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One question I often receive from men in the Porn Reboot group is, “How do I convince my therapist that I’m a porn addict?”

Before we dive in, though, I want to make one thing clear: my job as a reboot coach and the job done by a clinical therapist are not necessarily the same thing.

My job as your Porn Reboot coach is to help you identify what’s holding you back in the present moment. We look at the problems affecting you today, figure out how to solve them, and create a clear path for your future, one where pornography and masturbation no longer affect your life.

A therapist, on the other hand, typically looks at your past issues and how they affect you today. These include things like abuse and abandonment that caused any attachment-related issues that left you with a deep sense of loneliness and need for intimacy. 

This doesn’t mean the Porn Reboot system doesn’t provide the tools for you to address your past issues. It only means that therapists have specific training to handle some of the heavier aspects of your past. 

That being said, how do you convince your therapist that you’re a porn addict?

The short answer is you don’t.

You shouldn’t have to spend your time convincing your therapist about your addiction. I’ve had men in the group whose therapists told them they’re making too big a deal out of pornography and masturbation. In some of the worst cases I’ve heard about, some therapists have even laughed at the men in our group who went to seek help.

I’m sorry if you’ve had an experience like this with a therapist. Experiences like this exacerbate the feelings of shame that pornography addiction causes. Compulsive sexual behaviors already have detrimental effects on self-image and self-esteem. If you open up in what’s supposed to be a safe space and the therapist laughs, you’ve probably closed off.

You shouldn’t have to explain yourself to a therapist. There’s no reason to waste your time convincing your therapist that you’re a porn addict. Here are a few reasons you shouldn’t bother trying to convince a therapist.

Many therapists aren’t educated on what qualifies as an addiction

Unfortunately, many therapists don’t take the time to continue with their education. They haven’t kept up with the latest research or attended conferences to learn more about their field. The world is changing. Health is changing. Now the pandemic has impacted the realm of mental health and addiction. 

Therapists should stay on top of the changes that are happening but the truth is many aren’t. They’re doing well enough with the clients they already have so they feel no need to further their education. It’s not your job to educate them, either. Don’t spend your time convincing a therapist that porn addiction exists when there are more effective solutions available.

Your therapist might watch pornography themselves

It’s easy to forget that a therapist is really just another human being. Medical professionals shouldn’t be placed on a pedestal. Your therapist might even struggle with pornography addiction themselves. We have many therapists, coaches, and physicians in the Porn Reboot program. They struggle with human problems, too.

Whether they see no problem with watching pornography, or they battle addiction themselves, they won’t be a helpful outlet for you. You aren’t going to find the solution for your compulsive behaviors in therapy if either of these applies to your therapist.

They may underestimate the approach you need to take

Therapists who aren’t familiar with pornography addiction will underestimate the approach you need to end your behaviors. They won’t understand the battle you fight daily. If they don’t know how pornography addiction works, they won’t know how to help you overcome it. 

The Porn Reboot, on the other hand, provides you with a precise system. You need a sufficient substitute to rewire your brain and replace your compulsive behaviors. Sitting in a therapist’s office won’t give you the extensive toolkit you need to overcome porn addiction.

Our Reboot program is full of strong, ambitious men working to achieve big goals in life. They don’t procrastinate when there’s an obstacle in front of them. They’re using the system to improve their lives by practicing focus and discipline. From waking up early to writing in your journal to spending time in reflection, there are many tools you learn to help you. 

Therapists may view the Reboot system as too intense or adding too much pressure to your life. You’re working to change your mind, though, and it takes intense dedication to do that.

Therapy is still useful in some cases

Remember – what we offer in the Porn Reboot program is not the same thing as therapy. We do provide you with tools that help you reflect on parts of your past but we’re focused on today. You look at your day-to-day actions and work to change your current circumstances. 

Therapy is useful for men who have deep-rooted traumas in their lives. Seeing a therapist may be crucial in working through some heavy memories from your past. There’s nothing wrong with seeing a therapist while working through the Reboot program. Taking the time to work through past issues while also addressing your current struggles is admirable. 

There’s no shame in seeking therapy if you need assistance. Men in the Porn Reboot program are here to become the best men they can be. Sometimes that involves working with a therapist is the perfect complement to working your system. If you have a therapist who understands the darkness of pornography addiction and compulsive sexual behaviors, they’ll be a great asset to your progress. 

If your therapist doesn’t grasp the struggles of your addiction, though, bring those struggles to us and use your time in therapy for working through your past.

 

At Elevated Recovery, we understand the power that addiction has over people’s lives. Understanding that is not a pleasant experience. It’s a very sober analysis that you tend to think about in the long hours of the night, or in contemplation of the troubles that beset the human spirit.

 

On the other hand, we also know that humans have the ability to bounce back, to be resilient and beat addiction with the right support and resources.

 

Interventions are key in ending addiction, but not everyone thinks carefully about what interventions mean. There are different kinds of interventions that can have a positive effect on someone’s journey. Every different kind works in its own particular way, but knowing more means that you are more likely to make a difference. 

 

Family and Friends

 

The kinds of interventions that we most commonly think about are group interventions with family members and friends.

