What does it matter if we call porn use an “addiction” or a “habit”?
Yesterday and today I’ve had Leah Grey talking about the misunderstandings we have about porn addiction in marriage. Yesterday she asked the question what if what we’re calling an addiction is actually just a bad habit?
My friend J from Hot, holy and Humorous is wondering the same thing: What should we call persistent porn use? Because we’re all wondering if we’re doing a disservice by labelling all porn use a porn addiction.
I’ve been writing about porn use in marriage and the dangers of porn use for years, and I hadn’t ever thought of it like that before. I am so glad Leah sent me these posts, and I love her perspective today, too. Here’s Leah:
If you’re reading this right now, you might be one of the many of us whose spouse struggles with a pornography addiction.
Addiction is a term we’re using often nowadays, “Addicted to video games”, “Addicted to food”, “Addicted to tanning”, “Addicted to sugar”. But what’s the difference between a true addiction, an obsession, a bad habit or a compulsion? And why does it matter what we call it, isn’t it all the same if it’s hurting your marriage?
I’m in the “business” of addiction. Not only have I lived it and survived the effects of it but I talk about it literally every single day. The more I talk to people the more I believe, what we think to be true about addiction is all wrong. In fact, what we think to be true about addiction is now magnifying the problem. That’s a whole new problem! With addiction on the rise, in this case, porn addiction, I think it’s time we ask ourselves if we’re too easily becoming “addicted”.
Have you heard the line, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet” from Romeo and Juliet? Most of us took Shakespeare in school so I would imagine you have. When it comes to addiction you might say, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but the thorn will hurt you either way!”.
Maybe not the best metaphor but it makes a point.
Why Does It Matter What We Call “It”?
Let’s just say for a moment you’re a newlywed and every time you go grocery shopping for your spouse, they said you didn’t do it properly. You never bought the right thing. You always spent too much money. You forgot the most important thing on the list (Can you tell this used to happen in my household?). Every time you’d come home your spouse would say, “You’re totally incapable of getting groceries”. Buying groceries would become a stressful thing! It would slowly cause tension in your marriage until you believed you were, in fact, incapable of getting groceries. Eventually, you wouldn’t even bother trying anymore.
Now, imagine you’re a newlywed and every time you go grocery shopping for your spouse, they still said you didn’t do it right. You never bought the right thing. You spent too much money. You always forgot the most important thing on the list. Every time you’d come home your spouse would laugh and say, “I knew you were going to forget. It’s okay. You can get it next time you go. I’ll make something else for dinner”. The next time you went grocery shopping, you remembered the important thing. You felt good about yourself. Your spouse felt good. Grocery shopping would no longer be an issue.
Obviously, this is a lighthearted example but if you relate the general philosophy to pornography you can imagine how believing they have the “addiction disease” would affect them differently than saying they have a “bad habit”.
When it comes to addiction, the world says, “Addiction is a disease with no cure”, “Once an addict, always an addict”, “Relapse is part of recovery”.
What does the world say about breaking bad habits? “Replace the bad habit with a good habit”, “Change your thinking and visualize success” or, “It only takes twenty-one days to break a habit!”.
It’s a totally different message! Interestingly enough, if you read part one of this post where I interviewed my husband the dictionary defines “addiction” and “habit” as almost the exact, same thing! Obviously, they’re not the same, which means the label we give our spouse in tough times matters.
A lot.
What Makes Pornography Different from Other Addictions?
Dr. Grant Mullen is an expert in mood disorders. He has a huge library of resources on his website in his video blog where he talks extensively about things like emotional healing, pornography and marriage. In one of his videos, he makes an interesting point that pornography is the only addiction that comes looking for you. All other addictions you have to seek out first but pornography is in our homes, on our televisions, our phones, in advertisements, on YouTube, it’s everywhere! Satan dangles the temptation in front of us, peaks our interest and draws us in until we’re hooked.
