Internet Porn Nearly Ruined His Life. Now He Wants to Help.

Alexander Rhodes sat along a stretch of grass, looking out over the Allegheny River. The two of us were sitting in a quiet space on the outskirts of Pittsburgh where we had planned to spend the night in tents camping out.

“The key thing to consider is that I am not a very good businessman,” he said. “I’m not really anything but a guy who was addicted to internet porn.”

A few years ago, Mr. Rhodes, 26, founded a website as an online space meant to help others who share his particular problem. It has about one million unique visitors each month, he said, and nearly breaks even.

Mr. Rhodes, who grew up in western Pennsylvania and worked at Google until recently, is now hoping to make his site into something larger. With the help of his father and other family members, he is transforming part of an abandoned church into a base of operations for his fledgling 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.”

In recent years, Mr. Rhodes has emerged as a spokesman against a “disease” that hasn’t been officially recognized by the medical establishment. He seemed uneasy with his new status.