Porn addiction is a serious problem for thousands of men around the world. I know this is true because I’ve worked with many of them in my almost 15 years of building the Porn Reboot program. It’s something that can destroy a man’s life and strip him of everything worth living for when it gets bad enough.
Pornography is a growing issue, especially for men who are exposed to it during their younger years. Excessive porn use alters natural brain chemistry and causes a wide range of negative effects. Are you wondering whether your pornography use might be a problem? Over the next few weeks, I want to cover 10 of the most common porn addiction problems I see among men seeking help in the Porn Reboot program. These include:
If you’re like the rest of us in the Porn Reboot program, I know you’ve asked yourself at least a few times why you’re watching certain types of porn. Over time you’ve likely stumbled into some odd genres that you never imagined finding arousing. You might feel ashamed or embarrassed about the things you watch, yet you come back to them night after night.
Unusual porn fetishes are a huge part of porn addiction symptoms. Any guy who watches porn for a long time knows it’s fairly normal to progress from one genre to another. Similar to drugs or alcohol, your brain develops a “tolerance” for your usual porn genre. Once your go-to videos don’t do it for you anymore, you have to move on to another type of scene.
Most of the time we start with straight porn but that becomes boring after a while. Then we move into varying genres, from lesbians to interracial to gay men to transgender people and so on. Eventually, you may progress into watching more intense, aggressive, and hardcore scenes. Some men reach the point of watching illegal material, too.
The shock and excitement of taboo sex tend to be the thing that causes you to orgasm. Unfortunately, you send a signal to your brain that says, “Hey, this feels good and I’m totally cool with getting off on this,” each time you orgasm to one of these fetishes. Oftentimes they aren’t things you would ever participate in in real life, but you continue watching them play out on the screen day after day.
The most important thing I want to stress is that the kind of porn you masturbate to isn’t an indicator of your sexual orientation. I know it’s something that lots of men worry about when they find themselves watching gay porn. Watching these genres of porn doesn’t necessarily mean you’re gay or even bisexual.
I’ve talked with many gay men who, through repeated exposure to porn, developed a sexual attraction to females. They were never interested in women before in their lives yet the porn they watched altered their arousal template. The same applies to straight men who watch gay porn.
Still, this doesn’t keep men from fearing that porn changed their sexual orientation. Again, this isn’t true. If you’re concerned about this, you may be dealing with something called a homosexual obsessive compulsive disorder, or HOCD. It’s the persistent fear that you may have a different sexual orientation than you imagined. Men who watch porn genres opposite to their sexuality often struggle with it but they do so in silence.
Ultimately, any unusual porn fetishes you consume may alter your arousal template for the time you’re watching porn. However, once you eliminate porn, sex, and masturbation from your life, those compulsive fetishes dissipate. You’ll learn what really arouses you and what was porn-induced. And it’s not something you have to handle alone because nearly every man in the Porn Reboot program understands this symptom from personal experience.
Is that hard for you to believe? If so, you aren’t alone. A brother in the free Porn Reboot Facebook group heard it on another YouTube channel and brought it to our group. He was having trouble wrapping his head around the idea that sex isn’t necessarily the thing to strive for. The way he sees it, men strive to work and generate wealth so they can attract women into their lives.
I notice this a lot with men who are still early on in their reboot. If you’re thinking this way you’re not the only one, but it also indicates where you’re at in your reboot. When men first start their reboot, they believe they need to experience a lot of novelty relationships with different women in order to feel satisfied.
Now don’t get me wrong – you’re biologically wired to think this way. At the same time, your pornography addiction destroyed your natural biological functioning over the years and left you thinking that sex is the end goal. It creates the false idea that your whole purpose as a man is to have sex with women. This seems to be especially true if you are a man who isn’t particularly successful with women to begin with.
I want to make it clear that I don’t believe having sex with a variety of beautiful women is a bad thing. In fact, I think it’s a wonderful thing and it’s something that I experienced and enjoyed before my committed relationship. If you don’t have any cultural or religious beliefs holding you back from that, go ahead and explore that aspect of life as a man if you would like to.
At the same time, don’t think that simply generating wealth and becoming a high-value man will automatically give you opportunities to have sex. There are plenty of men with little to no capital who can still pull women because they’re high-value in their own way. You don’t have to be a wealthy man to sleep with women.
