I often get asked by men about what’s likely to happen to their sex life during recovery.
This question comes as no surprise.
There’s a popular opinion that trying to have sex while struggling with porn addiction can lead you to sex addiction. Those guys who ask me about it are likely worried about their condition getting worse.
Well, I can say with confidence that this opinion isn’t true.
You won’t make your addiction worse or get addicted to sex if you have sexual relationships with women during recovery.
You see, during my recovery, I simultaneously worked on improving my sexual life.
I also dedicated two whole years to working on my anxiety issues with women.
In doing so, I spent that time approaching and talking to women who I found attractive. I also had sexual relationships with some of them.
Now, I didn’t pick up that idea out of nowhere. It came from a book by Albert Ellis, the founder of rational behavior therapy.
Ellis was a psychologist who had an issue with anxiety. To overcome it, he spent the entire summer going out to a park and talking to hundreds of women.
Granted, that approach was a bit extreme, but it worked for him.
A similar approach worked for me, too. In fact, I can say with certainty that doing so can bring your deepest issues to the surface.
During those two years that I spent meeting and approaching women, I came face to face with my darkest demons. I also became aware of how deep my porn addiction was.
The key thing in all of it was exposure.
By putting myself out there, I got into a situation where I could no longer run from my issues. I had to shed some of the limiting beliefs I had about women and sex, learn how to connect with women authentically, and endure plenty of rejection.
As a result, I overcame my social and sexual anxiety.
I know that this exposure helped my recovery immensely.
And I know it can do the same for you, even if it sounds scary right now.
In fact, it can be particularly tough for a specific group of men.
I’m talking about professionals who are in a relationship.
Why?
It’s because the cost of their porn, masturbation, or sex addiction could be quite high. They have something to lose.
And what usually happens with these men is that they invest heavily in building a delusion.
They can use many techniques to deny that they have a problem. In fact, they can even ignore the consequences of their behavior, like losing their job or relationship.
Sounds familiar?
In this post, I want to talk about the 10 excuses that such men make regarding their behavior with pornography or sex:
I’m under stress, so I deserve this.
The only one who knows about this is me.
Men need more sex than women.
What my partner doesn’t know can’t hurt her.
I have a high sex drive.
I get very sexually frustrated if I don’t watch porn or masturbate.
My wife or girlfriend isn’t always in the mood when I want sex.
My partner’s not into the stuff I like.
Porn is just acting. Watching it doesn’t hurt anyone.
At least I’m not really having sex with someone else. I’m just watching pornography.
What do all of these excuses have in common?
They’re all lies you’re telling yourself. In fact, most of these statements are blatantly false.
For example, your partner will always find out that you have a problem. You won’t be the only one who knows forever.
Also, pornography does hurt people. It encourages sex trafficking, hurts your partner, and is definitely hurting you.
Even if your excuse is a scientific fact, you need to understand that your addiction has nothing to do with facts. Your behavior is out of control and you’re using it to medicate some sort of pain.
All of these things that you’re telling yourself are your justifications for a serious problem.
So, how can you break out of that cycle of self-deception?
You can do that and start recovering by finding the right support.
People who are addicted to pornography often feel helpless. Thousands of people around the United States struggle with this type of addiction and many of them never seek out help to overcome their problems. If you have decided to get rid of your addiction to pornography once and for all, you need to realize this won’t be an easy process. Truly changing your life and removing the desire to watch porn is an ongoing process that requires lots of hard work and soul searching.
At the beginning of your porn addiction recovery, you will have to retrain your brain and learn how to control your impulses. During this phase of recovery, you may start to experience withdrawal symptoms. Here are some common porn addiction withdrawal symptoms and what you can do to manage them.
Mood Swings Are Very Common
Your mind and body get used to the constant “satisfaction” that porn addiction provides. Giving in to your lesser desires makes the body feel like it is getting what it wants. When you stop watching porn, your mind and body will go through a bit of a shock. In some cases, this can cause you to have severe mood swings. If you feel happy and jovial one minute and then steaming mad the next minute, you need to control this problem.
