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You've admitted that you are powerless over pornography, and that (to some extent) your life has become unmanageable.
DMA, congratulations. You've just taken the first step. There are 11 others. I suggest speaking with your doctor or spiritual advisor and find a support group.
Please understand that I do not consider porn as bad. Nor alcohol for that matter. However, it is clear to me from your posting that it is having a negative effect on your life, much like alcohol hurts alcoholics.
Porn "addiction" can look real, I think, but personally I feel (and I have grappled with this problem myself over years and years) that it is a bit more like a compulsive behavior than a truly addicted one.
I say that because I've seen other (undoubtedly true) addicts... be it nicotine, alcohol, illicit drugs, or some combination thereof. Removing the addictive thing from them causes them actual physical illness and serious suffering, at least for a time. Removing porn from the frequent viewer , for a week, two weeks, etc, does not truly do him any harm. Sure he may feel like he wants to view some, he may have an "urge", but he can also easily take his mind off it and he suffers no actual ill effects.
I believe it's a compulsive behavior , primarily, which looks a lot like an addictive behavior. It probably masks or goes along with (in my case I have discovered it masks) such things as an "avoidant" personality, generalized social anxiety, as well as "committment-phobia" (and yes that last one is real; you can Google it and learn more about it if you wish). A life pattern develops, or rather already developed, in which real relationships of a romantic nature were or are replaced by the pornography which acts as an important stimulus to the imagination. The imagination is no longer enough by itself, as it is for some men.
All men masturbate, but not all do it every single time to pornography. Therein lies the difference. Sexuality is not something we can "cold turkey" out of. We're going to get horny again, and have to relieve ourselves. But we can tame our porno usage, at least. Ending it completely is up to the individual. If he feels it is doing real harm to him in some way (financial, or emotional, or other) then he should try. Taming it, as I said, is probably a good idea however, either way.
My doctor told me specifically though that, contrary to some of the anti-porno scare propaganda, viewing porn frequently (while yes perhaps "jading" the viewer) will NOT "force" every male viewer, or lead him inevitably, to commit sexual crimes or to seek out illegal types of porn or, what have you. If he knows where his lines are, what his boundaries are, there is no reason that any of that HAS to happen. But, my suggestion would be, don't try "cold turkey", but do try taming it. Be epicurean, so to speak, with it; be master of your indulgence(s), enjoy them, but don't let them master you.
Many people do agree with that, there is serious debate on whether it is a "true" addiction for porn or sex. Whether it is or not it can & does serious problems for too many as a compulsion if nothing else.Quote:
Porn "addiction" can look real, I think, but personally I feel (and I have grappled with this problem myself over years and years) that it is a bit more like a compulsive behavior than a truly addicted one.
I agree that porn will not "force" anyone onto a life of sex crimes or anything of that sort but there are still other note worthy detrimental effects. The jading is one, because it can effect not just the sort of porn preference but their sex life with a partner. Some people fall deeper in the pit non-stop fast until they reach their bottom & some are capable of putting brakes on whatever the problem is in at least some way so they stumble along with an acceptable to them level of indulgence (like alcoholics that only drink after work for example).Quote:
My doctor told me specifically though that, contrary to some of the anti-porno scare propaganda, viewing porn frequently (while yes perhaps "jading" the viewer) will NOT "force" every male viewer, or lead him inevitably, to commit sexual crimes or to seek out illegal types of porn or, what have you. If he knows where his lines are, what his boundaries are, there is no reason that any of that HAS to happen. But, my suggestion would be, don't try "cold turkey", but do try taming it. Be epicurean, so to speak, with it; be master of your indulgence(s), enjoy them, but don't let them master you.
None of the worst that some people with this same problem have faced has to happen, the proactive you are in facing this the less likely that is to happen & getting control over the situation sooner rather than later is the best idea.
One distinction between porn / sex addition or complusive issues is that unlike other ones that can be completely removed from the body by detoxing, you can't completely remove the images you have already seen, they will remain with you. So even if you stop watching porn on the TV or computer, your brain already has a library that can be quickly recalled of the preferred porn. It's like having your brain being able to manufacture the alcohol or drug of choice. With some people that also has a very long lasting negative effect. There is just no way to step away from it in the way you can alcohol or drugs. A healthy sex life is a good & desirable thing to have & even more so with a loving partner who will naturally want sex too. Preferably with someone that can focus on & appreciate them only & not be reliving porn in their mind while being sexual with them.
I believe there is something embedded into porn which makes it addictive. The best thing to do is to stop cold period and don't look again. Get something else to take your mind off this. Yes, it IS an addiction like alcohol, cigarettes, food, etc. But the only difference with alcohol, drugs, food, cigarettes is that it is not a physical addiction but a mental addiction.