As you progress in your reboot, you’ll start realizing that sex for the sake of sex isn’t necessarily success. Porn wants you to think that sex is the greatest thing you can get but there are far more important things to work for. But once you’re free from your porn addiction symptoms you can create your own definition of what success is.
Instead of building wealth to pull women, why don’t you build wealth to pursue freedom? Wealth provides you with freedom to live where you want, freedom of time, freedom from depending on others, freedom to pursue things you’re truly interested in, and more.
Success doesn’t necessarily mean wealth, either. Plenty of men define success by the quality of the family they have, by keeping their relationship strong, and by raising confident, independent children. Others view success through the lens of their spiritual or religious pursuits and draw a great sense of joy and purpose from them.
Another great definition of success is giving back and being of service. I’m one of those people who finds deep fulfillment in helping others. Now that I’ve overcome my compulsive sexual behavior, there are plenty of times I’m interested in being of service than I am in having sex.
Sure, sex will come as a byproduct of your success and there’s nothing wrong with that. But pursuing sex as the end goal or the definition of success will leave you feeling empty and hollow. Sex for the sake of sex is a biological need but it’s far from fulfilling when it’s the only pursuit in your life. Pursue things that interest you instead and you’ll find much more contentment in life. After that, sex will simply be an added bonus.
The majority of my writing deals with men who are addicted to pornography or have out-of-control sexual behavior. At the same time, I know some women read these posts because they’re concerned about their husbands or long-term partners.
If you’re a woman in this situation, today I want to write to you. If you’re one of the brothers in the Porn Reboot system, though, this post will be helpful for you, too. You may learn a thing or two you never considered before.
I know women read this blog, watch our YouTube channel, and listen to our podcasts because these women reach out to me. They feel devastated, defeated, and betrayed when they discover their boyfriend or husband is addicted to porn. Their sense of certainty in the relationship feels shaken and shattered.
At the same time, these women also insist their partner is a good man and most other things about the relationship are fantastic.
Does this sound like you?
Signs of a Porn Problem
When you care for someone it’s natural to justify their behavior, even if you don’t necessarily agree with it. But it’s that justification that keeps you in a dysfunctional cycle and gets you hurt over and over again. Porn addiction symptoms, just like any other addiction, affects not only the porn addict but everyone else in his life.
Here’s the thing – no matter how great of a man your partner is, he’s still struggling with an addiction. And that addiction is destroying you, it’s destroying him, and it’s destroying your relationship together.
How can you determine whether pornography has become a problem for your husband?
Lack of Sex
How often do you and your partner have sex? If sex in your relationship has lost its quality or disappeared completely, there’s a problem. You may feel a lack of connection with him during sex or maybe he doesn’t feel present at all.
Your first instinct might be to look at yourself. Women often blame themselves for their partner’s lack of attention. They think they’re not attractive enough, they’re not adventurous enough, or they’re enthusiastic enough. The list goes on and on. In reality, he may have a problem with porn which has nothing to do with you at all.
Spends a Lot of Time Online
Do you notice that your partner spends a lot of time online? Men who struggle with pornography addiction often isolate themselves and spend a lot of time at the computer. When you go to bed he stays in his office or another room of the house browsing online.
Again, you might think it’s something you’ve done. You worry he’s upset or mad at you. He won’t come to bed when you do and it even becomes habitual over time. Eventually, it probably feels like he’s choosing the internet over you. But it’s difficult to pull away from the computer when you’ve got a problem with pornography.
Increasingly Judgmental
Watching a lot of pornography skews a man’s view of women. It portrays women in negative circumstances and removes all empathy from the sexual experience. Guys who are addicted to pornography tend to objectify their partners and become very critical about various aspects of their partner’s life.
For example, he might say negative things about your physique, your lifestyle, or other things he never gave any attention to before. His criticism leaves you feeling hurt, overlooked, and uncared for. No matter what you do, though, you’ll never be able to overcome these criticisms; they’re the result of a much bigger problem that has nothing to do with you.
Develops New Sexual Interests
As a man’s pornography addiction progresses, he starts watching different types of pornography. This tends to translate into the way he wants to have intercourse with you. Maybe he’s suddenly become rougher in bed or introduced the idea of new sexual acts he’s never seemed interested in before.
These interests could be things you aren’t comfortable with or even have no interest in participating in. Some men pressure their partners to participate while others withdraw to their online world where they can fulfill their newfound fantasies.
