Are you addicted to sex, the internet or to porn?  How do you know?  What is an addiction?  How do you get over an addiction?  It sometimes seems so hopeless.  Is there hope for me?

You may have asked yourself these questions and many more.  It can be hard to tell if you are addicted, especially when the addiction is not to a substance.  After all, we all want and even need sex and using the internet.  How do you know if you are addicted?

Ask yourself these questions:

Do you are someone who knows you think that your behavior is not normal, is too much, too focused on sex, porn, or the internet?

Do you spend more time at the computer, watching porn of being sexual than you intended?

Do you feel guilty about the time you spend on sex, the internet or porn?

Are you able to stop the behaviors you don’t want without feeling pulled back into them when you get stressed, bored, tired, or lonely?

Do you get defensive or angry if someone mentions your sexual behavior, you use of the internet or porn?

A key warning that you have an addiction is that your work, social or intimate relationships are disturbed by your behavior.  It may seem to you that people around you simply want to complain or that they don’t like you or are picking on you unnecessarily.  It may seem that they are being unreasonable or harsh.  These complaints are already a sign that there is a disturbance in the relationships or in the workplace.

Watch this YouTube video.  It will give you more of an idea about what addiction is and help you decide if you are addicted.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwS3Wq5kk7w&feature=related

Addiction is often seen as a disease and indeed, if you look at it from the perspective of how the brain is functioning, there are problems.  The brain learns very quickly how to find pleasure and to avoid unpleasant things.  It adapts to the level of neurotransmitters just like it adapts to drugs, always needing more in order to find the pleasure it once found.  It is also a family and a social problem.  Any treatment for addiction needs to take all of these factors into account.

Most importantly, for your recovery, you deserve to be treated with respect and not blamed for your addiction.  It was never your intention to become addicted.  You have a lot to contribute in planning your recovery.  You deserved to be treated as a team member and not as an object that needs to be changed.

If you can recognize that you have an addiction, you are on the precipice of a new, wonderful and abundant life that you have not yet known, and it is better than you can now imagine.  Why?  Because in the process of recovery you will mature, learn about yourself, learn coping skills so that life is far easier, and learn to take life easy and with joy.  This could be the best thing that ever happened to you.  It will take work, but you have a partner in recovery with Dr. Rob Woodman.