How do I know if I'm addicted to pornography?
1. You are unable to resist looking at it.
2. you are preoccupied or obsessed with pornography.
3. Efforts to stop viewing it have failed.
4. A great deal of time is spent using porn, masturbating to it, and recovering from
its effects (feeling shame, failure).
5. Pornography interferes with your job, schooling, family life.
6. The need to increase the intensity of pornography (escalation) or frequency of its use
in order to achieve the desired effect.
7. Irritability or tension build-up if unable to use pornography.
What can I do to overcome my addiction?
It is important to get counseling by a professional who is familiar with the problem of
sexual addiction. If you need help in finding such a person, contact the following
organizations who have an outreach to addicts and to wives of addicts:
American Family Association Outreach Division
National Coalition for the Protection of
Children and Families
Maryland Coalition Against Pornography (MD, DC, and Northern VA
only) 301-439-8475
Join a support group for Porn/Sex Addicts. Many areas have a Sex-aholics Anonymous
group, or your counselor may know of one that would be helpful. Accountability to a group
or a trusted friend is an important part of recovery.
Read some good books on the subject. Here are a few:
"Out of the Shadows"
by Patrick Carnes (Compcare Publications)
"Addicted to Love"
by Stephen Arterburn (Servant Publications)
"False Intimacy"
by Harry Schaumburg
"Overcoming the Addiction
to Pornography" by David Caton (Florida Family Association)
"Tearing down the High Places of Sexual Idolatry" by Steve Gallagher,
Pure Life Ministries
P.O. Box 410
Dry Ridge, KY 41035
For wives:
"An Affair of the Mind"
by Laurie Hall, Focus on the Family Publishing, 8605 Explorer Dr., Colorado Springs, CO
80920
"Women Who Love Sex
Addicts" by Douglas Weiss and Dianne DeBusk, Discovery Press
