Is There A Difference Between Pornography, Addiction And Masturbation Addiction?

is there a difference between pornography addiction and masturbation addiction um what's up you guys Tyler wandering therapist here we actually had a question submitted from a Dian so Diane thank you for your question I was just out enjoying the beautiful fall colors before everything falls and changes right now but uh Diane submitted a question about this and she asked what addiction was and so I thought I'd just take a minute and speak to you Diane and hopefully anyone else who's listening and who be interested in the same question about addiction generally and then let's talk about porn addiction and masturbation addiction and you can kind of draw your own conclusions based off of what what my my answer is again my answer is going to to be one of many answers that you could go and find so encourage you to to also look at other people's opinions and thoughts on this so when you we get to the term of addiction there's actually a lot of even discussion about how to Define addiction in general in our world and so I'll give you a general kind of basic definition of addiction that I think most people can can agree on even though there might be nuances and people change it sometimes so an addiction is the use of a behavior or a substance to either increase pleasure or decrease pain and it gets to the point where I continue to do those things even when my life starts to become unmanageable as a result of doing those things so I either have to increase the duration or the amount or the novelty of the use over time in order to get the same kind of release or Escape or high and I start to do things in my own life or not do things in my own life in order to continue these behaviors that are causing unmanageability things like not being able to concentrate at work or getting involved with the legal system or having issues with my marriage as a result of those things or having to sacrifice my morals and my values you know being dishonest hiding lying all of those things in order to keep the behavior that I'm using now understanding I'm using that behavior to increase pleasure or decrease pain usually over time as an addiction forms in order to try to cope emotionally with life in general or with past hurts or wounds and and that's where it becomes a problem so by that definition either pornography use or masturbation could be considered an addiction if it fits that definition of I continue to do it even when I don't want to or when it becomes unmanageable in some way where it's causing problems in my life so I don't know your situation but if I continue to masturbate and yet I profess to want to keep my marriage but my wife's not going to be okay with that inside of our marriage that could border on the edge of unmanageability right if I'm looking at pornography and and it gets to the point where even at work when I'm supposed to be finishing a project I end up getting lost for an extra 30 minutes on the computer and then I have a hard time reaching my deadlines that becomes unmanageability and so I think that word unmanageability is is a good word to use when considering addiction with any kind of a behavior and that could be more than just porn or masturbation that could be obviously all the drugs alcohol television video games spending money um we all have our favorites another way that you might look at a addiction that's that's sometimes helpful for people is that when you pursue something for a big reward and the reward and the payout is really big in conjunction to the amount of work you had to get to it that puts you at a risk of having something become addictive because the brain says wow I didn't have to work very hard but I got a really big payoff and then and then we want to go back to it over and over again because that was easy and that easiness actually is where then the brain starts to rewire itself and and we can become addicted to things so anything that's easy to get a good shot of dopamine is the is risky for addiction it doesn't mean you're going to be addicted but it's risky for addiction so another another kind of spur question that comes off of this sometimes for people is this discussion between pornography and masturbation and is it bad is it wrong um I have my own opinions on those things a lot of people feel differently about them I like theide idea of asking a couple of questions around these things one does it help me to become the kind of person that I'm designed to be or that God designed me to be and if the answer is yes then it's probably not a problem in my experience I don't think I met anyone who actually emphatically says yes I'm a better person when I masturbate or use porn um at best I usually get people who say well I don't see a problem with it so why is it a problem and I'd say that that's okay too so it's neutral then so you're using something in a neutral way uh that may not be bad it may not be good but it's also not making you a better person so so that's one one response that I might give for myself um with pornography I would emphatically say that pornography is unhealthy it's unhealthy for the soul because you know with the basic kind of Buddhist principle you can't you can't consume or do harm to somebody else without doing it to yourself and the porn industry is about consumption of a human product and and so um some people would say that that it's consensual it's a job that they're doing whatever that might be true I just happen to believe also in the power of the law of Chastity which is that sexual feelings are actually so powerful that they're better used bridled within the context of of a single relationship with somebody else because they're also used for deep deep levels of connection and other really powerful things that go on inside the human body and with our emotions so masturbation I personally I don't I don't choose to masturbate I think the issue with masturbation is a lot of people have felt shamed for so long about whether or not they masturbate that it's the shame that's the issue more so than the actual masturbation although there is some re research to to recommend that it's not really effective to masturbate because most people actually will they'll feel better momentarily but then the body resets at a lower more depressed state than when it first began with masturbation and so you're actually signing yourself up for more work emotionally to manage your emotions and be healthy healthy emotionally excuse me healthy emotionally um when you choose to masturbate so you get that that payoff but then you also have more work to do in order to keep yourself at a nice highle Baseline emotionally so just thoughts think about there's a whole bunch of other discussion we could have on those topics but um hopefully that helps you Diane hopefully it answers the question you were asking thanks again for asking your question and uh you have a great day thank you so much for being here with me if you found this to be valuable for you please hit the like And subscribe button if you're facing particular struggles that you need help with or roadblocks that you're running into please submit a question I'd be happy to answer it for you