Escape the Grip of Porn Addiction: 10 Powerful Recovery Tips

Hey there, everybody, and welcome back. In this video, we're talking about 10 tips for recovery from pornography addiction. I'm your host, Dr. Donnellice Snipes. In this video, you're going to learn the prevalence of porn addiction. So how many people does it really impact? You'll identify the most common withdrawal symptoms from porn addiction and review 10, actually 12 tips to help you start your recovery process. Now, I say the recovery process because recovery from any addiction is a process. And just like other addictions, there will be what we call post acute withdrawal syndrome while your brain rebalances and restores itself. So being patient with yourself is important and recognizing that these are just the tips to help you get started. Problematic pornography use is estimated to impact 1.2% of women and 4.4% of men. So about one out of every hundred women and four out of every hundred men. And I know there's decimals there, but you know, just rough estimate that's actually pretty common. When you look around, when you go into a big grocery store, there's probably 100 people in there, or one of the women, 100 people in there. So one of those people is likely struggling from struggling with problematic pornography use. Now, these numbers actually come from people who self identify as being having a pornography addiction. It is not one of those other studies that has used problematic pornography use and produce really, really high numbers. So the number I'm giving you here are the people who look at their behavior and objectively say, yeah, this is a problem. While viewing pornography and masturbation can both be addictive in their own right, most people who watch porn also have a problem with masturbation. Unlike alcohol or drugs, most people cannot completely remove the temptation to masturbate from their life. Now, there are some people during early recovery who may explore chastity devices, but that is sort of an extreme measure. So most people are not completely able to remove that temptation. When you first quit watching porn or engaging in regular masturbation, you're likely going to experience psychological and physical withdrawal. It's just what's going to happen. As I mentioned, there's something called post acute withdrawal syndrome, and I do have a video on that if you want to learn more about it. But basically it is comprised of all the symptoms that people experience while their body recovers, while their brain recovers. Because when your brain is subjected to excessive amounts of neurotransmitters like dopamine and endorphins, it actually changes its structure, it changes the way the reward system works. So during post acute withdrawal Your brain has to basically rewire itself. Physical withdrawal symptoms. Insomnia is a very common withdrawal symptom from pornography and masturbation addiction. Why? Because a lot of people, after they have sex, it helps them relax, it helps them feel sleepy. And if they're not engaging in that behavior, they often may have difficulty getting sleep. So part of the recovery process, and I'm jumping ahead, I know, is going to be to address sleep hygiene. But insomnia is not uncommon. Low energy is another one that's very common. Dopamine is what is really pumped out, especially when watching porn, but also during sex and masturbation. So if the person watches porn for hours at a time, then the amount of dopamine that they are surging into their system is huge. Well, dopamine is responsible for energy. When we have regular levels of dopamine, we have good energy levels. When our dopamine levels are low, that is one of the chemicals that contributes to fatigue and exhaustion. That's why people who take antipsychotic medication, for example, which lowers your dopamine, antipsychotic medications typically also cause substantial fatigue. So since you are not flooding your, your system anymore and giving it the amount of dopamine it's used to, what your system experiences is a dopamine deficit. So you're going to experience low energy. Aches and pains are also really common, especially if for people who have been watching pornography and masturbating, because the release that comes with masturbating or sex also provides the release of endorphins. And when your system is regularly flooded, you, endorphins receptors are regularly flooded. They also change in response to that overstimulation. So when you're not engaging in those behaviors, you may temporarily experience more aches and pains because your natural painkiller levels are low and you may have physical urges. The brain is saying, I know how to make this stop. So it may produce physiological sensations that are sort of akin to urges or cravings that you want to engage in that behavior to release the tension, to release the pressure. In terms of psychological withdrawal, it is very, very common to have cravings and obsessive thoughts about poor pornography and or masturbation. So thoughts about porn that you've seen before, thoughts about watching porn, thoughts about people that you see just on the street that you envision in pornographic ways. Your brain may try to create its own pornography because it's trying to get you to go back there. And it's important to develop some thought stopping techniques when this starts happening. When you start thinking about pornography, how can you turn your attention to something else? What else can you force yourself to think about? And