Written by Chris Chandler, MA, LPCC, CSAT-S, AF-EMDR. Chris is a Clinical Advisor at Relay Health.
Wildfires are becoming more frequent, more intense, and more destructive each year. What used to be seasonal has begun to feel constant; fueled by record heat, prolonged drought, and unstable infrastructure. Entire communities are being scorched by forces that feel increasingly unmanageable.
Mental health today feels similar.
Anxiety, depression, loneliness, trauma—the emotional landscape is drier than ever. Rates of mental distress are rising, especially among young people, and what once felt like a personal struggle now feels like a cultural epidemic. The fires are real, and they’re growing.
In the midst of that pain, people are understandably reaching for relief. For many, pornography becomes the tool of choice not out of weakness or depravity, but because it works… at least for a moment. But what feels like water turns out to be gasoline. Instead of easing the fire, it intensifies the blaze.
Pornography often not only sparks the fire; It poses as the extinguisher, promising quick comfort, numbing, or escape. But instead of putting out the flames, it throws gasoline on them. What starts as a coping strategy becomes a catalyst. A momentary attempt to soothe actually deepens the emotional pain it was meant to cure.
We need to name the full picture, not just the emotional fires people are facing, but the false solutions we turn to that make the crisis worse. And for many, porn is exactly that: a misguided attempt at relief that fuels deeper pain.
A Generation on Fire
Most people don’t start watching porn to ruin their lives, they start because it works. It soothes anxiety, mimics motivation during depression, distracts from loneliness, and offers a sense of control in the chaos. For a moment, it helps. But over time, the brain begins to rewire around it.
Three factors drive this rewiring: early exposure, repetition, and long-term use. People are starting young, using frequently, and continuing the pattern for years. Research from the Barna Group reports that 78% of men and 44% of women consume porn to some extent (Barna Group, 2024). The average age of first exposure is around 12—often accidental and during moments of confusion or distress (Common Sense Media, 2022; Institute for Family Studies, 2023).
The problem isn’t just early access, it’s early association.
Porn becomes hardwired into how the brain and body seek relief. With repetition, neurons that fire together wire together. Over time, it becomes the brain’s default coping mechanism—its “go-to” strategy for soothing, escaping, or simply feeling alive. That’s when habit becomes wiring. That’s when addiction begins.
Rewiring for Pain: How Porn Changes the Brain
You’ve probably heard by now that every time someone views porn, the brain releases a spike of dopamine—the chemical tied to motivation, reward, and pleasure. It’s the same surge you’d get from substances, gambling, or high-stakes thrill-seeking.
But here’s the deeper issue: it’s not just the dopamine hit that matters.
It’s what happens after.
As psychiatrist and researcher Anna Lembke explains, the brain is constantly trying to maintain a delicate balance between pleasure and pain. Every time we flood the system with dopamine, it doesn’t just snap back to normal—it overcorrects toward pain.
That’s right: the very thing we turn to for relief sets the stage for greater discomfort.
The cheap, quick hit of porn doesn’t just bring momentary pleasure. It triggers a rebound effect of emotional pain, anxiety, and emptiness.
And over time, the cycle deepens:
- Desensitization – You need more intense content just to feel anything.
- Emotional numbing – Everyday joys lose their flavor.
- Decreased motivation – Real relationships and meaningful challenges start to feel unreachable.
This is how the brain recalibrates—not toward healing, but toward dependence. Not toward connection, but compulsion.
Porn doesn’t soothe the fire of emotional pain. It throws gasoline on it. And that’s not a moral failure. That’s neuroplasticity doing exactly what it’s designed to do: adapt to repeated experience, whether healthy or harmful.
ADHD, Dopamine Deficiency, and Porn’s Pull
If there’s one population especially vulnerable to this feedback loop, it’s young people with ADHD.
In my work with Dr. Patrick Carnes on the Fulbright Study, a groundbreaking effort to uncover the genetic roots of sexual addiction, we found something striking: porn addiction was three times more likely in individuals with ADHD.
Dr. Carnes put it bluntly: “Sex addiction is the great attention deficit disorder.”
Why? Because ADHD is often described as a dopamine deficiency disorder. The brain is constantly scanning, seeking, swiping, searching for stimulation just to feel normal. Porn becomes a perfect storm of quick dopamine and pseudo-connection, a medicator of choice for a dysregulated system.