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” -John 10:10 (NIV)
If you think about it from a Christian standpoint, the biggest difference between pornography and other addictions is pornography has a very strong spiritual side to it. It’s being used as a weapon to destroy marriages and lure young men and women into addictive behaviour and for some, a true sex addiction. It covers lives in shame and insecurity until they believe they’re unworthy of God’s love. I personally believe sex addiction to be the most emotionally, physically and spiritually devastating addiction to a relationship.
While all addictions can lead to physical death, sex addiction destroys the soul.
Bound and Burdened by Shame
Shame is one of the biggest problems affecting Christians today, especially Christians trapped in pornography. Shame makes us feel uncomfortable with ourselves. As a result of shame, we build protective walls around our hearts that pushes away our spouse. For some, shame could come out as fear, for others it may come out as anger or sadness.
If the pornography use in your marriage is not a “true” sex addiction which, if you’ll remember from the last post, my husband estimated about 90% of pornography users were not true sex addicts (He’s not a doctor, he’s estimating off life experience with all things addiction, his own included). I believe it changes the way we should react to the problem.
Sex addicts need strict boundaries. Most have to refrain from sex for a period of time. They need counseling, they may need medication or to go to a treatment center specializing in sex addiction. It’s the only addiction where total abstinence is not the end goal, so the relapse rates are very high. It’s a very serious issue and recovery needs to be taken just as seriously. If you’re the spouse of a sex addict, you absolutely need to get professional support. (Need help? Hop on over to my blog and read, “My Loved One Has an Addiction, What Can I Do?”)
However, if your spouse is struggling with pornography, I encourage you first of all to stop calling it an “addiction”. Changing the name of your thorny rose won’t make it hurt less but it will change your spouse’s perspective and they need to believe they can fight this. When the hopelessness and shame have left your marriage, you’ll slowly become the spouse who laughed when their loved one came home with the wrong groceries. That attitude will bless your marriage in ways you won’t believe.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” -Ephesians 2:8 (ESV)
What Can The Church Do to Help?
Much like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, we’re ashamed of our nakedness.
“Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.” -Genesis 3:7(ESV)
When it comes to marriage, this is another one of the great lies from the enemy intended to destroy our relationships. I understand it. I was raised in a Mennonite Brethren Church, there’s absolutely no nakedness there (There isn’t even dancing!). After marrying a Latin man and getting a European sister-in-law, my ideas on nudity are (Slowly) changing (At a snail-like pace).
God created us to be attracted to the naked body. In marriage, our bodies are meant to fit together and bring each other pleasure but we can’t do that if we’re ashamed of our nakedness. We might be ashamed because of how we were raised or because we think Christians are supposed to dress like Monica from “Touched by an Angel” but I don’t believe that’s how God designed us. God designed us to freely love our spouses with reckless abandon; Unashamed and super naked.
I asked my husband what he thought the church could do to change the message they give about pornography and sex to help prevent pornography addictions before they begin. He said to teach, “It’s normal for the flesh to see flesh”. I have to admit, at first, I had my feathers ruffled because I don’t want him seeing any other woman’s flesh. He went on to explain that the message we’re getting in church denies our human nature to the point where seeing our own spouse’s flesh is still something to be ashamed of. Intimate love and compassion are not taught as the solution to sexual problems in marriage so when we’re sexually frustrated or curious, ashamed or denying our human nature, we secretly seek out other ways to satisfy a biological need.
So, I encourage you to think about who God says we are and dare to change your mindset about pornography. God can bring healing and restoration to marriages that have felt the devastation of pornography. Need proof? Look at mine, who knew my husband was so wise!
