Help! I can’t get my mind off porn

I have been watching pornography as well as masturbating and it is getting a toll on me. I am worried that I could be addicted. Kindly help me out.

Steve

Dear Steve,

I have previously addressed the topic on this forum but I will try as much as I can to get to the bottom of your problem. When it comes to human sexual behaviour, I would say that generally speaking, our misuse of our God-given pleasure is what causes the problem, and not the pleasure itself. Since we’re talking about you and your desire to stop watching pornographic material and masturbating, I will focus on you and others like you, instead of generalising to the entire sexually-active population.

A good place to start changing any behaviour is to understand its root and role in your life. In other words, there is a reason why it exists and continues to exist. In addition, there is a reason why you have decided to stop; this taps into your hopes and dreams for yourself versus the negative behaviour, and its potential to interfere with the realisation of those hopes and dreams. So, for example, sometimes some people think that because they masturbate, they are automatically addicted. In reality, behaviour has to reach particular criteria before it can be considered a pathology e.g. excessiveness of the behaviour, choosing it in favour of other regular life activities, neglecting every day aspects of life in favour of the behaviour etc. If you are concerned about an addiction aspect, consider this: could you be using pornography and masturbation as a way of coping with something else?

Are you, for example, feeling overwhelmed by a break up and choosing to satisfy yourself constantly in lieu of facing your heartbreak? Could you be feeling sexually awkward and therefore hiding in pornography and masturbation to feel better about yourself? Could you be feeling disappointed with your life in general and therefore choosing the instant gratification of pornography and masturbation, in lieu of the patience or required for your life investments - education, work experience actual financial investments - to pay off? If any of this is true, then understanding that you have other options and beginning to explore those options should contribute to the cessation of these particular behaviours. Depending on the actual root of this problem – either what’s suggested above or perhaps something else – I encourage you to ask yourself questions such as “what purpose is this behaviour really serving? When I watch pornographic material and/or masturbate, aside from the physical pleasure, what else am I trying to feel?”, “now that this isn’t working for me and is, in fact, impacting me negatively, how else can I cope with things in my life?”,

What do I need to do/feel/experience to feel more in control of my life and my choices?”, “What other activities can I participate in to keep me too busy and tired to engage in watching pornography and masturbation?” Keep asking yourself such questions and then pay attention to the answers that come up in this exploration exercise.

Speaking of doing other things, it’s important for you to note that watching pornography and masturbating requires time, isolation and a general sense of not being rushed. To this end, ask yourself why you have so much free time, and how you can better utilise your time. In other words, if you’re idle because you’re unemployed or running a slow business, how can you increase your activity at work? If you have easy access to pornography on your phone or at home, how can you limit that access? If you sleep too much, how can you shift your sleeping hours so that you’re really too busy, tired, preoccupied and generally unable to have the time and resources required to masturbate? The point I’m trying to make is that you need to figure out your patterns – the things or people in your life that help to facilitate what have become destructive habits to you, and then for you to interrupt these patterns. I mention people because sometimes the company we keep heavily influences our sexual behaviour, but our friends have their lives and choices, and we have ours. I encourage you to take inventory of the people, places, activities in your life and then adjust accordingly.

My final thoughts for you are that I wish you would be kind and patient with yourself. Most sex-related behaviours feel good and that makes them difficult to stop when/if we find them destructive or distracting. Instead of waiting for a big, major sign of progress, celebrate every step that you make towards your eventual goal of stopping, and give yourself credit for any and all effort that produces the results that you’re looking for. I knew someone who would joke with their friend “keep your hands where I can see them.” I’m going to joke with you and tell you to endeavour to “keep your hands where I can see them.” I wish you all the best!