Porn Addiction?

I’m addicted to porn. I’m a sex addict. I have a porn addiction, but I’m now free for the last ten years. The word “addiction” is everywhere in our culture today. We live in an unprecedented age of ways and opportunities to become ensnared in life-dominating, destructive behavioral patterns. Whether it’s pornography, alcohol, drugs, gambling, or internet-gaming, we continue, as a society, to expand our list of what we would classify as addictive disorders.

But is the word “addiction”—and for that matter, the label “porn addiction”— really helpful when discussing habitual patterns of sin? Our culture has largely bought into the notion that if you have an addiction, you have a disease. I heard on the radio an advertisement for a local recovery center, and the opening statement said, “If you are struggling with addiction, you have a disease; it’s not a lapse in judgment.”

Many people latch onto the idea that porn addiction is a disease because their behavior feels outside of their control. It’s become a monster they can’t contain, and it’s destroying everyone and everything they hold dear. It feels like someone or something else is in the driver’s seat of their lives.

Many people latch onto the idea that porn addiction is a disease because their behavior feels outside of their control . . . that is the very nature of what sin does. Sin is enslaving. We reap what we sow. 

But the church needs to slowly and carefully examine whether the word “addiction” and the anthropology it espouses is in line with Scripture and God’s revelation of who we are as human beings in a fallen world.

When it comes to the arena of sexuality, at Harvest USA we find some helpful things that this word captures for people’s experiences, but we also see how this language points people in a false direction about the true nature of their problems and where to find the solution.

In this article, though, I’ll focus on three things about how a disease model of porn addiction can be helpful in explaining habitual sexual sin patterns.

1. Porn Addiction: The Addiction Model Highlights How it Feels to Be Unable to Stop

That is the very nature of what sin does. Sin is enslaving. We reap what we sow.  Research shows that the habitual use of anything that is highly stimulating reshapes the brain, creating a powerful neurological process of cravings and rewards that require greater and greater stimulation.

And the Bible affirms this. Paul says in Ephesians 4:19, “They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.” (ESV)  That last phrase, “greedy to practice every kind of impurity” is also translated as “a continual lust for more” (NIV 1984).

Sowing into sexual sin only creates greater and greater discontentment. Our brains and bodies feel that lack of satisfaction, and we easily believe the lie that maybe next time I’ll finally find relief from pain, loneliness, or boredom. But it only creates deeper enslavement. Pastors need to understand that when a person comes to them for help with a 30-year struggle with porn, simply telling that person to stop it and pray more is insufficient for the momentum this sin has in their life.

2. Porn Addiction: The Addiction Model Captures the Insanity in a Moment of Temptation

When someone has been captured by the desire to feed their enslavement yet again, they lose all sensitivity to the consequences of their actions. They know that just one more time might cost them their job, their family, even their life—but in that moment, the pleasure sin offers is worth losing everything for. Understanding this is helpful in practically setting up boundaries to keep far from temptation. People need to recognize that they can’t be trusted with easy access to porn.

I tell men all the time that there is no such thing as a point of no return. No matter how deep they’ve gotten into a moment of sin, the door of escape is still available to them in Christ.

Werewolf movies get this right. In his right mind, the human man begs his family to tie him up in chains because he knows that, once the full moon appears, he’ll do things he’ll regret if he is not chained up. While, as new creations in Christ, we know that we are no longer slaves to sin to obey its passions, our new freedom in Christ does not imply an immunity to strong temptation in our lives.

I tell men all the time that there is no such thing as a point of no return. No matter how deep they’ve gotten into a moment of sin, the door of escape is still available to them in Christ. But sanctification does not mean we live on the cliffs of temptation. A mature believer has learned that in a moment of temptation, truth and reason can feel impotent and of little value when pleasure is so viscerally offered. This should keep us humble and aware that it is utterly foolish to play with fire and expect not to get burned (Prov. 7:27–29).

3. Porn Addiction: The Addiction Model Highlights the Need for a Zero-Tolerance Policy on Sin

When someone clicks on a pornographic website, they’ve already made multiple concessions with sin. Perhaps they were committed to not being online certain hours of the day, but they broke that rule. They also committed to staying off certain sites that are portals or triggers to sin, like a particular news site, but they justified it because of a story they really wanted to read. People often stay stuck in habitual patterns of sin because they aren’t willing to obey Jesus’s command to gouge out your eye or cut off your hand if it causes you to sin.

Many people want to simply manage their sin. They want to keep porn use at a functional level. Too many Christians are content with allowing pornography to be a part of their lives, as long as it doesn’t get too “out of control.” And too many Christians who are actively trying to stop looking at pornography aren’t willing to take the necessary radical steps. Christians need a zero-tolerance policy with sexual sin like porn.

The church needs a sober understanding of the epidemic of entrenched patterns of sexual sin in the lives of people in our pews. People feel stuck, they’re on the brink of hopelessness, wondering if change is really possible. And the addiction model captures sin’s danger and people’s despair. But it’s not enough. Labeling sin as nothing more than an amoral “disease” is far less than what Jesus offers us. Stay tuned for more thoughts.