Porn addiction can have devastating effects on a loved one’s mental, physical, and spiritual health. Interferences with work, social relationships, and romantic relationships quickly spin porn addiction out of control. Commonly, porn addiction is co-occurring with drug and alcohol addiction or other co-occurring mental health disorders.
- Changes In Sexual Activity: One of the hallmark indicators of porn addiction is a sudden change in sexual activity. Porn addiction doesn’t affect sex gradually, but drastically. Your partner might be making new sexual demands, asking for extreme interactions in sex, or wanting to have sex more often. If you do not meet these needs, which is normal, your partner may detach from sexual activity all together. A decrease in sexual activity is normal. Part of the porn addiction process is developing a tolerance for “normal” sexual activity and losing sexual drive outside of porn.
- Changes In Social Scenes: Addiction can cause social withdrawal and social isolation for any substance or process. When someone becomes addicted to porn many of their waking hours, which increase drastically, are spent searching for, watching, and downloading porn. They lose touch with their social groups and friend scenes, becoming more isolated the deeper they get into their addiction. You will likely hear excuses and justifications, victimizing themselves, villainizing others, or refusing to talk about it.
- Changes In Relationship Behaviors: Partners can be doting and affectionate. If your partner normally mentions your looks in a positive way, they might change to being more critical. Bodies in porn are sometimes extreme and being used in extreme ways. Porn creates a kind of body dysmorphia in which normal bodies of normal men and women no longer measure up to the bodies being viewed in porn. In extreme and obvious cases, there will be hurtful, blatant comments about how your body and appearance is no longer sexually appealing. When you bring up conversations about a lack of sexual interaction, this may be a cited reason. Do not take this personally, their brain is being distorted due to their porn addiction.
- Changes In Technology Use: You might find an increase in technology use or protection over technology. There will be more secrecy and secretive behavior like new passcodes, quickly shutting the screen or shutting devices off, and being defensive about activity. Porn is accessible from almost any technological device with an internet connection. Other technology use changes can include: new devices, new email addresses, secret credit cards, scrutinous checking of devices, talking about having more “work” to do.
Seeking intervention and treatment for porn addiction should be done with professionalism, privacy, and compassion. Hired Power is a recovery services company offering the professional assistance of experience in recovery planning. Call us today and as how we are empowering families to bring recovery home. 800-910-9299.