He’s one of our favorite motivational speaker/personal trainers, a hilarious comedic actor and have you seen him pec pop?
In case you forgot, he has an app for that.
So when Crews took to Facebook Thursday morning to tell the world about his experience with being addicted to porn, a lot of people stopped and paid attention.
Dirty Little Secret
Posted by Terry Crews on Thursday, February 11, 2016
Collectively we can all be proud of Terry for having the courage to come out and tell the world about an addiction that is still somewhat of a taboo subject and almost cost him his marriage. If you are not aware, addiction to pornography is serious. “It used to be addiction was always just to ‘drugs and alcohol’ and over the last number of years there’s been an appreciation of what they call more of a process addiction, which would be an addiction to gambling, food, porn and internet,” says Dr. David Baron, Psychiatrist-in-Chief at Keck Medical Center at USC. “They want to stop but they can’t. It’s that driven feeling.”
Addiction comes in many forms, but there are a couple of the common traits that will let you know that an addiction is interfering with your life.. “It’s that driven feeling,” says Dr. Baron who believes that there are healthy ways to watch pornopgraphy but when the habit becomes out of your control it is has stepped into the realm of addiction. “It’s not only the excessive engaging in the behavior but also, by psychiatric criteria, it has to have an interference in functioning.” In the video Terry says that his issue with pornography is “it changes the way you think about people, people become objects, people become body parts, they become things to be used rather than people to be loved.”
When Terry Crews hit rock bottom in his relationship, his life had also gotten to a point that required serious attention. He was forced to deal with the problem. “The problem with most addictions and people that are addicted to something is that you almost have to hit rock bottom, you have to have knowledge that this has gotten out of hand and I can’t control this. Once you get to that point then there are a number of treatments that can happen,” says Dr. Baron. Much like Crews, people often need to see what the bottom looks like before they can understand that’s not where they want to be, only then can they be inspired to seek help.
It’s an amazing thing when celebrities and role models are willing to make bold confessions like this to their fans. Whatever their motivation may be, the positive effect it can have is remarkable. Shortly after Terry Crews made his confession on facebook, the video was flooded with comments of support, empathy and relief in some cases. You may be wondering what comments of relief look like… Well they came from those fans and viewers who shared Crews’ addiction, or one like it, and were relieved to have someone else come out and admit they have a problem.
“He had the courage to realize, whatever the behavior is, that this is not something I want, it’s not something I’m proud of,” one fan wrote. For many, an addiction to pornography comes with a lot of shame and admitting this problem to the people around you has the ability to rid you of the shame. In the case of Terry Crews, his circle of loved ones and friends extends to his fans and we’re grateful, because it may allow for many more to do the same.
