Alternative theories on porn addiction

You raised a very valid and practical questions. I have some thought to share.

It's easier to become PMO addict than heroin addict cause it's not a widely known that porn can be a drug, and also it's much simpler to try - it's more accessible than beer.

If someone can drink beer not being an alcoholic and I would spend nights on a street, should I care for those guys who aren't alcoholics? I can say: "they are drinking and nothing bad happens so the problem isn't in drinking itself". But
should I care for them - they are perfectly fine, that's me who I am in a charge of, and I have a problem.

What benefits did I get from not-PMOing for the last 20 days?
- I had some chronic pain from time to time (visited a doctor a few years ago, no cause was found), something like prostatis or what. I didn't connect it to PMO, but now it stopped. For me that is good enough evidence that PMO is harmful to health (I learned from this site that other guys sometimes have ED because of PMO).
- Better sexual life with my wife, strong desire.
- Time, energy. My PMO sessions where lengthy)

 

Most addictions start habitual long before they become physical. Drugs in whatever shape or form are always a way to escape your problems - if you are happy there is very little chance that you will become an alcoholic. I don't think I only speak for myself when I say that I did and still do face problems besides porn.

Let's make a case study of me: I have an overprotective, overdemanding, verbally and emotionally abusive mother. I wasn't allowed any hobbies as they'd distract me from school. So I was an introverted child with a computer and what started as gaming sessions to forget the stress i had with my mother over stupid shitand the boredom I had partly because of her soon became PMO sessions when puberty hit. I became more outgoing and made a stable circle of friends but I also lost my interest in school and studying. I went from best male in class to just another lazy fuck which led to more stress in school and especially with my mother since I now didn't met her ridiculously high expectations. Every evening I sat in my room desperate not being able to raise my motivation high enough to sit the f*** down and do my homework or study for the test the next day and thinking of the consequences in school and the stress it'd get me with my mother and I ended up escaping through porn for hours until I fell asleep. Problems successfully ignored. The stress accumulated and the more stressed I got the less I did for school and the more I wanted to escape. It's a circle that went on for years and still does to a certain extent. Most of my relapses are stress or boredom induced.

Change the drug and that story could as well be the story of an alcohol- or meth-addict. The driving force for habitual addiction is always the desire to escape reality due to problems of various kinds. Maybe one could say that it is the intent behind the drug use that makes the difference.

 

I agree with DBug, and I think it speaks to what you are saying. Insightful posts methinks.

Heroin probably isn't inherently bad. For starters, it's the best dry cough suppressant there is. We just attach meaning to it.
Neither is PMO. There's an air of authenticity to some of these TEDx talks, (no comment on any one in particular) that might not be appropriate. When you look at the peer review studies, and the meta-studies, you find there is a spectrum of behaviours and attitudes, from production through to the consumer. You find areas of uncertain cause and effect. But you do find, significantly for these pages, sufficient examples of problematic behaviour.

Do you want to start the journey? First think about why. Write your reasons down. There's a great thread somewhere on this site about why. Track it down. You can check out my whys if you like. (My reboot log is in the 40+ forum). If there's a common theme to this otherwise individual exercise it is this: PMO makes us feel less worthy.

You're here, so I'd suggest there's something about PMO you're not comfortable with. Digging that out isn't always easy. But it is always what really matters. The peer reviewed literature analyses data. It's valuable. But on this journey it's not data that matters, it's you. Even if PMO was only a problem for .000001% of the world population, that .0000001% includes all of us here. And no, I don't think the figure is that low. Just taking it to an extreme to illustrate the point.

Find your reason. Find your answer. And love the changes you make.
Best wishes
MH

 

^
One thing is for sure, as much as porn screws up our ability to enjoy a normal sexual encounter, the "perfs" that engage in it's production, over time experience the inability to engage in normal sexual encounters as well. The more I read on this subject, and the more I understood of the devastating results of their "outside the mainstream" lifestyle, which at the beginning they seem to embrace as something so special, I realized that in the end our eventual rejection of PMO would lead us to a more productive life in all ways. However, in the end, these people will never be truly free from the stink of their life choices.

 

Thank for your post @franco216 ! You have a very good point.
I have some similar doubts because, me too, I have a difficulty commiting to something without fully understand why.

For many people here the idea that porn can be v e r y bad for them came as a surprise. Not to me. Where I grew up P and M were demonised to the greatest possible extend. I strongly believe that I would never have trouble with it If I grew up in a more liberal place. Every time I PMO'd I felt an incredible guilt and was trying to quit knowing that what I do is a mortal sin and it's the same category as murder and rape (happy Christianity, everyone!). It took me a lot of time to get from the House of Lord to the House of Science and realised that "this is important because a bad argument against PMO can do harm to people".

Alas, science gives no answer. Medical journals are notorious for abuse of statistics and scientific method, results are biased by the agenda of the funding bodies. It takes more than a year from the experiment until a publication of the results. Then to start a discussion we need another 3 years for the paper which will discuss previous funding. What's more, the subject is a taboo and at a same time source of a huge revenue industry. Even if the answer was behind the corner (which I bet it isn't) it'll took a lot of effort to get a scientific consensus on it (like on global warming, which is still being denied...). You might like some commentary on this paper which I believe sparked a lot of debate around whether porn actually is damaging to the brain:
"In May 2014, a study in the prestigious journal JAMA Psychiatry was all over the news. It found that the more porn men reported watching, the less volume and activity they had in the regions of the brain—specifically the striatum—linked to reward processing and motivation. They also found that connectivity between the striatum and the prefrontal cortex (which is the part of the brain used for decision making, planning, and behavior regulation) weakened the more porn the men reported watching.

