Getting to the Root Cause of Porn Addiction pt. 2

This post is the second of a 3-part series about getting to the ROOT of porn addiction. If you haven't already, read the first post in this series to learn why the recovery process is really about getting to the root of why we seek out internet pornography. In this post, the focus will be on how to get to the ROOT of pornography addiction. This post provides a guideline for porn addicts to follow when attempting to get to the ROOT of their behavior. This guideline can be a powerful tool to help you look deep inside yourself for answers. As you read this guide, try to process what it would mean to incorporate each guideline into your daily life. I suggest this because I am providing a lot of information at once to you, but when I went through this process, this information was learned and applied over a period of 10 years. You may think you don't have much time, but the race isn't given to the swift, but to those who endure. So take your time. It may take a long time for you to reach complete sobriety, or it may not. The point is that you get there.

How do we get to the ROOT of our behavior?

Now that we understand that what we’re actually trying to do in recovery is find the root cause of the things in life that drive us to pornography, the next logical question is how do we get to the ROOT of our behavior. This cannot be answered by giving a one-size-fits-all solution, but I can provide a set of guidelines and things to consider, which can then be used to help reveal what's at the ROOT of your behavior. Another thing to understand is that this is a layered process that could involve everything from using support groups to seeking help from mental health professionals. I'll talk more about that later. For now, I'll start by providing a list of things you should do if you want to get to the ROOT of why you view pornographic material. Keep in mind that once you've uprooted everything that's driving your addiction, you will start to see a noticeable difference in your mental health, and you will be happier.

Your world will start to look more like this.

Instead of this.

Things to do to get to the ROOT of your behavior.

Summary

The bold and underlined guidelines will be covered in this post.

• Acknowledge Who You Are

• Clean Out Your Closet

• Raise Your Level of Self-Awareness

• Identify Your Triggers

• Focus on the “Why” Behind Your Behavior and Not the Behavior

• Surround Yourself With Trustworthy People Who Know Your Deepest Darkest Secret

• Give Yourself Grace When Appropriate

• Get Professional Help

• How you Can Know that You’ve Gotten to the ROOT of your Behavior

Acknowledge who you are.

I believe one of the most challenging things to do when in recovery is to make a habit of taking a look within ourselves to understand the person we have become as a result of our addictive behavior. That is what it means to acknowledge who we are, and it’s essential to do that regularly if we want to get and stay sober.

This means accepting responsibility for your sense of morality and the beliefs you’ve adopted that have led you to a life of porn addiction. You must acknowledge where your actions have gotten you up to this point and where they are taking you. For some of us, that means admitting that we’ve driven our significant others away due to our lies, be it lies of omission or white lies. For others it may mean that we have to acknowledge that we can’t see women as anything but objects meant to be used for our own self gratification because porn has distorted our view of them. This is important because this acknowledgement signals to your brain that you’re aware of the tree. You can see how it’s taken root in your life and brought darkness to your world. 

Clean out your closet.

In 2002, the great poet Marshall Mathers, also known as Eminem, released a song called “Cleanin’ out my closet”. The song's title refers to the fact that he’s held skeletons in his closet up to the point of releasing this song. In the song, he revealed some of the darkest moments he could recall from his adult life and childhood. He reveals the emotional baggage he’s been holding on to for most of his life. He expresses feelings of anger, betrayal, and hurt stemming from childhood experiences. He discusses the feelings of abandonment and resentment stemming from his relationship with his mother. He uses the song to reflect on the hardships he faced growing up and how they shaped his identity and the man he became. The song highlights his journey to confront and process his past trauma, emphasizing the emotional toll it has taken on him.  It’s a very emotional and introspective song. The “closet” represents the place where the secrets and painful experiences he’s kept inside are hidden. If we are to be honest, Eminem is not alone. As I was going through recovery, I began to realize that I also have skeletons in my closet. Have you ever taken the time to think about what skeletons you have in your closet?

Truthfully, we all have skeletons in our closets, and it’s time to get rid of them if we truly desire freedom. If we want to get to the ROOT of our addiction, we have to clean out our closet. We must expose the thoughts, feelings, and mistakes we’ve kept hidden. A healthy way to do this is to get a pen and paper and journal every skeleton you can think of. Write it all down. Writing is a subjective process that can help us heal. When you’re done. Burn it.  Another option is to find a trustworthy friend or mentor to whom you can talk and reveal your secrets. If that’s not an option, seek help from a counselor or therapist. 

Raise Your Level of Self-Awareness

It’s been said that emotions are signals to the brain that something in our environment has changed. Emotional intelligence is our ability to understand, manage, and express our own emotions, as well as our ability to recognize and respond appropriately to the emotions of others. 

Raising your level of self-awareness involves increasing your emotional intelligence. One of the reasons we turn to porn to cope is that we are triggered by something in our environment. This leads to an emotional response, resulting in us seeking a way to deal with that emotion. For example, if my boss yelled at me at work because I missed a deadline, I may become anxious. I like feeling anxious, so I look for a way to suppress that feeling. Pornography brings me momentary happiness so I may seek out porn as a way to get rid of the anxious feeling.