If you need help with substance abuse, addiction, mental health or recovery from pornography (Habits OR addiction!) here’s a list of my favourite resources for support:
- Online Support for Pornography Recovery:
- XXX Church: https://www.xxxchurch.com/
- No Fap: https://www.nofap.com/
- Christian Treatment Centers:
- Teen Challenge USA: https://www.teenchallengeusa.com/
- Teen Challenge Canada: http://www.teenchallenge.ca/
- The Lighthouse Network (Help finding affordable Christian Treatment Centers- USA): http://lighthousenetwork.org/
- For Women Struggling with Pornography:
- Dirty Girl Ministries: http://dirtygirlsministries.com
- Support for Christian Wives of Addicts:
- The “Live, Love, Hope” Community: http://leahgrey.com/livelovehope
Leah Grey moved to New York City full of hopeful aspirations until her husband went into long-term treatment for addiction. Unable to afford to stay, she picked up her childhood dreams and moved back to her rural, Canadian beach town with her two young children. From rooftop city skyline views to her parent’s basement, in the darkest time of her life, she created Grey Minis-tries to support, encourage and empower women with loved ones who struggle with addiction. With a practical faith-based approach, she challenges popular beliefs about addiction while teaching women in crisis how to find God’s peace within the storms of life. In March 2016, she launched her website, leahgrey.com and popular peer support community, “Live, Love, Hope”.
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Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 29 years and happily married for 24! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. And she's written 7 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.
I think your message is an interesting point. And I completely agree with your message about the church’s hand in the fear of “nakedness”.
However with the groceries example, I was the spouse who “laughed off” and forgave my husband’s porn use over and over for two and a half years with that mentality. This only enabled him an easy road to follow progressively getting worse till we had to seperate three months ago after a violent physical encounter I wasn’t sure I’d make it out of alive. I don’t know if this is because he was a “true” addict but I am sure that it is imperative to be certain because enabling can just give him a free ticket to like you said “the death of the soul”.
That was a very light example but I didn’t mean to make light of the problem. It’s not something we should enable, simply something we need them to feel they can fight. Hopelessness and shame are huge hurdles to overcome for addicts to stay in recovery. Forgiving is not being a doormat. Either way, whether they come clean or not, you will have to forgive them for your own health. Boundaries are important and necessary for the health and happiness of spouses and children- always! But when we make these boundaries and it comes to enforcing them, saying, “For my own health and happiness I have to take a step back from this relationship until you are no longer using pornography but I believe you can fight this” is different than saying, “You’re an addict and you will never change, I want a divorce!”. It sounds like you figured that out the hard way. I’m really sorry you went through all that!!!!
As a person who calls himself a recovering “sex addict”, I strongly disagree with the whole notion that it is a habit. I would suggest you read this summary from Alexandra Katehakis regarding the roots of sexual addiction:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sex-lies-trauma/201502/childhood-trauma-and-masturbation
Please key in on the following: “Masturbation is one of the most accessible and available forms of numbing out, because you rely only on your own body to produce the intoxicating chemicals that soothe the pain. ”
I know your intent is to help people recover, and I applaud you for that. Sexual “addiction” is terrible and I was on the verge of committing suicide because of it as my insides never matched my outsides. So, I want to object to these past 2 post and voice that I feel this conclusion is just providing further SHAME on the sex addict by simply saying “stop and replace with a good habit”. Just curious …. may I write a post about how all the wives (or husbands) who might be overweight should just stop eating to numb your emotions and get fit? I think Shelia found out that weight is a sensitive topic ….. it’s much easier to point the finger of shame at a pornography user.
Lastly, there are many other ways that people ruin relationships besides pornography / infidelity. I would suggest that you consider the danger of disengagement and the conclusion from Brene Brown: “If I had to choose the form of betrayal that emerged most frequently from my research and that was the most dangerous in terms of corroding the trust connection, I would say disengagement.” Check out her quotes in this post.
http://liveboldandbloom.com/02/relationships/the-insidious-poison-of-disengagement-in-your-relationships
Once again, I know you want the best for people and I’m glad your husband was able to consider his just a habit, but I think that is a gross over simplification of a terrible addiction that is eating at the core of our society.
