Porn Wants to Hide Your Problems
One of the problems I have discovered about porn is that porn really wants to hide other problems, sins, hurts etc in its shadow.
Most people who get addicted to porn do not get addicted because of other problems, sins or hurt. Porn is frankly nearly everywhere. Most people get addicted to porn because when you first see porn (soft core, hard core, doesn’t matter) your body releases dopamine and makes you feel good, so you of course chase the high. Most people who get addicted to porn get addicted between the ages of 12 and 14 simply because they do not realize that they are chasing a high. Generally masturbation happens when someone escalates their porn addiction. Many young people start masturbating without knowing what it is, and they discover a much higher high than just looking at porn. Unfortunately this higher high also brings lower lows.
What happens is that the porn addict is still human and has regular human problems. Over the course of time you will hurt people, other people will hurt you, you will be involved in different sins. You are just going to have problems, sins and hurt invade your life naturally.
The problem is that when these problems come up its very easy to self-medicate with porn and then assume the consequences from those problems, sins and hurts come from your porn addiction. For instance you could have been emotionally abused (or physically/sexually) by a family member and your response is to look at porn and masturbate. Afterward you feel depressed, so instead of recognizing that you are depressed because of an abusive relationship, you assume that you feel depressed because you went binging on porn, and that its porns fault. So you ignore the problem associated with the abusive relationship because you think all your problems come from porn. Year after year abuse adds up, and hurts mount up, but the whole time you are blaming porn.
What happens is the more pain you feel the more you need to be medicated by porn, the more porn you get medicated by the more you think porn is why you feel hurt, because you are blaming porn for your hurt, you never deal with the problem, because you never deal with the problem porn has a very easy time overcoming you, because porn is your solution to that problem, you can not see the problem because of porn.
After nearly 2 years of overcoming my porn addiction I am still dealing with hurtful things that should have been dealt with 10 or more years ago. I am dealing with emotional abuse by my sister, abandonment by those who should have been there for me, envy, poor financial planning, among other things. But the thing is that porn hid all these problems from me, so most of these problems, sins, and hurts have more than ten years of scars added to them. Without porn hiding the problems I would have dealt with mole hills, but now that I have woken up from my porn addiction I find myself dealing with mountain ranges. I am just grateful I can stop the problems from growing any worse.
I have to wonder how many people are out there thinking that if they could just get rid of porn their life will be great and wonderful, and the reality is getting rid of porn will only show them problems that porn has been hiding for years. I wonder how many married men think that the only problem in their marriage is porn, but if they really sat down and talked to their wives they would find dozens of major problems hiding behind their porn addiction.
The best description of porn I can think of is that porn is a tank in an RPG (role playing game). In case you don’t know in most RPG’s there are several characters working together as a team and each one of them has a different role to play. The tanks role is to protect the other team members by being a meat shield, tanks have high health and defense and usually lower attack power than the rest of the team. In your life you have black mages attacking you (High attack low health), white mages (helping the tank (porn) recover its health along with the black mages), and perhaps a rouge just constantly stabbing you in the back (high critical attack low health high dodge).
The black mage, white mage, rouge all have low health, so if you focused on dealing with them you would be able to get them out of your life relatively quickly, but porn is always in your face. One of the things that makes porn the tank in your life is that porn comes with a 3 month dopamine withdrawal symptom. Which gives it a much higher survival rate than most problems in your life. I would encourage you to try to deal with or at least recognize and start dealing with the non porn problems in your life. It is highly likely you will not be able to overcome porn until you first deal with some of porns support in your life.
If you are in the midst of a binge and are wondering how you can find one of these non porn problems, I suggest a three day fast. After the 3 day fast you should be able to find at least one of the non porn problems enabling porn. It is okay to take a month or two to focus on taking that problem out of your life, and once you do you will find fighting porn becomes much easier.
This is why porn works so hard to distract you from other problems. It knows that those other problems are easier to deal with and thus the easiest way to overcome porn.
Most people who get addicted to porn do not get addicted because of other problems, sins or hurt. Porn is frankly nearly everywhere. Most people get addicted to porn because when you first see porn (soft core, hard core, doesn’t matter) your body releases dopamine and makes you feel good, so you of course chase the high. Most people who get addicted to porn get addicted between the ages of 12 and 14 simply because they do not realize that they are chasing a high. Generally masturbation happens when someone escalates their porn addiction. Many young people start masturbating without knowing what it is, and they discover a much higher high than just looking at porn. Unfortunately this higher high also brings lower lows.
What happens is that the porn addict is still human and has regular human problems. Over the course of time you will hurt people, other people will hurt you, you will be involved in different sins. You are just going to have problems, sins and hurt invade your life naturally.
The problem is that when these problems come up its very easy to self-medicate with porn and then assume the consequences from those problems, sins and hurts come from your porn addiction. For instance you could have been emotionally abused (or physically/sexually) by a family member and your response is to look at porn and masturbate. Afterward you feel depressed, so instead of recognizing that you are depressed because of an abusive relationship, you assume that you feel depressed because you went binging on porn, and that its porns fault. So you ignore the problem associated with the abusive relationship because you think all your problems come from porn. Year after year abuse adds up, and hurts mount up, but the whole time you are blaming porn.
What happens is the more pain you feel the more you need to be medicated by porn, the more porn you get medicated by the more you think porn is why you feel hurt, because you are blaming porn for your hurt, you never deal with the problem, because you never deal with the problem porn has a very easy time overcoming you, because porn is your solution to that problem, you can not see the problem because of porn.
After nearly 2 years of overcoming my porn addiction I am still dealing with hurtful things that should have been dealt with 10 or more years ago. I am dealing with emotional abuse by my sister, abandonment by those who should have been there for me, envy, poor financial planning, among other things. But the thing is that porn hid all these problems from me, so most of these problems, sins, and hurts have more than ten years of scars added to them. Without porn hiding the problems I would have dealt with mole hills, but now that I have woken up from my porn addiction I find myself dealing with mountain ranges. I am just grateful I can stop the problems from growing any worse.
I have to wonder how many people are out there thinking that if they could just get rid of porn their life will be great and wonderful, and the reality is getting rid of porn will only show them problems that porn has been hiding for years. I wonder how many married men think that the only problem in their marriage is porn, but if they really sat down and talked to their wives they would find dozens of major problems hiding behind their porn addiction.
The best description of porn I can think of is that porn is a tank in an RPG (role playing game). In case you don’t know in most RPG’s there are several characters working together as a team and each one of them has a different role to play. The tanks role is to protect the other team members by being a meat shield, tanks have high health and defense and usually lower attack power than the rest of the team. In your life you have black mages attacking you (High attack low health), white mages (helping the tank (porn) recover its health along with the black mages), and perhaps a rouge just constantly stabbing you in the back (high critical attack low health high dodge).
The black mage, white mage, rouge all have low health, so if you focused on dealing with them you would be able to get them out of your life relatively quickly, but porn is always in your face. One of the things that makes porn the tank in your life is that porn comes with a 3 month dopamine withdrawal symptom. Which gives it a much higher survival rate than most problems in your life. I would encourage you to try to deal with or at least recognize and start dealing with the non porn problems in your life. It is highly likely you will not be able to overcome porn until you first deal with some of porns support in your life.
If you are in the midst of a binge and are wondering how you can find one of these non porn problems, I suggest a three day fast. After the 3 day fast you should be able to find at least one of the non porn problems enabling porn. It is okay to take a month or two to focus on taking that problem out of your life, and once you do you will find fighting porn becomes much easier.
This is why porn works so hard to distract you from other problems. It knows that those other problems are easier to deal with and thus the easiest way to overcome porn.