Helping with a Pornography Addiction

Local mental health agency. Town department of Family & Children's Services. Private psychologist or psychiatrist - ask the family physician for a referral to someone who specializes in this and who accepts the medical insurance covering the person you are talking about. Is this an adult or a teen? Services vary based on the age of the person and who's paying for it. If it's a teen or college student, there are referrals available through the school or college psychologist.

Any addiction requires professional help. It's not something that a friend can solve, no matter how well meaning. It's not something that can be helped by going to another website. There are support groups available for families and friends though. Any of the above resources can help. NAMI (National Association for Mental Illness) can also make referrals - and don't let the term "mental illness" scare you off because it covers all kinds of disorders of varying severity, including depression and addictions, and so on. Often, an addiction has other components to it, including depression or anxiety, so getting treatment for the whole person rather than one aspect of the behavior is a good idea.

There ARE good resources out there, and since he wants to quit, he is in a good place to start using them. The first stop needs to be a professional to help him figure out what resources are available in your community and what would be his first steps for 'getting clean.' Ultimately, he has to stop using it on his own, however you can help him make an appointment with a counselor, find a support group, and keep attending the appointments/ meetings. If internet sites have been part of his addictive behavior (most likely), then should he say that the home needs to be internet-free for a while, you can assist with making that happen. But any actions to deal with the addiction must come from his choices and requests. It's like any other addition that way. Actually, there is a 12-Step program called SAA (Sex Addicts Anonymous) which could be helpful, if it has meetings in your city. Good luck to both of you!

Google feed the right wolf.

there are many resources, but it's a really tough addiction to break. Some really upstanding people in our communitities are affected becuase it's now so easy to access.

Check out focus on the family (dot org) for Christian resources which seems to have a higher success rate.

The thing that helps most is having an accountability partner - that's the concept in AA - having a sponsor to call, to check up on your, etc.

Counseling and therapy would be a good start. Doesn't AA address all addictions? You should direct him there. That's how you can help him, he has to do the rest/work from there if he is serious about cleaning up his act.

I know someone personally, very close to this person but I don't want to give away who it is so I shouldn't say the relationship. He has the same addiction and always will, and turned his addictive and obsessive personality toward religion. As much as I love our shared identified religion, he simply traded one harmful addiction for another because he went from one extreme to another.

Had he sought therapeutic treatment instead of doing it by himself (with his wife, of course) he might have a more balanced life right now. He's having problems in his life that he can't figure out the reasons for them or for the imbalance and still, three years later, can't figure out why his relationships are fractured, distanced, stilted, etc. He thinks it's religious persecution of course I know that's his obsession and addictive personality talking.

Whoa. Purged there on you. Sorry.

So yeah, that happened and it leads me to advise you to heavily encourage therapy. A good psychiatrist or psychologist because with an addictive personality, there's always an underlying reason. There could be a mental health issue involved that needs to be treated or there could be other issues that need to be addressed through talk therapy.

You can work an AA 12-step program around ANY addiction. Get a copy of the Big Book and have your friend start working the steps. I'm sure there is a support group he/she can get in to.