While this can be easier said than done, there are some things you can do to make these mood swings less severe. One of the main things you need to focus on is getting out of situations that are angering you. For instance, if you feel like you will explode with anger at work, take a minute to go outside and collect your thoughts. Being mindful about your environment and the triggers that cause your mood swings can help you put this withdrawal symptom behind you.
Dealing With Insomnia
For most porn addicts, falling asleep at night can be difficult in the beginning stages of recovery. This is usually because most addicts would watch porn at night. If you had a routine of watching porn at night, then it can be difficult to sleep without it.
Addressing issues with insomnia will involve creating a bedtime routine and removing distractions from your bedroom. Instead of keeping your phone on your bedside table and dealing with the temptation, this can cause you need to put it in another room.
Problems With Anxiety
Giving up an addiction means that a person has to change various parts of their life. These changes can make an addict feel anxious and unsure about their future. If you are dealing with bouts of anxiety after quitting porn, you need to get to the root cause of this problem. Working with an experienced addiction counselor is the best way to figure out what is causing your anxiety and what you can do to fix this problem.
Following the advice in this article will help you deal with the problems you encounter after you stop watching porn.
I’ve got another great question for you today that a brother brought to the group a few weeks ago.
He asked:
“I’ve noticed that men on certain YouTube channels say that sex is not the ultimate accomplishment for a man. I understand where that comes from, but as a porn-free man yourself, do you agree?
“I’m in the process of rebooting and my view is that a truly successful man is successful with women rather than his career. At least in my view, men become successful in their careers and become wealthy so that they can get the woman (or women) that they want.”
This is an important thing to talk about. I see a lot of men who subconsciously have this belief that being wealthy or having a great career is a prerequisite for getting sexual access to women. I think this is a leftover belief from society and history. There was a time for many years in our history where you did have to have some measure of wealth. It showed you could provide and then families would offer their daughters to marry you.
A lot of time has passed since then, though, and we now live in a society where your wealth and career don’t guarantee you anything. It gives you the ability to live comfortably in your own life but women no longer need the resources of men. Sure, women will take a man’s resources because she’s been socialized to do so, but she most likely already has a job.
Here’s the thing I explained to our brother: in today’s world a man can define success for himself. It’s no longer only about your career and your finances. You don’t need a great career or incredible amounts of wealth to have sex with beautiful women.
If you’re reading this and feel some resistance to that statement, you might still be struggling in this area. You’re probably still in the early stages of your reboot where you equate money, wealth, and career with sex, not intimacy or a long-term relationship.
I’m not denying that money, status, and wealth are helpful parts of the process. But having these things alone doesn’t guarantee you access to women. If you don’t have a healthy understanding of women or the social skills to communicate, you could have the highest corporate position and endless amounts of wealth and still not end up with someone.
You shouldn’t build up a career and financial freedom for the sole purpose of having sex. Sure, women can be part of the reason but they should be far from the only thing you do it for. You should build an enjoyable life for yourself because you want to, not because you want to sleep with someone.
Because here’s the thing, brother: there is so much more to life than women. Things like the spiritual satisfaction you receive from deep meditation or contemplation. The love and pride you find in raising a child or leaving a legacy in your community. The joy of creating beautiful art or delivering great service to others. These are all aspects of life that provide a sense of contentment far greater than mindless casual sex.
It’s very difficult to see beyond these most baseline desires early in your reboot, though. In the beginning, you just want to have sex with beautiful women and you’re convinced that only rich, good-looking men can do that. Truth is, the real world is a lot more nuanced than that but you just can’t see it because you don’t have the clarity to do so yet.
