How Do I Tell If I Have A Pornography Addiction?

How do you know if you're addicted to porn?

What's up you guys? Today we're going to be talking about some ways to identify whether or not you have a problem with pornography that would fall under the category of an addiction. We're going to talk a little bit about what an addiction is first and then we'll outline some of the factors that will help you identify whether or not you have that problem.

All right you guys, today we're talking about porn addiction. This is an interesting topic. This is something that people love to debate about, whether or not it's even something that is an actual real thing to be addicted to porn. People who don't believe that there's even an addiction to porn will cite that the DSM-5 which is a diagnostic manual that tells whether or not it's a psychological problem doesn't even include porn addiction in the manual.

There’s reasons for that. One of the reasons for that is that the pornography industry and their lobbying power helped to keep it out of the DSM-5 when they wrote the most recent diagnostic manual. So that should give you an insight as to whether or not is it is actually an addictive thing when the pornography industry is lobbing to keep it out of a book that would cause it to be something that could lead to lawsuits and everything else.

So, how to identify whether or not I have an addiction. Let's talk about that.

What is the definition of an addiction? There's many different definitions out there. They all kind of include similar things. So, for our definition today, an addiction is any substance or behavior that I consume or I participate in that I continue to go to to increase pleasure or decrease pain and I do it to the point that it causes some part of my life to become unmanageable.

So, what does that mean? What is unmanageability? People often don't understand what that word “unmanageability” means. If I'm doing something anything that leads to me having other problems in my life and I'm unwilling to stop doing the thing that's leading to the problems, that can be classified as an addiction. And that's what addiction is. It's the constant pursuit of trying to numb something out or avoid something that is too painful for me to deal with in my life.

And it can be simple things—bored, angry, lonely, tired, stressed, hungry, other types of emotion. Rejected is maybe one of the biggest ones. I don't know how to handle my emotions and so I continually go back to this place where I can cope and it provides me with instant relief and it helps me to avoid those being feelings that I was trying to avoid. The challenges is that over time, even when it was maybe innocent to begin with, it leads to me having other problems where my life becomes unmanageable.

So, what does it mean to have life be unmanageable? Ask yourself a few questions:

• Does my use of pornography cause me to have relationship problems?
• Does my use of pornography cause me to have concentration or productivity problems at work?
• Does my use of pornography cause me to have connection problems with my friends and my family and those that I love?
• Does my use of pornography go against my value system and lead me to feel guilty or shameful?
• Does my pornography use lead to me feeling eventually numb emotionally,. or maybe disconnected.
• Generally speaking, have I had legal problems with my pornography use?
• Is it causing me problems with not following through on my commitments?
• Do I find myself using pornography when I use it and losing track of time, where I think I'm going to use it for just a few minutes and all of a sudden, it's been two hours?
• Is it cutting into my sleep because I'm staying up late using it and now, I'm tired and now I can't function as well in my day-to-day life?

These are the kinds of questions you ask yourself. And if you start to answer certain ways, certain yeses to those kinds of questions, it might be a sign that it's more of a problem than you'd like it to be. You can call it an addiction if you want. Call it a compulsive behavior. The truth is, that it doesn't matter what you call it. If those things are true, it's a problem in your life. And if it's a problem in your life, you can get over it but it's going to take a couple of key elements.

The first thing is that you're going to have to admit that it is a problem. The second thing is, you're gonna have to acknowledge how it's a problem and that it's a big problem, because it's causing life to be unmanageable in some way. Then the third thing is, you're gonna have to admit is that you get to be responsible for dealing with it and addressing it so that it's no longer a problem in your life. And if you're willing to do those three things, you can get a really good start. You can also take a look at our Kickstart for Recovery course that will give you some core foundational principles for being able to begin the process of healing your journey.

A lot of people have a problem with the term addiction because it's like got like this negative connotation. I would challenge you to think of addiction in the terms of how we described it—that I'm going to a place, a behavior, or a substance to increase pleasure, decrease pain. And I continue to go there to the point that eventually I have problems in my life as a result of doing those things. It doesn't make you bad person. It doesn't mean it's a terrible word. It's just a way of defining whether or not I've got a problem. And when we can own that we've got a problem, we can change those things. You have the power within you to do that. So, hopefully this is helpful. You guys 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.