Porn addiction support groups: your options, and how to pick one
A support group gives you something a blocker never can: other people who actually get it. There is no single right group, and they feel quite different from each other. Here is what each kind is like, who it tends to suit, and how to pick one without overthinking it.
Twelve-step groups
These follow the same idea as Alcoholics Anonymous. You go to meetings, listen, share if you want to, and work through twelve steps, often with a sponsor who has been doing it longer. Porn Addicts Anonymous is focused on porn. Sex Addicts Anonymous is broader. Meetings are free, and many run in person, by phone and online. The steps talk about a higher power, which some people love and some people do not. They suit you if you want structure and a community that stays with you for years.
SMART Recovery
SMART Recovery is the non-religious option. Meetings are free and practical: you learn ways to handle urges, notice your patterns, and keep your motivation up. It covers lots of habits, porn included, and some online meetings focus on porn. It suits you if you want tools more than tradition.
Church and faith groups
Many churches run small men's or women's groups, and some follow a Christian twelve-step program. If faith is central to how you want to quit, this can feel like home. More on quitting as a Christian.
Online communities
We run an online community on Reddit, r/EscapeRecovery. It is anonymous and always open, which helps at 2am, and it is built around support, not streak contests.
Groups run by a therapist
Some therapists run small groups for people struggling with porn. They are more structured and usually cost money, but you get a trained person in the room. How to find that kind of help.
How to choose
- Want structure and people for the long haul? Try a twelve-step group.
- Want practical tools, no religion? Try SMART Recovery.
- Faith at the center? Try a church group.
- Not ready to show your face? Start online.
Go to two or three meetings before you decide. The first one is always the strangest.
Between meetings
Meetings help, but the hard moments usually happen alone, late at night, with a phone. That is the gap Escape is built for. It blocks porn privately on your iPhone, iPad and Mac, with no account and nothing collected, and it can make itself hard to switch off when you are at your weakest. Your group gives you people. Escape gives you a wall for the hours in between.
Escape blocks porn in Safari for free, extends to every browser with Deep Block, and adds a 90-second urge ritual, practice games that retrain how you meet an urge, and 28 short courses on identity and the long arc of recovery. No account, no personal tracking.
More on this topic in The science and the arc, or go deeper with the What porn does to the brain course.