Sex is not your greatest accomplishment, brother. I don’t care what you think or how you feel about it; there is far more to life than sleeping with women. Of course, I still enjoy beautiful women and having sex, they’re easily part of the top 5, but I have so many additional things in my life today that provide joy and fulfillment.
For example, my work with men here in the Porn Reboot program trumps everything else. It gets me excited to wake up every day because I love what I do. Knowing that my skillset makes me useful to other men who are struggling energizes me. I find great joy in helping men like you relieve their pain.
I don’t believe that sex is a man’s greatest pleasure because I find the most pleasure in helping others. If you ask me what’s worth having more, I would take working with men to end their compulsive sexual behavior every time. The satisfaction I get from it is incomparable and it never goes away. And as you progress in your reboot, brother, I assure you that you’ll find something that means more to you, too.
I truly appreciate the group of men we’ve built here with the Porn Reboot program.
Our free Facebook group is full of men working hard every day to become better. They always bring some fantastic questions to the table and I like sharing the best of them here with you.
Today’s question comes from a brother who wondered about rebuilding maturity during the reboot process. He says:
“In J.K.’s live video sessions, he alluded to his own experience with an immature sub-personality whose development was arrested during youth. This always resonates with me because I notice similar elements in myself.
One sub-personality has a childlike view of relationships and women. Another sub-personality pushes me to almost compulsively make jokes or poke fun at things, even during inappropriate situations. And I have yet another that is overly sweet, ingratiating, and apologetic.
All of these sub-personalities make frequent appearances and each of them betrays my values. They interfere with the pursuit of my best self and a better life. How do all of you recognize and overcome these inconvenient sub-personalities?”
This is a fantastic question. It’s a very challenging one, but it’s great. These aspects are probably things that you relate to in one way or another. You might have some of them yourself or, if you don’t, you have some other traits that you want to overcome.
There’s a widespread belief among men in the group that you must immediately change all these unfavorable parts of your personality to be successful in your reboot. While recognizing them is necessary to grow, I don’t agree with the sentiment entirely. Some aspects of your personality take months or years to change while others may never change entirely.
I believe this idea is a result of the thought that your behavior with pornography entirely changes your personality. I don’t agree with this completely either. Sure, porn affects your personality to some extent but that isn’t the case for everyone.
Sometimes it’s more like the chicken-and-the-egg conundrum: did your personality lead to your porn use or did your porn use mold your personality? The answer isn’t always clear and it’s often not the best use of your time trying to determine the root cause. There are better ways to work through your personality defects instead.
Take Responsibility
Start by taking responsibility for where you are in life. Your behavior is no one’s fault but your own. You may have gone through some difficult things in your past but it’s time to realize that no one is coming to save you. It’s your responsibility to save yourself.
There are plenty of resources available to you that can help you change your life. Here at Porn Reboot alone, we have this blog, a YouTube channel, a podcast, and a free Facebook group for our members. You have so much information about your condition and how to overcome it, right at your fingertips.
Focus on the aspects of your life that you can change. Look at your diet, your fitness routine, how committed you are to the obligations in your life. Are you giving all you can at work? Do you show up for your family? If you make changes in these areas, the effects will carry over into your personality.
Change Your Community
Changing your community is another important part of adjusting these unfavorable parts of your personality. If you are in a community of people who won’t challenge these “negative” aspects you’ll have no reason to change. You’ll never get any sort of constructive feedback from people.
On the other hand, when you have relationships with healthy people they will be transparent and upfront with you. They’ll encourage you to reflect on your behavior. They will call you out when you’re slipping, saying, or doing something inappropriate.
I noticed this immediately once I started putting myself around the right people. They would point things out to me when I was out of line. One time a friend told me, “Hey man, that thing you said at a party that was way out of line. You shouldn’t have said that to that lady.” I was forced to look directly at my behavior for the first time and it encouraged me to make some changes.
If I was hanging out with my old crew, they never would have told me that. They probably would have responded in the complete opposite way. They would have thought it was an edgy or badass thing to say. But since I started spending time around healthy people, they pointed out that it wasn’t.