Becomes More Private or Secretive
Once men realize their problem has progressed they start making attempts to cover their tracks. He doesn’t want you to see his browser history, his text messages, or other things on his phone. Your partner puts a password on his device or refuses to leave it around you. You notice inconsistencies in the stories he tells you.
If you point out these shifts in his behavior, though, he becomes irritated and refuses to talk. He’s overly defensive when you express your concerns and might insist that you’re overreacting or making a big deal out of nothing.
Increasingly Detached and Cold
Over time you probably noticed that your partner is a lot more distant than he used to be. The connection feels like it isn’t there anymore. It’s difficult to recognize, though, because he won’t acknowledge it or he’ll blame something else for his being emotionally unavailable.
When you reach out to him and ask what’s going on, he’ll flip it on you and accuse you of being needy, overly emotional, or something along these lines. Don’t allow him to make you question yourself, though; you know who your partner is and you know when something’s wrong.
The Endless Cycle
Porn addiction tends to follow a familiar cycle for most men and their partners. First, you find out that he’s keeping secrets from you about his porn use. When you confront him, though, he reacts by blaming either you or something else. He’s defensive, angry, and sees something else as the cause of the problem rather than taking responsibility.
What happens next is usually one of two things. He’ll either apologize for his behavior and tell you he wants to quit, or he shuts down and refuses to communicate. You can work with the first reaction but there’s nothing you can do about the second. Men who shut down typically try to manipulate you afterward, too, either by keeping you around or pushing you away.
After the confrontation, he may try to reel it back in for some time. Your relationship seems to return to normal again. He’s in what we refer to as the “dormant stage” of his addiction style. He might even quit for some time which gets him reengaged with you and the relationship. It feels like things are turning around and you’re on the way back to a good place.
But then he relapses. He watches porn or acts out on his behavior again. Then everything goes back to square one and the cycle starts over.
Does This Sound Like Your Partner?
I’m going to assume that women still reading right now answered yes to at least a few of the behaviors above. If you notice these behaviors in your partner, he likely has a problem with pornography or another compulsive sexual behavior. So what do you do next?
There’s good news and bad news.
The bad news is you cannot make anyone “just stop” or “overcome” their addiction. You also run the risk of trying to help him and failing over and over again. I see women doing this regularly and all that happens is your relationship becomes an unhealthy, codependent mess. You are not your man’s mother. Controlling his behavior is not your responsibility.
The good news is that nothing is wrong with you. The problem lies with your partner, not you. His pornography addiction is not a result of the way you look, of something you did, or of any other excuse your mind comes up with. It is his problem that he needs to work out for himself.
What Can You Do?
I’ve watched couples go through this cycle dozens of times. It leaves women like you feeling emotionally exhausted, traumatized, and devastated by the repeated betrayals. If this sounds familiar to you, there may still be hope for your partner. Sit down with your partner and try to identify the cycle with him. Bring his behaviors to light and discuss how this cycle is destroying your relationship.
More importantly, though, it’s time to focus on yourself. You might have spent the last few months or even years invested in his porn addiction cycle. It’s worn you down over time and you’re still left with nothing to show. So you need to shift your focus to yourself and begin building your self-esteem and confidence back up.
Again, it’s ultimately up to your partner to change his behavior. No amount of pressure from you will force him to change. You don’t need to be his accountability partner, you don’t need to treat him like a child, and you don’t need to police him.
Instead, spend more time with your friends, join some classes, and read uplifting material that you enjoy. Try to remove stress from your life and strengthen yourself along the way. If you reach a point where the pain is too much, reach out to a professional. You can even reach out to us. While we don’t work with partners yet, we can connect you with a great therapist or group.
Once you shift your focus to yourself, your partner’s behavior becomes secondary. As you strengthen your mind, you put yourself in a position to better determine how to move forward. It’s not your responsibility to save your partner and if he refuses to make a change, it might be time for you to move forward without him.
You need to experience a significant neurochemical change in your brain and body to end your out-of-control behavior with pornography and masturbation.
There needs to be a paradigm shift that affects your entire lifestyle.
Porn addiction changes your brain. There’s no denying the severe effects that consuming hundreds of hours of pornography has on your mind. It alters your neurochemical makeup which affects your emotional processing and becomes a hindrance to your growth as a man.
I want to cover a few self-destructive behaviors that I’ve noticed in men over the years. These are things that lead to consistent relapses and loss of self-esteem. Men who don’t address these behaviors eventually end up in a place where they feel stuck with no motivation to keep going. I want to keep you from ending up here.
