Treatment for Pornography Addiction in Newport Beach, California.
Pornography Treatment at Morningside Recovery.
Addiction to pornography, much like addiction to alcohol or drugs, is a progressive illness that doesn’t get better without a concerted effort on the part of the addict. What starts off as a Playboy magazine hidden under the mattress, can lead to boxes crammed full of X-rated DVDs, and then secret credit cards containing hundreds of dollars in Internet porn charges.
The World Wide Web is a wonderful tool for research and information. Students can perform extensive research for term papers without even leaving the house. No more trudging down to the library, pulling down heavy encyclopedias and painstakingly taking notes for a paper on “China: Gateway to the Orient.”
You can pay bills online, make appointments online, find a good movie online, look for a reliable doctor online – and even grade your professor’s ability to teach. All of these benefits are instantly at your fingertips and affordable to most anyone.
However, as with anything else, some bad comes with the good. And one of the bad aspects of the Internet is easy access to pornography. Millions of Web sites – many of them available at no charge – create a temptation that is hard to resist. And it doesn’t matter whether you’re a teen-aged boy or girl with a healthy curiosity about sex, or a college president with a secret penchant for photographs of redheads in the buff.
With access to pornography at an all-time high, therapists and counselors are seeing increased numbers of clients addicted to sex online.
But when you think about it, does viewing pornography in the privacy of your own home really hurt anyone? Is there a victim? Even the Kinsey report, which came out more than six decades ago, claimed at that time that 92 percent of males and 62 percent of females admitted to masturbation.
The problem with pornography, despite its availability and acceptance in Western society, is that it tends to be a damaging element when introduced into committed relationships and marriages. Viewing pornography may start off as a curiosity – something to relieve stress. It’s a way to escape reality, to put more pressing problems on the back burner. It’s fleeing to a fantasyland, placing the viewer in a situation that most men and women have never experienced.
Turning to pornography can also be a payback to a partner who is perceived to be less interested in sex than the porn addict. “If I can’t get it in the bedroom, I’ll get it online,” might be the justification.
But, like any other addiction, there is no end to the hunger it creates. The hunger is never satisfied. Lust is never satisfied when it comes to pornography. What began as a 10-minute skim through a favorite Web site develops into hours-long adventure in porn surfing.
First, it’s the free online sites, then it’s signing up for the more “advanced” sites. What might have begun as viewing provocative photos of naked women escalates to photos of group sex, then movies, and then the charge card comes out.
Like other addictions, the sufferer develops a tolerance to pornography. Just like a heroin addict who requires more and more opiates to maintain a high, a porn addict also needs larger doses of his “drug of choice.” They need more vivid and graphic images in order to feel the same surge they felt as a youngster perusing a girlie magazine.
And for addicts and alcoholics, it is possible that pornography addiction could lead to a relapse if unchecked.
Still not sure if you or a loved one is addicted to pornography? Here are a few questions you might want to ask yourself, being mindful to keep your answers brutally honest:
Has an interest in pornography hurt your relationship with a loved one or spouse?
Are you spending more time visiting porn sites than in you did in the past?
Has the guilt of such activities prompted you to swear off the habit, only to find yourself back in front of the screen, despite promises to yourself?
Do you view pornography for extended periods of time, even though you know that there are more productive activities that are being neglected?
Do you look at pornography as a reward or a way to relax, much like you would think of a drink after work?
Do you find that your selection of images is progressively growing more graphic in nature, even overlapping into the bizarre or perverted?
Are there times you’d prefer sex in front of a computer than with your spouse or loved one?
Do you suffer guilt or shame because of your prolonged activities online, or the money you spend on porn?
Have your online habits caused trouble with the legal system or work?
Even if you’ve answered to the affirmative on just a few of these questions, it might be time to explore some form of counseling or treatment. A trained addiction counselor or sex therapist, possibly combined with a 12-step program, might bring about a change in this behavior.
One thing is for certain. Ignoring or denying the problem won’t help. Like any other addiction, it can only get worse.
At Morningside, Quality, Caring Pornography Addiction Treatment is Affordable.
