Porn: Who is at Risk?
Today, everyone has a brain built to seek out novel sexual experiences and everyone has access to porn. It’s difficult to say why any one person develops a porn addiction while another person does not.
Part of the answer is that porn addiction often develops when a person, however unconsciously, uses their reward circuitry to train their brain to seek out porn in response to certain common triggers. For example, a person will consistently turn to pornography when they are bored and alone, or as a way of making themselves feel better when they have uncomfortable emotions.
Triggers
The physical structure of the brain can be changed by repeating behaviors due to a mechanism called neuroplasticity. When a person habitually uses pornography when he is bored in his bedroom, his neural circuitry is being primed to more quickly think of pornography whenever he is bored in his bedroom. A person who uses pornography to distract herself from feeling lonely late at night, is training her neural circuitry to more quickly crave pornography whenever she feels lonely late at night.
Through the mechanism of neuroplasticity, these people have literally reshaped their brains to the point where it’s difficult for them to think of anything except pornography in certain situations. This is why certain situations become triggers that prompt porn usage. Addiction makes a full circle when the addictive behavior causes conditions which then trigger the need to once again act out the addictive behavior.
Know yourself! What are your triggers? What need are you trying to fill? When are you at your weakest?
Healing requires abstaining from Pornography
The process of abstaining from pornography gives the mind and body an opportunity to heal. By allowing the porn addicted brain to unplug from pornography, much of the damage inflicted by heavy pornography use may be repaired. This is almost like restoring your brain to “factory settings”.
The science behind the brain’s ability to heal from addiction is based on the same science behind the ways the brain gets twisted by addiction. Neuroplasticity is a double-edged sword, able to shape our neural pathways to create unhealthy behaviors, but also able to reshape our brains back to normal functioning.