Be Patient
Patience is one of the most difficult things to develop but you must if you want to be successful in your reboot, especially in regards to shifting personality traits. As men with pornography addiction and compulsive sexual behavior, we struggle with instant gratification. Making these changes, though, happens anything but instantly. Porn addiction recovery takes time.
In the beginning, you won’t notice the small, minute changes happening in your daily life. Until your sexual behavior is under control, you’re always going to second-guess any changes that happen. It takes time to recognize yourself as a changed man. You won’t start seeing these changes in the different aspects of your personality until you’re in the later stages of your reboot process.
I promise you, brother, as long as you continue working and moving forward, though, that progress will happen. One day you’re going to see how far you’ve come from the man you came to the Porn Reboot program as. Keep the faith, continue working, and trust in the process.
When we’re young, most of us have dreams for how we want our lives to play out.
There is a certain career we want to pursue, a place we want to live, and the type of partner we want to marry. As we fall deeper into pornography addiction, though, those dreams get further away as the years pass by.
But this all changes again when you begin rebooting. Regaining control of your porn addiction and out-of-control sexual behavior gives you a second chance at your goals. You have the opportunity to achieve the things you wanted when you were in high school or college, imagining the way your future would play out.
Not everyone in the Porn Reboot program is ready for this shift, though. The true rebooters have what it takes but the trial rebooters don’t. I’ve talked about the differences between true rebooters and trial rebooters before but I want to go over them again.
True rebooters are the men who are fully committed to the Porn Reboot system. They acknowledge the negative impact pornography and sexual behavior had on their lives. These men don’t harbor any lurking notion that they can return to these behaviors again. They fully understand the effects porn has on them and are willing to do whatever it takes to overcome it.
On the other hand, trial rebooters are half in, half out. They aren’t fully convinced that they can never use pornography again without falling back to where they were. These men hold onto the idea that they can maybe use porn again in the future. They aren’t willing to develop the skills, tools, and mindset needed to overcome their compulsive behavior.
The trial rebooter’s lack of commitment also carries over into other areas of his life. He has plenty of plans and dreams but no way of following through on them. I hear it all the time:
“I want to be in a great relationship with a loving woman.”
“I want to be focused.”
“I want to be doing better in my career.”
“I want to be more social.”
“I want to be a great family man.”
He has all sorts of hopes but they have no plan to carry them out. He’s great at wanting to pursue these things and talking the talk, but he doesn’t understand how to bring those ideas into reality.
It’s like the Cheshire Cat tells Alice in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland: “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”
True rebooters know what to do. They recognize that no dream can become a reality without a plan of action. These men take the dreams they had as young men and create a step-by-step method for getting there. It might not happen quickly and it might not happen all at once, but true rebooters have the perseverance and dedication to get there.
Are you a trial rebooter or a true rebooter? Are you going to let yourself become a victim of circumstance or will you take responsibility for your life and chase those dreams you thought were impossible?
I want you to get a pen and paper right now. I’ve been pushing the importance of writing lately because I truly believe that writing things down makes a difference. It puts action behind things that have only been fantasies up to this point.
Once you have your pen and paper, I want you to write out a well thought out answer to this question:
Will my life be a warning to others, or will my life serve as an inspiring example of what is possible for a human being to accomplish?
Sit with it for a moment and answer honestly. What direction is your life going? Where are you headed? Have you taken responsibility for your behavior or are you still blaming others? Do you have a plan of action you’re following or are you still just reading blog posts, listening to podcasts, and watching YouTube videos?
Just because you’re a trial rebooter now doesn’t mean you can’t become a true rebooter with some determination and hard work. If you want to change your recovery dreams into something you can achieve, it’s time to develop an action plan to make that happen.
