I will not let Internet porn and masturbation take my new life, girlfriend and job again.
Update: I have been slipping into some of my old masturbating to Internet ways…
I have wrestled with his addiction for years and I am now really starting to break its stranglehold.
I feel obliged to tell my story, I thought everyone needs to know about it, it brought me such hope and broke me out of that dark place.
You may have read my How Internet Porn Ruined my Life, article and therefore know I have battled with porn addiction and masturbation. It cost me everything. the ‘How to Stop masturbation – the 8-step eBook’ gave me a fighting chance but just did not get me over the line.
In an attempt to stop my life from imploding, again… I have recently joined the Candeo (Greek for “light” or “illumination”) program, which provides therapy via the Internet.
The program is teaching me that the only real way to beat the addiction is to rewire the brain through a prescribed method of therapy. For the past 12 years, Candeo has been part of clinical efforts that applied that method.
Apparently I am not alone and the problem is so big! Candeo was a private counselling practise that could not keep up with the pace of the skyrocketing problem of internt pornography and masturbation addiction, which has soared with the proliferation of the Internet.
I have grabbed some background on the Candeo program and suggest you take a look at the program if you think Internet pornography and masturbation has control over your life.
Mark Kastlemam the founder of Candeo says “We’re to the point now where face-to-face therapy is next to impossible,” he says. “Our clinicians have a four- to five-month waiting list. Addiction rates are skyrocketing because of the Internet. Some have said it’s as high as 10 to 15 percent of the population. I think it’s much higher.”
“We’re fighting fire with fire,” Candeo president Don Thomason says. “Some would say it’s like curing an alcoholic in a bar. Our method is facing that and addressing it. A lot of counselors and clergy say that if you have a problem, stop using Internet. That’s impossible today. Pornography has used technology to take addiction rates to new heights; we are using the same technology to fight it. It’s anonymous, effective and affordable.”
I was also comforted to know that porn addiction is an illness and an addiction, like alcohol and drugs. The viewing of pornographic materials releases neurochemicals in the brain, among them dopamine, which provides euphoria or a high.
“It’s a chemical addiction,” Kastleman says. “The brain science absolutely proves it. It’s close to street drug use. It’s often compared to cocaine. There’s a chemical response in the brain that’s similar to the use of those drugs. The primary chemical that viewing porn releases is dopamine. It provides immense pleasure.
“People need to understand that they are not bad people, and they need to understand what’s happening in their brains. MRIs show that the brain chemistry and wiring in the brain is changed. The pleasure center of brain takes over and the frontal lobes — or the logic part of your brain— begins to check out. Dr. Hyde has treated people who are addicted to coke and porn, and he says pornography was more difficult to break.”
As an example, he notes the reports of actor David Duchovny’s recent stay at a rehab clinic for treatment of sex addiction — this despite his marriage to actress Tea Leoni. Duchovny has freely discussed his love of pornography in interviews.
“People say, ‘Why would he turn to pornography; he’s married to a beautiful woman,”‘ says Kastleman. “It’s because it’s chemical; it’s not about how attractive a woman is.”
It doesn’t make matters easier that society is filled with sexual stimulus everywhere, whether it’s the swimsuit section that’s a regular feature of the Sports Illustrated Web site or television or movies or the magazine and video racks at the store.
“That’s the great challenge,” says Kastleman. “Imagine a coke addict walking around and his drug is everywhere. Plus, we’re genetically designed to be attracted to that drug in the first place.”
Not to mention the challenges of the Internet. It once took effort and the risk of embarrassment to find pornography; now it’s available with the press of a button on the keyboard in the privacy of a room.
“If you want to be an instant millionaire, set up a porn site,” says Thomason. “It’s a $100 billion industry.”
While the study of Internet pornography and its effects is relatively new and still being understood, many believe it leads to criminal behavior and drug use. “Police tell us that when they make a drug bust, porn is present,” says Thomason. The addict becomes less productive in his work and more detached as a parent and husband. He wastes hours of time on the computer. Because the viewing of pornography is solitary, it isolates people; relationships begin to break down and marriages founder. Women frequently complain to counselors that they feel like they no longer know their husband and that he is chronically angry and depressed.
“It starts with curiosity, then it becomes a pleasure outlet,” says Kastleman. They turn to it when they’re bored or burned out, lonely, angry, stressed or tired. They turn on the computer and it releases this tidal wave of neuro chemicals. If they’re using that to deal with the stresses of life, it becomes a crutch, and then they don’t have the skills to deal with stress in a healthy way.”
One of the primary focuses of the Candeo program is to rewire the brain, not merely require the addict to attempt to suppress his desire for pornography. Kastleman himself knows that difference. He suppressed his desire for pornography for more than two years to serve a mission for his church. But after he returned home, the pressures of marriage, working a full-time job around school and a church calling, and his wife’s pregnancy proved overwhelming.
“I felt myself going back to the drug I had relied on as a teenager,” he says. “I got to a place where I was so helpless that I contemplated suicide. I had tried everything.”
He was finally introduced to a form of therapy that was the rudimentary precursor to the program that Candeo implements today.
“Without getting too technical, it’s a special form of cognitive behavioral therapy that can literally rewire the addict’s brain and change brain chemistry so that the individual no longer seeks porn as a drug of choice,” Kastleman explains.
Candeo has introduced its program, which lasts six to eight weeks, with a yearlong follow-up protocol, to various church denominations, therapists, clinics, state government and the National Guard.
“Everyone talks about the need for awareness,” Thomason says. “The next step is, OK, now we know about it, what do we do?”
Many authors and readers of this website have mild or severe masturbation and porn addictions. It is tough to control (we know), it has been likened to the fight against tobacco and cocaine addiction.
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gautam