The researchers hypothesized that these differences might reflect change resulting from intense stimulation of the reward system. However, before you close your laptop and think of England, there are three important things to note:

First, these were all healthy men. The participants were screened for psychiatric disorders, neurological problems, medical illness, and substance abuse before their brains were scanned. So despite the brain differences, it didn’t seem to affect their health or daily functioning.

Second, brain changes aren’t limited to porn. Anything you do frequently, from smoking pot to playing a musical instrument to driving a delivery truck, can change your brain. The bigger concern is whether it affects your functioning or causes distress.

Third, this was only a snapshot—the participants weren’t followed over time—so we don’t know the answer to the chicken-or-egg question of whether porn shrinks your brain or whether your brain structures and connectivity predispose you to get more out of porn." (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/your-brain-on-porn-and-other-sexual-images/)

Now I'm getting to the real point. I start to believe that we might forget that there will ever be a valid answer to the question what is really wrong with PMO. Like with a receipt for a happy life, it's very personal and each one of us have to crack it somehow. If you feel you don't won't to PMO: don't. And have my best wishes.

 

http://yourbrainonporn.com/research-articles-and-abstracts

Lots more there. . .

 

^
That was terrific, no BS. I liked the last sentence which basically said, if you believe that PMO is bad, don't do it. When PMO was not an issue anymore, the "porn crush" thing took over. Over a period of close to two years, I did some really dumb shit things, no dangerous or threatening but really stupid, it was more of an addiction than the PMO. When I read that article in TIME last April, and I learned about NoFap it was like a light went on. It's been hard sometimes, but it has gotten really better since I dumped all my social media. Thanks to all!!!

 

I'm glad someone raises the question in an English better than my non-native one - helps people understanding and answering ^^

@franco216, thanks for sharing your thoughts and doubts on the matter. I too strongly believe the underlying causes of "why we fap" have yet to be linked to something bigger in our persona/history/profile. As I'm getting closer to the topics of addiction and behavioural effects, I'd love to be able to uncover some truth or at least some hints that could lead further in a path of understanding why this, why us, why now.

I too have hard time trying to get into something I don't understand at first, or believe in. Despite these doubts and the yearning for understanding the root causes, I can tell you the NoFap journey is rather an interesting one. What really bridged the gap to get me going was one simple thought, or realization : "For 20+ years I've gone by this kind of preference, only engaging in something I believe/trust etc. And look where I stand now? Might as well give it a try even if I'll be flying blind." And there I went, and while the journey is still mostly ahead, there's a ton of progress already, which makes me proud to be engaged in it, and that in return keeps me going. I'm still blind and walking an unknown path, but doing something different that helps and provides hope? Priceless!

I wish you can gather what you need to get started and sometime soon look back and go "That was a great idea, I'm proud I went this way"

Peace

 

All I know is, I used to fantasize, use porn, and M a lot. I couldn't quit, even though I tried, and I was raised in a religious home so believe me, I tried.

A few years ago, I got depressed. My P use escalated, and I developed Delayed Ejaculation. After my depression receded and porn slowed down, I didn't have DE anymore.

In April of this year, I was irritable, anxious, depressed, unfocused, and emotionally numb. I fought with my wife a lot. Porn use was high again.

I got on NoFap and was able to maintain a sustained streak. Initially irritability, anxiousness and depression spiked. After a few weeks they pretty much went away. (I also cut out news and social media, to mitigate stress)

I MO'd and broke my streak, my wife noticed a regression in behavior without my telling her.

You can call it what you want. Addiction, destructive behavior, psychosomatic response, whatever. Say all those symptoms were born out of guilt, sure. But I had a hell of a time trying to stop, and my life is better without it. I'm happier, I'm more patient, I'm more attentive, more creative and oh yeah, I have more time to do worthwhile things. Stick around, and you'll find a lot of men with similar stories and claims, and not all of them have religious backgrounds. You'll also find a lot of women who discovered their husband/boyfriend's extensive porn habit, and wind up leaving them over it because the guy won't quit.

If it looks like addiction and acts like addiction... call it whatever you want but I'll treat it like addiction.

 

Or perhaps problems underlie all addictions.
Watch 'What the bleep?'
Read 'The Primal Scream' (not 'The New Primal Scream')

Addiction is a symptom that causes further issues, not a cause in and of itself. So, for me, PMO was an addiction, but it related to a bit of stuff that I hadn't fully dug out.
I wonder if your thoughts are about trying to get at what lies underneath addiction? Why some people can drink or PMO (eg) occasionally and others find themselves taken over by drink / PMO? If so, The Primal Scream has some insights.

 

No, sorry @franco216, I don't wish to be rude, but I can't. You can if you want.

A poster above said there was very little research on internet pornography addiction. In fact, there's quite a lot, and you can find almost all of it via that page.

I think you're fighting a straw man here. There is no "addiction argument" that I'm aware of that simply says: behaviour/substance A is addictive, if you indulge in it you will instantly become addicted and be unable to stop using it. Almost all addiction treatment - as far as I'm aware - involves something beyond simply breaking a physical dependence, some sort of counseling or search for personal causes.

I don't think you're going to find some universal "alternative/root cause" either. Your best bet - as you say - is to find your own root cause/s and work on them.

Are you self-medicating for anxiety/depression? Did a delayed puberty make you think, at a crucial time in your development, that you would never have sex? Probably not, they're (among) mine!

The connection argument is nice, and ticks many boxes. Interestingly, some porn addiction pioneers argue that porn addiction is unusual in not necessarily having an external cause: sexual desires are (to a point) perfectly good, natural things in youngsters, and otherwise well-adjusted people can become addicted simply through overexposure.

But, again, it's individual. That sort of research seems impossible to do.