Often, addictions are a way to self-medicate suffering, childhood trauma etc. You numb yourself abusing an addictive substance or behavior and it masks the suffering that, when you go abstinent, it comes to bite you really bad. I know exactly what you are talking about from my experience. I am your stereotypical addict, self-medicating myself with porn and alcohol. I have the same problem: When I stop them, I am literally buried alive. I suffer like a dog with depression until I enventually return to them. But like this you can't stay abstinent. A transformation might be needed for this to succeed. If someone uses porn, alcohol, drugs whatever to numb suffering, if the cause of the suffering is not addressed, the recovery won't work. That's why I like to call it "recovery", I am not just quitting porn and alcohol, what I want is to "recover", to recover my real self that I've never known.