While the study of Internet pornography and its effects is relatively new and still being understood, many believe it leads to criminal behavior and drug use. "Police tell us that when they make a drug bust, porn is present," says Thomason. The addict becomes less productive in his work and more detached as a parent and husband. He wastes hours of time on the computer. Because the viewing of pornography is solitary, it isolates people; relationships begin to break down and marriages founder. Women frequently complain to counselors that they feel like they no longer know their husband and that he is chronically angry and depressed.

"It starts with curiosity, then it becomes a pleasure outlet," says Kastleman. They turn to it when they're bored or burned out, lonely, angry, stressed or tired. They turn on the computer and it releases this tidal wave of neuro chemicals. If they're using that to deal with the stresses of life, it becomes a crutch, and then they don't have the skills to deal with stress in a healthy way."

One of the primary focuses of the Candeo program is to rewire the brain, not merely require the addict to attempt to suppress his desire for pornography. Kastleman himself knows that difference. He suppressed his desire for pornography for more than two years to serve a mission for his church. But after he returned home, the pressures of marriage, working a full-time job around school and a church calling, and his wife's pregnancy proved overwhelming.

"I felt myself going back to the drug I had relied on as a teenager," he says. "I got to a place where I was so helpless that I contemplated suicide. I had tried everything."

He was finally introduced to a form of therapy that was the rudimentary precursor to the program that Candeo implements today.

"Without getting too technical, it's a special form of cognitive behavioral therapy that can literally rewire the addict's brain and change brain chemistry so that the individual no longer seeks porn as a drug of choice," Kastleman explains.

Candeo has introduced its program, which lasts six to eight weeks, with a yearlong follow-up protocol, to various church denominations, therapists, clinics, state government and the National Guard.

"Everyone talks about the need for awareness," Thomason says. "The next step is, OK, now we know about it, what do we do?"

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