I’m so sorry if you felt that way. It sounds to me like you truly had an addiction and the struggle was very real for you! Did you by chance read the post from yesterday? It was “part one” of this where I really tried as best I could to distinguish the difference between a true sex addict and the majority of the world who says they’re now all addicts. Everyone is addicted to… everything. Literally. Everything. You overeat? Food addiction. Play too many video games? Addiction. Can’t stop texting? Addicted. If addiction is a disease… do we all have it? Play the violin too many hours? You’re a prodigy. Here’s the link if you didn’t read the other post: https://tolovehonorandvacuum.com/2017/03/porn-addiction-or-bad-habit/. I understand sex addiction is real. I feel lucky my husband had an addiction to substances and not sex because it’s so much less “offensive” to me as his wife. Yes, there are other things that ruin relationships but woman across the globe will tell you absolutely nothing is more damaging to them than infidelity. That’s not a shame thing, it’s just the facts. Sex addiction is hard to beat, it’s something that brings about a lot of shame and guilt and it’s not anything I want to condemn someone for. I simply have a problem with the “gross oversimplification” of the word “addiction”. Having lived through it, it’s not a word I think we should use lightly. Addiction is serious. Most people who self-profess to have an addiction- don’t. They use it as an excuse to carry on because they “cannot help it”. I have heard the words straight from the horse’s mouth. But that said, I by no means don’t think there is help, hope and grace to those with true sex addictions. Just as a side note, I don’t think I said to just stop looking at it and replace the bad habit with a good one? I believe I said we need to change the way we talk about it and how we define “addiction”. If the spouse, let’s say mine for example, isn’t addicted to porn and has a bad habit, weak spirit, is in need of sex, poor values, bored, whatever the case…. and he doesn’t have a disease… then what? Then, it’s a problem God can intervene in, I can get on my knees and pray about in hope for restoration for our marriage and our intimate life. Does that make more sense?
Leah I love that you cover the heavy hard topics that a lot of us bloggers need to read about. This is why I like your writings so much.
Thank you, Mihaela! They aren’t things we talk about in person too much, do we? But maybe if we did, we would feel so less shamed!
This is an extremely important topic. Yes, some people are sex addicts and need intense help and intense boundaries, possibly for a very long time.
However, some people do just have a habit of using the easy fix when faced with stress. Habits can be very hard to break, there’s no denying that. But not every person with a porn habit has an addiction.
Hi, Lisa! Yes, it’s tough. I certainly never intended to say it’s “easy” to break a habit because it’s not! I just like the encouragement so much more. Being married to someone who struggled with addiction, I know first-hand how important that encouragement is. We can have loving boundaries. Thank you for joining in the conversation!
Tough subject and I get the point about calling it an addiction. Perhaps one more layer needs to be addressed, at least, before we diagnose the condition. Namely, is the spouse denying sex for reasons other than are agreed upon by scripture?
I have led men’s groups for the past 20 years and find 1 in 10 men that have an sexual addiction that needs to be bounded. The other 9 turn to porn when their wives decide sex is something they can ignore or at least dictate. Most of the men have been candid with their wives about their desire to be intimate 3 or 4 times a week. Often their spouse is interested 3 or 4 times a month. They of course compromise, and have sex 3 or 4 times a month!
The church never addresses it but scripture does. It prohibits this type of spousal abuse accept by mutual agreement for the purpose of prayer and fasting.
Open discussions need to occur or self-centered attitudes will kick off a chain reaction. Namely, lack of sex for men is like lack of food, 1 meal, no problem, but an entire day, or two and there is hunger. I suggest wives can go for 24 hours without eating a thing, just drink water. Then fix breakfast for the family the next day and watch them eat without eating. You will know what it feels like for a man to go without sex for a week.
When turned away by the wife he is encouraged to go elsewhere. Porn is the least damaging of his alternatives.
God has given provision for sex in marriage. It is disingenuous to break God’s command “do not abstain except when you are both fasting and praying”, and then shift the blame to the husband, labeling him a porn addict.
Imagine a husband locking his wife up in the basement without food for a week and then releasing her just as company is coming over. He then points out how his wife “wolfs her food down like a food addict!” Of coarse he hopes that his actions that cause this behavior never come into the equation. He can look like the injured party that way.
