89. How to Tell If You're Addicted to Porn – Top 8 Signs of an Unhealthy Relationship to Porn (Rebroadcast)

It's not always easy to tell whether your porn consumption is healthy. One major problem is that the consequences of watching too much porn can be subtle, and can look like they come from other unrelated issues. In this episode I discuss the top 8 signs that your porn viewing may be problematic.

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Show Notes:

00:00 Introduction and Episode Overview

00:18 Rebroadcast and Importance of Topic

00:42 Unhooked Academy Group Coaching Program

01:11 Main Topic Introduction: Unhealthy Relationship with Porn

01:55 Defining Unhealthy Relationship vs. Addiction

04:50 Top 8 Signs of Unhealthy Relationship with Porn

05:03 Sign 1: Inability to Stop Watching Porn

06:23 Sign 2: Craving More Porn

07:43 Sign 3: Loss of Interest in Real Sex and Intimacy

10:10 Sign 4: Lying or Hiding Behavior

11:33 Sign 5: Feeling Guilt or Shame

13:06 Sign 6: Losing Attraction to Partners

16:19 Sign 7: Experiencing Sexual Dysfunction

17:53 Sign 8: Constant Distraction by Sexual Thoughts

20:19 Summary of Top 8 Signs

21:08 Conclusion and Call to Action

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ABOUT JEREMY LIPKOWITZ

Jeremy overcame addiction, shame, self-judgement, and depression in his early twenties with the help of mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness not only helped him let go of destructive behaviors, it also allowed him to connect with deeper meaning and purpose in his life.

For the past 10 years Jeremy has been teaching mindfulness and emotional intelligence practices at universities, recovery centers, and companies throughout Asia and the US. He holds a Bachelors and Master’s degree in Genetics and Genomics, and spent several years at Duke University working towards a PhD in Genetics & Systems Biology before he turned full-time to teaching mindfulness.

Jeremy is also an ICF certified Executive Coach. As a former scientist and academic, Jeremy has a great passion for bringing his EI based coaching skills into the corporate and professional world. He realizes how powerful & transformative these practices can be for skeptics and senior-level managers. He is known for his calm and grounded demeanor, his expertise in habits and high-performance, and his compassionate approach to transformation.

Transcript

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You're listening to unhooked the breaking point addiction podcast. In today's episode, I'm going to be answering the question that I get almost every week. Which is, how do you know if you're addicted to porn?  

This is a rebroadcast of an episode that I released very early on in the podcast. And I wanted to share it once again to bring it to the top of the pile. Because it's such an important topic to understand. And it's as relevant today as it was when I first recorded it. So I hope you enjoy this rebroadcast of the episode. How do you know if you have an unhealthy relationship with porn?  In other news, the unhooked academy group coaching program is now officially here. The calls with our private community members are starting this week and there's still time to join. 

So if you're looking for support in breaking free from your addiction. And want the quickest and most sustainable way to accomplish that, then sign up for a free discovery call with me to see if the unhooked academy program is right for you.  And now. Onto today's show. 

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  You're listening to Unhooked, the breaking porn addiction podcast. In today's episode, I'm going to be answering the question that I get almost every week, which is, how do you know if you're addicted to porn? So, stay tuned. 



So, hello and welcome to another episode of the Unhooked podcast, all about breaking free from compulsive habits and behaviors.

Today I wanted to talk about this question, which  I actually get semi regularly from not just from people who feel like they're addicted to porn, but also from their friends. Friends and lovers and people who are just curious. How do you know if you are addicted to porn? And I would actually like to address this from a slightly different perspective which is Instead of using the term addiction which has a lot of baggage a lot of connotation  How can we ask the simpler question?

How do I know if my relationship to porn is unhealthy? So, you know really looking at it from this question of  Is my use of porn causing more harm than good in my life? Is it holding me back in ways and would it be better to fix my relationship to porn? And I think this is an important distinction because the word addiction has so many connotations that people can get hung up in the semantics of this discussion.

Thinking about, well, is it technically an addiction? Are there withdrawal symptoms? You know, all these different side conversations about whether it's technically an addiction or not. To me, it really doesn't matter. I don't care what term you use. The question we are really looking at is, is your use of porn helping you?

Is it improving your life or is it causing harm in your relationships, in your mental health, in your sense of fulfillment and contentment and integrity as a man?  So this is really the question that we're going to be looking at today. Now obviously the question itself, you know, is your relationship to porn unhealthy, implies that it's possible to have a healthy relationship to porn.

