Reddit is terrible (and great) for porn addiction recovery.

Reddit is a social media forum-hosting platform known for its user-generated content. Indeed, almost everything on Reddit is user-generated, including the forums that it hosts. These forums hosted on Reddit’s servers are most often referred to as “subreddits,” which makes it easy for Redditors to connect about subject matter that interests them. Similar to Facebook, any established account on Reddit is welcome to create a page, set their own rules for that page, and grow a community around the page’s subject matter. Users can then “upvote” or “downvote” content, effectively controlling which links or discussions receive the most visibility.

For example, r/IAMA (“I am a __: ask me anything”) forum, where interesting folks and celebrities alike answer anonymous strangers’ questions online. Previous “ask me anything” participants include philanthropist Bill Gates, president Barack Obama, wrestler Ronda Rousey, entrepreneur Elon Musk, and astronaut Buzz Aldrin. There are other general forums for politics, news, and technology. And there are forums for a wide variety of subjects, including gaming, sports, cities, or almost anything that you can think of, including dedicated forums for almost every legal porn niche imaginable.

Some people don’t know this, but NoFap originally started as a forum hosted on Reddit back in 2011. After the subreddit started picking up steam, we decided to host a standalone website too. NoFap’s subreddit is home to lively discussion and a 24/7 feed of anonymous peer support and motivational content. There are other recovery-related subreddits too, such as r/PornFree and r/PornAddiction.

Why Reddit is great for recovering porn addicts:

Reddit-based recovery forums are lively and active around-the-clock. Through Reddit, you can have 24/7 access to quick motivation. NoFap’s subreddit often has over 2,000 people online at any given time – so there aren’t many better ways to reach out for help if it’s 4 am and you’re experiencing urges to slip back into problem porn use.

There is a high degree of comradery present in Reddit-based recovery forums. While you might be able to develop more personalized connections on NoFap’s main forum, it’s hard to beat the excitement of connecting to hundreds or even thousands of people at the same time who empathize with your struggles. In a sense, NoFap’s subreddit is like being at an exciting football game, while the main forum is like being at a networking convention.

It’s super easy to use. If you are already a Reddit user, it’s easy to plug into recovery communities since you can utilize your existing Reddit account. You don’t need to modify your daily routine or keep track of an account on another website. Reddit has apps for most mobile devices which allows for recovery motivation that’s just a few taps away.

There is some high-quality information present on Reddit. Although there are frequent complaints of too many memes and low-quality posts in Reddit-based recovery forums, there are sometimes higher-quality posts that reach the front page (meaning, they get upvoted by users to be more visible) or present in the comments sections (users can reply to any link or discussion submitted to the forum). With millions of posts, there are bound to be some good ones, right?

Using recovery subreddits might raise awareness about porn addiction to the entire Reddit community. NoFap’s subreddit gets visited by and receives comments from many non-subscribers. Furthermore, if a piece of content gets “upvoted” enough times, the content can appear for users who don’t even subscribe to the NoFap subreddit. Some of the popular memes from NoFap’s subreddit forum get promoted to Reddit’s global usership, effectively raising awareness about porn addiction.

The NoFap subreddit features ample amounts of quickly-viewable motivational content. While the website and forum focus on longer-form content, sometimes you could use a short burst of motivation, which Reddit-based recovery communities thrive at.

Why Reddit isn’t always so great for recovering porn addicts:

Reddit is one of the best websites for porn. There’s a huge presence of porn on the platform just a few clicks away, which can be problematically enticing for recovering porn addicts. If you visit the front page of Reddit or general forums, you are likely to unexpectedly run into porn, links to porn, or, at the very least, highly sexualized media. While you can screen out content that is categorized as 18+, sometimes posts or even subreddits are not properly categorized.

The general Reddit community hivemind is often adversarial to porn addicts in recovery. If you venture outside of recovery-oriented subreddits, you might notice if NoFap or porn addiction is mentioned in a thread, many people will upvote comments that disparage porn addicts or even the concept of porn addiction. Moderators of r/sex, a large Reddit-hosted sex advice forum, actively ban people who mention porn addiction.

There are a huge number of trolls on Reddit. Unfortunately, since anybody with a Reddit account can post on NoFap’s subreddit, sometimes trolls will post porn. While moderators quickly remove the porn, it is quite possible to still run into it. The nature of Reddit’s anonymous user-generated content leads to a number of downsides, including inappropriate, pornographic, and divisive content which can remain live until a moderator removes it.

People who are more serious about recovery join standalone forums. You’ll generally find higher-quality discussion at places like NoFap’s forum and Your Brain Rebalanced, whereas Reddit-hosted forums are often full of repetitive basic questions and people who haven’t spent time informing themselves about recovery. The forum format seems to reward long-form high-quality content, where the Reddit platform seems to reward clickbait and quickly-digestible content. This results in many of the most popular posts in recovery subreddits being memes and short posts.

How to maximize the benefits and minimize the potential drawbacks of Reddit while in recovery:

Lockdown your Reddit experience. To avoid trolls from private messaging you porn, disable private messaging and chat requests from random users. Disable “adult content” (not safe for work) posts in your user settings. Consider installing NoFap’s browser extension to block NSFW subreddits.

Use Reddit deliberately. Tailor your Reddit frontpage by unsubscribing from most general subreddits and then subscribing only to recovery subreddits and other well-moderated subreddits where you’re unlikely to stumble across pornography.

Help to improve Reddit-hosted recovery forums. Reddit is largely a user-generated content website, which means that as a user, you are empowered to improve, or detract from, the quality of forums that you participate in. Report any rule-breaking content to the moderators. Upvote good content and downvote low-quality content. Above all else, submit high-quality and long-form content yourself, which will encourage others to do so too.

Utilize the strengths of the platform. Use Reddit for quick bursts of motivation for when you need it. Utilize the standalone forum for journaling, accountability partners, and longer-form discussion.

If necessary, take a temporary break from Reddit. If your use of Reddit keeps on leading you back to problem porn use, it’s okay to take some time off. Many people in recovery take temporary breaks from social media sites. Reddit will still be here after you recover from porn addiction.