The Link Between Gaming and Porn Addiction
I stopped enjoying gaming after I quit watching porn.
Hi, my name is Hayim and I’m going to tell you how I quit video games without even trying.
Like many other guys, my teenage years were filled with too many video games, porn and shitty habits.
I would spend countless hours in the basement with my Playstation 2 from the moment I got out of school until bedtime when my mother would coerce me out of the basement.
Joining the Army
When I was 18 I joined the Israeli Army in a combat unit. It was tough as hell and basically a constant state of exhaustion for years.
Even in the army whenever my buddies and I would get off for a weekend we would head home and play Battlefield 3. We were soldiers playing army games on the weekends.
Sounds funny I know.
We would spend the whole week in the field training for war and on the weekends we would get home, make some food and try to level up on Battlefield 3.
We’d resort to gaming because video games distracted us from the thought of having to return to base after a few days, and all the exhaustion that comes with it.
Related: How to Overcome Escapism
Long marches, sleepless nights, and the occasional action.
Gaming is Fun, But…
Video games are powerful, and I know why many of us play. I’m not going to go on and tell you how lame they are and why they’re ruining your life.
What I’m going to tell you now is going to help you quit because you won’t even enjoy the games anymore. Discipline alone is a tough way to attack any problem.
It’s a lot more effective when you attack the root of the issue, and that’s what I accidentally discovered.
Instead of putting the focus on quitting to play video games, we should instead focus on the question: Why do we enjoy video games so goddamn much?
Let me explain.
A few years after the army I started studying engineering. But after classes I would still play games up to three hours per day.
It may not seem like a lot but that’s three hours that I was not studying, in class, or sleeping.
The other thing that was holding me back might surprise some people, but in hindsight it was incredibly obvious.
Link Between Gaming and Porn
I used to watch porn, and porn and gaming are inextricably linked.
In Philip Zambardo’s TED talk The Demise of Guys he conflates video game pleasure with porn pleasure – Referring to them as Present Hedonism. Present hedonistic people live in the moment – seeking pleasure, novelty, and sensation, and avoiding pain. Philip Zambardo knows his stuff, he was the leader of the notorious Stanford Prison Experiment.
Video game addictions thrive upon a similar reward system that is very different from substance addiction but very similar to pornography.
Related: Why You Should Quit Gaming for 90 Days
The similarities between porn and gaming don’t end there. With the rise of high speed internet they’ve both earned their own disease classifications in the ICD-11.
The ICD is the International Classification of Diseases and was created by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The newest edition of their disease classification manual ICD-11, has included new diagnosis for both Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder and for video game addiction Gaming Disorder.
Both of these issues have had a notable uptick with the advent of high speed internet that allowed for extremely immersive media.
Digital Addictions
Digital addictions differ from that of substance addictions like drugs and alcohol in one very simple way.
When you’re enjoying a digital form of entertainment we seek different types of pleasure from that same source.
Our pleasure comes from something new and unique. That is why multiplayer gaming has caught on so much, with every match you have a totally new experience thereby creating variety and wanting different experiences with every round.
The same goes for pornography. When someone browses through online pornography, they’re constantly looking for new variety with every video. No one sticks to the same type of porn for long periods of time, they’re constantly changing it up.
This leads to desensitization of porn tastes and can lead to more and more extreme pornography.
But substance addicts?
Substance addicts just want more. They just need more alcohol, more drugs, more.. Whatever.
If you focus on quitting porn, your brain will start to enjoy life more and you won’t require the dopamine that can only be provided by the novelty of video games.
Porn addiction is massively understated in society. Most men have been watching it from as soon as they became old enough to search for it on the web and many go on into their 30s and 40s without ever noticing how dependent they are.
The core reason porn leads to increased video game pleasure is because porn messes up our dopamine reward systems.
We get so used to massive dopamine rushes when watching porn that very little else can compare to it. But video games? That dopamine hit that we get when we headshot that guy with a pistol at 50 yards on Metro?
That can compare.
I Quit Porn (And Gaming)
I quit watching porn in February 2015 and within 6 weeks I went from playing three hours a day, to thirty minutes, to deleting my computer games within months.
I wasn’t even trying. I simply lost interest in them.
I accidentally discovered that video games were only enjoyable for me when I would watch porn.
As soon as I stopped watching porn my dopamine reward system didn’t need video games to enjoy things anymore.
I started to enjoy reading, meditating, working out, and doing more.. “mediocre” things.
I started a daily meditation practice that I keep to this day, and I’ve gained “superpowers” of confidence, posture, vocal tonality.
It’s been over four years and I still don’t own or play any video games or watch porn. In fact, I’ve decided to try to help as many men as possible and recently started a website dedicated to helping guys diagnose their potential addiction to porn.
I’ve turned my life around and so can you.
If you’re going to turn around your video game habit, take a look at your porn habits first.
Written by: Hayim Pinson