornography – that is nevertheless used the same way the addict uses porn.

In other words, a porn addict can use “not porn” to escape into a la-la land of sexual fantasy – a “bubble” in which stress, boredom, shame, fear, and other forms of emotional discomfort disappear – just as he or she previously used actual pornography. When that happens intentionally, such as surfing social media sites to view hot (but clothed) images, the addiction is alive and well and fully active.

Any type of imagery that a porn addict uses for sexual arousal and emotional escape qualifies as porn, even if it’s technically “not porn.”

Porn Addiction Is Our Specialty

Porn addiction is treatable, but only if the addict seeks the right type of professional assistance.

Unfortunately, very few facilities specialize in porn addiction the way that Seeking Integrity does. In fact, most places just lump porn addiction in with every other form of addiction, attempting a “one size fits all” version of recovery.

Porn addicts do not respond to that approach. It is only with specialized porn addiction treatment, such as the treatment we provide at Seeking Integrity, that the addict’s true problem and its underlying factors are addressed.

Speak with a Seeking Integrity Staff Member Regarding Treatment. Call (747) 234-HEAL (4325)

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