Stop Using Pornography
Many people who live with porn addiction feel as though they are completely powerless. It’s understandable. The compulsive nature of porn addiction and sex addiction can feel like life is completely out of control. But is that true? Are we ever totally incapable of choosing a different path no matter how strong a temptation we face?
The answer is complex. I don’t want to minimize the incredibly strong drives that you may feel if you live with addiction but I am increasingly convinced that there are things you can do….
For the porn addict who needs help, life is a never-ending HD screen of hyper-sexualized meaning. One of the strange paradoxes of porn addiction is that it creates both desensitisation and sensitization. In essence, the porn addict becomes desensitized to extreme content but simultaneously virtually everything they encounter develops a sexualised meaning. Normal conversations on mundane matters echo with sexual innuendo and basic images raise sexual curiosity where once they would have been ignored.
So how, in the midst of all this, how do you control thoughts?
I guess the answer is a little like the experience of soldiers on the front lines of a battle. One inch at a time. I want to suggest that you can actually begin a very slow process of neural retraining one thought at a time. It’s the basis of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy which has come to be seen as one of the most powerful tools for real change in problems like depression and anxiety which, as you know, are the constant companions of the porn addict.
The task is to challenge each hyper-sexualised thought as it emerges. To instantly critique it, talk back to it, refute it and replace it with something better.
Jonathan Doyle
