Porn Addiction

Twin Rivers approach is based on compassion and understanding. The clinical team are conscious of the fact that pornography addiction can generate a certain amount of shame and anxiety regarding how this addiction can be addressed with a group of other addicts who may not have a pornography addiction.

Primarily, It is Twin Rivers responsibility to assist the recovery community at the rehab to hear and better understand the similarities between pornography and other addictions so as the addict in feeling more supported. Many of our clients report involvement or excessive use of pornography and so important relatedness will come to the surface in group therapy sessions.

Pornography Addicts Anonymous literature is used as part of the clients recovery journey plus individualised assignments based on other behavioural issues that perhaps trigger the need to use pornography. As with all other addictions, the pornography addict will have an opportunity to recognise the destructive patterns of behaviour as well as learn strategies and techniques that can positively impact negative thinking patterns that promote addictive behaviours ( Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). Pornography addicts will have an opportunity to address past events in life that may have contributed towards this addiction and explore any unresolved traumas that may still yield power over how the client thinks and behaves.

Pornography addicts may desire the need for some form of  regular sexual satisfaction whilst avoiding closer intimacy with partners ( intimacy disorder). This behaviour may stem from childhood experiences such as neglect, abandonment or physical abuse for example. This is why pornograpphy addiction plays havoc with intimate relationships causing compounded stress for the addict who may also fear losing their partner!

What is Pornography Addiction?

Similar to someone with a substance addiction, pornography addicts tend to replace responsibility, important relationships and commitments with their “drug” of choice, pornography.

Non-Internet pornography addicts can be found in places like strip clubs and adult bookstores and sex shops, but it is unlikely that they have a strip club addiction or an adult bookstore addiction, but rather that they have incontrollable obsessive and compulsive sexual fantasy’s and desires that can manifest in various behaviours such as masturbation, voyeurism or exhibitionism for example.

Pornography addicts tend to isolate themselves, but not always when engaging in their sexual ‘acting out’. They can typically spend many hours or even days lost in two-dimensional images. Aspects of pornography addiction may include online fantasy animated sex games and certain adult chat lines.

While some sex and porn addicts use compulsive masturbation as a part of their acting out, others engage only minimally in the sex act itself but nonetheless end up losing themselves in the endless sexual images and sites found online. Some addicts may engage in looking at images and videos on the dark web which would involve zoo sex for example.

Process Addictions vs. Substance Addictions

Addiction is a chronic relapsing condition that presents itself in much the same way whether you are addicted to a substance such as alcohol or stuck in a behavioural ‘process’ addiction such as pornography. Process addictions such as gambling, sex, and internet abuse all stimulate the brain’s reward system similar to addictive substances, by releasing neurotransmitters such as dopamine.

This stimulation leads people to become preoccupied and seek out such pleasurable experiences more and more often with no concern for possible severe consequences. Many addicts will continue to engage in addictive behaviours compulsively despite decreases in pleasure outcomes which may lead to cross-addiction or a new addiction!

Pornography and Drug Abuse Combined

Some pornography addicts are primarily drug addicts who only act out with pornography only when they are high on drugs. By addressing the drug addiction then the interest in pornography will probably fall away. Others may be cross-addicted and simultaneously use drugs and read/watch pornography on a regular basis.