My buddy was recently sitting in a church meeting and someone finally had the guts to ask a reality based question. He asked: “Who hasn’t had an issue with porn addiction at some point?” It was like someone finally gave the guys in the room permission to be human. In the internet age, as much as some people don’t want to admit it, porn addiction is as common as the common cold. And until we get to a place where we can just open up and talk about it, it will continue to destroy families and trap more and more people.

This is unfortunate because there are ways to overcome pornography addiction. It is not as difficult as people are making it. But it does require long term effort, and most addicts want a quick fix to their addiction. They want something that will fix them as fast as their addiction does. But that is not the way of recovery. Recovery requires consciously learning to cope with life in new ways. These new tools must be used repeatedly until it becomes their way of life. New habits are the only solution.

Ok. That sounds easy enough. Then why is it so hard to quit a porn addiction? Because the addict has been using a sexual release as their primary coping mechanism in life. They never learned other coping tools, because this one worked so well. Plus, anytime we try and change a core behavior in our life, our brain will resist the new habit like crazy. Think about your new years resolutions over the years. How long did those last? Probably about 3 weeks. Because if you had gotten past the first month, the behavior would have gotten easier and easier and you would have been on the road to making it a new habit.

In order to overcome porn addiction, the addict needs some serious support. Unfortunately, because we have shamed the behavior so bad, most people can’t talk openly about it. So getting support becomes a real issue. The idea of going to one of the anonymous meetings and standing up around a bunch of strangers and announcing that you’re a porn addict isn’t at the top of most people’s lists of goals in life. And to add one more layer of complexity, it is likely that they will be in front of their computer most of the day. Its kind of like an alcoholic spending all day, every day at the bar while going through addiction recovery.

Is everyone addicted to something? It’s a good question. As human beings, our brain is inclined to get addicted to intense activities. The more we do the activities, the deeper the wiring gets engrained in our brain. And then when we decide to quit- that’s when the brain really steps in. It creates all kinds of negative emotions all designed to drive us back to the old behavior. It’s such a strange thing to think that our brain wants us to continue with the negative escape. But this is the reality. So when you combine the very natural human interest in sex with the intensity available on the internet, it’s no wonder that pornography addiction is the fastest growing addiction in the world.

By some estimates, as many as 7 out of 10 guys and 4 out of 10 girls have a porn addiction. The word addiction is used somewhat loosely here. Some people argue that weekly or even daily consumption does not equal being an addict. But one thing is for sure- this is a tough one to quit. There are several reasons for this. One is that it is connected with the natural sex drive, which is a big part of who we are as a human being. It’s why there are almost 7 billion of us on the planet. Because sex is part of being human. Another reason is that the behavior triggers the body’s naturally occurring feel good chemicals. Some say these endorphins are 100 times stronger than heroine. And combine those two factors with the online reality that porn is available at the click of a button, often for free, and you get a bunch of addiction prone human beings getting hooked on it.

So what can be done? Obviously, some people do not feel there is an issue here and are happy to continue consuming. But there are a lot of people who want to become free from this trap. For those who want to get rid of their porn addiction, it is important to understand what works and what doesn’t work in recovery. If someone just expects to go “cold-turkey” as they call it, and quit overnight and never go back, it’s likely they will fail. This is because porn addiction has become a coping tool for these people. It’s how they deal with life, and stress. If they take away the only way they know how to decompress, they will go crazy. Their brain will create cravings that will drive them back to the behavior, and they will feel like they’ve failed.

A more effective approach at addiction rehabilitation is to consciously replace the old behavior with positive ways of getting the same brain chemicals. By reinforcing the new, healthy behaviors until they become lifestyle, the porn addiction no longer serves the person like it used to. Then it just becomes an occasional distraction until they get to a place where they don’t go there anymore. But this takes times, and more importantly, it takes new tools. Most addicts just don’t have these tools. If they had them, they would be using them.