Pornography addiction and recovery
Pornography addiction is a behavioral addiction that affects a significant amount of people. Porn addiction is a non-substance-related, addictive disorder. This addictive behavior takes precedence over key responsibilities and functions in one’s life and persistent behavior ends up harming relationships as well as careers. As such, pornography addiction greatly affects mental health and the general well-being of the victim and their partners in relationships.
Warning signs of pornography addiction
Some mental health experts treat pornography addiction as a sexual dysfunction that comes with its list of warning signs. You know you are addicted to pornography when you can’t resist an urge to watch it. Porn addiction leads to emotional numbness and social anxiety. Most pornography addicts are very secretive about it, and they hardly acknowledge their behavior as addictive. If you develop tolerance to pornography, you watch it more for the same satisfaction or thrill.
Recovering from pornography addiction
Most addictions cause you to alienate yourself from other people. When it is pornography-related, the need to isolate out of embarrassment or depression is even more. Porn addiction can wreck a lot of havoc in your life if ignored for a long time, causing both emotional and psychological consequences. This, however isn’t a lost course. As long as you have the right support, you can recover easily and get your life back together.
There are ways to help deal with the root cause of the addiction, as well as the effects it has on relationships. Therapy helps in treatment and recovery through rehabilitation of addicts, psychotherapy, and counseling. There are support groups to help you talk about even the most embarrassing addictions, and the 12 Steps programs help in the long-term recovery.
Impact of pornography addiction in relationship
Most porn addicts end up having very unsatisfactory sex lives, which ultimately destroys their relationships. When you’re used to watching porn, you don’t easily get satisfied with your ordinary sex life, and the frustration ends up eating into your relationship. There are many genres in porn, which can impact the normality of your relationship to the point where you expect the fantasies in movies and magazines to translate to your regular life.
Porn addicts have a hard time getting sexually excited without watching it, and when they get aroused, the sexual experience isn’t as satisfying for either party. In some relationships, the partners feel threatened and neglected, and they may even view the behavior as an act of betrayal or infidelity.
Porn addicts have imaginative and unrealistic standards sometimes. Failure of their partners to meet their desires, leads to ill feelings and dissatisfaction. This leads to a decline in emotional closeness and sexual satisfaction between the partners with continued pornography addiction. The partner feels sexually inadequate, and consequently, the relationship is affected.
As most addicts aren’t honest about it, it could lead to deception and dishonesty from the user. Pornography addiction also causes neglect of some responsibilities in the relationship. This affects the level of trust between the partners and ultimately bruises the relationship.
# Photo by Sora Shimazaki from Pexels