But dopamine isn’t the only chemical involved. After orgasm, the brain releases oxytocin, the bonding hormone. We don’t just become aroused by porn. We become attached to it.
It’s Not About Porn. It’s About Pain.
Again, porn isn’t the fire. It’s the smoke. It’s the signal that something deeper is burning beneath the surface.
In therapy, I work with men and women whose porn use isn’t about lust—it’s about loneliness.
It’s the anesthesia they use to numb the pain of:
- Anxiety – and the craving for control
- Depression – and the hunger to feel alive
- Shame – and the longing to feel desirable
- Attachment wounds – and the terror of being truly known
Sometimes porn is the only place someone feels wanted. Other times, it’s the only escape from the crushing pressure of being unseen.
That’s why true healing isn’t just about quitting. It’s about reconnecting.
How Healing Begins: Containment, Connection, and Care
Wildfires aren’t extinguished by force.
They’re fought with containment—strategically creating barriers to slow the spread—and water—steady, consistent nurture to cool the flames. And most importantly, they’re fought through the coordinated support of many people working together toward the same goal.
No single firefighter defeats a wildfire alone. It takes a team, containment lines, water drops, and relentless collaboration to turn devastation into recovery.
Healing emotional pain works the same way. Recovery doesn’t happen through more self-hatred, gritted teeth, or isolated effort. It happens through containment (boundaries that protect healing), connection (relationships that rebuild trust), and care (nurture that cools the underlying pain).
You don’t heal the fire by fighting the fire harder. You heal it by building a new environment, together with others.
James Story
James, a young man in one of my therapy groups, had tried everything to quit porn – filters, streaks, dumb phones, shame cycles, etc. But nothing stuck.
What finally shifted wasn’t a stricter plan. It was connection.
During one of his first groups, we worked through a Fantasy Worksheet exercise from Dr. Patrick Carnes. After listening to other men share their most vulnerable, fantasies, James found the courage to speak. He was visibly shaking, eyes down, barely able to get the words out.
Then something powerful happened.
Instead of judgment, he was met with love. The men told him he was seen, not alone, and deeply respected for his honesty. When he looked up, he saw tears in their eyes, reflecting his pain as well as his courage.
That moment changed everything. Porn stopped being a secret and started being a signal.
From there, James began to heal. Not in isolation but in the safety of real, imperfect brotherhood. We built new tools for self-care and regulation, but more importantly, he built connection; the kind that doesn’t spike and crash, but anchors and restores.
Healing didn’t mean he never struggled again. It meant he never struggled alone.
Ready to Step Out of the Cycle?
If you’ve tried to quit porn, you already know the cycle: resolve → relapse → regret.
It’s not because you’re broken. It’s because your brain adapted to pain in the best way it knew how. But it doesn’t have to stay that way.
There are countless groups and organizations that you can join to find others to connect with and walk toward healing. One of those is a new revolutionary recovery app that I partner with called Relay. It is built to cultivate everything truly needed for healing: connection, care, accountability, and the right tools for lasting change.
At its core, Relay isn’t just an app, it’s a community. A place where you don’t have to fight your battles alone anymore.
Relay is designed around:
- Group support — small, safe recovery teams where real belonging happens
- Personalized tracking — helping you identify the patterns, triggers, and needs that pull you back to porn
- Innovative clinical strategies — research-backed tools that intervene effectively and rebuild a life of freedom
Relay offers the daily nurture, structure, and support that turn isolated effort into collective healing.
You don’t just stop using porn. You start building the kind of life and connections you were made for.
Learn more or download today → Join Relay
Porn isn’t the cause of all our problems, it’s not the fire. But in today’s emotional landscape, it often acts as the accelerant.
So let’s not just talk about depression and anxiety. Let’s talk about the ways people are trying to survive them. Let’s name the pain—and the patterns that keep us stuck.
If your heart is burning, you’re not alone. The smoke isn’t shame, it’s a signal. And healing is possible.
Citations:
Barna Group. (2024). Beyond the porn phenomenon: Understanding what people think about pornography and what they’re doing about it. Barna Group. https://www.barna.com/beyond-the-porn-phenomenon/
Camilleri, C., Perry, J. T., & Sammut, S. (2021). Compulsive internet pornography use and mental health: A cross-sectional study in a sample of university students in the United States. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, Article 613244. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.613244
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