While pornography has existed in magazines and other visual mediums for decades, the industry exploded over the last 10 to 15 years following the invention of the internet, according to Mark Jorgensen, founder and CEO of the Utah-based pornography addiction recovery center Desert Solace . With the ease of today’s technology, the accessibility and affordability of pornography has led exposure rates in young adults to skyrocket.

“The exposure rate by the time a young man is 18 is 100 percent– everyone has at least been exposed (to pornography),” Jorgensen said. “Females are catching up; they’re almost at the same level.”

Statistics from a variety of studies show that approximately 50 to 60 percent of men are regular, habitual users of pornography and 30 to 40 percent of these men have an “unhealthy” use of internet pornography.

Although pornography addicts won’t have physical symptoms like seizures or withdrawals commonly seen when drug addicts try to stop using, true pornography addicts fight similar chemicals in their brain compelling them to continue to use.

“I define addiction as wanting to stop and not being able to,” Jorgensen said. “Certainly a drug addict is compelled to use them; their body has become dependent on it, and pornography and sex addiction is the same thing. The body– the brain specifically –is craving access to that high. The same chemicals are flooding the brain.”

Those who are unable to stop using pornography may start to realize they have a problem when it impacts other aspects of their life.

“The harm comes when of course it starts to affect the person’s ability to function in the rest of their life, whether that be up all night binge watching and not able to function as a student or productive member of society,” Jorgensen said. “Certainly wives don’t appreciate compulsive use of pornography; it affects marriages, it affects families.”

After a length of time, further harm may be caused when a pornography addict craves a more extreme version of use to get the same high. This can lead to the addict seeking out more extreme forms of pornography, acting out what they’ve seen on screen or seeking out extramarital affairs, strip clubs or brothels.

“At a certain point, a Playboy magazine just doesn’t cut it anymore,” Jorgensen said. “That’s when they may start to look for something more extreme, something more deviant… It could go any direction from there.”

Jorgensen was motivated to found Desert Solace after suffering from his own addiction to pornography for more than 30 years. His addiction began during his adolescence when he and his friends would huddle around pornographic magazines and grew to become a craving he couldn’t resist as an adult.

After being “called out” by a friend who realized he needed help, Jorgensen began an outpatient therapy program, but found it extremely difficult to apply the tools he learned to heal while still dealing with the stresses and pressures of everyday life.

“I’d leave the therapist’s office all excited about, okay I’m going to take this on, I’m going to go conquer this thing,” he recalled. “And then the real world would hit me and stress and pressure and all that, and I would escape to the only place I knew how, which is what addiction of any type is really about — it’s about escaping… And the cycle would just continue.”

It took removing himself from his daily life and entering into a residential program where he could focus on his healing for Jorgensen to truly begin to recover.

“I came out of there realizing that this is what I wanted to do, to help others to overcome the same challenges,” he said. “It’s not something I’m proud to shout from the rooftops; however I am in the sense that I know that other people are suffering from it. I know it is affecting their relationships, I know it is affecting their lives and I know that they don’t know what to do. We’ve created (Desert Solace) to make that happen and realize what the underlying issues are and deal with that.”

For information contact Desert Solace at (435) 817-1351.