we're going to talk about that when we get down a little bit farther. But one tip I will tell you right now to actually tell yourself, no, I'm not going to think about that. And then replace that with a competing thought. So when you start thinking about porn, say, no, I'm not going to think about that. I'm going to think about going to my kids soccer game or I'm going to think about going to my Meemaw's 80th birthday. That generally is a mood killer. And if you can focus on that, that can help. You can also turn your attention to some other obsessive thought if you will, something else that you really like thinking about, like your woodworking hobby or whatever it is that you really love doing that will capture your attention and capture your thoughts. Low motivation As I mentioned, dopamine goes down. Motivation is going to go down. It's just the way your body works. Recognizing that is going to be important. Being compassionate with yourself is important because if you get all stressed out about it, you're going to prolong your recovery process. Recognize, okay, my motor, my motivation is in the crapper right now for pretty much everything. Figure out what you have to do during this recovery period. Be compassionate with yourself. Don't take on extra things. Figure out what you have to do and be more diligent in making plans for what needs to happen. I need to do laundry. I need to go to the grocery store. I need to do this at work. These are the things that you need to do and then schedule in other rewards that are not addictive. You know, what can I do if I get my laundry done? Or what can I do to make it more motivating to do my laundry? Maybe I can watch a movie while I'm doing it, or have a friend come over and we can drink coffee while I'm doing laundry. Anything to make it more enjoyable. Enjoyment increases dopamine. Not a lot, but enough to increase the motivation. Anxiety is also very common because dopamine and endorphins and oxytocin tend to lower anxiety. When you are not flooding your system with those and the balance is off, then you may start to feel more anxiety, more anxious. Irritability is really common. If you are fatigued, if you're not sleeping well, if you've got low motivation and you just kind of feel blah, and it's likely that you are not going to have the patience for people's shenanigans that you normally would. Okay, it doesn't give you carte blanche to rip people's head off. No, I'm not saying that. But I'm saying you need to recognize that you are going to be more irritable when you cannot access something you want. It's just the natural consequence that you tend to get irritable. So figuring out, how can I deal with that irritability? If I'm having a particularly bad day where I'm feeling particularly irritable, what can I do to avoid causing more problems? If I'm already irritable, then I know it's probably not a good day to go to the gym during power hour because there's too many people and they're all in my way and they're on the machines, and it's just going to increase my irritability. Working with yourself, working with your moods and your body and saying, what can I do to improve this particular moment? Is going to be important. Depression is very common. Dopamine, low dopamine. Not only does it cause you to feel fatigued and SAP your motivation, but it also may impact your mood. Dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin are all involved in emotion processing. Acknowledging it. If your depression starts to get to be a problem, then definitely talk it over with your physician or see a therapist to identify strategies for addressing your depression. You can also recognize or find some solace potentially in the awareness that as your brain recovers, as your body recovers, many of these symptoms will probably remit. But that is not going to happen tomorrow. That's not even going to happen next week. We're talking three months, six months. For some people could be a year, depending on the intensity of their addiction and their problems and whether they were just, if you will, using pornography and sex or masturbation, or if they were also using other addictions like cocaine or alcohol. The more addictions there are, the more intense the addiction, the longer it takes to recover and difficulty concentrating. Oh, there's that dopamine again. Dopamine helps us concentrate. When we're doing something that we're motivated to do, we tend to focus on it. When you are feeling irritable, when you're feeling tired, when you're feeling all these things. Even if you did have dopamine, it's going to be hard to concentrate. You're not going to be on your A game, just like when you have the flu, it's difficult to concentrate when you're Snot and everywhere and your ear hurts and you really want to go back to bed. Same sort of thing. So what are these tips? Complete the self assessment that I linked in the video notes of my video what is pornography addiction? So go back to that video, look in the video notes, and there's a link that you can download the self assessment and this will help you try to start increasing your motivation for change. Make a list of all the things you hope will be different after you quit using pornography. What are you hoping will improve? What are you hoping will change? And how are you. What do you need to do to make that happen? If you're not spending as much time and energy on porn, you're going to have a bunch of time and energy freed up. So you can use that to