A decade ago, Al appeared to have what many would consider a sweet life: the Vancouver resident was married with children and succeeding in a busy law practice. No one knew he had long been hooked on pornographic books and magazines; besides, his penchant for porn never got in the way of his work or his life. That all changed as soon as the calendar flipped to 1999, when he got a new computer and high-speed Internet access at the office. Within six days he had found his way to hard-core adult sex sites, and his addiction, he says, became out of control. It wound up having devastating and lasting consequences.

"Within a month I had developed a pattern," Al says in a phone interview with the Georgia Straight . "I'd get to the office at 9 a.m. I'd turn on my computer and go straight to porn; I was always searching for new stuff. By 10 a.m., I'd be so disgusted with myself--self-shame is a huge part of this--that I'd try to do some work. For the rest of the day, I might work for half the day and look on-line for half the day. Around 5, when the secretaries would go home, I'd start downloading and printing images and would stay on-line, at work, until about 10. I didn't care what it cost or who was paying for it. I'd pack all the printed images, stop in at McDonald's and get a greasy burger for dinner, then go home and do it all over again the next day.

"It was just awful, but I couldn't stop myself," he adds. "I had increasing desperation."

Now 58, Al hasn't worked in more than five years. He has no income or savings and is separated from his wife. He has been attending a 12-step program and seeing a sexual-addiction therapist regularly since the late spring of '99, but he still struggles.

"I'm afraid of computers," Al says. "I bought one last fall but it's still in its box. I know I'll have to take it out eventually." And when he does, he says he'll get a computer-savvy friend to block his access to pornographic sites.

Besides anonymity and instant gratification, accessibility is a factor that Al says contributed to his insatiable desire for Internet porn.

"Everything is two clicks away," he says. "Before, if I wanted a magazine, I had to go out and get one. Now everything is on my laptop; how convenient is that? On the Internet, the images are endless and available."

Al is certainly not alone. According to TopTenReviews, an on-line company that evaluates Net-related products, like privacy and spam-filtering software, 40 million American adults regularly visit on-line porn sites, and 20 percent of American men admit to accessing Internet porn at work. Ten percent of adults in the U.S. describe themselves as having cyber-sexual addiction. The company also states that there are 4.2 million pornographic Web sites in existence and that pornographic search-engine requests total 68 million per day. Porn revenue worldwide is worth US$57 billion, with the Internet accounting for $2.5 billion.

Even more unsettling are statistics related to children: TopTenReviews claims that 90 percent of kids between the ages of eight and 16 have seen porn on-line--most while doing homework. And there are 26 children's-character names, like Pokémon and Action Man, that are linked to thousands of pornographic sites.

Al is one of four people who share their stories in O.Com: Cybersex Addiction , a new documentary by local filmmaker Melanie Wood. Premiering on CBC Newsworld's The Passionate Eye on February 7 (and repeating February 9), the doc also features interviews with health professionals in the field, like Al Cooper, director of the San Jose Marital and Sexuality Center and editor of Sex & the Internet: A Guidebook for Clinicians (Brunner Routledge, 2002).

Paulette Tomasson, a certified sex-addiction therapist in West Vancouver and a registered nurse, also appears in O.Com and happens to be Al's counsellor. Tomasson, who has a private practice, explains that--like with substances such as alcohol or drugs--people addicted to cyber porn continue seeking it out even when it starts to have detrimental effects on their daily living: their jobs, relationships, and overall functioning.

"When people are really hooked on Internet sex, it does ruin people's lives, as any addiction does," Tomasson says in a phone interview. "They need to abstain, but in our society it's difficult to do that.

"Addiction is a brain disease. The disease is driven by isolation, denial, and delusion," she adds, noting that men and women who are addicted to on-line porn are often afraid that giving it up will mean giving up sex altogether. "That's not true. There is healthy sexuality."

There is also support available for those who realize they have a problem. Tomasson urges such people to contact Sex Addicts Anonymous ( www.sexaa.org/ ) and to find a qualified therapist. She recommends the Web site of the Compass Point Addiction Foundation ( www.compasspointaf.org/ ), a Scottsdale, Arizona?based organization dedicated to research, treatment, and education that has a contact list of trained professionals across North America.

"There is help out there, and there is life beyond the Internet," she says.

Al says one of the challenges in dealing with his addiction is addressing the accompanying shame. Having earlier in his life battled alcoholism, he says being obsessed with porn is far more difficult to address.

"I know people will accuse me of being a pervert," he says. "Yet our society is hypocritical. There's shame around sexuality yet we abuse it; it's everywhere....Learning to have healthy sexuality is a long journey."

Nevertheless, Al says that with the help of Tomasson and support groups, he's feeling healthier and better about himself every day. He hopes to go back to work soon, although not as a lawyer. He also stresses to others who might be in a similar situation as he was that professional help is vital.

An addiction to Internet porn might foster isolation, but it isn't something that can be conquered solo.