Ready to do something different? Start by joining us in the free Porn Reboot Facebook group and letting us know where you’re at. What are you struggling with? What’s getting in your way? And what are you doing today, right now, to make the necessary changes? It’s time to get to work.
Sometimes when I speak to clients to check in on their progress, they’ll say that things are going great.
Life couldn’t be better. Their relationship with their wife has improved. She’s going through her process of dealing with betrayal trauma. He’s so much more focused at work.
He’s communicating well with his accountability partners. He’s glad that he finally has serious accountability partners. He’s overcome some urges using coping strategies and tools learned in the Porn Reboot program. He hasn’t yet experienced a slip.
Everything sounds well and good, but then our concierge or a reboot strategist checks in with him and the story is different. The picture he painted for me sounded a lot different than the one he explains to the concierge or strategist. It’s not always complete chaos but it’s often not as accurate as the story I received.
It’s not only men in the Porn Reboot program, either. Some guys schedule a call to learn more about the program and connect with one of our reboot specialists. They aren’t ready to commit yet for one reason or another but say they’ll talk to their wife then give us a call back.
When we don’t hear back from these guys, we wait a few days and then reach out to them. They usually let us know they haven’t talked to their wife yet but say that things are much better than a few days ago. They’re implementing some of the strategies they discussed on the phone and found control over their behavior again. In reality, most of these guys have already slipped.
Why do men do this? Are they purposely trying to lie?
I don’t think that’s the case. I’ve done this myself in the past before I successfully rebooted. I found that there was a story I told myself about where I believed I should be that didn’t line up where I was. I wanted so badly to overcome my behavior and kept telling myself I was fine even though I couldn’t stop slipping.
Here’s the thing: we lie about where we’re at because of shame. It’s the reason I lied to myself about where I was and it’s the reason men who get on calls with me do it, too. The shame we feel about where we are led us to create a fictional story about where we believe we should be.
We have plenty of men who join the program but don’t implement it the way they could right away. They get two or three weeks in and feel they should be further ahead of where they actually are. So they create this story in their head and tell themselves they’re doing great when, in reality, they’re still right where they started.
It’s not easy to admit that you’re struggling. It’s even harder to admit that you’re struggling because of the choices you made. But until you’re willing to get honest about where you are in your reboot, you’ll continue to sell yourself short. You can’t progress in the Porn Reboot program until you tell the truth about where you are in the process.
Once you admit the truth to yourself, though, then you can start moving forward in your reboot. You can uncover the things getting in the way of you doing the work that needs to be done. Honesty is the missing piece in the equation.
I want you to take some time to sit down and write honestly about where you are in your reboot right now. If you’ve been around for a while you know that I’m a big supporter of putting pen to paper. There’s nothing more powerful than writing out your thoughts and putting them on the page in front of you.
What is it that’s getting in your way and keeping you from progressing? Are you struggling with the discipline necessary to reboot? Is laziness a problem in your life that gets in the way of you doing the things you need to do? Do you honestly want to reboot in the first place or are you not ready to do the work?
It might be painful to honestly recognize these things but I promise it’s far less painful to do this than to continue down the path of addiction and compulsive sexual behavior. The short-term pain required to overcome the long-term struggle will be worth it in the end.
There’s nothing you’re dealing with that another man in the Porn Reboot program hasn’t already struggled with. It feels embarrassing to admit these things sometimes but I can promise you that you aren’t alone.
You can move forward from where you stand, no matter where you are. Once you know the truth about where you are in your reboot, you’ve laid the foundation for getting back on track. Get honest with yourself, get honest with the group, and keep moving forward in your reboot.
When you go to therapy or enter a treatment program, a significant part of the process involves discovering the root causes of your addiction.
Men who are regular readers of the Porn Reboot blog are familiar with the views I have on discovering root causes, though.
I don’t take it too seriously.
I know there are situations where men use pornography or compulsive sexual behavior to deal with a traumatic incident or incidents in their past. But I also think it’s a fallacy to believe your entire sexual behavior derives from this effort to medicate something that happened in your past.
