Not so long ago, Alexander Rhodes started a discussion forum on Reddit to share an addiction that had been plaguing him since he was around eleven years old. Far from being alone in his struggle, he found himself surrounded with people who were also trying to abstain from masturbation and pornography. Soon afterwards, he started his own website: a shared space meant to help those who also do battle with this t increasingly common problem. His site’s statistics bear witness to this fact: it receives around one million unique visitors per month.
Rhodes, according to a note written by Sridhar Pappu in the New York Times, “is now hoping to make his site into something larger.” With the support of his family, he is transforming part of an abandoned church into the headquarters of his company.
“It’s one thing to look back and regret what happened in terms of growing up, being addicted to internet porn,” he said. “You might look back and be like: ‘Oh, man. I was a loser. And if I never watched it, my life would be so much better.’ And maybe that’s true. But at the same time, the fact that I was addicted to internet porn, the fact that I was so mediocre, makes me uniquely qualified to help humanity,” he said in an interview with Sridhar Pappu.
Rhodes is increasingly being seen as a spokesman against a disease that, even though it has not been officially recognized as such, is already epidemic, affecting the emotional lives of many.
To read the whole story, as published by the NY Times, you can click here.
[Editor’s Note: Take the Poll – Has porn addiction touched your life?]
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