This blog post / video is a short snippet from an online course for quitting porn, called:
The 4-Step Porn Crushing System

So, is watching porn addiction a sign that a person is having issues in life and he is trying to escape those underlying problems?

In other words, does porn addiction cause problems in life or does problems in life cause porn addiction.

Short answer, it can be both. 

Porn addiction can definitely cause problems, but it is also a fact that people who are lacking some needs are trying to meet those needs by using porn.

Now, that is not to say that everyone who has a porn addiction is trying to escape reality or is having some childhood trauma they're dealing with.

It is possible to develop a porn addiction just because you like watching people have sex and there doesn't necessarily have to be any underlying issues causing the porn addiction to develop.

That said, underlying issues are still pretty common and today we are going to take a close look at this. 

By the way, this video and post is a short snippet out of my online course "The 4-Step Porn Crushing System"

Porn Addiction A Sign Of Underlying Issues Or Unmet Needs?

Should you still find that you keep relapsing to porn even after you’ve been putting in a lot of work with this, it could be a sign that you have some underlying issues that would be good for you to work on.

Now, it is possible to learn how to stop relapsing even if we have unsolved underlying issues, but the truth is that it will be harder then.

Some other pretty clear signs that underlying issues are at play here is if you find that you tend to use other escapism behaviors as well.

For example, if you feel a need to escape yourself by drinking alcohol or completely drown yourself in hours upon hours of video games, or maybe you managed to reduce your porn use, but then instead you started developing another addiction to some other unhealthy behavior. 

The need to escape yourself can be a sign of unsolved problems driving you to form a porn addiction...

Now, all of us can have moments where we feel a need to escape, or at least most of us hate the feeling of being bored, but if you just can’t stand one minute of being without any stimuli and you desperately feel a need to escape, or to have something then, again, there are probably some needs you are not meeting. 

Now, since this online course is designed to be a step by step practical way of quitting porn, we are not going to go too deep into the psychological aspect of filling your needs right here, because it’s very difficult to do since I can’t know anything about your particular issues in life.

Solving underlying issues that powers a porn addiction can be tricky, but conssdering your 6 human needs is very useful...

And in addition, solving an underlying issue is something tat can take months or sometimes even years of time for a person working closely with a personal therapist. 

That said, I still want to give you something to work on here, should you feel that escapism is something you are struggling with.

The 6 human needs...

Let’s take a look at the top 6 human needs as Tony Robbins puts them… 

They are…

• Certainty
• Variety
• Significance
• Connection/Love
• Growth
• Contribution

You don't need to have equal amounts of them in order to be 'whole'...

Now, one thing to keep in mind here is that it doesn’t work like you have to have equal amounts of everyone of these in order to be whole. No, for some people some of these needs are more important than for others. That’s ok. Not only ok, but that’s just the way it is.

But the thing is, it can be a bit tricky to know how much you need each, especially if you don’t feel that you know yourself that well.

Let’s go through them so that you know what they mean. 

What they mean...

Certainty - basically means that most people need to feel secure and have security in their life. They need to, at the very least, know that they will be able to get food on the table and pay the bills. And then others need to feel much more secure than that.

They can have a strong need to, for example, know what their day will look like and what’s going to happen in the near future in much greater detail. I know I personally have a pretty strong need for certainty.

I always prefer to know who is going to be in a social gathering before I get there, if I have a trumpet gig I always want to know exactly how to get there way in advance even though I know it’s going to be a very easy route and that there most likely won’t be any problems and on and on. You get the idea. 

Variety - is also a human need. Some people have to go on several trips a year and change jobs often and get easily bored and so on. Those people have a high need for variety in life. This one I personally don’t need that much of.

Significance - some people have a strong need for significance. They need to feel that there is something to their name. That they in some way (good or bad) makes a difference and are needed or noticed. Being very skillful in a domain is one way of meeting the significance need. Or being popular or famous. It’s like the opposite of being forgotten or a nobody. 

By the way, there are many ways to try to meet these 6 human needs, both bad ways and more healthy ways. And that’s the problem with addictions, or other bad behaviors, because bad as they are, they still help the person to meet some, or even several of these needs.

There a productive or destructive ways of trying to meet a need...

Here are a few examples of people who chose horrible ways of trying to meet the significance need.  

A man pulls a gun and robs a person on the street. That's instant significance. Because right at that moment the man with the gun is definitely not going to get ignored, in fact that very second he is the most important person for the victim. Important in a way that he can't just be shrugged off. 

Or think of those school shooters who have been ignored most of their lives and then one day they go and do the unthinkable, shooting a bunch of students while shouting something like “remember my name” or something like that. 

They clearly had a super high need for significance, and they chose one of the worst ways of trying to get it. 

