Your Brain on Porn (14 page)

hell?’ It is not used to actual sex as its primary way of being sexual. Real contact begins the
‘rewiring’ process. You will be re-sensitizing yourself to actual sex. Sex after rebooting and
rewiring feels WAY BETTER. Can't even describe it in words. So there will be a rewiring
process where you may sputter and have a few backfires but eventually you fire on all
cylinders. These days? Zero ED, I don't even have to think about it.

Are Some Porn Users Misdiagnosed?

Although symptoms such as erectile dysfunction, social anxiety, concentration problems and depression are quite different, they share a common finding in the scientific literature. As I explained, one brain change that occurs with addiction is desensitisation
.
Again, this term refers to a general dialling down of a person's responsiveness to all pleasure – a baseline drop in dopamine and reduced dopamine sensitivity. And it's worth repeating that the German researchers discussed in the previous section found evidence of desensitisation even in
moderate
porn users.

In the case of porn use, desensitisation could potentially account for lots of symptoms heavy users report. A decline in dopamine signalling is associated with all of these:

- Diminished sexual behaviour
,[152]
which, as noted, is a possible cause of sluggish erections/climaxes,

- Decreased risk-takin
g[153]
and increased anxiety, combined with a tendency toward angry overreaction,
[154]
any of which can decrease willingness to socialize,

- Inability to focus,
[155]
which can account for concentration and memory problems, and

- Lack of motivatio
n[156]
and healthy anticipation, which can lead to apathy
,[157]

procrastination, and even play a role in depression.
[158]

In fact, when a medical student courageously allowed doctors to deplete his dopamine briefly using a pharmaceutical,
[159]
look what happened:

During increasing dopamine depletion in this case, a range of subjective experiences
appeared and disappeared consecutively. These experiences resembled negative symptoms

[loss of motivation, dulled senses, decreased fluency, lower mood, fatigue, poor

concentration, anxiety, restlessness, feelings of shame, fear], obsessive-compulsive

symptoms, thought disorders, and anxiety and depressive symptoms.
[Bracketed items are listed elsewhere in the article cited.]

Addiction researchers have measured a decline in dopamine and dopamine sensitivity in the brains of addicts of all kinds, including internet addicts.
[160]
We also know that this decline can happen very quickly with ‘natural rewards’ such as junk food
.[161] [162]

The flipside is that when dopamine and related neurochemicals are properly regulated, sexual attraction, socializing, concentration, sexual responsiveness, and feelings of wellbeing are more effortless. I suspect that a return to normal dopamine signalling helps explain why many guys report similar sets of diverse improvements after they unhook from excessive consumption of internet porn.

Unfortunately, due to widespread ignorance about the scientific basis of internet porn addiction, many healthcare providers still assume that internet porn use cannot cause severe depression, brain fog, low motivation or anxiety. As a consequence, they inadvertently misdiagnose internet porn users as having primary disorders without inquiring about their internet habits. Porn users are then surprised when quitting porn resolves their other symptoms:

I don't think society knows what internet porn really does to a man. All they really
associate porn with is ED. Porn turns a man into a scared boy. I was socially awkward,
depressed, had no motivation, couldn't focus, very insecure, weak muscle tone, my voice was

weaker, and I had absolutely no control over my life. Men are going to the doctors getting
prescribed all kind of meds, when really it often comes down to porn and what it does to your

brain and body. I'm off porn now and feel better than I felt in years.

*

[Day 91, after two years of striving to quit porn] As someone who has struggled with
diagnosed depression since my teens (YES, I see an undeniable connection to porn and
fapping), I can say that I am starting to experience a better self-image, have been processing
life troubles much better. I don’t let stress make me hostile or hopeless like before. In other
words, I’m a lot less depressed.

*

As a man with genetic depression, being pornfree has done more for me than any drugs I

have ever had to take. It is as if this makes me more alert, attentive, and happier than
Wellbutrin, Zoloft or the other drugs I was cycled through.

*

Quitting is the antidepressant I needed. 9 months ago I was a 25-year old university drop

out, working a job I hated and depressed. A few months after I quit porn, I got my
superpowers. I did a lot of things for the first time, including kissing a girl within two
minutes of meeting her and being invited to another girl's apartment. I think that I don't have
depression anymore. There still are downhills, but nothing like before with no energy for
anything and suicidal thoughts. My secret? In the last month I've used internet for maybe an

hour. I have decided to start university once more in September even though I have to pay for

everything myself.

A thorough understanding of how the brain adapts in response to chronic overstimulation becomes

vital when people seek help for porn-induced problems. Professionals educated prior to highspeed porn were sometimes trained that sexual tastes are somehow as innate as sexual orientation. Instead of encouraging patients to experiment with reversing their porn-induced tastes, they may propose more drastic treatment:

In 2012, I tried to get help from a professional psychotherapist/sexologist. I plucked up
the courage to tell the therapist that I also had a 20-year problem with compulsive porn use. I
hit a wall of incomprehension. This psychotherapist tried to convince me that it was a high

sexual desire (hypersexual disorder) and irreversible paraphilias (anal sex and rough porn
scenes). The therapist said porn addiction doesn’t exist and wanted to prescribe me a potent

anti-androgen drug to reduce sex drive. I didn’t agree, being aware of its side effects, like
gynecomastia [breast growth].