These are some of the self-destructive behaviors that you need to avoid if you want to be successful in your reboot.
Porn Addiction
It may seem silly or self-explanatory to include porn addiction but it’s the most important behavior to avoid. Again, pornography addiction alters your brain. Quitting isn’t as simple as making a few changes, setting some boundaries, and checking in with an accountability partner. If you’re here, you most likely have a full-blown addiction to pornography.
You might think you’re immune to developing an addiction problem. Maybe you come from a good family or you live in a nice area. You might have a great career and plenty of money in the bank. But if you can’t not only stop watching porn but stay stopped, then you have a serious problem on your hands.
Ignorance is the next self-destructive behavior that’s holding you back in your reboot. Most men who try to end their behavior with pornography relapse within the first year. Okay, I’ll admit that’s not an official statistic. But I will say it seems pretty accurate according to the hundreds of emails I receive every week.
There’s a great quote that I appreciate: “In the age of information, ignorance is a choice.” Men who refuse to recognize porn addiction symptoms is a serious problem, who remain willingly ignorant to the reality of their situation, will never overcome their addiction.
I have plenty of information available on my channels alone. Between this blog, my YouTube channel, my podcast, and my free Facebook group, there is so much you can learn. But if you choose to ignore the information available to you and remain ignorant about the truth of pornography addiction, you’ll continue to relapse.
Emotional Dependence
Emotional dependence is another severe self-destructive behavior that affects your reboot. Another word for this is emotional neediness. Needy men never take responsibility for their place in life and are unable to stand on their own two feet. You should never depend on other people to provide you with respect, security, or prestige.
I’ll give you a quick, simple test to determine whether you’re emotionally dependent. Ask yourself these two questions:
Are your feelings hurt easily in relationships?
Do you consider yourself to be a highly sensitive person?
If you answer yes to either of these, you have some work to do in the emotional dependence department. You allow others to define your reality and your worth when you’re emotionally dependent. You become highly reactive in relationships because you’ve placed the other person on a pedestal and given them power over you. Overcoming your emotional dependence is crucial before you can be successful in your reboot.
Self-Loathing
Self-loathing is one of the most insidious of these self-destructive behaviors. It holds you back not only in your reboot but in every area of your life. Self-loathing keeps you from accomplishing everything that you’re capable of. And whether you realize it or not, you’re capable of a lot.
Most of us have an idealized image of ourselves that we built up over the years. We believe we should have certain levels of achievement in life by now. There are things we should accomplish by a particular period. And we double down on these expectations as we scroll through social media and see others meeting these milestones.
When you struggle with porn addiction and compulsive sexual behavior, though, you usually fall short of these ideals. Your expectations and your reality are two different things. As the divide between these grows wider, you begin to question your self-worth. You do not like who you’ve become and the sense of self-loathing sets in.
These assumptions of who you “should” be are false, though. You don’t have to hold yourself to any particular standard. Even if you’re overcoming pornography addiction, it’s not a moral failure on your part. It’s simply the situation that’s developed over time that you now have to work through and overcome.
Seeking Support Along the Way
It’s difficult to overcome these self-destructive behaviors. Looking at these less-than-helpful parts of ourselves is a painful reality check. Other times it’s difficult to even recognize your self-destructive behaviors in the first place. That’s why it’s important that you don’t try to approach your reboot on your own.
This is the exact reason I created the free Porn Reboot Facebook group. I want every man trying to overcome his porn addiction and compulsive sexual behaviors to have a place where he can find support. If you haven’t joined us already, come check it out. There are no requirements to join other than a drive to leave your behaviors behind.
If you’re looking for some help, come join us today!
Multiple relapses over the years, the guilt, betrayal of loved ones, the erectile dysfunction the jump into acting out in real life
It’s a rough journey, alright!
Sometimes, its easier to deal with everything by unconsciously telling ourselves lies. These lies grow and overtime turn out to be the greatest hindrance to our progress.
This post will help you identify the most common lies we tell ourselves about our porn use.
1) Powerless Lie: I can’t stop watching porn. I can’t quit.
This another lie and a red flag for low self-esteem. Most frequently told when you feel that you are completely powerless to control your addiction.
You CAN quit. You are more powerful than you imagine. Perhaps you grew with some rough experiences that knocked you down a few notches. You can still rise.