Feeling stuck? You can transform your life in 13 weeks or less by Downloading my FREE guide below...

Become good at something to feel significant...

A much more productive way, obviously, would be to practice some form of skill so that you become so good within whatever you do that people start talking about you. And you feel, “Hey, I’m really good at this. There is actually something to my name.”

For example, I have always felt I have been the best trumpet player in most of the bands I’ve played with in my life, and of course that has given me a feeling of significance during the gigs. And during band practice as well.

It’s the feeling of being somebody and that you are not ignored. 

Getting a puppy can increase significant for a lonesome person...

Another healthy way can be, for example, let’s say there is this 70 year old man with no family. He feels forgotten and unimportant. Well, if that man were to get a dog it would give him at least a bit of significance, because to that puppy the man is now very important. 

In fact without him the puppy would not survive. So now the man is needed. 

Again, there are thousands of different ways of trying to meet a need, and some are very good, others extremely horrible and then you’ll find everything in between those as well. 

Connection and Love - Now this one I don’t even have to explain. Some people have a really strong need for connection and others not so much. But I do want to say that from experience I have noticed that the most common need that guys who have a porn addiction feel they are lacking is in fact ‘connection and love’. I’m not saying everyone who is addicted to porn is lacking connection or love, but indeed many do. So this is definitely something for you to consider. 

Growth - growth is another human need. We need to feel that we are growing in some way. Growing as a person or getting a better life in some way. 

And the last one…

Contribution - many of us want to feel that we are contributing something to this world or to society or to our relatives,  families or friends. Otherwise many of us just feel like we are wasting time and space. 

But remember now, each of us possess varying degrees of desires for these 6 human needs. For example, I think contribution is something that is a bit lower on the list for many people, and if so that’s fine. But it’s probably there to at least some degree for everyone, because it’s still a need. 

Porn addiction formed from a desire for connection and love...

Now, speaking of porn addicts and that they commonly lack connection and love. Here are a few things for you to consider if you think that might be the case for you.

The first one is, obviously, to reach out to people and don’t wait for people to reach out to you. Ask some old classmate if they want to go out and grab a beer or something. Join a club or a community of some sort.

By helping others you help yourself and form a sense of connection...

And here is really something valuable, start helping people more. 

All the time, see if you can help someone.

You see, when you help someone you instantly get a sense of connection to that person. So it’s a wonderful way of meeting this need, and not only that, you also become a bit more significant because the person you are helping will remember you.

Helping people fills several needs at once...

And on top of that you are contributing to society. So by helping someone you also meet the last need here.

And not only that, by doing that you also grow as a person. So you’re meeting at least 4 human needs in one. Talk about a high quality thing to do. Both for others and yourself. 

That is pretty amazing when you think of it. And I would like to invite you to be creative here as well. 

Figure out underlying problems that are forming your porn addiction and change the way you meet the needs to something more productive...

Try to figure out what needs you are trying to meet with your bad habits and then be creative with coming up with new, more healthy, alternatives of meeting those needs. 

That’s how you do it.

For example, a porn addiction is a horrible way to try to meet several needs at once.

Porn use can be a way of trying to meet several needs. A bead way, but still...

We already talked about it being a desperate way to try to get connection and love, but it can also meet the need of significance to some degree, in a bad way of course.  

But this is because, well, when you’re watching porn your reptilian brain thinks you must be some super high status man when you just get to pick and choose from the most attractive females on the planet, thousands of them.

Porn addiction and significance...

Clearly you must be a significant, high status man…unfortunately your reptilian brain doesn’t know it’s just pixels on a screen. And you are also touching on the need for variety there, since you get to switch females, videos and categories - endlessly. 

Now again, of course it’s a destructive way of meeting those needs. 

A need is a need and can't be swept under the rug...

But the thing is, and listen up here, because this is important;

A need is a need, and if you don’t get it from a healthy source then you’re going to keep going back to whatever activity you get it from. 

So if you feel that you’re someone who keeps going back to unhealthy escapism activities, that right there might have given you an aha-moment.

Now, identifying needs, bad ways that you are trying to meet them and then finding and installing new healthy ways of doing so is probably not something you will be able to do with just the snap of your fingers. 

Fixing traumas or other underlying issues takes time, but it will help you overcome your porn addiction...

It will probably take some work, but that’s okay. Start working on it. I'm sure you can make good progress on your own, but if you really feel that this is where you’re struggling then getting a bit of help from some skillful therapist can be a wonderful thing to do. 

But even if you don’t, then make finding healthy ways of meeting your needs a part of your life from here on and out, and then be patient and let it take the time.

No one's saying you need to be absolutely100% free from escapism behaviors this very week. And, none of us are perfect with this either, but all of us can keep improving.

Thanks for reading.

-Scandinavian Bob

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