I’m sure part of your behavior stems from past trauma but it’s far from being responsible for the entire thing. I think overcoming pornography addiction and compulsive sexual behavior involves much more than simply digging down to the “root cause”.
Emotional Suppression
Emotional suppression is a big part of pornography addiction and compulsive sexual behavior. Every time you experience an emotion but choose not to deal with it, you suppress it. Think about it like you’re going to bake a loaf of bread.
You start with some dough and you take one piece of it, which we’ll look at as an emotion that comes up. If you don’t bake that piece of dough and instead press it into another piece of dough, all you do is create a larger mound of dough (or a bigger emotional problem).
When you turn to pornography instead of dealing with your uncomfortable emotions, you’re only pressing pieces of dough together. You never take that dough and bake it to completion. You only roll it into a larger pile of raw dough and create a bigger loaf that will take longer to bake later on.
Suppressing your emotions is only a short-term solution. It doesn’t heal anything, it only pushes it away for you to deal with at a later time. Every time you view porn instead of dealing with those emotions, you double down on the pain and reinforce this unhealthy coping mechanism.
Porn Creates New Negative Emotions
Porn not only serves as a way to suppress your emotions, but it also creates new negative emotions. In case you didn’t have enough difficulty and emotional immaturity to begin with, your pornography addiction reinforces the problem.
Watching copious amounts of porn creates new insecurities that may not have even existed before. You start worrying about the size of your penis, your performance in bed, your sexual capabilities with women. Porn creates confusion about how women should be treated and what you should be doing in the bedroom.
These negative emotions and feelings progress as your porn preferences progress. Once you start watching harder genres of porn, it alters the way you view yourself and the women around you. It also leads to anger, shame, and guilt when you find you can’t stop viewing these more violent forms of porn.
Creating the Root Cause
Your life gets increasingly more complex as this pattern continues year after year. You’ve built this vicious cycle for yourself and now need to climb out of it. When you go sit down with a therapist, they’ll encourage you to dig down to the root cause because that’s what they’re trained to do. Most therapists view present-day behavior as a result of your past.
But what if you created the cycle in the first place? What if the root cause is your refusal to acknowledge your emotions and process them effectively? If you sit with a therapist who pressures you to dig into your past, you could come up with some cause that wasn’t even an issue in the first place!
Before you ever go to a therapist to identify a “root cause” of your behavior, get honest with yourself. Why did your pornography addiction start? Did it stem from something traumatic in your life? If that’s the case, therapy is a necessary tool that will help you process through the terrible experience you had to go through.
If you’re like most men, though, you’re the root cause. Your emotional immaturity and refusal to develop proper coping skills is the reason why you are where you are today. Don’t make it more complicated than it needs to be. Take responsibility for your life and implement the steps you need to take to overcome your addiction.
Are you having a hard time sticking with your reboot?
Maybe you make it a few days, a few weeks, or even a few months, but something inevitably drags you back. You can’t seem to stick with it no matter how hard you try.
Don’t give up on yourself just yet, though. After working with hundreds of men over the years, I’ve found a list of things that are big enemies of your reboot. These things will keep you relapsing over and over again. Until you address each of these aspects, you’re going to have a hard time being successful with your reboot.
1. Unwillingness to let go of chasing dopamine
Maybe you’re one of those guys who has to watch a movie every other day or play a ton of video games. Your thing might be reading the news every morning, getting your sports updates, or scrolling through certain apps. Whatever your preferred dopamine hit might be, this is one of those things that will derail you.
You don’t necessarily have to let go of all the things you enjoy but you need to set very strong boundaries with them. If you don’t, this will be one of the things that kick off the relapse process and sends you back to the beginning of your reboot.