enhance your relationships. You can use that to improve your work. You can use that to start going to the gym however you want to use it. Begin keeping a log of your cravings, what triggered them, and if there was anything that made you more vulnerable to being triggered. Now, triggers set us off. Vulnerabilities are things that make us more likely to be triggered. For example, if you've watched my other videos, you know, sleep is a big vulnerability of mine. If I am not well rested, I tend to be much more likely to be triggered. My irritability tends to be more likely to be triggered. My sense of helplessness and hopelessness or depression is more easily triggered by things that come my way. Recognizing this, I know if I have not slept well that I need to be compassionate with myself and take some steps to to add a buffer between me and distress so it doesn't cause me further problems. So it is important to start knowing those vulnerabilities for pornography addiction. What are your vulnerabilities? What makes you more likely to start thinking about or start craving, viewing pornography or masturbation? What is it for you and then what triggers it obviously triggers you need to address on a case by case basis. For some people it's just being in front of a computer. For other people it's times of day. For other people it's certain emotions like they start feeling angry or anxious and watching porn helps them escape. Knowing what your triggers are and starting to address them is going to be really important. Recognize that porn has many forms and make a decision to eliminate all of them from your life for at least six months. Now I'm going to go through this list and part of you is probably going to be like, doc. That means I can't do much of anything except for read War and Peace. Well, that's an exaggeration. But yes, sex sells. So there's a lot of sex that is in our advertising. There is a lot of sex lately that's even in our mainstream media. Some of the shows that I pull up on Netflix and stuff that I think are going to be family friendly just aren't really focus on the family friendly content. Block porn sites and obviously we're talking about legit porn sites. You want to definitely block those not only on your PC but also on all of your mobile devices. So this includes porn sites and I have here and gambling. You may be scratching your head going I don't gamble or you know, I don't have a problem with gambling. Well great, let's not develop one. Pornography and masturbation is a tension and release activity. Gambling is attention and release activity. Therefore it is very, very common for people who have porn addiction when they can't access the porn, they may find stimulation in gambling because each new hand that they play of poker or something is sort of like watching a new video in of pornography. Now obviously it's not going to give the same level of stimulation, but it does have attention and release. And when people gamble, the more money they are gambling at any one time, the more tension is building and when they win, the more of a rush of endorphins they get. So it is helpful and advised. I advised all my patients to block both porn and gambling sites for six months and then we can reevaluate after that. Dating apps and I know you may be like, well how am I going to meet people? Unfortunately the content on many dating apps is very not safe for work and having people send you NSFW pictures can be a replacement for porn. So get off the dating apps for six months. You may have to meet people in real life or just take a break from dating. Avoid not safe for work forums on sites like Reddit trying to figure out and if you need to avoid Reddit completely, fine. Otherwise set your put your settings so you aren't able to access the NSFW forums and and posts a lot of people. It's not possible to access Reddit without having your password, which means you can go in and change those settings. So a lot of people just need to block Reddit and similar forum sites that do have a lot of pornographic material on them. For this first six months. Whatever program you use on your PC, on your mobile device, have somebody else install it and set it up. You can work with them to install it and set it up if you want, but they need to be the one with the password, not you. If you have the password, then it kind of defeats your purpose. It slows you down from re accessing it, but you're still able to access it. Give them the password. Avoid explicit movies, not just pornography. Avoid R rated movies. Avoid anything with nudity or sexuality. And that has been one thing, I guess from the all the streaming services, they have a warning at the beginning of every show about what's in it. The easiest thing is to stick to family friendly sites. Go back to MeTV, for example, replays all the shows from the 80s that were very not explicit. You can also go to family friendly sites like the Dove Network, paying attention to what you're watching. If you have to watch tv. You know, if I were giving up one thing, I wouldn't want to have to also give up TV with it. But that's just me. I love my tv. Avoid strip clubs and other activities that might be stimulating. You know, that seems obvious but we don't want to stimulate that part of your brain. So you're going home and you're going to ah, I want to access more of that. And avoid explicit books and magazines. This means books or magazines. It can be text or pictures. So obviously you know, Playboy, Hustler, Penthouse, all