Let’s say at some point in your life, you begin to make efforts to stop your addictive habits in order to make life better for you and for your family. You read articles; you go for therapy, etc. You just keep trying every method you believe would help you to overcome your addiction. But you might still not be able to overcome those addictive habits.
Let’s make porn our main point of view. Porn is very addictive, as someone can keep watching porn for hours without taking a break. It has evolved over the last couple of decades to become irresistible to a large number of people. Both young and old folks glue their eyes to their computer screens watching people (porn stars) engage in one sexual act or the other.
There are two categories of porn, namely; soft core and hard core. These two categories of porn are then subdivided into other categories such as lesbian porn, amateur porn, threesomes, etc. This gives porn users a wide range of options to choose their porn contents from, depending on their preferences. Moreover, porn contents now come in high definition with near-perfect picture quality to add to the excitement of the users.
Whenever people ask me if it is possible to stop watching porn, I always reply them “yes, it is possible”. But the fact remains that most porn addicts believe they can stop watching porn anytime they make up their mind to stop; unfortunately, it is when they try to stop that they find out they could not. What they thought was just for whiling away time and for pleasure as now become a part of their life they can’t do without.
However, this article is not focusing on the possibility of you being able to stop watching porn; rather, it’s focusing on what is making it difficult for you to stop watching it. This article is not going to proffer solution to your porn addiction, but it is going to point out to you what is responsible for making it hard for you to abstain from watching porn and probably make one or two suggestions on what you can do that will help you in your quest to stop watching porn. What you do with the information you get from here is up to you.
After much research into this issue of porn addiction, I found out that everything boils down to the release and tolerance of a chemical called “dopamine”. Yes, it is dopamine that is making it hard for you to stop watching porn. It is a neurotransmitter associated with the brain’s pleasure system. It also has a host of other functions but our concern is its role in porn addiction. There are a lot of scientific terms and “jargons” related to this, but I’m going to keep it simple.
What happens is that when you are watching porn, dopamine will be released in the part of your brain that is responsible for emotion. This in turn gives you a sense of craving; a sense of pleasure. So the next time you feel the need for pleasure (sexual pleasure), dopamine will be released in the brain and will kind of remind you of where you got your last urge for sexual pleasure satisfied. What this means is that, if it was porn you used to satisfy your last urge for sexual pleasure, the next time you have an urge for sexual pleasure, dopamine will remind you of porn.
Other chemicals that partner with dopamine in this process are: Norepinephrine, this alerts the brain of what is about to happen, and gets it ready for it; Oxytocin and Vasopressin, they help to bind your memories to the action that provided satisfaction to your previous sexual pleasure; Endorphins, which is responsible for the state of being “high”, creates a wave of pleasure all over the body; Serotonin, which gets activated after sexual release, and in turn brings about calmness and relaxation.
So, there you have it; dopamine is the major culprit that is making it difficult for you to stop watching porn. The question now is that what can you do about this dopamine if you really want to stop watching porn? The answer is this: the release of dopamine is not the problem; it is too much of it that is the problem. The more you expose yourself to dopamine-releasing actions (porn) the more it is difficult for you to stop your addiction; because the chemicals listed above will keep gluing your mind to those actions (porn).
In conclusion, one step I will suggest can help you in your quest to stop watching porn is to control your rate of consumption. You don’t have to stop it at once, as this might be a very difficult thing to do, but you can start by probably reducing it to once a day, to twice a week, to once a week, and so on; until you can go a very long time without it. Remember, the brain operates on a “use it or lose it” system. So, the more you make dopamine dormant in your brain, the more it loses its grip on you. This method can also be used to tackle other addictions you might have.
Author – Jonathan Sonia
