10 Signs of Porn Addiction

The Problem of Porn Addiction

To start, watching pornography in itself is not necessarily a mental health problem, though some would argue it may be an ethical issue, and systemically may have indirect mental health impacts on women and men. That, however, is beyond the scope of this article.

What we are talking about here is, specifically, when pornography becomes addictive.

In terms of what an addiction is, in general, you may want to read this article I wrote on The 9 Signs of Addiction and How to Start Recovery.

For now, let’s simply say that pornography becomes an addiction when it begins to negatively impact your life, including your relationship with others, and yourself.

So, let’s look at that in more detail:

10 Signs of Porn Addiction

So, porn addiction can be defined as when porn begins to negatively impact other areas of your life.

Here are the warning signs of porn addiction:

1. Withdrawing Socially: : Perhaps because of the sheer number of hours spent viewing porn, or perhaps because of shame, or the mind/body fog that can be produced from over-use of porn, one sign of porn addiction can be avoidance of social situations, and staying home more.

2. Heavy Viewing: Spending large numbers of hours per day or week watching pornography can be another sign. The amount of time spent watching porn may begin to interrupt other activities, hobbies, and interests.

3. Deceit: Another sign that you may have an addiction is noticing that you are lying to those close to you in order to hide the extent of porn viewing.

4. Reduced Real World Sexual Energy: Lack of sexual arousal, erectile dysfunction, or loss of libido with sexual partners, while also spending lots of sexual energy on porn can be a big sign that it has become an addiction.

5. “Pornifying” Sexual Relationships: Another sign that addiction might be impacting your relationships is when you find yourself requiring increasingly extreme sex acts from partners in order to get aroused. This can result in a loss of intimacy in such relationships, and maybe the loss of the relationship itself. In more extreme situations, the behaviours may even be considered abusive.

6. Mental Health Deterioration: Another sign that porn may be an addiction for you is when you notice your mental health has deteriorated during heavy porn-viewing periods. This can be the result of “dopamine burnout” or the result of sleep disruption due to watching porn late into the night.

7. Risk-Taking: This involves looking at porn in inappropriate contexts, and can be a key sign that porn viewing has become addictive. Risking employment by viewing porn at work, for example.

8. Low Motivation: Heavy porn use can result in “mind/body fog”, leaving you with depleted motivation to do other things. This can feel similar to low mood or depression, and may be linked to “dopamine burnout/crashing”.

9. Low Self-Esteem: Finding ourselves at the whim of compulsions we don’t value can undermine our self-esteem. Feeling out of control of our own actions, we lose faith in ourselves. This can be a sign the porn viewing has become addictive. Have you tried to stop and failed? That can be devastating, and indicate addiction might be involved.

10. Numbness: Increased physical, or emotional, numbness - also known as desensitisation - can result in a loss of intimacy with partners, or no longer being aroused by physical stimulation alone. This can result in requiring “porn to perform”, and may be a sign that addiction is part of the equation.

If you are struggling with one, or certainly if you are struggling with lots of the above, it may be that porn has become an addiction for you. If that is the case, do not despair.

Recovery is possible!

It can, however, be difficult. So, first, let’s understand why porn can be so addictive…

Why Is It So Hard to Control Porn Addiction?

Something rarely mentioned is that one reason it’s so hard to tackle porn is because it’s not taken seriously by society in general. However, some folks are taking it seriously!

The video below is a brief explanation about how serious porn addiction can be, and why it’s so hard to break!

This next video gives a longer, scientific angle on why porn is addictive, and why it can seriously damage our real world sexual relationships:

Summary of above videos on why porn can be so addictive, and destructive:

• Watching porn releases dopamine

• Dopamine acts as a chemical reward, filling us with pleasure, which hard-wires us to watch porn again

• We can then watch more and more porn, because, like with sugar, we’re designed to try to get as much novelty and dopamine as possible, and porn offers us immediate access to an infinite amount

• Then, the more porn we watch, the more desensitised we become to normal sexual stimulation, such as finding our familiar partners less attractive.

• We may even move on to needing porn to perform, or to at least imagine porn while having sex in order to feel aroused

• So, we become dependant on porn, and more extreme versions of porn, to become sexually aroused

• And so the cycle gets locked in

Starting Recovery from Porn Addiction

The above sounds pretty terrible. But, again, recovering from porn addiction is possible!

However, like any addiction, it’s also important to note that porn addiction can be difficult to challenge and a person may try many different things, and need to put in a lot of hard work, before they can finally free themselves from it.

For sure, a big part of part of recovering from pornography addiction can involve finding like-minded people who also struggle with and want to say "no" to porn addiction.

Below are some resources to get you started.

Online Resources:

North Point Recovery: https://www.northpointrecovery.com/blog/my-journey-with-porn-addiction-and-recovery/
Films for Action: https://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/one-mans-journey-how-i-stopped-watching-porn-for-a-year-and-why-im-not-going-back/
The School of Life (Trigger Warning: soft-core porn images, NSFW): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rov1xxqYsFU

Available Books:

Next Steps

Finding professional support, someone to be accountable to, can also be an essential tool in the recovery process.

If you or your partner is struggling with porn, counselling and support can help. Porn addiction can cause depression, anxiety, damaged confidence and low self-esteem for the person struggling with pornography addiction, as well as erectile dysfunction in men. It can also seriously damage the self-esteem and confidence of any person who is in a relationship with a porn addict. 

If you are struggling with porn addiction, or your partner is struggling, and you feel counselling might be an option for you, please feel free to contact me to set up an appointment, or you can find out more about me or explore my website. I am available for sessions both online or in Bristol.

How has porn impacted you? Feel free to comment below!
And feel free to share this article if you think others might find it useful.

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