Willpower is a muscle- it gets tired, but it will get you far enough to see the mountaintop in this tough climb. Once you have a glimpse at freedom, you will do whatever it takes to get there!
A belief is not an idea held by the mind, it is an idea that holds the mind. – Elly Roselle.
2) Downplay Lie:I must have recovered.
This!
This was one of the biggest obstacles in my porn addiction journey.
I would quit porn and masturbation for a few weeks and feel amazing then the thoughts would begin to slowly creep in well, I haven’t felt the urge in so long- I must be fine! Phew- thank God it’s not an addiction!
Well, guess what downplaying led to?
I fell right back into the porn and masturbation cycle.
Another variation of this lie occurs when you quit watching porn, but then try to masturbate. To your surprise, you find that it’s almost impossible to do so without watching porn. Back to porn again. Both are lies we tell ourselves to rationalize the addiction.
3) Whitewash Lie:I was drunk., I was high, It was right there.
In my college days, excessive drinking and smoking was a one-way ticket to the masturbation station.
No matter how much I wanted to quit, putting myself under the influence invariably led to a relapse. For those trying to give up porn, the effects of alcohol and drugs on the process of quitting cannot be emphasized enough.
Once your inhibitions are lowered, or certain senses chemically heightened, the last vestiges of restraint fly out the window.
4) Minimize Lie: Just 5 minutes.
I’ll only look at this anime porn on Tumblr for 5 minutes.
Two hours later and 30 Firefox tabs later, you’re exhausted and disgusted from your porn binge.
The time trap always escalates. You play down and attempt to minimize the actual amount of time you know you will spend on porn.
5) Inflation Lie:I’m stressed
I feel like crap, so I deserve to watch porn. It’s been a crazy stressful day, screw it, I need this.
Another common lie where you inflate a rough situation into an excuse to binge on porn.
You haven’t developed alternate means of coping with stress, so when you experience above-average stress, you automatically return to the thing that soothes you.
Solution: Work on developing positive habits that you can turn to the moment your triggers kick in. Meditation has worked very well for me.
6) Implication Lie:My significant other isn’t into what I want.
My girlfriend doesn’t give blowjobs and she doesn’t like anal.
Yeap- I used that one too, and it nearly cost me my relationship.
It’s easy to blame or implicate someone for your porn habits. An easy, but a weak lie.Its also one of the top lies we tell ourselves before, during and after we act out porn fantasies in real life.
In our program Porn Reboot Intensive, I emphasize that taking responsibility is among the first steps to giving up pornography.
7) Privilege Lie:I’m a late bloomer.
I’m a late bloomer, and I missed out. I married early, that’s why I’m acting out. Wow. I feel like I’ve used every lie so far!
As a guy who teaches men how to meet and attract women, I’ve noticed that this lie is most common among the “Get Girls” crowd in the community.
Men who gain success later on in life develop confidence and improve self-esteem through self-improvement or career success tend to develop a sense of entitlement when justifying their porn or sex addiction. If your habit of having with women outside of your relationship is fueled by porn, it’s time to start cutting back.
8) Standard Lie: A man’s biology dictates that he should sleep with many attractive women as possible, or every guy does it.
I am guilty of this lie as well. While the statement is true, painting the picture of porn as a normal, standard part of a man’s lifestyle as an excuse for porn addiction constitutes lying to yourself.
Not every man watches porn and masturbates on a daily basis. In fact, some of the most accomplished men in history stayed far away from pornography.
9) Non-acceptance Lie: I don’t watch porn anymore.
I used this lie for too long. My rationalization was that spending the same amount of time that I used to spend on porn browsing Instagram for chicks in bikinis was obviously not watching porn.
The reboot process is sabotaged the moment you replace your addiction to porn with something else. Its the equivalent of someone addicted to cigarettes trying to quit by switching to e-cigarettes. It doesn’t work.
Quitting porn by rebooting involves completely avoiding and isolating yourself from any habits that that may potentially lead to a trigger.
10) Negating Lie:There is nothing wrong with porn, or playing out my addiction in real life.
If you say this, but one day you are attracted to women, and the next you’ve had sex with more sex workers or prostitutes from Craigslist than actual women, you’re lying to yourself.
Porn use escalates as our brain craves more stimulation. Negating the effects of pornography is the singularly most devastating lie you can tell yourself.
What are some of the lies not included here that YOU frequently tell yourself?