Evidently, healthcare providers are also treating some young men for erectile dysfunction and delayed ejaculation who simply need to quit porn. In a single day, I read two posts to this effect. The first young man's uncle was a psychiatrist, who had told him porn-induced erectile dysfunction was impossible. The young man experimented anyway and recovered. The other guy was a 32-year old man whose doctor finally recommended a penile implant when injections didn't work (let alone Viagra). He resisted, discovered the information on how porn can cause ED, experimented and recovered. Another man faced a similar situation:

The medical profession is far behind the times. I spent thousands of dollars on doctors,
including a well known urologist specializing in ED (had to travel hours for that one);
thousands on tests; thousands on pills. ‘Erection to porn means it's in your head ... take some
Viagra.’ Not once did any health care professional say to me, ‘Hey, watching porn too much

can cause sexual dysfunction.’ Instead, they offered other explanations, which are not proven

to be linked to ED and typically did not apply to me anyway (e.g. anxiety, stress...even though
you don't show any indication of either; diet...even though your weight is normal and you eat

a balanced diet; low testosterone...even though low T hasn't been linked to ED except in
extreme cases, and your T is not really low).

Then there's absolutely horrible advice from ‘sexologists’ who are so bent on being ‘sex

positive’, they not only deny the potential negative consequences of porn use, they actively
ridicule the notion of porn-induced ED
.
[163]
So, though I feel stupid for not making the link
between porn and ED myself, the fact is I sought professional advice and porn was never
brought up except in a positive light: ‘Everyone does it, it's normal...in fact, it's healthy.’ I
evaluated the possibility of surgical intervention. It would be between $25k and $30k out of

pocket and the results are not encouraging (penile revascularization). The day after that
appointment I stumbled on this information. Oh my god...what a revelation and relief.

And it works. I'm not 100%, but I've improved dramatically and things keep getting better.

All I had to do was quit fapping to porn. Unreal. Honestly, I'm a bit angry given that I sought
solutions from professionals, including specialists, who graciously accepted my hard earned

cash yet gave me bad advice.

How many men are getting outdated information and treatments they don't require? Do their brains

primarily need a chance to return to normal, and therefore to pleasure and sexual responsiveness? For some, recovery from porn-induced problems appears to be a natural outcome of giving up chronic overstimulation.

Bottom line, given what we know about the links between behaviour and brain function, it seems

reckless to prescribe psychotropic drugs to young people without first addressing potential overuse of today's porn.

3: Regaining Control

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
William Blake

Although people report many benefits from recovery, the biggest gift is regaining control of your life. A recovered porn user explains:

Despite what some people say, quitting will not make you into a god of confidence and
ability, although for the first few months it'll really feel like that. Quitting will give you more
control of your own life. It's a little bit like the transition from adolescence to adulthood.

Instead of acting on impulse, you'll be learning self-restraint and mindfulness with one of
your most primal instincts, which will flow over into every part of your life and make your
life's decisions be entirely up to you.

When I started this 500 days ago, I had trouble concentrating; I couldn't commit to a goal

for more than a week at a time. Whenever I had a day off I wasted it in lazy indulgence,
knowing that I could be doing more with my time. Now, I can handle 50, 60 hour work weeks

regularly without even noticing it. Now, I can exercise regularly and stick to it. Now, I'm in a
relationship unlike any I've ever been in because I can finally treat my partner as another
human being rather than sometimes as an object of desire (I now know firsthand that my own

desires aren't as important as they make themselves out to be). Now, I'm constantly improving

myself instead of just wishing I could.

The first step toward regaining control is to give your brain a rest from all
artificial sexual
stimulation
for several months. Shift your attention to real life. Among other things, this will help you establish whether chronic overconsumption of pornography, or some other issue, is underlying your symptoms. Ideally, an extended time-out also allows you to:

- restore the sensitivity of your brain's reward circuitry so you can again enjoy everyday pleasures,

- reduce the intensity of the ‘gotta have it!’ brain pathways that drive you to use,

- re-establish your willpower (strengthen the brain's frontal lobes), and

- reduce the impact of stress such that it doesn't set off severe cravings.

Next, you stay consistent because it can take many months, or even a couple of years, for the ‘I

want to watch porn right now!’ pathways to fire less frequently – and then die down.

Some people call this process
‘
rebooting’. It's a way of rediscovering what you are like without porn in your life. The idea is that by avoiding artificial sexual stimulation you are shutting down and restarting the brain, restoring it to its original factory settings, even.

The metaphor isn't perfect. You cannot go back in time to a ‘restore point’, or erase all the data, as you would when you wipe clean a computer’s hard drive. However, many people do reverse their porn-related problems by giving the brain a well deserved rest from porn, porn fantasy and porn substitutes. And often the metaphor is a useful part of the process. After all, the problematic behaviours and symptoms of porn addiction are material in nature. They are inscribed in the structures of the brain. By changing behaviour we change those structures. Over time new ways of life are reflected in changes in brain function.