MSI Press Blog

  This excerpt comes from  He's a Porn Addict...Now What?  (Overbay and Shea) Does he love porn more than me?   Tony, the mental health professional: At some point in his life, he turned to porn as a coping mechanism. He wasn’t feeling connected to his job, his kids, his health, his church, his parents, and his spouse. He turned to porn because he didn't necessarily know how to connect to his life. Most likely he fell into a habit of turning to porn because he didn’t have the tools to become a better husband, father, or employee; he didn’t have the discipline to get in better shape or write the great American novel. He turned to porn as a coping mechanism. Not everything has to tie back to childhood, but I’ve found that when you have early exposure to pornography, somewhere under age 11 or 12 (the average age of first exposure continues to trend down, it now sits somewhere between 8 and 11) you tend to become sexualized. Back before porn was at ever...

  excerpt from He's a Porn Addict...Now What? (Overbay and Shea) -  Can a guy really look at pictures and images without comparing them to the person he is with?   Tony, the mental health professional:  I know from working with enough addicts that the typical reason someone is addicted to pornography is that it’s a coping mechanism for the parts of their life that they aren't satisfied with and it becomes an addiction they turn to again and again despite the isolation and shame. The pictures in the magazines and the images that they're watching in the videos are an unhealthy escape. But unfortunately, even when they aren’t isolated and are with their wives, they are still preoccupied with the fantasy imagery. A lot of the clients I work with admit they think of pornography when they are intimate with their wives. For young men, the growing rates of erectile dysfunction because of pornography is staggering. They are now growing up with such an unhealthy diet of porn ...

Joshua Shea, author of MSI published book, He's a Porn Addict...Now What? seemingly had it all. A loving wife, two children, and a supportive extended family. In 2010, after nearly fifteen years working of his way up the journalism ladder, he launched a lifestyle magazine in his hometown. Within a year, he was one of the founders of Central Maine’s largest film festival and had won a seat on the City Council in Auburn, Maine. Accolades, including receiving the Key to the City and being called one of the “Next 10 People Shaping Maine’s Economy” by a state newspaper followed. While the public got one picture of Joshua, behind closed doors, his longtime mental health and addiction issues were festering. A workaholic by nature, he actively ignored the red flags surrounding his long-existing pornography and alcohol problems. Finding it easier to lose himself in a bottle of tequila and adult websites, his relationships with his family, colleagues, and f...

  Most addictions don’t begin with a dramatic moment. They begin quietly, in the margins of a life that otherwise looks functional. Porn addiction is no different. In fact, its very invisibility is part of what makes it so difficult to acknowledge, even privately. Admitting a problem to another person is one thing. Admitting it to yourself is something far more intimate. It requires looking directly at the gap between who you believe you are and what you’re actually doing. That gap can feel like a chasm. Here are some of the forces that make self‑recognition so hard. 1. Porn Is Framed as “Normal,” So Overuse Feels Easy to Rationalize Porn is widely accessible, socially ubiquitous, and often treated as harmless entertainment. That cultural framing gives the brain endless material for self‑negotiation: Everyone does it. It’s not like drugs or alcohol. It’s private—who is it hurting? When something is normalized, it becomes harder to see when your relationship with it has sl...