 

These settings are familiar to us partly because they are external to the personal struggles and problems that people experience within themselves. You see them on television, and you understand how people get together to achieve these kinds of events.

 

Institutional Interventions

 

We’re also familiar with the idea of institutional interventions in the form of rehab centers and other types of facilities.

 

However, we don’t usually see their inner workings of these types of important interventions unless we’re in need of the services ourselves. The nuts and bolts of how these facilities work are carefully shielded from the public.

 

So we don’t tend to know as much about how these interventions work, but we know they work based on professional protocol and the vast resources of these types of enterprise.

 

Personal Interventions

 

There’s also something you might call self-intervention, and that’s pretty obscure to people who haven’t struggled with addiction or watched a loved one struggle in their own personal lives.

 

Self-intervention is the type of thing you might casually call ‘willpower,’ but it’s much more than that. At Elevated Recovery, we give people tools to practice self-interventions that change their lifestyles when it’s a little bit of extra help that they need. Want to learn more? Utilize the resources that we provide on our web site to understand more about how these types of assistance work, and what the road map to recovery often looks like. For instance, review our resources on the process of “rebooting,” and you’ll start to see what’s possible, and how to go about changing your life. It’s all part of a scientific and methodical approach to ending addiction – on your own terms!

 

Have you had a hard time asking for help with your porn addiction problem?

Many guys struggle with ending their out of control behaviors because too many of them view it as a moral problem. Certain therapists, counselors, groups, and approaches believe your addiction stems from a moral deficiency. This instills feelings of shame and makes it harder for you to ask for help.

They’re wrong, though. 

Porn addiction is NOT a moral problem.

Porn addiction is a BRAIN problem.

Before you can follow the Porn Reboot system, you have to change this limiting belief. You’re going to stay trapped in the cycle if you keep looking at your out-of-control behaviors as a moral problem. When you see them as a brain problem instead, you can overcome them. 

Here are three reasons why your porn addiction is not a moral problem but a brain problem.

1. Believing porn addiction is a moral problem makes the cycle of relapse harder to overcome.

If you’re trying to end your pornography addiction and sexual behaviors, you’re probably caught up in a cycle of relapse already. You’ve likely tried to stop at least a few times before. Maybe you made it 30 days, 60 days, or even 90 days, but eventually, you find yourself back where you started.

It’s not easy to escape from the cycle of pornography addiction. You’re not going to be perfect when you’re ending your behaviors. That doesn’t mean slips and relapses don’t feel like a failure, though. Relapses are discouraging when you’ve been working to stay away, but it worsens your feelings of failure when you attach a moral connotation to them.

You might tell yourself you’re a bad or sinful person for watching the type of pornography you do. Maybe, you feel like you’re undeserving of certain things because of your addiction. Whatever you tell yourself, you’re making your perceived failure worse. These inner monologues stem from believing your porn addiction is a moral problem.

Shift the way you look at it. When you realize your porn addiction is a brain problem, you can do something about it. There are changes you can make. You’re able to logically assess what happened without feeding into your false narrative. 

Relapses happen before you commit to the system. Maybe, you were stressed out. Perhaps, it was a long day and you were overwhelmed. You might have just been bored, but telling yourself the relapse happened because you’re a bad person, is only going to make it harder in the long run.

2. People have different definitions of morality.

Morality means different things to different people. Most humans have a shared sense of general morals like don’t lie, don’t kill, or don’t steal, but each person develops their own specific idea of morality over time. It’s usually based on some general rules you pick up from different places, like your parents, church, or society in general.

This is another issue with seeing your porn addiction as a moral problem. Morality varies across the board depending on who you ask. This isn’t just a religious vs. non-religious issue, either. Even religious people have different understandings of morality!

For example, there is a portion of the population who wouldn’t lie about anything. They would never tell a lie about anything at all, even if it ended up hurting other people. There are some people who would lie under certain circumstances, usually to avoid hurting a person’s feelings. Then you have compulsive liars who will lie about anything whenever they feel like it.

That’s just one example of the wide range of morality. If morals vary so greatly across the board, how can you expect to recover by viewing it as a moral problem? When you see it as a brain issue, though, it leaves little room for argument and you can make the necessary changes.

3. Moral solutions only involve two things: willpower and punishment.

The only solutions to a moral problem involve willpower and punishment. Take a Christian upbringing, for example. If you asked why you shouldn’t do a certain thing, you were probably told that you must obey to avoid being punished. Then you have to use your willpower to keep from doing that thing and getting a punishment. That’s how it worked for me growing up.

On the other hand, brain problems have many different solutions. There’s an entire, reliable system built to help you recover. Every time you apply it you know it’s going to work. It teaches you specific ways to handle your problem instead of white-knuckling your way through it. 

The Porn Reboot system helps you build a predictable system to overcome your addiction. You create a predictable, routine schedule that works for you. Your routine then becomes habitual as you implement it over time. There’s no need for willpower or fighting temptation. You’ve replaced your temptations with an effective system. 

You can’t use the system to replace a moral problem but you can use it to replace a brain problem. Instead, you’ll find you can overcome your pornography addiction and out of control behaviors as soon as you shift your perspective.