If you think that the ONLY addiction for alcohol, drugs, food, cigarettes, etc, is the physical addiction, boy are YOU wrong.
The hardest part about quitting smoking is that you literally have to change a lot of your lifestyles. Same with when an alcoholic gives up drinking. The mentally ingrained habits and triggers take FOREVER to get out of your system. Quitting smoking--it takes maybe 7 days tops for the nicotine to be out of your system. After that, it's not the PHYSICAL craving anymore--it's the mental.
Either way--the OP asked for how to overcome his problem, not for a discourse on whether porn addiction is "real".
Hello again:
The only addictive substance there is, is an ACTUAL tangible substance. It's not an IDEA. Thoughts don't impart them. You don't get them from reading books and watching movies. Food doesn't have it. Having sex doesn't impart it.
That isn't to say, that people don't have problems with these behaviors. It IS to say these problems AREN'T addictions.
All substances that have addictive qualities happen to be drugs. Nothing else contains these addictive substances. A drug addiction isn't anything like a problem eater, or a guy who likes to wack off all the time. They're not even close. Ok, I'll give you close. Both are habits. That's as close as I'll give you.
excon
The concern I usually express with porn is the same I express about any fetish... the more you rely on it solely for arousal, the harder it might be to get by without...
Most of us have fetishes we play out, and some we don't. If you can't get aroused without seeing your partner role play, it doesn't mean its wrong, but you've cornered yourself into that place perhaps where you've mentally restricted yourself to what will get you off.
And some desensitization is normal and natural. A peek at a bra strap when I was 14 could produce steel piercing erections. Man, were those ever wasted on a young punk with nothing good to do with them. Now, it might piqué my interest, but I've been there, seen that.
Opps. Drifting off topic.
A person who masturbates can get to understand what their body likes and needs. Fine. But if you find you prefer your hand to a woman... if you are self stimulating alone and then leaving her neglected, problem Houston.
I know the OP'er doesn't have a girlfriend... just saying, conditioning yourself to your hand too much might take the edge off. Relying on visual stim that has no intimate connection to you too much might cause a problem.
Or might not.
We have long standing members here who use porn as a common staple of enhancement in the bedroom. We have others who wouldn't want it in their house, let alone bedroom.
I'm not going to debate the number of prisoners with cake fetishes... personally, id like to see porn used less than more, and more mystery and discovery left for young men and women... but again, some people can control themselves and some cannot.
Prisoners with cake fetishes? So where do they get the cake in prison?
It gets sneaked in by visitors and/or there is a black market run by the guards would be my guess!
But most likely some prisoner filed suit & won a constitutional right to have cake in prison.
:p :eek: :confused:
Your right, a substance does need to be made of something. Ideas are no exception. The building blocks of ideas no smaller than the molecules that makes up nicotine or alcohol. The brain is filled with Beta, Alpha, Theta, and Delta waves that interact with different types of chemicals.Quote:
Originally Posted by excon
Serotonin:
Most kinds of depression are connected to a deficiency of norepinephrine and serotonin at functionally important receptors (adrenergic or serotonergic). Drugs that increase the concentrations of norepinephrine and serotonin at these receptors improve the symptoms of depression.
Acetylcholine:
When this neurotransmitter is stimulated it increases alertness and enhances memory. Acetylcholine is also related to sexual performance and arousal because it helps control blood flow to the genitals in women and men, heart rate, and blood pressure during sexual intercourse.
Dopamine:
Too much dopamine in the limbic system and not enough in the cortex produces fits of paranoia or withdrawn social interaction. A shortage of dopamine in the frontal lobe contributes to poor working memory. Dopamine also contributes to the feelings of bliss and regulates feeling of pain in the body.
Phenylethylamine:
A surge of phenylethylamine in the limbic system gives feelings of bliss.
Oxytocin:
Increased levels of oxytocin give mothers the impulse to "cuddle" with their newborns. High levels of oxytocin contribute to multiple orgasms in woman.
Norepinephrine:
High levels of norepinephrine can cause aggression. Increased levels of norepinephrine mixed with dopamine and phenylethalimine give us the feeling of infatuation.I find it amazing that we can say that a person can be addicted to poker but not sex. There are people addicted to caffeine, sugar, television almost anything you can think of but not sex? Then why do we surround ourselves with it? Why does sex sell?Quote:
Originally Posted by excon
The reason "they're not even close" is because you’re talking about the same thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by excon
Do People Get Hooked on Sex? - TIME
The notion that people can suffer from "sex addiction" has become one of the most hotly debated theories in psychology. Frequent reports of bizarre sexual excess have spawned competing ideas about what causes the behavior & how to treat it. Last week the controversy erupted anew as nearly 300 sex educators, researchers & clinicians met in Minneapolis for a national conference held to explore why some people are compulsive about sex.. . Carnes admits that scientists are a long way from fully understanding the causes of compulsive sexual behavior.