2. Unwillingness to spend time in solitude
Self-reflection is an important part of your reboot. You need to set aside time to reflect on whatever it is that you’re medicating inside yourself. Developing the skill of introspection is critical if you want to remain porn- and behavior-free. If you aren’t willing to spend time in solitude, though, you’ll never develop this necessary skill.
Many men cannot stand being alone. I don’t just mean physically alone but separate from stimuli, too. They always need something playing in the background. These guys can’t even take a walk without bringing their headphones along. You must develop a willingness to spend time in solitude and silence if you want to be successful in your reboot.
3. Replacing your out-of-control sexual behavior with another addictive behavior
Cross-addiction is a serious problem for lots of people in recovery. Once you cut one addictive behavior out you’ll often look for something else to replace it with. Every time you’re stressed or frustrated you turn to this new behavior and justify it because “at least you’re not using porn and jerking off.” Right?
Wrong. Sure, you might have cut porn and compulsive sexual behavior out of your life, but have you replaced it with anything? What is your relationship with food like? Do you waste time aimlessly browsing the internet? If you’re simply swapping one addiction for another, you’ll return to your addiction of choice eventually.
4. Never sticking to your routine
Developing a routine is important during the early stages of your reboot. It removes a lot of the unpredictability and free time that puts you at risk for a relapse. Even after you’ve established your routine, though, do you have a hard time sticking to it?
You might have yourself convinced you’re one of those guys who needs to change things up and try new stuff. You can’t stick with a lifting program and switch it up constantly. You struggle to adhere to your morning recovery time and change it on the fly. I’m here to let you know that you don’t need to change things up; you need to stick to your routine if you want to avoid relapse.
5. Laziness
Laziness is a big problem for a lot of brothers. You sleep too much. You nap too often. You sit down to do some work and immediately say, “Forget it, I don’t want to do anything.” You’re just plain lazy.
I don’t even need to say much about it because lazy men already know they are lazy. Most of the time they’ll even admit that it’s an ongoing problem and I have to respect them for that. Recognizing your blocks is the first step to removing them and laziness is one that has to go.
6. Unwillingness to work alongside other people
Are you the type of man who feels others are beneath you? Do you seek out special or private treatment? Is it hard for you to work in groups with other people because you prefer to go at things alone?
Unwillingness to work alongside others is going to destroy you. You need to drop your ego and find the willingness to open up to others. It’s going to be uncomfortable because as men we’re taught to never let people know about our struggles. But if you’re not going to drop that guard then you’ll have a hard time being successful in the Porn Reboot program.
7. Self-doubt
Self-doubt speaks things into existence. If you don’t believe you can rewire your brain then you’ll never do it. Overcoming self-doubt feels impossible when you’ve spent years honing that inner critic that tears you down all the time. But I promise that you can let go of that nagging voice in your head because I had one, too.
Cutting away self-doubt and negative beliefs is vital for a successful reboot. You are your biggest critic and you are your biggest enemy. You have to learn to control this inner monologue, challenge the lies it tells you, and change the message that it’s telling you.
8. Arrogance and pride
Once you’ve made some progress it’s easy to feel like you’ve got it down. You’re feeling better, you’re connected with people around you again, you’re participating in life once more. You might believe you have your out-of-control behavior licked and you’ve overcome all your challenges.
When this leads to pride and arrogance, you’re in trouble. Pride and arrogance are two stumbling blocks that I’ve watched men trip over and fall back into old behaviors countless times. You must realize that you’re still at the beginning of your reboot, even when you’re 9 months into the process, and let go of that arrogance and pride.
9. Not seeking help because of your position
I work with men in esteemable positions who people believe shouldn’t have a problem with pornography. This includes men who are in professions such as therapists, social workers, or pastors. They hesitate to ask for help because they either fear losing their position or feel they don’t need assistance because of the accolades they receive.
If you refuse to seek help because you’re in a position of authority, regardless of the reason, you’ll continue struggling. You’re not going to overcome your behavior because you’re concerned about the consequences if you do. But letting go of that fear and reaching out may likely be the very thing that saves you from those consequences in the long run.