And personally my stance is that There might be situations where you can have a healthy relationship to porn.  Maybe if you're using it in the context of your relationship, or if it's something that you just enjoy very infrequently and it's just something that kind of  gives you ideas. some ways to talk about whether or not your relationship to porn is healthy.

But here we're going to be looking at what are the signs to look out for, what should you be cognizant of and aware of that might give you a clue about whether or not you have a porn addiction or an unhealthy relationship to porn.  And I also want to start off by saying that this, this question of whether or not your porn consumption is healthy, one of the major problems, uh, with this topic is that often the consequences of watching porn are very subtle and they can look like they're coming from unrelated issues.

And so it can be very hard for people to self diagnose or to even spot that they might be having some  problems in their life or their relationships because of porn. And so this is why I really want to highlight some of these topics because it's very easy to overlook and to think that there's no problem in your porn viewing.

When in reality it actually is causing serious harm to your relationships, your sense of happiness and fulfillment. So, let's go ahead and dive into the top 8 things to look out for, top 8 signs that might give you a signal that you have an unhealthy relationship to porn.  So the first sign to look out for is that you can't stop.

This is because Probably the most obvious way to tell that you are addicted or have an unhealthy relationship, if you want to stop, but you just can't.  You, you know, you might feel powerless, you might be in the middle of a porn viewing session, and feel like you should just stop or just finish already, but you just keep going and you can't stop.

It could also be that you want to watch less frequently.  You keep going back to it again and again every night in a compulsive way. It So, that sign that you want to stop and you can't is the most obvious way to tell that you have an unhealthy, compulsive, addictive relationship to porn.  A very simple metric to look at is, if you can stop for 30 days, if you can give yourself this challenge to not view porn for 30 days, and you can do that,  Maybe with a little bit of challenge, but it's not too challenging.

And that's a great sign that you might have a healthy relationship to it. On the flip side, if 30 days is incredibly challenging or impossible for you in your, in your life or your circumstances right now, again, that should be a, a flag for you. to look into this.  Number two, the second thing to look out for is that you often find yourself craving more. 

And so, you know, one way to check into this is just to notice how you feel while you're watching. Does it need, do you feel the need to keep searching for different videos to find different porn stars or, or new things to watch? Do you feel like you don't want to finish on one video because you want to find something better? 

Also to tune in to how you feel just after you ejaculate or orgasm. Do you have that sense of wanting to go back in? You know, after the, the pleasure and the release and the relief fades away after a couple minutes. Do you find yourself thinking about, Going back into porn. So this craving for more, this needing for more, for novelty,  is a  sign that you might have this kind of addictive compulsive relationship to it. 

You know, on this note, also just noticing if you are craving more throughout the day. So, you know, as you go through your day to day activities or hobbies or tasks, do you find yourself thinking about wanting to log in and search for new stuff later on in the night? So again, that craving for more is a good sign to be on the lookout for.

Number three, the third thing to look out for is if you've lost interest in real sex and intimacy.  So if you are starting to prefer sex through a screen, over sex with a real person. If you are avoiding dating or going out into real life, maybe you're afraid of rejection or afraid of what will happen, and you're getting so addicted to just getting your fix through the screen, that you prefer that over real intimacy in person.

That, again, is a sign that the relationship you have to pornography, rather than lifting you up in some way, is holding you back.  We were not, uh, made, you know, to get our sexual fulfillment through a screen. And, of course, there's a lot of dystopian science fiction things we can look at about where we might be headed as a species, as a culture, uh, you know, getting more and more into VR sex and all these different things. 

You know, fundamentally, That connection with a real person in real life, a real human being, is so much more fulfilling.  And so just noticing for yourself if you are starting to prefer the online sex, prefer getting your fix from porn, rather than Wanting to go out and have sex with a real person, you know, there's you know stories that I know from my clients and from from the literature where even when Offered, you know a date with a real person a man might turn it down because they would rather stay home and watch porn And so again, these are some should be some pretty obvious signs But the thing about this is that even when these things are obvious in retrospect or in hindsight  When you're in the midst of it, when it's your story, it's very hard to actually recognize these things. 

And so that's why having these things written out or spoken about like this can be helpful. It's just recognizing, oh yeah,  how strange it is that I really want sex, but instead of going out to meet someone, instead of, You know, risking it and maybe getting rejected, I would prefer to just stay home. The safety and security, the isolation of watching porn. 

