Sex, Porn and Meth: A Dangerous Trio

Did you know that sex, porn and meth can be interrelated? While some may see this combination and become intrigued, these groupings are in reality highly dangerous. Yet so often meth and sex addiction or meth and porn addiction form strange partnerships. 

Meth can actually cause a temporary euphoria and high that also may result in perceivably positive sexual side effects. In fact, numerous meth users report that their sexual appetite can get voracious. While such a sexual desire may seem appealing, it often can lead to someone developing a cross addiction, leading to both meth addiction and sex addiction (or porn addiction) at the same time. 

Understanding Meth and Sex Addictions

Like any co-occurring disorders, meth addiction and sex addiction can develop at the same time. Meth and sex both can trigger your brain’s reward system, causing it to release the chemical dopamine when you experience pleasure. As you pair sex with meth over and over again, eventually you become dependent on both. It’s actually common for people to link substance abuse with sexual activity—but as they continue to do this, they become susceptible to full-blown addiction.

Over time, people addicted to meth and sex will start to exhibit changes in their sexual desires, activities, and behaviors. You may feel less inhibited, leading to increased (and riskier) sexual patterns. For example, a study conducted by Johns Hopkins Medicine showed that as meth users experienced increased sexual desire, their likelihood to wait for a condom decreased.

But why does this happen? Because you’ve developed an addiction, your brain is constantly releasing dopamine to feed your addiction, so much that the normal things in life you used to enjoy (and used to generate dopamine) no longer give you pleasure. Your brain has developed a tolerance for them. 

Combining sex with meth over time—even having sex on meth—causes your brain to become less receptive to dopamine as its neuroreceptors shut down. When this happens, your brain produces less dopamine. In the end, you need to escalate your meth and sex usage even more to feel the same high (and the same pleasure) you once did. 

Understanding Porn and Meth Addictions

Instead of sex, some people may be drawn to using porn and meth. Porn causes the same dopamine rush that sex does, so it’s an easy substitute. Your brain on porn actually thinks you’re having sex with the people in the pornography you’re consuming. The combined dopamine effects of porn and meth can also lead to them becoming mentally fused in your mind, so you start believing you can’t have one without the other. 

Watching porn on meth can make you temporarily feel more confident and sexually driven, but ultimately it produces the same effects that meth and sex do: eventually you become more tolerant of the dopamine released, so you have to watch more porn, masturbate more often, and use more meth to achieve the high you once had, further entrenching your addictions. 

Why Meth? 

What is it about meth that makes it such a compatible partner with sex and porn addictions? For starters, meth is a synthetic form of adrenaline. Adrenaline is a natural hormone produced in response to danger or stress that gives you increased energy (ever heard of an adrenaline rush?). Like natural adrenaline, when meth is smoked, snorted, or injected, it creates a prolonged sense of hyperactive awareness in your body. 

When you’re using meth, you also experience feelings of euphoria, so much that you want to continue using meth to achieve these same feelings again. At the same time, meth can dull your emotions, allowing you to escape from reality momentarily.

Meth is also used by some people to help them focus and commit to their tasks (such as work or studying) longer. When you consider all of these effects of using meth—hyperactive awareness, adrenaline, euphoric feelings, and enhanced ocus—it’s easy to see why these traits would appeal so much with sex and porn. Yet when sex, porn and meth combine, they can lead to devastating health consequences. 

Sex, Porn and Meth: Real Health Consequences

If you have meth and sex or porn addictions, you never escape scot-free. Instead, you can experience serious and even lifelong mental, physical, and sexual health consequences, including:

• Greater Risk of STDs: You can have increased risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) or infections. This comes from the fact that most meth users are less likely to use protection, are more likely to have sex with strangers, and often will share needles with others to use meth. 
• Anhedonia (Lack of Pleasure): Because you build up such tolerance to dopamine overtime, you can get to a point where you no longer experience pleasure. This condition, called Anhedonia, can actually take over a year to recover from after you’ve stopped your meth addiction. 
• Insomnia: Because of meth’s energetic side effects, you may struggle to sleep, staying awake for days or weeks even after you’ve stopped using. 
• Paranoia: Due to the prolonged hyper awareness that meth produces in your body, you can experience hallucinations, psychosis, and exaggerated excitement. This also causes you to perceive dangers that don’t actually exist, leaving you constantly paranoid. 
• Permanent Heart and Brain Damage: Long-term meth usage can permanently damage the blood vessels in your brain and your heart. As a result, you’re more susceptible to high blood pressure, strokes, and heart attacks. 

Find Healing from Sex, Porn and Meth at Integrative Life Center

If you’re struggling with cross addictions to sex, porn and meth, it’s critical you seek help to overcome them before they create lasting damage in your life. To heal these addictions for good, you need to address the root causes of each. Incorporating trauma-informed care and using a whole-person approach to therapy, our dual diagnosis treatment program at Integrative Life Center can help you overcome both addictions simultaneously by addressing any underlying issues—not just your symptoms. If you’re ready to move forward in life addiction-free, call our team today. 

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