Have you reached your breaking point with porn? Maybe you’ve hit rock bottom, wondering what you can do to climb out of this hole that addiction has caused. If you’re ready to get help, it’s important to know what to expect in the porn addiction recovery process. By understanding what it looks like in advance, you can go into treatment—and your recovery—with the proper mindset. This puts you in a better position to avoid porn relapse and stick with your goals of maintaining sobriety in the long run.
What is Porn Addiction?
At this point, you may be wondering whether you have a porn addiction and what it truly means. When you’re addicted to porn, you’re watching it compulsively, so much that you can’t stop—even if you wanted to quit. Your porn consumption is controlling your life and daily functioning, interfering with your relationships, personal responsibilities, work, or school.
Porn addiction is considered compulsive sexual behavior. It falls under the umbrella of hypersexual disorder, or sexual addiction. The causes of porn addiction are often rooted in unresolved past trauma: when you go through trauma, you seek out feel-good experiences to cope. And your brain on porn generates a significant amount of dopamine (the feel-good chemical) causing you to seek out porn as your preferred coping mechanism for feelings associated with your past trauma. As this happens more and more over time, you become addicted, which means you need to seek porn addiction recovery to heal. Some common porn addiction symptoms to look out for include:
- Out-of-control urges to watch porn
- Watching porn when you’re stressed or experiencing negative feelings
- Increased porn consumption
- Losing track of time while watching porn
- Unsuccessful attempts to cut back or stop your porn consumption
- Choosing to watch porn over spending time with others or pursuing your favorite activities
- Continuing to watch porn despite its negative consequences
The Porn Addiction Recovery Process
The first step in achieving porn addiction recovery always begins with the awareness that you have a problem. If you can relate to the symptoms above, there’s a good chance you have a porn addiction. Once you realize you’re struggling with addiction and have accepted the reality that it’s causing serious issues in your life, the next step is to seek out help.
You may be tempted to try to overcome your addiction on your own. However, your addiction is associated with the chemical dependence your brain has developed thanks to its constant supply of dopamine from porn. That means you can’t quit your porn addiction just through behavior modification or self-discipline. You need to partner with professional clinicians at a treatment center.
A porn addiction treatment facility will often offer a program that includes both residential treatment and outpatient care. When you begin your recovery from porn addiction, you’ll typically start with residential treatment, which means you’re staying onsite at the treatment facility 24/7 for a set period of time.
In this initial treatment stage, your therapy team is working with you to directly address the root causes of your addiction, namely, your past trauma. That means they will lead with trauma-informed care in the therapy process, coming alongside as an empathetic, supportive partner. During this time, you may struggle with porn withdrawal symptoms as your body adjusts to its lack of porn-driven dopamine supply in your pursuit to quit (which your therapists will help you navigate).
Empowering You to Stay Healthy
The best treatment centers take a holistic approach to porn addiction recovery, helping you heal emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually. This may involve both evidence-based and experiential therapy modalities, as well as individual and group therapy activities. Dual diagnosis treatment may also be pursued if you have any co-occurring disorders like depression or anxiety.
Once your trauma has been addressed, the next step is to equip you with the tools you need to achieve sobriety long-term. This can take place in both residential and outpatient treatment. During this time, you learn healthier coping skills that empower you to navigate any future porn addiction triggers. You also cultivate important porn addiction recovery habits such as self-care and building a support network for accountability and encouragement. After all, the goal is for you to leave with the know-how and self-confidence to stay the course in recovery back in the real world.
Your Porn Addiction Recovery Timeline: How Long Does It Take?
It’s important to understand that learning how to stop porn addiction for good isn’t a quick fix. The duration of residential treatment programs vary, but our men’s residential intimacy disorders treatment program lasts 28 days, for example. And outpatient treatment beyond this continues on for multiple weeks.
If you’re wondering how long a porn addiction recovery program will take, the short answer is that it depends. A porn addiction is a deeply personal experience. Depending on the duration and intensity of your addiction, as well as the presence of co-occurring disorders, your journey to sobriety may be longer or shorter than others.
While many treatment programs last about 30 to 90 days (factoring in all of the stages of treatment), recovery itself is a lifelong process. Once you finish treatment, the temptations of addiction are still out there. That’s why staying connected to porn addiction support groups or alumni programming can help you remain focused on your sobriety.
Ready to Pursue Recovery? Integrative Life Center Can Help
Though it may feel daunting now, multiple studies show that achieving porn addiction recovery is possible, shares FighttheNewDrug.org, even if you’ve been struggling for years. If you’re ready to seek professional treatment, we’re for you at Integrative Life Center in Nashville, TN. Our porn addiction treatment program can help you find true freedom and reclaim the healthy, sober life you deserve. Take our porn addiction quiz as a first step or contact us now to get started.
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source https://integrativelifecenter.com/intimacy-disorders/porn-addiction-recovery-what-to-expect/
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