I’m Addicted to Watching Porn - Now What?

What Is Porn Addiction?

First, let's discuss pornography addiction at a high level. Since it isn’t recognized by the DSM-5 (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a guide for all mental health professionals), porn addiction isn’t something that you could be diagnosed with at the doctor’s office. Does this mean that it’s all in your head? Absolutely not. But does it mean you need to be mindful with the labels you apply to yourself? Yes.

Why? 

The way we see ourselves matters. The labels we apply to ourselves hold a lot more psychological power than you might immediately assume. While some people benefit from seeing their actions as the result of an addiction that’s beyond their control, others find that this mindset makes them feel powerless. Higher-anxiety individuals might benefit more from viewing pornography as a bad habit they’ve fallen into, instead of an addiction. 

But, again, this depends on your level of dependency on porn. Here at Relay, we do believe that watching porn is addictive and that porn addiction is a very real--and very negative--condition, with a host of negative side effects. Let’s take a moment to go through some of the warning signs that can indicate you might be addicted to watching porn, and then we’ll talk about what you can do about it. 

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Some Signs That Indicate You Might Be Addicted to Watching Porn

It would feel wrong to get into a discussion about how to quit an addiction to watching porn without making sure that we’re all on the same page about what being addicted to watching porn really looks like. Here’s a list that we’ve built in connection with data from the Mayo Clinic:

1. If you can’t watch porn, you find yourself becoming much more irritable, easily frustrated, and annoyed.
2. You lose a lot of time obsessing over pornography—whether this is fantasizing or planning out when you’ll get your next fix, you’re obsessed with watching porn, and think about it constantly. 
3. You may have tried to stop before, but it hasn’t worked. Your pornography habit feels out of control.
4. You spend a lot of time watching porn. You might find yourself neglecting responsibilities from school, work or family to watch more porn.
5. Risks have become less important to you than filling your need for porn. You’ve started ignoring the risks—this can mean watching porn when you shouldn’t, or in places that are really inappropriate to do so. (Think: at work, in the school bathroom, around children, etc.) 
6. What you usually watch isn’t doing it for you anymore, and you need to move onto something different, something more extreme, to find the same satisfaction. 
7. You’ve started having problems within your real-life relationships. Whether you’re suddenly experiencing erectile dysfunction, or simply are unsatisfied having real sex with your partner, this is a big sign that your porn use has gotten out of control. 

If you've seen a few of these addiction red flags in your own life, it can be a sign that your porn habits have turned towards addiction territory. While this is definitely a serious issue, it isn’t a death sentence. With the right resources, any kind of habit can be kicked—even an addiction to watching pornography. 

How Can I Overcome Porn Addiction?

Start With Honesty

The first step to beating a porn addiction is being honest with yourself, and with those who are immediately concerned, like a spouse, partner, or parent. 

Honesty With Yourself

It’s important that you’re honest with yourself. If you stay in denial, believing that watching porn is no big deal, that everyone else does it, and that you don’t have a problem, you won’t be able to change. 

However, once you can honestly admit to yourself that you may be addicted to watching porn, need to change, and need to change now, it opens a door of opportunity for you. Your recovery will be a much smoother process if you’re able to be honest with yourself and aware of your emotions and reliance on porn early on. 

Honesty With Others

Being honest with those who your pornography addiction affects, though, is a little scarier. But you can do it! Although these conversations are awkward to initiate, hard to have, and have a high risk of someone’s feelings being hurt, they are vital to your recovery. 

Don’t feel like you need to sit them down and tell them everything. Go at a pace that makes the most sense for your healing from this addiction, and for the nature of your relationship.

Here’s an example of how to initiate this kind of conversation with a partner:

“I just wanted to let you know that I’m struggling with porn. 

I think it’s become an addiction. But I’m taking measures to quit. It isn’t your fault at all, this is a ‘me problem’. I wanted you to know because I need your support, but also so that you can understand if I seem off or easily irritated, that it isn’t anything you’ve done wrong. Quitting might take a long time for me, but I appreciate that you’re willing to support me while I work on this challenge—it’s scary for me, but I want to quit watching porn for good.”

Although these conversations are tough, you’ll need to rely on the people who love you as you work to overcome pornography. Maintaining an open line of communication with them as you put in the work on your recovery will not only build trust, but also allow you to have someone to celebrate your wins and successes with. We’ll discuss helpful boundaries later, but the first task is to have an open and honest conversation with the people you care about who have been affected by your porn addiction. 

Get Help From Others

Finding the right kind of qualified help can change everything for your recovery journey. Due to the highly personal nature of a pornography addiction, finding a therapist or online support group that’s trained in porn recovery or designed to help you beat this addiction will be essential. Keep an eye out for a CAST—a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist—as they’ll have special training in porn addiction. 

Find a therapist near you at this link. 

