Is viewing pornography not as bad as being an alcoholic?

[NerdGirl]

http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/74060/

Ok, first of all, I just want to say that I liked Rating Pending's answer. I think it's about time that we as a church culture stopped throwing around the word addiction without knowing what it means. Some people probably are addicted to sex and/or pornography. But most people that watch porn do not have an addiction - they have a habit. I'm not commenting here on the potential harms caused by the production and distribution of porn and all of that, I'm just talking about the average person who goes on the internet and watches porn. Most of those people do not have an addiction, and I think it causes harm to tell them that they do. I'm not denying that it is negatively affecting the questioner's life here because it obviously is, but I think it would only be more harmful to call it an addiction when it really isn't (and apparently it isn't, in the opinion of the mental health practitioner that the questioner is seeing).

But what I really need to say in response to the last line of the question that YES, VIEWING PORNOGRAPHY IS NOT AS BAD AS BEING AN ALCOHOLIC. If people don't understand that, it is because they have not seen what alcoholism does to people. And I'm talking about actual alcoholism here, the actual addiction and all of the associated behaviors - I am not talking about someone having a beer on Friday night. Maybe this is just really bad timing for me here, because one of my friends whose partner is an alcoholic just had something really terrible happen as a result of said partner's alcoholism, but that last line of the question just really bothered me. I'm not trying to attack anyone here, I'm just upset because this is something that a lot of people I've met in the church just really can't seem to understand. But I have numerous family members and friends who suffer from alcoholism. It is a disease, and it ruins people's lives. It literally killed one of my grandfathers (and before I was born, so I never had a chance to meet him - he was only 52 when he died) as well as one of my uncles whom I loved very much and was very close to several years ago. Yes, sex addiction is a real thing and it's a real problem, but habitual or even compulsive viewing of pornography does not cause the same level of violence and death and ruining of people's lives that alcoholism does. It just doesn't.

[Anonymous Reader]

I really agree here. As a board reader who wishes to remain completely anonymous, I was running dangerously close to being an alcoholic when I was not even 16. I have a temperament and personality that is very conducive to addiction and I wasn't a good Mormon. My parents didn't care what I did, so I went to parties and I drank. I drank a lot. As months went by I started to need alcohol. I didn't feel good unless I was buzzed or drunk and even though I knew I could be caught at any moment and have my life ruined, I still drank. By the time I turned 16, I wasn't drinking for fun anymore. I was going to parties, and friend's houses and heading straight to the booze and drinking until I was numb, and then downing a few more. I was showing signs of liver distress and I didn't even know why I kept drinking, just that it numbed everything up nicely. One night I narrowly escaped date rape and it scared me straight. I sought the help of a counselor and stopped drinking cold turkey. I think a major sign of an addiction is showing withdrawal symptoms, and I definitely showed symptoms. I hated living for about a month straight. I wanted that buzz so bad.

Pornography can be an addiction, but like you, in most cases I think it's not. People don't end up on the floor of their rooms, sweating profusely, with extreme anxiety, wanting it more than anything else. Pornography is damaging in its own way, but alcohol literally destroys lives. It was destroying mine, but I don't think pornography was necessarily destroying the lives of the guys I knew that viewed it. The amount of times I took my life into my own haphazard hands when I drank are staggering, and pornography just isn't the same.

[Whistler]

yes, also, playing too much videogames is not an addiction, just like reading too many novels or watching too much TV is also not an addiction.

[SmurfBlueSnuggie]

In our regional stake conference today (stake conference was broadcast from Salt Lake to our region), Elder Perry referenced addictions to video games. I'd just read this post before going and that totally distracted me.

But I agree. We, as a society, over-use the word addiction. I feel like it is partly an attempt to blame something other than ourselves for habits we dislike. Because habits have been made out to be almost easy to change. "It takes x many repetitions and then you form a habit. And it takes y many repetitions to break a habit. So just choose a new habit, do it x many times, and you're problems are solved." So when we struggle with a bad habit, we want to call it an addiction. An addiction controls us, we don't control it. We have to escape. It allows us to hide in a victim mentality, to some extent.

Now, I know that isn't always the case. But on some counts, I think something along those lines is happening. If the struggle seems harder than we expect, there must be some reason for that. So blame an addiction.

[TheBlackSheep]

I don't even know if I believe in sexual addiction. Compulsion, absolutely, and I think that sexual compulsion can damage lives. But I work with addiction, and it really bothers me when people use the word incorrectly. Habit, compulsion, chemical dependence, and addiction are all very different things, and to use the word "addiction" haphazardly minimizes them all.

[TheBlackSheep]

Also, alcoholism is one of the hardest addictions to treat. It leaves behind lasting brain damage, and many clients don't even "clear" the substance enough to be able to accept treatment for months. It is legal and available everywhere. By the time many people seek alcoholism treatment, they have been in their addictions for years and years. And alcohol doesn't even have the decency to kill of its addicts who cannot recover quickly. Meth addicts are lucky to make it five years; ten is legendary. Alcohol lets its people go on for decades, literally turning their brains to mush, destroying their livers, and ruining any hope for their relationships.

So yeah. Alcoholism is way, way worse than viewing pornography. And I think it is very unfortunate that the culture allows anyone to believe otherwise.