those magazines you're going to avoid. But also text that explicitly describes sex acts can be triggering for people. So avoid those. You also want to avoid magazines, sorry, with explicit advertising. So if you. And this can be the Victoria's Secret catalog, this can be. I don't know any particular magazines that I want to name off because I haven't looked at magazines that guys typically look at, but ones that have scantily clad women sprawled across cars or you get the idea you don't want to have something that you're turning the page and you're like, oh, hello. So be careful what you're looking at for this first six months. What you're trying to do is detox your brain and let it start to heal. Develop distress tolerance skills. Your thoughts. And the mnemonic for this is tags, thoughts, activities guided imagery and sensations for thoughts. Have distress tolerant thoughts. Like I can get through this, I don't need to give in. Whatever. You know, my kids are more important to me than pornography. Those are all great or as I mentioned earlier, competing thoughts. Think of something that really just kills the mood activities. Breathe now. As opposed to tolerating emotional distress, tolerating urges and cravings is a little bit different. So distraction can be really, really helpful. Breathing helps trigger that relaxation response. So if anxiety or anger is causing you to want to use, that can be helpful. Slow your breathing. Unhook. This is helpful for cravings. Unhook from this craving and see it out here. You're not, I have to do this. I have to watch porn. You can say, I'm having the thought that I have to watch porn now. What do I want to do with that? Some people will even get little emoji pillows or, or little squishy balls that they hold that represent that thought. But unhook, it's not part of you. It's something you're having right now, and you can choose to get rid of it. And then, like I said, as opposed to emotions that we want people to learn that they can sit with. With urges. A lot of times, distraction can be helpful because urges come in and typically crest and then recede in about 15, 20 minutes for most people. So distraction, you can exercise, take that energy and put it into something else. Call a friend, talk about sports, talk about, you know, if you're a female, talk about whatever you're interested in if it's not sports. And I know that was a sexist comment, and I apologize. Guided imagery. Ride the wave. When you're having an urge, as I mentioned, it typically comes in like a wave and crests like a wave and then it starts to go out. So you can envision yourself riding that wave if you want. I don't have a lot of luck with that imagery myself. I like the bee imagery a little bit better. If you have a bee on your arm and you don't want it there, you want it to go away, but if you swat at it, it's probably going to get mad and sting you. So think of urges like that bee on your arm that you have the urge to swat. You're having this feeling and you have the urge to try to swat at it, to try to make it go away, but if you do, it's going to make things worse. You can also use guided imagery just to go to your happy place. That's another option. And sensations, this is, again, a little bit different than the distress tolerance skills that we usually talk about with emotions. Ice can be really helpful for sensations, Whether it's an ice pack to, you know, cool off the physical sensations, or holding a couple of ice cubes or putting your hands in a bath of ice water that will distract you. You will not be thinking about porn or, or sex or anything else. If you have your hands in a bath of ice water smells. Now, a lot of times I talk about happy smells, relaxing smells, those kinds of smells. But in this particular case, noxious smells usually work best. And I don't mean poison. You know, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that I mean something like rotten eggs or a essential oil that you really don't like the smell of smelling that is enough to kind of make you go, oh, no, gosh. And it gets you in a completely different frame of mind. It shocks you out of that thought process that you are having and into a different one. Join a support community. And this can be in real life where you join a support group like Sex addicts anonymous or online. And obviously you want to be selective and make sure you're joining a good support community online. But it can be helpful if you're joining one online. Since the computer is a trigger for a lot of people, it's important to add recovery triggers to your environment. A lot of times we talk about triggers in terms of addiction triggers. Recovery triggers work against the addiction triggers. So put pictures around your computer and on your mobile device of your kids, your mom, Mother Teresa, whatever it is that just kills the mood. Have those things around. So your mobile device and your computer stop becoming paired with pornography and start becoming paired with something that is incompatible with watching porn. Regulate your circadian rhythms. And I mentioned that insomnia can be a problem that is created by pornography addiction as well as a symptom of withdrawal. So, you know, sleep sucks. But it's important to recognize that your circadian rhythms actually regulate the release of a lot of hormones, including your sex hormones, including your sleep hormones. So making sure that you are practicing really good sleep hygiene to regulate your