"The more people I met, the lonelier I got."

Sean Ward has said that he used to be addicted to pornography. The former Coronation Street actor revealed today that he struggled with the addition so much that he experienced serious health issues as a result - including alopecia and drastic weight loss. Speaking on Loose Women, Ward, who played Callum in the soap between 2014 and 2015, said that he first began struggling with addiction when he was filming Our Girl in South Africa. He said that being away from his girlfriend and family made him feel increasingly lonely, leaving him to battle with his porn addiction while working on the show. "It all unravelled and the more people I met, the lonelier I got," he said. "It's different for men because of the release of energy. I started getting alopecia and started losing weight." Ward said that his symptoms only worsened when he returned to the UK and couldn't get any more acting work. His depression became unmanageable as he turned to alcohol to distract himself from his addiction to porn. Eventually, he decided that he had to tackle his issues head on. He began locking his phone away before bed and stopped drinking. "For starters it was finding out what my addictions were and where I was going wrong," he said.

"I had to look inside and see what I was filling this void with - vodka, porn and drink and everything. "I had to leave the relationship I was in. I wasn't really looking after my ex-partner's needs which was one thing I realised. There was no intimacy."

The actor said that be speaking candidly about the issue, he hopes to reduce the stigma around sex addiction.