Addiction Wars: Porn: The New Crack?

(American Health Newswire) -- Tiger Woods says he was one. Lindsay Lohan was accused of being one. Charlie Sheen may be one. We're talking about sex addicts. It's a term that's received a lot of attention lately. Some say it's real; others say it's a real good excuse.

These days, Brent McNamara works on the computer a lot. But, he always has to keep himself in check. Brent is a recovering porn addict. For 10 years, he spent almost every waking moment looking at Internet porn.

"My nickname was very well-known in porn circles. This addiction completely took over my life, and 

I'm not kidding when I say 24/7," McNamara told American Health.  

The addiction started shortly after McNamara enrolled in school to be a pastor. First, it was the occasional magazine or movie, but when the Internet became popular, McNamara got hooked.

"Before those days, you had considerable risk if you wanted to go into an adult bookstore. You had considerable risk of being seen by somebody you didn't want to see," he told American Health.  

It became more than just looking at porn. McNamara took part in live strip shows and even hired prostitutes. It tore his family apart. After 24 years of marriage, his wife divorced him.

"I wasted a lot of years...really threw them away, messed up my life and hurt a lot of people," McNamara said.

Bill Larson knows that feeling. He's a recovering sex addict. 

"I couldn't control it worth a damn, and I absolutely wanted to," Larson told American Health.

Sex consumed his life. At one point, Larson had more than 10 partners at the same time. His breaking point came when they all found out about each other.  

"If you can imagine just a pyramid being taken out at the bottom and the whole thing coming crashing down, and it did," Larson said.

He says the toughest part is convincing people it's a real addiction.

"I think people want to make a joke out of it, but it's no joke. It truly is a crippling disease," Larson said.

Expert Mary Ann Layden agrees. She believes sex can be an addiction -- similar to drug addiction.

"It's not the putting it in your body through the mouth or through a vein that produces the addiction.

It's the getting hooked on, the brain reaction, knowing it hurts you and doing it anyway," Layden, Ph.D., director of the Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program, Center for Cognitive Therapy at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, told American Health.

Two new studies are offering evidence suggesting that sex may indeed be an addiction. The first found differences in DNA were linked to sexual behavior in young adults. Those with a variant of the DRD4 gene were more likely to have one-night stands and affairs. The second study found that non-addicted people who looked at porn images had similar brain responses to cocaine addicts who looked at images of people taking the drug.

"We know that the sex drive is probably one of the most powerful things we have on the face of the earth," Layden said.

Previous editions of the American Psychiatric Association's diagnostic manual haven't recognized sex addiction as a mental disorder. The next edition -- which comes out in 2013 -- will classify both porn and sex addiction as "hypersexual disorder." Some wonder if this official label will justify cheating among so-called "addicts."

"It's not an excuse that says you get a pass on it," Layden said.

So how would researchers define sex addiction? Some of the proposed wording states that patients are "repetitively engaging" in sexual behaviors when they are anxious, depressed or stressed.

Signs of a porn addict? They've tried to quit but can't, they go through a denial process, they hide their behavior, and they experience anxiety if they can't see the material.

"I don't know any other area where we have such damaging material readily available to every level of society," Layden said.

Then, there's the dilemma of treating sex addiction. Should doctors tell addicts to say no to all sex like they do with drugs? When treating porn addiction, Layden recommends patients set up an Internet server that blocks porn at the server level and install accountability software that generates a list of all web sites visited. This information should then be forwarded to an accountability coach.

McNamara is now an assistant pastor at his church. He leads an addiction recovery group and even wrote a book about his experience.

"Addiction is not who we are. It's what we did," McNamara said.

Larson is in the recovery process. He attends group therapy and says starting over feels good.

"For the first real time, I'm just open and honest about my life," Larson said.

Whether it's bad behavior or a true addiction, these men are happy they were able to end it and move on with their lives.

Dr. Layden's research shows the earlier a boy is exposed to porn, the more likely he is to engage in non-consensual sex. On the flip side, the more pornography young women use, the more likely they are to be victims of non-consensual sex. She says it's very difficult to get approval to conduct studies showing pornography to subjects because of the known damaging effects on the viewers.

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