Lets call a spade a spade. If you are denying your husband sex regularly you are disobeying God’s command. And need to repent, apologize, have a serious discussion of how the two of you can enjoy a vibrant sexual relationship even though he is more frequently interested than you are.
However, if like some women, you are very attentive to his needs and can’t remember the last time he wanted to have sex and you denied him his request and he is regularly on porn then it is his problem. It is sin, and needs to be handled with serious interventions. It can be called an addiction and treated in similar ways and boundaries as if he were and alcoholic or drug addict.
I think that the idea that lack of sex can justifiably lead to porn consumption is a leap of logic. A person who feels sex-deprived might feel lured towards masturbation. But a person in that situation should not have any reasons to seek additional stimuli that will further enhance that desire, or assist with indulging in it.
But even when it comes to masturbation, it is an urban legend that a man cannot handle a week or two without it. Unless, of course, he has been releasing himself on a daily basis since his teen years, which many men have been doing (and which I had been doing prior to quitting). With such a history, a week without orgasm feels like a biological impossibility. But it is not. Within several months the body can adapt to much less frequent release, and that has a number of benefits.
Fighting porn addiction is always the responsibility of the one suffering from it. Porn addiction can be caused by a number of things, including traumas, starting it early, anxiety, inability to deal with certain aspects of life in a more sane manner, etc.
Totally agree with you, Dean.
“The other 9 turn to porn when their wives decide sex is something they can ignore or at least dictate.”…. How does that logic of “spousal abuse” apply to single people? Are they unable to control their natural urges 3-4 times a week and therefore must turn to porn? How about when, in my case, I had a high-risk pregnancy and was not allowed to have sex for 5 months? Does that give my husband permission to turn to porn? Because he did. And you say that isn’t as damaging as cheating? Is that spousal abuse, to me? “Most of the men have been candid with their wives about their desire to be intimate 3 or 4 times a week. Often their spouse is interested 3 or 4 times a month.” How about when you have sex with your husband 3 times a week and he still looks at porn? He can’t control it? Your logic is quite frankly the kind of “abusive” mentality the church DOES push. Women are emotional creatures and turned on by conversation, intimacy (that isn’t nakedness), heart-connections, attentiveness, trust… if a man doesn’t provide these things she will not want to sleep with him. That doesn’t give him permission to turn to porn and it most certainly is not ABUSE. Is his emotional distance, emotional abuse? This is exactly what I’m saying- the LABELS we give things matter. If a couple is not having sex, there is a problem in the marriage. It’s kind of a “who came first, the chicken or the egg?” conversation but no woman will continue in a sexual relationship with a man she doesn’t trust or feel loved by. That’s called sexual slavery and it’s also a sin. As is Lording one’s position, and that SCRIPTURE, over your wife. If I use myself as an example, my libido is probably above average but I still won’t sleep with my husband if he’s a jerk. And when he’s working all week, ignores me, doesn’t talk to me or meet my emotional needs, I have ZERO desire to sleep with him. Men CAN go without sex. Jesus did it for three years. Maybe the man should pray more.
Leah, I also find that the idea that most men who are using porn are doing so because their wives aren’t having sex isn’t actually true. When you look at the stats, the majority of porn use PRECEDES marriage. In other words, the guys were already using porn before they got married. Maybe they stopped for a time, or at least lessened their use. And maybe the wives not having sex very much exacerbated the temptation. But the temptation would not have been there had they not already rewired the arousal process in the brain to respond to porn rather than to women, which simultaneously changes the way that men see intimacy.
I’m not saying there isn’t a problem with women not having sex enough; goodness knows I’ve written about it a ton on the blog, and even have several books and a course to help women have sex more! But when it comes to porn specifically, I have had so very, very many women writing in with the opposite problem, that their husbands use porn and masturbate and thus never want sex. THAT is the more common problem when porn use is found in marriage, as statistics show. Porn deadens desire for real intimacy with real people. And it’s very dangerous.
AGREED!!!!! ^^^