The Link Between Pornography Addiction and ADHD
My ADHD diagnosis
I was diagnosed with ADHD at 22 years old. I was working, a full time student, and shared a townhome with 8 other guys where video games and athletics were prevalent. There was no end to the mental stimulation. Oh, and I was a porn addict and spent much of my mental energy hiding that fact.
The real problem was that homework was far less stimulating than everything else, so my brain (which is wired to naturally crave dopamine/pleasure) preferred to focus on anything but school.
I ended up being prescribed Bupropion (an anti-depressant), not because I was depressed, but because the doctor thought if he could lower my baseline dopamine levels it would enable me to focus better. It did mildly improve my focus but simultaneously robbed me of all spunk, enthusiasm and energy. My newly-wed wife begged me to stop taking it because “it took away my personality.”
Unfortunately, it would be many years before I would learn how to focus well. Looking back, I see I had no trouble focusing when watching porn or TV or while playing video games. But put a blank page of (home)work in front of me, and I felt helpless to concentrate.
High on Dopamine
Dopamine is the chemical in our brain that creates both desire and pleasure. Simply put, arousal and stimulation are a reflection of an increase in dopamine in our brain from it’s baseline levels. Similar to the healthy range of daily caloric intake, our brains have a range of stimulation that is healthy. If, however, we engage our brain in things that spike our dopamine outside of the healthy range… we run into problems.
Problem 1: The more stimulated you are used to getting, the less appealing low-stimulation activities (like work) become. Since many (if not most) important things in life aren’t as stimulating as something like video games or pornography, we begin to engage less with what really matters.
Problem 2: We have a baseline level of dopamine, and the higher we spike it, the harder we’ll crash coming back down. This is one reason it’s common to feel depressed in the hours/days after acting out with pornography.
Digital media companies (catch all term for porn, news, video games, sports, social media, etc) will all die-out if they can’t successfully capture and maintain your attention. They know the best way to do this is through entertainment. This means that their success is dependent on their ability to spike your dopamine levels higher and higher, but this ultimately comes at the expense of your focus and mental health.
So what’s the solution?
I’ve come to realize that, at least in my case, my trouble focusing was induced by these two dopamine problems and not by some incurable diagnosis.
Over the years I cut out porn, then video games, then social media. Most recently, I cut out over-stimulating TV shows. Each time I went through horrible, irritable withdrawal symptoms. My brain had to detox from unhealthy dopamine levels which required finding new healthy coping methods. With each step though, I have noticed an ever increasing capacity to focus!
Like everyone, I’m still vulnerable to distractions in the moment. Distractions could be anything from an ad, checking my phone, going to the pantry, etc. I’ve found the best way to protect against distractions in the midst of focusing, is to remove any potential footholds. This is why I voluntarily have very few apps on my phone, my screen backgrounds are solid black, and I have nearly all notification alerts turned off. Additionally, if I’m doing deep-thinking work like writing blogs or creating a course outline, I close everything on my laptop except the word processor.
In summary, I went from a positive ADHD diagnosis to the unmedicated ability to focus much better by:
1: Cutting out things that stimulate my mind to unhealthy levels.
2: Proactively removing distractions.
The ability to focus will always be something requiring effort and intentionality, but it is absolutely worth it! This is just another area that my life has drastically improved since breaking free from my pornography addiction.
