As a mental health counselor, I was trained to use diagnostic criteria to diagnose individuals as a means of guiding them toward solutions. Currently, there is no official criteria to diagnose pornography dependency/addiction, but based on my experience with individuals who have sought support over the years, I’ve identified a few areas to consider when it comes to assessing yourself. I’ve put them in order of what I consider less to more severe:

• You turn to pornography on a pretty consistent basis. Pornography use is a fairly regular part of your life. You turn to it multiple times a day, daily, or weekly like clockwork. 
• Your tolerance has Increased. The nature of the content has become more and more explicit over the years in order to meet your needs. 
• You easily lose track of time while viewing. When you begin to view pornography, time disappears and before you know it, hours may have been lost in meaningless viewing with self-talk such as “Just one more click…” “I just want to see where this link goes…”
• It’s always on your mind. You’re constantly fantasizing about what you have seen or what you hope to see. When you aren’t engaged in looking at pornography, it is not uncommon for your thoughts to turn to it. You often reflect on what you have seen, and what you hope to see next. 
• Obtaining and viewing pornography takes priority over other aspects of life. You give up opportunities to do things you once enjoyed, you turn down social opportunities, and you lose track of time so much that you’re late to things or miss important events altogether (including not sleeping, being late for work, etc.)
• You can’t stop. You have tried to stop, but you have found yourself repeatedly going back to the same behaviors over and over. You have repeatedly had the thought, “This will be my last time”, but, of course, it never is. 
• You experience withdrawals without it. You start to feel jittery, anxious, and agitated when you haven’t seen pornography for a certain period of time. You may also find it harder to sleep, to concentrate, etc. In other words, you feel withdrawals similar to what a drug addict feels when they have been without drugs for awhile.
• You’re hiding, lying, and keeping secrets related to your pornography use. You have a “secret side” to you that you keep hidden from others. This may be via incognito tabs, a device others don’t know about, etc. You’ve told lies to those who you should be able to be completely open with and who have a reasonable right to know your actions (this includes lying out of omission).  
• You’ve experienced loss (or will if you don’t change). This may be in the form of relationships, jobs, finances, friendships, family problems, physical health, spiritual health, self-respect, etc.

While each of these items are important, some carry more weight than others and emphasize the need to take recovery seriously so that the problem doesn’t worsen. As a clinician, I know a multitude of individuals who could mark off items 1-4 and I wouldn’t say they are addicted to pornography. But I do think you can use these items as warning signs for budding dependency and possibly addiction especially if frequency of use is particularly high (daily and multiple times a day).

When you pair the first four items with items 5-9, true concern should really kick in. This is because you are  starting to experience real-life consequences to your mental health, relationships, and other facets of your life. Item 5 in particular is a major key indicator–it’s when pornography use starts to become a priority over other areas of your life that should be more important. 

✏ Reflect. Put a star next to the criteria you relate to most. As you reflect back on your struggles, what areas have gotten better or worse?

💬 Open Up. Share the criteria above with an accountability partner or trusted friend. Share with them your reflections of where you’re at.