10. Following ineffective systems
There are dozens of systems out there that offer a solution to your pornography problem. The problem with a lot of these systems, though, is they only offer short-term solutions; they don’t deliver any long-term results. Some of you want to be part of a community that makes you feel good but that isn’t going to solve your problem.
Porn Reboot provides an effective, lasting solution for your pornography addiction and out-of-control sexual behavior. We’re not always a feel-good group because we are a results-driven group. I’m less concerned with how you feel and more concerned with whether you’re gaining a hold on your painful, problematic behavior.
If you’ve been trapped in your behavior and following ineffective systems, you’re going to remain there. If you’re ready to try something new and truly take your life back, join us in our free Facebook group. The Porn Reboot program is filled with men ready to help you reach the same solution they’ve discovered. You don’t have to do it alone; we’re here to help.
When you’re in the end stages of your out-of-control behavior and the beginning stages of your reboot, you might notice something peculiar.
You may find that your porn use escalates. You might start consuming more extreme forms of porn. Maybe it feels like porn is even more addictive now that you’re finally trying to stop.
Porn addiction usually begins as a pleasant experience. It’s an enjoyable way to get a release whenever you need it. Unfortunately, it becomes a problem when you start using it as an escape from unpleasant things.
You may use it to run from strong emotions, loneliness, and unresolved issues. You might turn to porn when you’re not able to find intimacy or experience rejection. Men act out when they’re feeling stressed, irritated, or angry instead of dealing with negative emotions.
Pornography becomes a serious problem when it becomes more painful than pleasant, but you still choose to chase it compulsively. It comes with an emotional cost, filling you with guilt and shame as your use progresses.
Oftentimes porn addiction also comes with a physical price. You’re exhausted all the time, can’t focus, have very little energy, and even develop problems like porn-induced erectile dysfunction. Yet you still chase it compulsively.
The toll that pornography addiction takes doesn’t always look the same for everyone. Some men find themselves divorced with an empty bank account. Others who conceal their behaviors from everyone around them feel even more miserable, depressed, and isolated because they’re trapped by their lies.
Over time, porn addiction becomes a lifestyle. It’s predictive. It’s habitual. It’s repetitive. It doesn’t matter whether it’s every day or every couple of weeks. You subtly begin to doubt your abilities in life. You question whether you can accomplish anything at all.
You want to start a business. You want to get an advanced degree. You want to get a promotion at work. You want to get into a long-term, committed relationship. You want to write a book and share your life experiences. But you can’t follow through on any of these plans because pornography takes precedence time after time.
The lifestyle of a porn addict begins to spill into other aspects of their life. They become individuals with low standards at work. They frequent massage parlors, join questionable apps, and step outside of their committed relationships. In some cases, some men begin to engage in semi-legal or illegal activity.
Your behavior goes against everything you were taught as a young man. It goes against all the values you were raised with. Guilt, shame, and self-loathing set in. But the only way you know how to find relief is through pornography, masturbation, and acting out.
Eventually, you stop trying. Your motivation dwindles to nothing. You lose interest in almost everything else in your life. You have little to no belief in yourself, your self-esteem is nonexistent, and it feels as though you’re only living to jerk off day after day.
This usually happens slowly, sometimes it’s over a few years, sometimes over decades. It’s an awful cycle to find yourself trapped in. Occasionally you may recognize the depths you’re in and make feeble attempts to get back to being the respectable individual you once were. It builds up again, though, without fail, and you’re back to where you started.
That, my brother, is the lifecycle of a porn addict. It continues until you decide to reach out to someone and ask for help. Once you’re at this point, trying to overcome your addiction alone is next to impossible. You have to ask somebody to walk you through the process of how to escape the cycle. And that’s exactly what the Porn Reboot group is here to do.
