What industry makes more money than Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Apple, Netflix, and EarthLink combined? It’s the number 1 searched topic on all Internet sites and there are 1.3 million such sites available. The answer is pornography.
Pornography is the drug of the century and more addictive than crack cocaine. Addictive behavior produces the same feel-good chemicals (internal drugs) as shooting up with drugs or getting buzzed with alcohol. Neural research confirms that the brain cannot differentiate between an external source and an internal source of stimulation.
Pornography is as vicious an addiction as society has ever experienced. Without proper help, sobriety is rare. Many if not most people who suffer from pornography deny it’s a problem. Ninety percent of pornography addiction begins at home and for men it happens at an early age. The average boy is exposed to pornography by age 11 and every male high school senior has been exposed before they graduate. There are no statistical exceptions.
When a man or woman becomes sexually aroused, levels of endorphins and enkephalins are at their highest. The two drugs are opiates and the body uses them as painkillers much like opium, heroin, and morphine.
At this point whatever a person visualizes—real or imaginary—sticks like glue. The body hungers and craves it while the adrenal glands imprint the image permanently on the mind. If a man or woman ejaculates to pornography the mind associates the object on the screen as the focus of the relationship. This creates intimacy anorexia.
Sex is relational and pornography is sex with an object and cannot fulfill the relationship aspect, therefore intimacy (physical, emotional, and spiritual) with the wife or husband atrophies over time and is replace with a different sex drive.
For years pornography has been a male dominated issue. In 2006, one in six women acknowledged struggling with pornography. In 2008, one out of every three women views Internet pornography.
The more a woman uses pornography the higher the probability she will be a victim of non-consensual sex (rape). The earlier a man starts with pornography, the more likely he will be a perpetrator of non-consensual sex (rape), according to Mary Anne Layden, a professor of sociology and women’s studies at Wheelock College in Boston.
The cost of pornography addiction in the workplace is the time spent hiding from others, sneaking a look, embarrassment, and social withdrawal. Addiction can also manifest itself as anger, power politicking, and rudeness. Many of us think that people are somehow weak if they become addicted to things like pornography, gambling, or anger. The ignorance of such thinking is only exceeded by the absurdity.
Behavioral addictions are everywhere and all of us have them. It’s easy to judge another’s problems without seeing our own. Did you know that having to be right all the time is an addiction? It doesn’t register as high on the social offensive scale as gambling or pornography, but go one day without trying to prove you are right before you judge others and see how easy it is, or not.
How many marriages have failed and how many kids don’t trust their parents because someone is addicted to always being right?
Join us for a presentation on addiction on February 7th at 7PM at the Gig Harbor Boys/Girls Club. This is my son Scott’s Senior Project and will feature Shonna Porter, Bill Branson, and myself as speakers.
