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In today’s digital age, pornography is more accessible than ever before. With just a few clicks, anyone can immerse themselves in a world of explicit content. However, excessive use can lead to addiction, impacting various aspects of one’s life.
So, understanding the porn addiction symptoms is crucial in addressing this complex and often misunderstood issue.
What Are The Porn Addiction Symptoms?
While the medical community is still debating whether porn addiction fits the traditional definition of addiction, the World Health Organization recognized compulsive sexual behavior, which includes problematic pornography use, as a mental health disorder in 2018. That’s because compulsive pornography use was linked to significant impairment in various aspects of an individual’s life.
Nonetheless, identifying porn addiction symptoms still poses a challenge compared to alcohol or drug abuse.
Top 7 Porn Addiction Symptoms
Some of the common porn addiction symptoms are:
Symptom #1: Increased Tolerance and Obsession
Do you find yourself needing more explicit material to get to the same level of pleasure you had a while ago? If you answer yes, I am sorry to say you have a problem. You see, this tolerance and obsession we have as addicts make the world around us dull and meaningless and nothing can replace those few hours we spend in front of the screen, choosing through thousands of videos to find the “right one”.
Why? Because our brain was rewired. When you keep exposing your brain to so much porn, you destroy the reward system with those spikes of dopamine releases, and the result is a pleasure threshold that is so high that it cannot enjoy anything else anymore.
Symptom #2: The State of Craving
Craving or urges as addicts call them, is something common between substance and behavioral addictions. It’s a state when you feel that you cannot live without porn. Although a lot of people confuse it with withdrawal symptoms, it’s a little bit different.
For withdrawal symptoms, urges happen in the first 15 days to one month, depending on how long you were using porn, and it’s one of the signs that your brain is starting to rewire itself and balance the dopamine levels.
However, for the craving we are mentioning here, it’s not quite the same. The state of craving you will keep experiencing even if you stop, without any real changes in your life, is linked to the way you learned to express yourself.
Because you used porn for so many years to escape reality and drug your problems, it became the only language you know to tell the world that you’re hurting.
Symptom #3: Withdrawal Symptoms
The enemy of every addict, and surprisingly enough, you have them in every type of addiction. The moment you want to reduce or stop this behavior, you will experience a variety of things like irritability, anxiety, and even physical discomfort that could make push you back to porn.
Why? Because they are hard to deal with without the proper tools.
First, you should know that these symptoms are temporary and manifest only because our brains were fried from the dopamine spikes.
Second, you can reduce the pain of these symptoms by engaging in physical activities or exploring hobbies that can help you pass the time and give your brain some dopamine.
So, when you stop watching porn, your brain is healing itself by balancing the dopamine levels again, and that’s why withdrawal symptoms are there. It’s something to be happy about: YOU ARE RECOVERING.
Symptom #4: Neglecting Responsibilities
One of the hallmark signs of any addict, including porn addiction, is neglecting responsibilities and obligations. After all, we only have 24 hours, which we spend most of watching porn and masturbating. How can we find time or focus to do something else?
Unfortunately, this affects your relationships directly, kills your performance at work or school, and even can get to a point where you cannot manage day-to-day tasks.
But, that’s not all. We neglect our responsibilities for another important reason: Destroyed self-worth. when you watch porn, or do PMO as our friends in No Fap say, you are experiencing many emotions that revolve around shame, and with time, you become certain that you are not worth being loved, seen, or even existing, which translates to more time alone, more loneliness, and pain, and eventually more PMO to drug that.
Symptom #5: Impact on Relationships
Let’s expand on this point for a bit. Porn addiction can strain relationships with partners, family members, and friends. Why? Because of the following reasons:
As someone who consumed so much porn, you start dreaming about it, seeing it, and even sexualizing every woman you see. Terrified of who you become, a lot of addicts choose to stay alone because of the shame of their ideas, dreams, and obsessions.
Another concerning reason is that consuming pornography while in a relationship leads to the mistaken belief that this content portrays women’s desires and preferences.
Unfortunately, I am here to tell you it doesn’t and what you see doesn’t reflect reality. So, your attempt to try similar behaviors with your partner can be harmful, potentially leading to engaging in actions that they find repulsive.
Symptom #6: Escalation to Risky Behavior
This leads us to the next point. As addiction progresses, you open the door for risky behaviors. Porn at home is not enough now, you visit the website in school or at work. you start getting caught more often, and you risk losing your job, but you cannot stop.
In some cases, people may resort to using proxy servers or accessing explicit content on their company devices, which could lead to severe disciplinary action or even dismissal.
Sometimes even watching altogether is not enough, so you want to try that in real life. This leads to engaging in unsafe sexual practices, which itself opens a door to all kinds of sexually transmitted diseases.
Symptom #7: Denial
Last but not least, there is denial. If you know you have a problem with porn, and while reading this article you brought up every excuse you can think of not to admit that, I am sorry to say that this is the last symptom of all addicts: Denial.
We deny we are addicts, we deny we have a problem, and some of us even deny porn is a problem. But, it is. And you don’t need me to tell you that. Just remember all the times you were found and had to lie about it, or all the appointments you had to skip because you were too busy pleasuring yourself.
Conclusion
In the end, we’re not here to judge you, in fact, we want you to know that you’re not alone. Being here is the biggest proof that you want a better life, and we will be grateful to help you achieve it. You can also find support groups through the Sexaholics Anonymous official website, and see stories of countless addicts who started a journey like you and are now living a happy life.
And always remember: “Recovery won’t open the doors of heaven to let you in, it will open the doors of hell to let you out”.
Stay safe, loving, and compassionate to yourself and others.