So that's the third one, is if you are losing interest in real sex and real intimacy in favor of  online porn and sex. The fourth sign to look out for is if you are lying or hiding your behavior from loved ones. So if you have to lie about your behavior, about your porn viewing,  if you have to Maybe pretend that you're too busy to go out to dinner with friends because you want to stay home and masturbate or you are lying about the type of porn that you're watching. 

These can be signs, again, that you have that unhealthy relationship to it.  Hiding your behavior and lying even about other topics, even if it's not related to porn. It's a sign of You know, something out of alignment in your life. And this is why honesty is so important in the recovery process. Committing to that, that real extreme honesty with yourself and with the people in your life.

To not lie even about small things. Because committing to honesty really helps you address all the other ways you might be hiding your behaviors or lying to people in your life.  So one way to check in on this is just to notice, you know, are there ways that I am, I am maybe exaggerating, um, or, or hiding, or lying, or in some way manipulating the truth so that people don't know what you're actually doing.

So asking yourself, being brutally honest with yourself about that.  Number five, the fifth thing to look out for is if you feel guilt or shame while you are watching porn.  Now this can come from a number of different reasons. Perhaps you're watching a type of porn or a genre of porn that doesn't align with your values.

It might be something where there is violence  or, you know, degrading towards women in some way.  Or, you know, even worse, it could be completely unethical or even illegal. So if you are noticing that you are feeling guilt and shame while you watch porn, that is another sign to look out for.  It could also be the guilt and shame are coming because maybe it's not It doesn't have anything to do with the content of the porn, but just the fact that you are wasting so much time.

Maybe you are shirking your responsibilities at work, or towards your family, or towards your partner.  You know, noticing,  do you feel guilty? Do you feel ashamed of your porn viewing behavior?  It's not a surefire way because sometimes that shame around sexuality is so ingrained that it's just coming because you are ashamed of indulging in sexuality.

And so there does need to be some discrimination there. Is the shame coming just because of that general sense of shame? Or is it because you're watching something that is not aligned with your values? Or maybe it is you're not acting in ways that you know you should be.  So, noticing if there's guilt or shame while you're watching porn. 

Number six, the sixth thing to look out for, to  just check in to see if your relationship to porn might be unhealthy, is if you are easily or quickly losing attraction to your partners.  So this is something that you might have experienced. Maybe you're pursuing someone, you know, you start dating and the dates are going well, and then You know, you end up inviting them over, and maybe you have sex.

And if you find that you quickly lose attraction to them after you have sex, or even, you know, just after a few weeks of dating, that might be a sign that your porn addiction or porn viewing behavior is influencing your mind in unhealthy ways. Because one of the side effects of consuming too much porn is that we, well, there's a couple things.

One is we tend to look for novelty. in our sexual encounters. So in the same way that we look for novelty in the porn that we're looking at, you know, every night we need a new video, a new face, a new, uh, a new thing to watch.  You're training your brain to get, uh, get its fill from that novelty. And in the same way that translates into your real relationships is that you tend to get bored after a short amount of time with one partner.

And so if you notice that you quickly lose attraction to your partner or to the people that you are sleeping with, that is again a sign that porn might be influencing your life in an unhealthy way. It might be causing harm in your relationships. Most of the people I work with, most of my clients, you know, the deep longing is to be in a relationship where you really feel fulfilled, where you really appreciate your partner.

And you're not just looking for one quick fix after the next. And so, chances are, if you're listening to this, that is true for you as well. You want to be someone who appreciates and is grateful for what you have. And you're not just jumping from one hot person to the next. Because the truth is, it's not fulfilling.

You know,  trying to have sex with as many different people as possible doesn't actually fulfill anyone.  So, check that out in yourself. Find out if you are losing attraction to your partners.  You know, another thing that porn does to us, aside from wanting novelties, we tend to want perfection. So, every time you log into porn and you're watching, you're searching for the particular avatar of the type of person you want to sleep with. 

And if you've been watching porn for 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, and every time you're searching for, you know, a blonde girl with big tits or something. then that is going to be the thing that you're looking for and the thing that you're expecting.  And so then when you're with somebody who doesn't perfectly fit that avatar, your brain can tell you, hey, this isn't what we want.

We want something, you know, that matches what we've been looking at for the last 10 15 years online.  So that is another way that it can have that damaging effect, is that you tend to only get turned on by that very particular niche. that you're looking for.  So number seven, the seventh thing to look out for is if you are experiencing sexual dysfunction in your life. 

