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Matt was a 32-year-old man who is in recovery for pornography addiction.  He had four months of good sobriety using all the tools he’d been given.  Now it was time to investigate the root cause(s) of his addiction.  To do this, we used the O.A.T. model of addiction.  Developed by British therapist Paula Hall (2019), the letters in this model stand for:

• Opportunity: An opportunity-induced addiction comes from early and consistent exposure to pornography.  Matt was 11 when he was first exposed to pornography.  He knew it was wrong, yet he was constantly drawn back to it.  An unmonitored computer at home gave him daily access to it.  Through daily use of pornography during his formative adolescent years, it was as if Matt’s brain was “hardwired” to become addicted to pornography.  Because much porn online is violent toward women, encountering it at an early age can also be traumatic for a child.  This was Matt’s experience.  
• Attachment: This refers to the bond a child has with his parents.  From the moment of birth, we need to have a strong and healthy bond with our parents.  This bond teaches us how to feel safe, secure, validated, and protected.  By internalizing these feelings we develop the confidence to handle whatever challenges life throws at us.  We can effectively deal with negative emotions and self-sooth.  Without this strong parental bond, we are unable to develop the confidence to handle life’s challenges.  We are not able to handle negative emotions.  Thus, when life’s challenges come our way, instead of being able to deal with them effectively, we look outside ourselves to cope.  This is where addictive behaviors, such as pornography use, come in.  While Matt started out with a  strong and healthy bond with his parents, the shame of his pornography use broke that bond and resulted in an attachment wound.  He continued to use pornography to cope with the deep loneliness caused by this attachment wound.
• Trauma: When we encounter situations where our physical and/or emotional wellbeing is threatened, we experience trauma.  This can come from living in a house where there is abuse, addiction, neglect, divorce, death of a parent, etc.  It can also come from outside the home through abuse, natural disasters, rejection by peers, bullying, etc.  The body has three natural responses to trauma: fight, flight, or freeze. People who become addicted to a substance are often using it to flee from the pain of a trauma.  Matt was sexually abused by an older neighbor when he was a child; this was extremely traumatic for Matt.  Because of shame and fear, he never told his parents about the abuse.  This deepened his attachment wound.  He used pornography to escape the emotional pain and shame from being abused.  

As with many people addicted to pornography, the roots of Matt’s addiction were a combination of opportunity, attachment, and trauma.  Thus, we thus developed a treatment plan to address all three root causes.  Through his support system and the use of Covenant Eyes on his phone and computer, Matt was able to limit the opportunity to view porn.  By telling his parents about the abuse he endured and his pornography addiction, Matt was able to restore the bond with his parents.  They were very loving and compassionate with him, and were willing to do whatever it took to help him heal.  Working with me, Matt slowly began to heal from the trauma in his life.  We used Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), a highly effective therapeutic means for resolving trauma. Matt was able to experience relief from his traumatic wounds and move on with his life without pornography.

The O.A.T. model of addiction makes it easier to understand the root causes of an addiction.  This can lead to better treatment plans to heal the wounds that led to pornography use.  Ultimately, this can lead to long-term healing and sobriety.

Source:

Hall, Paula (2019). Understanding and Treating Sex and Pornography Addiction: Second Edition.
New York: Routledge.