circadian rhythms will help. So your body's not going, okay, when am I supposed to secrete testosterone, estrogen? What are we doing here? Regulate your circadian rhythms. You'll start helping your body regulate your hormones, which will lead to reduced random impulses for a lot of people. Begin identifying the reasons you were attracted to porn in the first place, what were the benefits of it, and start addressing those issues. As I mentioned, some people started using during a period where, you know, maybe they weren't in a relationship or something else, and then they progressively just to increase the amount of time they were watching pornography, and then their brain started to change, and now the withdrawals are what's maintaining their addiction. And they may be experiencing some other problems in their life now that they're fully into a addictive or compulsive behavior. But for other people, they may have turned to pornography because they were having problems in relationships. Maybe they have abandonment fears so they don't want to connect with anyone. Or maybe they have difficulty communicating and a lot of their relationships, relationships just, you know, go to crap. So they've given up on being in relationships and they've turned to porn instead. Maybe they have low self esteem or social anxiety or depression. When people are depressed, they feel helpless and hopeless. And the release from masturbation or sex can temporarily provide a little bit of feeling of comfort. And the fantasy life that is created by a lot of people who watch porn can also allow them an escape from that depression. Sexual dysfunction or performance anxiety may have existed before the porn even came into the picture. That's one of those things that a sex therapist or a, or your physician may be able to help you with. And as I said, insomnia. Some people may have started using because they were, they had so much anxiety and they were so stressed out, they had a hard time relaxing to get to sleep. And so they started using porn and masturbation. They found that worked, but then they started using, then they became unable to get to get to sleep without using porn and masturbation. And then they started using porn at other times to help them relax. So you can see how it can spiral. It's important not just to remove the porn and help the brain rebalance, but to address the underlying issues. Because if you don't, then those underlying issues are likely going to be relapse traps in the future. Other tips? Wear a bathing suit in the shower and re aim the water if the stimulation on your genitals is too triggering for you. And that has come up with several of my, several of my clients, both male and female. So that is one option. Obviously you still need to wash, but avoiding excessive stimulation can help reduce the frequency of having those urges and compulsive thoughts. Identify high risk times and situations for you and make a plan. Maybe when you're at work, not a big deal, you're so focused on work you can do that. But as soon as you get off work and until you get back to work the next day, that's a high risk time. Or maybe it's right before bed, or if you wake up in the middle of the night. Whatever high risk times you have, you need to make a plan for how can I get through this? What is my strategy? Same thing for situations, if you're in particular situations that may be triggering. For example, if when you get really stressed out, you want to Watch porn and masturbate to escape and relax than recognizing situations that trigger your stress and figuring out how you're going to address those. Redirect your energy to the things that are important in your rich and meaningful life, including your hobbies and interests. Hobbies and interests and other relationships are going to help increase dopamine and increase oxytocin and increase some of those happy chemicals, if you will. So doing that not only helps you start rebuilding your life, but it also increases to a little bit, little effect the happy chemicals. You're not flooding the system, so you're not undoing your, your progress, but it is giving you enough. It's giving you just a little bit of a taste of those chemicals to keep you going while abstaining from sex or masturbation. During early recovery, the three to six months immediately following is often recommended. If you choose to continue having sexual releases, it is recommended to only do it with a partner in real life. Not over video, not anywhere else, but a partner in real life with whom you're in a committed relationship. And the reason for that is if you just say a partner in real life, then somebody may start going out and switch from pornography addiction to sex addiction. So it is important to have very strict parameters on the context in which you will get a sexual release. Ideally, masturbation, if you're doing it with a partner, is done by the partner, not by you. So you're not engaging in any of those behaviors that are that you're trying to stop. Recovery from pornography addiction requires that your brain has a break from the frequent and often sustained floods of dopamine, endorphins, etc. During early recovery, withdrawal symptoms are very similar to that of other drugs because the same brain systems have been hijacked. Be compassionate with yourself and take it one day at a time, recognizing that your symptoms in early recovery are quite common and many of them will subside or get better as your brain and body start to recover.