Now this again should be a dead giveaway that your current sexual habits are just not working. So sexual dysfunction, if that's happening, you know, of course that's not how we evolved, right? And so there's something going on. in your mental world, in your physical world, in your emotional world, that is causing sexual dysfunction.

This can be premature ejaculation or often something called delayed ejaculation. You know, if you are just, you can't get it up because you're so used to getting turned on by what you see in porn that being with a real person doesn't do it for you. And so it can actually be hard to maintain an erection, to ejaculate. 

So, just noticing it. If you're experiencing sexual dysfunction  9 times out of 10 or 99 times out of 100, it has to do something with watching too much porn, getting too habituated to the hyper stimulus that we experience when we're watching hardcore internet pornography. Now fortunately, a lot of people experience when they go through a reboot or, you know, quit porn that a lot of the sexual dysfunction goes away.

So the delayed ejaculation, the lack of ability to get an erection, premature ejaculation, all of these things can get improved when people take a break from porn or quit altogether.  The eighth thing to look out for, to see if you might have an unhealthy relationship to porn, is if you are constantly distracted.

And in particular, if you're constantly distracted by thoughts of sex, or masturbation, or looking at porn. So again, this is something I'll say time and time again on this podcast. Lust is natural and normal.  Your sexual desire is normal. It is a beautiful part of life. And we don't want to suppress lust.

Our sexual feelings, our sexual desires. But the question is, is it starting to take control of your life? Is it, you know, are you a slave to your sexual desires? Is it just like, you can't turn it off and you can't You can't function, you can't work on projects, you can't focus, you can't read, you can't be in the presence of a hot woman without having these fantasies, right? 

Again, there's nothing wrong with having those sexual feelings, but when it is taking control of your life, when you are a slave to your lust, that is when it is becoming a problem.  So just noticing in your life, you know, do you feel constantly distracted? Are you always distracted? Always thinking about sex.

Is it very hard or challenging for you to, uh, not sexually objectify a hot woman in your presence? These are some of the things to look for that might give you a sign that you are maybe feeding too much fire into the sexual part of your life. So again, sexuality is beautiful, but one of the problems with porn is that it throws jet fuel on this fire.

And it causes that fire to burn out of control.  Instead, as men, we want to learn how to be in control of that fire. There are many different practices. Sexual transmutation practices, different Taoist practices, tantric practices.  Things you can do to channel that energy into something wholesome.  If you don't learn those techniques, if you just keep feeding, you know, that jet fuel onto the fire, it, it just rages out of control.

So,  again, noticing what is your relationship to porn.  So those, again, are the kind of top eight signs that I would say you should look out for if you are wondering if you have an unhealthy relationship to porn. To summarize again, the first one is you find that you just can't stop, despite wanting to. The second one is that you often find yourself craving more, either while you're watching or after.

The third one is you've lost interest in real sex and intimacy. See? The fourth is that you find yourself lying or hiding your behavior from your loved ones.  Number five is that you feel guilt and or shame while you are watching porn. Number six is you feel easily  or quickly losing your attraction to your partners. 

Number seven, you experience sexual dysfunction in any form. And then number eight is if you find that you are constantly distracted and in particular by these thoughts of sex and masturbation and watching porn. So that is it. That's what I wanted to talk about today, to explore this topic of how do you know if you have an unhealthy relationship to porn?

How do you know if porn might be causing problems in your life? These are the eight things that I would check out in your own life. And it should give you a sign of whether or not your porn viewing is healthy or might be problematic. You know, this is something you can also pass on to a friend or a lover if they are questioning about their own porn viewing behaviors. 

And of course, I just want to say that if this is something that you are looking for help with, if you are in a state in your life where you recognize that you need some support in breaking free from your porn addiction, then reach out to me and sign up for a free discovery call. This is something that I offer to people who are interested in coaching where we really look at, you know, what's working in your life, what's not working, and we together develop a blueprint for success in your life.

What do you need to do? What do you need to work on to move your life forward? Often with my clients it starts by addressing porn, but very quickly,  We move on to other topics like relationships, career and business, physical health, nutrition. So it's not just about porn addiction, it's really about all of the different things going on in your life and how to create a life that you love, how to build more fulfillment into your life. 

So I hope you have enjoyed this podcast today. As always, give it some love on the platform you're watching. It helps spread this message. And feel free to share this with a friend. If you know people who are interested in these conversations, conversations about sexual health, about porn and masturbation and intimacy, I would love if you could spread the word.

So that's it for today. Signing off from Amsterdam. Much love and peace out.