Watching porn every now and then isn’t necessarily a big deal for the average person. Yet sadly for some, what begins as an infrequent curiosity can lead to a downright porn addiction. What follows are several negative consequences, including the inability to stop watching porn, using porn to feel better or cope with stress, neglecting personal responsibilities, and damaging relationships.
If you are watching porn compulsively, perhaps you’ve already realized your addiction. Or you could be asking yourself, “Am I addicted to porn?” even though you probably know the answer. Maybe you even Googled “how to stop porn addiction,” which brought you here. While quitting porn can be a challenging journey for those addicted, it can be done.
How to Stop a Porn Addiction: 6 Steps You Need to Take
If you’ve become reliant on porn to function, overcoming porn addiction isn’t just a simple behavior modification practice. Learning how to stop porn addiction requires multiple steps completed over time, including:
1. Accept and Acknowledge Your Addiction
If you’re struggling with the stigmas or shame associated with porn addiction, it’s important to remember that you’re not alone. In fact, it’s estimated that 5 to 8% of the world’s adult population struggles with porn addiction, according to Earthweb.com. That’s why you shouldn’t hide from or bury your addiction. Accepting and acknowledging your porn addiction keeps it from festering in the dark and maintaining power over you. Instead, recognizing the reality of your addiction allows you to move forward and begin your healing journey.
2. Manage Your Triggers
If you’re faced with an addiction, you need to familiarize yourself with the triggers that set off your porn consumption. A trigger is typically understood as a (usually external) stimulus that causes a reaction that starts you down the path of your addictive behavior, shares Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience. Your trigger could be any person, place, object, or technology. When you’ve identified your triggers, you need to take steps to avoid them. This may mean no longer visiting certain places, ending your interactions with various friends, selling your TV, or installing accountability or blocking software on your devices, all with the goal of overcoming porn addiction.
3. Eliminate Your Pornography Sources
Porn isn’t something you can gradually lessen your consumption of over time until you no longer use it. Instead, you need to make a clean break from any physical or electronic porn sources that would only continue to tempt you. You must be vigilant about making porn access incredibly inconvenient in your life. The last thing you want is to go back to watching porn because you’re bored or stressed. Without access, it’s more difficult to fall back into your old ways. As a result, learning how to stop an addiction to porn gets easier when you can replace your addictive behaviors with healthier habits.
4. View Your Partner or Spouse as an Ally
It may be tempting to hide your addiction from your romantic partner or spouse. However, this is the last thing you want to do. Instead, you need to think of your partner or spouse as your ally. As they know you well (maybe better than anyone else), they can provide valuable encouragement, accountability, and support along the way as you learn how to quit porn addiction and achieve your goals. While your spouse can be a supportive ally, it’s important for you to have compassion on them as they navigate their own pains associated with your porn addiction.
5. Get Support from Specialized Communities
If you’re going to figure out how to stop a porn addiction, you need to do so in community with others. There are many specialized online communities and support groups that allow you to connect with others who are in porn addiction recovery. By doing so, you can receive different kinds of helpful support in the quitting porn process, including:
- Hearing the stories of others who’ve experienced porn addiction
- Finding solidarity to reduce any loneliness along the recovery process
- Getting tips for overcoming porn addiction
- Receiving additional accountability
6. Partner With a Porn Addiction Treatment Program
Learning how to stop watching porn and eliminating your addiction for good often means getting professional help along the way. In fact, this should be a major priority from the start. By partnering with addiction and mental health therapists at a treatment center, you can address the root causes of your porn addiction. This puts you in the best position for long-term recovery.
Why Professional Treatment Matters When Quitting Porn
We’ve already established that quitting porn isn’t something you can do on your own by changing your ways. Maybe you’ve already tried doing this a few times and have been left with further frustration (and further porn usage to soothe said frustration). It can be difficult to address your porn addiction by yourself because, at the crux of the matter, porn addiction has impacted your brain.
So how does porn effect the brain? Over time, regular porn consumption can take over your brain’s reward system. This reward system releases the pleasure chemical dopamine. Normally, when you participate in activities like eating a tasty meal or enjoying your favorite hobby, your brain remembers the pleasurable experience and expects it again. When porn addiction enters the picture, your brain becomes hardwired to reinforce this behavior and begins to expect porn over and over again (and the ensuing dopamine fix). When this happens, you’ve developed a chemical dependence on porn in your brain that can feel insurmountable to break on your own.
That’s why professional treatment can be vital to overcoming porn addiction and the entrenched dopamine patterns in your brain. In addiction, a mental health professional or CSAT therapist can help you uncover the past trauma that’s so often associated with porn addiction and address it head on. By healing the underlying trauma and learning healthy coping mechanisms moving forward, quitting porn for good becomes more possible than ever,
As you begin exploring treatment center options, ask support groups or people you trust for recommendations and references. Choosing a porn addiction treatment program that’s personalized to your unique needs should always be your priority. For this reason, you may have to travel to access the recovery program you want.
Discover How to Stop a Porn Addiction at Integrative Life Center
Quitting porn after you’ve been addicted isn’t an overnight process. But by taking the steps above, you can move past it for the long haul. If professional treatment is your next step in the recovery journey, we can help at Integrative Life Center in Nashville, TN. Heart-centered and comprehensive, our porn addiction treatment program is personalized to heal your core struggles, including any dual diagnosis treatment needs. By partnering with us, you can be empowered to reclaim your life, addiction-free. To get started, contact us today.