Brain, Mind, Consciousness and Learning: Brain's reward System and Addiction
Brain's reward System & Addiction
Nueroscience is discovering the relationship between addiction and brain's reward system. In general human's are very susceptible to the anticipation of rewards. There is lot more in common between gambling,sex, good food, chocolate & other pleasurable activities then we thought originally. They all stimulate the pleasure center of the human brain. Excessive indulgence into pleasurable activities is the leading cause of addiction.
Brian Knutson
"Over the past 6 months, more & more people have been thinking that, contrary to earlier views,there is commonality between substance addictions & other compulsions," says Alan Leshner, head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) & incoming executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, publisher of Science.
Just where to draw the line is not yet clear.
Sex
There's not much research on sex as an addiction, & some researchers are dubious about whether such a basic function can have that distinction. Sex is really a distinct subject because it's "wired separately," in the opinion of Kim of Minnesota. He notes, for example, that the opioid antagonist naltrexone "really doesn't affect sexual desire that much," so it doesn't follow the same pathways as, say, gambling.
Yet so-called sex addicts do display behaviors characteristic of addiction: They obsess about whatever their favorite practice is, never get enough, feel out of control, & experience serious disruption of their lives because of it. That leads Shaffer to conclude that some behaviors qualify as sex addictions: "I think those things that are robust and reliable shifters of subjective experience all hold the potential for addiction."
Addiction and the Brain - TIME
The idea that a single chemical could be associated with everything from snorting cocaine and smoking tobacco to getting good grades & enjoying sex has electrified scientists and changed the way they look at a wide range of dependencies, chemical & otherwise. Dopamine, they now believe, is not just a chemical that transmits pleasure signals but may, in fact, be the master molecule of addiction.
The degree to which learning & memory sustain the addictive process is only now being appreciated. Each time a neurotransmitter like dopamine floods a synapse, scientists believe, circuits that trigger thoughts & motivate actions are etched onto the brain. I
In fact, one of the most hopeful messages coming out of current research is that the biochemical abnormalities associated with addiction can be reversed through learning. For that reason, all sorts of psychosocial interventions, ranging from psychotherapy to 12-step programs, can & do help. Cognitive therapy, which seeks to supply people with coping skills (exercising after work instead of going to a bar, for instance), appears to hold particular promise.
After just 10 weeks of therapy, before-and-after pet scans suggest, some patients suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder (which has some similarities with addiction) manage to resculpt not only their behavior but also activity patterns in their brain.
I have gone to several SAA meetings here around the Chicagoland area over the years (Sexual Addicts Anon), and , the group I got with, I have to tell you, one key thing I really always differed with them on was their "bottom line".
It was , in this particular group at least, NO masturbation OR pornography OR sexual contact with anyone outside of a loving committed relationship. Frankly, to be totally honest, I'm a 32 yr old guy, nearly 33, and I've never been married, not had many long-term relationships, and at this current point in my life I am not really interested in being in a "loving committed full-time relationship" or having kids, etc (for reasons besides just pornography, OK... for other personal committment-related reasons that I have to work through, and so on... I'm just not entirely sure the married-with-kids lifestyle is for me right now, and that's a personal choice).
But, back on topic, for me, that excessively harsh "bottom line" was unfeasible because, while I could understand trying one's best to at the very least seriously cut down on or even go cold turkey on the porno, I simply cannot do so on masturbation.
My sex drive is very high, admittedly. I'm not sure why. I asked my doctor if it could have anything to do with perhaps slightly higher testo levels (?? ), due perhaps to ethnicity -- I am Italian , and I have read in a few places that some men, like Mediterraneans & Hispanics, even Jewish men, black men, etc, can have slightly higher testo levels at times than , say, some of the northern Euro-descended men. But that could be totally untrue as well or it could just vary from man to man. In any event, I found the "don't masturbate, don't look at ANYthing sexual, and don't touch anyone unless she's already your 'committed' g/f " (which, as I said, I don't really want right now), to be just impossible.
So, I have decided over the years to work with it on my own, more or less, and at times I have had great success in not viewing porn for long periods (but, admittedly , NO success with completely ceasing masturbation). And other times I'll "backslide" and let myself go again, so to speak. I HAVE however, made great strides in being "clean from" (so to speak) using hired women or "escorts" --- something which had become a great personal and financial problem for me throughout my 20's.
