When porn habits mutate

Prompted by Susan Cheever's new book "Desire: Where Sex Meets Addiction", an article in The Sunday Times adds to the ongoing debate: does sex addiction really exist, or is it simply being used to sell books and fill cinemas?

With brief comments from therapists representing both sides of the argument, Marty Klein and Patrick Carnes, the article neatly summarises some of the key arguments. There's clearly much more debate on the way:

The term “sex addiction” was officially listed as a mental disorder in 1980 but was removed from the list in 1994 as the belief took hold that only substances, not behaviour, could be addictive. However, a medical task-force is considering restoring it to the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

For me, Cheever's comment at the end highlights one very common problem faced by people trying to overcome their obsession with porn: habits reinvent themselves.

When we cut out the porn sites by filtering or moving the computer into a more public space, we might find ourselves aimlessly surfing YouTube for hours on end. Sometimes, there's a risk that the habit could turn to offline obsessions, such as adult phonelines or kerb crawling.

Of course, this applies to all forms of compulsive behaviour. Cheever noticed a shift from alcoholism to sex addiction:

“In 1999, when I wrote about alcoholism,” she said, “I had no idea that there was such a thing as sex addiction. It’s only in writing this book that I’ve come to see that all addictions are one addiction.”

She went on: “Addiction isn’t about substance – you aren’t addicted to the substance, you are addicted to the alteration of mood that the substance brings. And if that substance is taken away, you’ll replace it with another substance.”

So 'cutting it out' isn't really overcoming the problem. Breaking out of addictive games requires a clear action plan. For recovery in the long-term, we need to delve a little deeper into what drives the compulsion in the first place.