If therapy isn’t your style or in your budget, you can try out Relay’s unique pornography addiction recovery app —something we’ve designed to be the resource we wish we would have had when working through these issues ourselves. It’s similar to an online support group, but you’re sorted into groups of people who understand exactly what you’re going through, and then you work on your recovery as a team. So far, we’ve seen great success with it. Learn more about the program here.

Another fantastic resource are 12-Step meetings. Based on the Alcoholics Anonymous framework, this style of addiction-recovery program focuses on in-person meetings and connections. A simple google search can show you 12-Step meetings near you, and they’re most often free. These meetings are a great place to find an accountability partner, someone who can be invaluable in your recovery.

Keep in mind that since the 12-Step program is designed to help those struggling with substance addiction, some people feel that they aren’t as helpful for behavioral addictions like pornography. But we’ll let you decide. 

Get Rid of Shame

This might sound counter-intuitive. You’re supposed to feel bad when you do something wrong, right? 

Yes and no. 

When we do something that we know or feel is wrong, our minds react with guilt, and, in some cases, shame. Guilt is a productive emotion, leading you to change your behavior for the better. Shame is not. Here’s an example of what we mean: 

Guilt says:‍

I’ve done something wrong, and since I’m a good person who holds myself to high standards, I feel badly about it. I know that I make mistakes, but I feel especially bad about this one, so I’ll let that be a sign to myself that this was wrong, and I should take steps so I don’t do it again. That way, I’ll feel better in the future.

Shame says:

I’ve done something wrong, and it makes me an awful person. I should hide this deep away, so that no one will ever know what I’ve done. If the people I love knew the kind of person I really am, they wouldn’t love me back. They would abandon me, which is what I deserve because of the wrong things I’ve done.

Can you see how one of these is much, much healthier than the other? Shame is detrimental to the healing process required to quit being addicted to watching porn, and detrimental to our mental health in general. Doing something frequently that causes you to feel shame can trigger a whole host of mental health complaints, including anxiety, depression, or even obsessive-compulsive disorder as the mind seeks to get rid of those intense feelings of shame. 

It will take work to un-learn patterns of shame that your mind may already have fallen into. Your therapist or your Relay group can provide tactics and strategies that have helped them in the past. Do your best to 

1. Identify feelings of shame when they arise, and
2. Allow yourself to acknowledge that you’re a decent person who is trying your best to live up to your own standards, and that you don’t deserve for your mind to tell you you’re awful because of the mistakes you make. 

Share your efforts to overcome shame with the people in your life who love and care about you, as well as your therapist or support group. This can be an easier talk than the previous one we mentioned, and it can be easier for them to help you. Share with them when you’re feeling shame, and have them help you to talk yourself through it and out of it. 

Set Healthy Boundaries

When you’re working on quitting an addiction to watching pornography, having healthy and helpful boundaries with 1) yourself, and 2) the people in your life who love and care about you will be extremely important. 

What are healthy boundaries? 

Boundaries are born out of a desire for peace and safety, never out of a desire to punish someone for their behavior. We’ll list some boundaries that could be beneficial as you start your recovery journey, and then you can work with your therapist or Relay group to set more. 

Here are some examples of healthy boundaries:

• “I love you, and I don’t want our entire relationship to become about me being addicted to watching porn. Since I’m working with my therapist on my porn problem and checking in daily with my support group, let’s set a time every other week where you and I can talk about it. Then, you can ask me any question you want, and I’ll answer truthfully. But on days other than that one, let’s just focus on our relationship, and keep things happy and positive between you and I.”
• “Since we’re married and I can tell that my porn addiction is really affecting you, let’s decide on a safe word that we can use in front of the kids. When one of us says this safe word, it means that we’re feeling worried or stressed about the porn issue, and we need to make time to sit down and have a talk without the kids present.”
• “When I’m feeling really tempted to watch porn, I’ll call my [therapist/12-Step sponsor/accountability partner from my support group] to help me manage the urge to watch porn. But afterwards, I’ll let you know how I did so that we can celebrate my victory or we can decide how to move forward if I give in.”

All of these examples are rooted in wanting to preserve the safety of the person supporting you. Here are some examples of boundaries you can set with yourself that will also help your recovery from porn addiction:

• Since I usually watch porn in my bed before I go to sleep, I’ll make sure my phone is plugged in and charging in a different room so I don’t have that option.
• When my times comes to have a check-in with my partner, spouse, or parent, I’ll be honest. Even if it’s hard.
• On days when I’m feeling apathetic towards my recovery, I’ll reach out to my therapist/be extra active in my Relay group so that I can have an additional boost of motivation.

Conclusion

As you are honest with yourself and those who support you, as you get adequate help to address the problem, rid yourself of shame and set and uphold healthy boundaries, you will be able to feel the flood of joy, peace, and positivity that follows those who start working hard to get porn out of their life and fill it with positive things instead. You don't have to spend the rest of your life being addicted to watching porn--with dedication, honesty, and a little hard work, you can move past it for good! 

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