[NerdGirl]

I think I believe in sexual addiction (although I used to be very ambivalent about it) because I have seen a case where a patient had behaviors related to sex that were far beyond what could be considered a compulsion and really were similar to what I have seen with alcohol and drug addiction. But I think true sex addiction is extremely rare (and may or may not involve the same pathophysiology, and I definitely don't think we have any idea about that at this point in time), and most of what people call sexual addiction is actually a compulsion or a habit. If someone is simply sitting at home watching porn and not engaging in illegal and/or dangerous sex acts, they are not a sex addict. And I completely agree with you, TBS, that using the word addiction to mean pretty much anything minimizes both addiction and the things that are mislabeled as addictions. I have OCD, but I am not addicted to my OCD compulsions. It's a different thing.

[TheBlackSheep]

I have had some knowledge of a few of those cases and am still torn. Generally I definitely agree with you.

[vorpal blade]

I remember when some professionals first started calling alcoholism a disease. I thought, like most people at the time, that this was an attempt to relieve people from taking personal responsibility for drinking to excess. We don’t blame a sick person for coming down with a disease, after all. I thought that calling it a disease might lessen a person’s desire to change or seek help because change was beyond their control.

I’m still not sure whether calling it a disease is the right word to use, but in any case the point is that calling it an addiction or a disease did not stop people from trying to overcome their alcoholism. If anything it helped those who were in denial to realize that they had a serious problem. Many who were drinking thought that they could quit anytime, so what is the big deal?

Years later I was involved in efforts to stop pornography in my community. I did a lot of research on the addictive nature of pornography and how it destroys lives. Some people become totally dysfunctional, sweating profusely, with extreme anxiety, and wanting it more than anything else if they are denied it. Extreme porn addicts will sacrifice their jobs, their families, and all their possessions for more porn. Porn does cause changes in the brain chemistry, possibly permanent changes as many experts now realize. Sure, most people are not extreme addicts to begin with any more than most people are alcoholics after a few drinks. And many may never become addicted. But for those with susceptibility by the time you finally realize you have a problem it can be extremely difficult to treat, in either case.

When I was involved in the community efforts to stop pornography I was once interviewed by a newspaper reporter. I tried to explain to her the addictive nature of pornography and the adverse effects. She didn’t believe me. I remember using as an analogy cigarette smoking. Turns out she didn’t think smoking was addictive, and she flatly refused to believe it was harmful. She was one of those people who said, “I know I can quit smoking any time I want. I’ve done it dozens of times already.”

I liked Rating Pending’s answer, and he does recognize that pornography can be an addiction, but he seems to have missed the comment about the counselor thinking that pornography can never be an addiction because it “doesn’t provide the correct/right brain response like an addiction to alcohol or drugs does.” Many experts would now disagree with that statement.

I’m not here to say that pornography addiction is worse than alcoholism, but as many others have said, it is an addiction, even in the technical medical terminology. It was wrong of the counselor to dismiss all pornography addictions as merely bad habits. Thankfully Rating Pending made the point that just by calling it a habit does not make it easier to stop, or that you can postpone overcoming it thinking it is no big deal. So many people today don’t see the harm of pornography, don’t see it ruining lives, and are in denial regarding their own addiction to it.

[Whistler]

I just finished reading about a set of experiments where rats didn't get addicted to morphine, despite repeated exposure, in part due to their enriched social environment (called "the rat park" experiments). It's on rats, not humans, of course, but it did make me think about how important social bonds are to overcoming addictions.

http://mindhacks.com/2013/09/13/drug-ad ... lex-truth/

[Portia]

There's definitely a meme in the Church that all men are one mouse-click away from porn, whereas drinking is stigmatized enough that I don't think any Priesthood Session talks are saying ... "don't sip PBR, next thing you know you've stocked up on Johnnie Walker!" I don't know if it's an avoidance thing (no longer in the red light district?), a cachet thing (many people enjoy drinking and do it openly. Porn, less open.), or a sacralizing of sex thing.

There's a joke that an ex-Mormon will lose his virginity before he has coffee ... But it's actually true... I don't know which of the two is more "shocking" (Different for women?), Word of Wisdom or pornography "sins."

The title of the thread seems simplistic... Not as bad to whom? Society? The individual?

[bobtheenchantedone]

There's a joke that an ex-Mormon will lose his virginity before he has coffee ... But it's actually true... I don't know which of the two is more "shocking" (Different for women?), Word of Wisdom or pornography "sins."

Funny story (that I may or may not have shared before): my mother once used the same tone of voice to both demand that I not drink Coke and that I not get pregnant out of wedlock.

[Portia]

One is a choice that will affect your body, your finances, and your public perception with irrevocable consequences. ... The other is a child. ;)

[Talons]

I guess I've just always had a different definition of addiction because I haven't seen the serious addictions everyone here is referring to. If someone is constantly checking facebook or reddit all day long while ignoring their family and at the risk of losing their job, is this not an addiction? Before facebook, these people might have been very productive workers, but now they pull out their phone every time the boss walks out of the room. When they try and break the habit, they feel empty or even sad after just a few hours of going without. Is this behavior not harmful, albeit less harmful than an alcohol addiction?