It's a struggle, it's a process. Because we're dealing with sexuality, as I said before, it's not something that can be eradicated like the addiction to , say, an illicit drug or alcohol or even nicotine. For what it's worth, ironically, in the rest of my life I am basically completely "straightedge", so to speak. I do not sleep around (anymore), I never drink (never have), and I do not smoke, and these days I lead a quiet peaceful non-partying lifestyle enjoying the company of my immediate family and a couple choice friends.
Were it not for the excessive indulgence in the realm of sexuality I could practically join a religious order, lol... But, I suppose everyone , or almost everyone, has "something" , as they say..
Starting to get a bit off topic. No one is comparing porn to heroine, but they can both be addictive. No one is being so dramatic as to say that seeing porn will have you hooked and destroy your life. Bottom line is me wanting to give it up but finding I cannot. That means I have lost control over it. I don't think it makes any difference if you call it an addiction or a compulsion.
Hello again, D:
We're PROGRAMMED to enjoy sex. You can't have LOST control over it, because you NEVER HAD control. We're run by our genes - NOT our logic.
Besides, it's only bad if you THINK it's bad. Personally, I don't think whacking off is bad at all. I indulge quite regularly. Sure, I'd RATHER get laid, but sometimes I eat hot dogs when I'd RATHER eat steak.
I had a girlfriend once. She was a Mormon. However, she was also a regular girl, if you know what I mean. The poor girl was like a ping pong ball. She would make love to me, and then find out how bad she's been when she went to church. Actually, there was nothing wrong with her wanting to make love to me. But she had this bunch of religious zealots telling her how wrong she was.
If that's what you've got, I'd get rid of the zealots instead of the porn.
excon
Ran across this on Google news: The Associated Press: David Duchovny enters rehab for sex addiction
DMA,
Sorry for my long article posts. I thought they explained better what I was trying to point out. It's obvious from the experience of people & research that there are things that more likely to become major problems because of certain factors, including the biochemical one.
So it's smart to be more careful with those things so they don't become destructive instead of the pleasuable thing they could be.
The bottom line is that there is a lot of help for stopping any undesirable behavior that wasn't long ago. As Nero pointed out, some support groups are more strict than others what rules they prefer to follow & it is a matter of finding out what works best for you.
Being sexual isn't the problem, it's how it's being done that can be. I was not suggesting you go cold turkey on both porn & masturbation permanently. I suggested stopping the porn completely, because of the potential detrimental effects on several levels. And it may be that to restart a new pattern that is better for you, which perhaps going cold turkey on the masturbation at least for a short time (a month or so) could help you do.
I think you need to get laid and find someone with the same sexual appetite. Haha, I don't think masturbation is bad and everyone needs a little fantasy but it sounds like you take it in a little too much and you recognize that it is a problem for you, in fact it sounds like your repulsed by it. You passed the first step in addiction (any addiction drugs, alcohol etc) recognition and admittance. I think you are making progress... you don't need to cut it out of your life completely but you need to stop the rituals (kind of like smoking there is a trigger) maybe change your diet and your activities (someone mentioned running or whatever your preferred sport is) boredom is usually one of the triggers. Cut it down... DO NOT cut it out, there is a difference and don't feel bad just make small steps to work on yourself image and self esteem.
Reason to stop is that many that are addicted to porn and sex end up to the point that a 'normal' healthy sexual relationship is so boring to them that their significant other cries that their partner is so caught up in the porn they have no interest in their desires.
Just look through this board on all the posts where the girls are crying that their bf's porn is all he cares about and she is crying about being neglected.
After much consideration, I realize excon's wonderfully frank and simple logic has had some impact. I said I am sexually frustrated. If that is true, then maybe I am not addicted to the porn itself. I need to prove that to myself by giving it up. This is what I've decided:
Porn is BAD because it is has absolutely no positive influence (apart from exploring your own sexuality maybe).
It has only a negative and destructive influence on yourself, your relationships, and ultimately your emotional well being too.
It will never make you happy. It only serves to satisfy lust and is a tempory fix at best.
I am not disgusted by it, I can't get enough of it. Which is one of the reasons to give it up.
I want to give it up for selfish reasons, it has nothing to do with religion or sinful behavior.
I'm not trying to stop masturbating as that's probably impossible anyway and there is no reason to stop.
That's what I've come up with for now. Please comment on it or give me some more things I can add to the list.
Addiction makes you an undesirable person to have a relationship with, so you will only be able to relate to other addicts or needy folks who have no standards.
Also, you sacrifice your genuine sexuality as it is destroyed by porn addiction... young guys don't understand that this is a monumental loss.
So, get some therapy for your problem. I'm forever the social worker wanting the best for folks.
Best wishes going forward, :)
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