Internet Porn Addiction: Not An Easy Nut to Crack

I've been sitting in a room talking to addicts for 25 years. All kinds of addicts. I've participated in the enormous struggles of alcoholics to get sober, cocaine, heroine, methamphetamine, food, love, nicotine, sex...all kinds of addictions.

My conclusion, culled from clinical experience, is that internet porn is THE primary addiction and is, by far, the hardest to kick.

My intention in comparing my uncle's cocaine addiction that robbed him dry was to show you that the biochemical dysfunctions of a cocaine addict are exactly the same as those of a long-term porn addict.

Now I think I was wrong. An important distinction was missed. Drugs like heroin and cocaine enter the system through intravenous needles or are snorted up the nose. However, the brain responds from information received from the EYE quicker than from any other source. Visual information is processed in the limbic system (part that seeks pleasure, avoids pain) in microseconds. Visual information is processed faster than from any of our other senses. Even the ingestion of heroin or cocaine is much slower in comparison. The brain responds to visual sexual images in microseconds which begins changes in brain chemistry that establish addiction instantly.

We used to call internet porn the "crack cocaine" of the internet. Now I think it's more destructive than any external drug. After all, you carry you're own supply!

Pornography addiction is difficult to treat because of this instantaneous, immediate entre into the addictive cycle. But it's also difficult to treat because it hits at the very core of our humanity. Interest in sexuality is a primary driving force in human beings. It is pleasurable by design and necessary in order for the human race to continue to exist. It is innate, but it is also a product of dysfunctional conditioning by family , culture, school and religious institutions. For sex addicts, whatever the causes, sex has become entwined with their identity.

Sexual acting out shores up a fragile ego. It instantly provides what all human seek and need - a sense of safety, security that perhaps was missing in childhood. Time spent in the "Erotic Haze" extinguishes the relentless, unconscious feelings of being ill-equipped to negotiate a world that seems hostile and unpredictable (perhaps like their family -of-origin).

Seems compelling, no?

There are other reasons porn is hard to treat. The commercial availability of the World Wide Internet in the 80's has, and will continue, to radically alter the way people experience their sexuality . The classic "3-A Engine" of affordability, accessibility and anonymity instantly made internet porn and cybersex irresistible to a large portion of the population. In an interview with "20/20" in 1999, I predicted that cybersex would someday become an epidemic. Well, years later, my prediction materialized. Sometimes it's hard to be right.

I lived through the "sexual revolution" of the 70's. People were more free than ever to express their sexuality in the service of "all you need is love" -- a utopia where love, peace and hot sex would the milieu in which we lived and all would be well.en. Something went horribly wrong with the plan. Love, peace , connection, community and the beauty of sexual expression have been replaced by the horror of sexual compulsion. Far from people coming together to share love and sex, our culture is fastly becoming one where sex is completely cut off from human connection. Internet sex is a solitary scene.

Far from sexuality being the open, beautiful free expression of ourselves that the 70's generation envisioned, sex has become isolated, shameful, desperate, compulsive -- robbing people of all that was once dear.

The dopamine depletion that follows a porn binge leave people depressed, anxious and lethargic. Connections to friends and family , passionate pursuits, the satisfaction of reaching a major goal, the simple pleasures of day-to-day living, any sense of spiritual connection, hobbies and recreations were long ago dismissed as sex became the primary mind "motif" through which they saw reality. Sex/porn addiction over the long-term becomes the addict's only need.

I have to tell you. It's such a sorry scene. Like all addictions, which are progressive, porn can eventually suck you dry of everything good, loving, vital and spontaneous in you. It's literally living in hell. A spiritual bankruptcy.

Think about it objectively. If your only need is (compulsive) sex, you're totally dependent and controlled by the very thing that's killing you.

Horrible. Horrible.

Hell.