The key thing to pay attention to here is my lack of awareness of my feelings. If my immediate reaction to anxiety is to look at pornography, I haven’t taken the time to process why I’m feeling anxious. This is what happens when we have a low emotional IQ. We’re not aware of what we’re feeling and why. As we progress in recovery, we learn how to increase our EQ to find better ways to cope with our emotions. 

Here are a few practical tips for how to raise your EQ:

1. Practice mindfulness: Spend time observing your emotions without judgment. Journaling can help track triggers and patterns. Journal every day.

2. Reflect on feedback: Actively seek feedback from trusted friends, family, or colleagues to gain insight into how your emotions and actions are perceived.

3. Label your emotions: Identify and name your feelings (e.g., frustration, disappointment, excitement). Tools like the "emotion wheel" can be helpful.

4. Listen actively: Focus on truly understanding what others are saying without interrupting or formulating responses prematurely.

5. Practice perspective-taking: Try to imagine situations from others' viewpoints to better understand their feelings and motivations.

6. Set boundaries: Learn to say no or create limits that protect your emotional well-being.

7. Practice perspective-taking: Try to imagine situations from others' viewpoints to better understand their feelings and motivations.

8. Pause before reacting: Practice taking a deep breath or counting to ten before responding to emotional triggers.

Identify Your Triggers

Identifying your triggers is about understanding your brain activity. Porn addiction is really a brain problem and there is a lot of information out there on the brain and the part of your brain that is changed by porn. I'm no expert, and I am not going to use this post to cover any of that material. During my recovery journey, I learned just enough of what I needed to know about the brain to reach 5 years of sobriety, so you don't have to know all the brain science to beat this thing. That being said, I will give you info I found necessary to get to where I am today. 

The human brain is wired to seek out pleasure. Everything we do, from food to entertainment, sends a signal to our brain, which determines whether we like it or not. This means that when we watch porn a chemical called "dopamine" is sent to the pleasure centers of our brain to say that we are enjoying what we're seeing at the moment. This is meant to be a good thing, but when the pleasure centers are fed toxic material like pornography, they can become oversaturated and cause us to be addicted. Also, this part of the brain doesn't know right from wrong. It just knows likes or dislikes. So if we condition our brain to become addicted to something like pornography our brains begin to look for patterns that signal it's time to watch porn. This pattern or "loop" is called the habit loop. The habit loop is described in the diagram below:

Porn Habit Loop

The first step to breaking the habit loop is identifying your cue(s) or trigger(s). Many things could trigger us, so I wrote a post on identifying the most common triggers. If you haven't had a chance to read it, please check it out. Here are some different things you can do to identify your triggers:

Understand what a trigger is and its role in the habit loop

The habit loop is a psychological framework introduced by Charles Duhigg in “The Power of Habit”. It explains how habits are formed and maintained. The loop consists of 4 main components:

1. Cue

• A trigger that initiates the habit.

• For a porn addict, this could be feelings of boredom, loneliness, stress, negative social interactions, or even environmental cues like being alone or having access to a device..

2. Craving

• The habitual action or behavior.

• In the case of a porn addicts, this would be the act of seeking out pornography to cope with whatever they’re going through.

3. Response

• The action taken as a result of the craving. 

• In the case of a porn addict, this would be the act of consuming pornography.

4. Reward

• The benefit or pleasure derived from the behavior reinforces the habit.

• For a porn addict, the reward might be temporary relief from negative consequences, negative feelings, a dopamine rush, or escapism.

Over time, the brain begins associating the cue with the anticipated reward, creating a craving that drives the routine. This loop becomes ingrained and automatic, making the habit hard to break.

1. Keep a Trigger Journal

• What to Do: Write down details whenever the urge arises. 

• Describe:

  • Time of Day: When do cravings typically occur? (e.g., late at night, during work breaks, times when you have easy access to porn).

  • Location: Where are you when you feel triggered? (e.g., bedroom, bathroom, alone at home).

  • Emotional State: What emotions do you feel? (e.g., stress, boredom, loneliness).

  • Situations or Events: What happened before the urge? (e.g., an argument, seeing something provocative online, unhealthy relationship).

• Why It Helps:

  • Over time, patterns will emerge that reveal the specific cues linked to your habit.

2. Analyze Environmental Triggers

• Look for Patterns:

  • Are certain environments (e.g., being alone in your room/or late night internet use/too much free time) consistently associated with urges?

  • Are specific devices (e.g., your phone or computer) connected to the behavior?

• Why It Helps:

  • Identifying environmental triggers can help you adjust your surroundings to minimize exposure (e.g., installing filters, keeping devices in common areas).

3. Reflect on Emotional States

• Ask Questions:

  • Am I feeling bored, stressed, or anxious?

  • Am I trying to escape from something uncomfortable?

• Why It Helps: 

  • Many addictions are driven by the desire to soothe negative emotions that stem from things like low self-esteem. Recognizing these emotions as triggers allows you to address them directly and move closer to revealing the true underlying issues related to online porn use.

That's all for this post. In part 3, I'll describe the remaining 5 guidelines mentioned at the beginning of this post. If you're in need of journal you can get one from the PureFreedom store.

If you know someone who could benefit from this information, please take the time to share this post with them or post it on your social media page. Thanks!