 

Hey brothers, I wanted to take a moment to share a quick message with those who are still slipping, still relapsing. I also want to talk to those of you who are very unhappy because you feel like you have nothing to show for trying to control this behavior. 

You might feel there is something within you as an individual that prevents you from controlling your behavior. There are all sorts of resources to control it but you still struggle with slips. You don’t believe you have what it takes to end this behavior. 

This message is for those of you who believe that because almost everybody has felt the way you do right now. Everyone who starts the Porn Reboot journey and ends it by rewiring their brain and controlling the behavior has felt the struggle at some point. It’s not a personal failing that is unique to you.

The reason your Porn Reboot makes you unhappy is because you haven’t yet changed your mindset. You don’t have the right mindset to reboot and when you start you’re going to keep being beaten down by your failures. It feels like no progress is being made so I want to share with you a new mindset to adopt that will give you some hope.

You need to believe and know that your future is always bigger than your past.

It might sound difficult but changing your mindset will shift your feelings for your reboot. This mindset shift will transform your reboot and your life entirely. Your future is always bigger than your past and there are two simple reasons this is true. 

The first reason is many of us start off unhappy not only with our compulsive behaviors but our lives in general. You keep living in the past, looking back and focusing on all the times we’ve slipped. “I’ve failed so many times,” you tell yourself. You start building a false narrative that supports your false belief:

• I’m uniquely unable to implement the system
• I have weak willpower
• I’m a weak man

Whatever you’re telling yourself is a lie. It’s not true. You’re living in the past, focused on old mistakes, and then using them to fuel your present-day narrative. But your future is far bigger than your past and shifting your mindset is crucial.

Your past is much shorter than you think. It’s challenging to realize this because your past is the only frame of reference you have. You spent most of your past as a child, teenager, or young adult with little experience. A lot of your past feels wasted because you didn’t have the knowledge.

Your future, on the other hand, is much bigger than you think it is. If you’re in your forties or fifties, you still have plenty of time ahead of you. That time is even more important now, though, because you have the knowledge and experience to make use of it.

When you were in your twenties you spent years making some poor decisions because you were young. You spent these years learning and gathering experience. Now that you’re ready to change your life you can make use of these learning years and lean into your incredible future.

There are also only so many lessons you can learn from the past. You have a limited pool of experience to draw from; you can’t go back and change anything that happened. The future, on the other hand, is infinite. As long as you are alive and your brain is functioning, there is so much you can learn.

Think about it. You can learn more in the next year than you did in all the years leading up to this one. Doesn’t that make the future amazing?

But if your porn reboot is making you unhappy then you haven’t grasped this mindset yet. You’re still stuck in the past and unaware of just how much possibility lies ahead of you in the future. It’s time to start shifting your mindset away from what has happened and toward what has yet to happen.

Start spending time in the morning to cultivate some excitement for the present moment and the future ahead of you. Take a few minutes every day to build the habit of seeking gratitude for a new chance to learn and grow. 

This is a foundational concept of the Porn Reboot system. Until you shift your mindset, the system might seem ordinary to you. It might be hard to grasp the concepts we’re talking about when you’re stuck in the past. Start shifting your mindset today, brother, and your Porn Reboot will make you the happiest man alive.

 

“Why am I constantly relapsing?”

Do you ever ask yourself this question? If you’ve tried the 90-day challenges, the NoFap challenges, the transformation challenges, you’ve likely relapsed time and time again. Why do you relapse, though? What causes you to go back to pornography even after you swear it’ll be the last time?

One of the biggest reasons you struggle with relapse is because you have a weak sense of belief in yourself. You don’t truly believe that you’re going to stay off pornography forever. Instead, you believe it’s only a matter of time before you give in again.

Now you might wonder how you developed this poor confidence in your ability to stay away from pornography. Where did this belief come from?

It’s very simple. The men who cannot develop this belief are the men who have not been practicing the skills that work during a reboot. There are a lot of coping tools and mechanisms provided as you work through the Porn Reboot system. 

You’re not going to be great at them right away; though, because they’re skills. Skills take time to learn. You have to practice and implement them over time. Think about a professional NFL player. He’s not going to get out on the field thinking he can win if he hasn’t practiced the skills for his position. A UFC fighter won’t be confident for a fight if he hasn’t honed his skill.

Porn Reboot is no different. Are you applying yourself to practicing your skills? Do you do the work to identify certain patterns in your life? Are you learning how to manage your biochemistry? Do you learn from your previous slips? Are you trying to become better at identifying your emotions? Do you apply the things you learn daily? 

If you can’t answer yes to all of these questions, you’re going to continue relapsing constantly. Overcoming your pornography addiction takes time, patience, and practice. You have to work and apply these skills into your daily life. As you hone your skills, you’ll gain confidence. As you gain confidence, you start believing in yourself. 

Eventually, you get to the point where you truly believe you can stay off your compulsive behaviors forever.

It’s not about what other men say. It isn’t about what you read or listen to or watch. Sure, these things might motivate you. They make you feel good for a short period of time. But if they aren’t serving as inspirations for real-life practice, they aren’t doing anything at all. All they are is mental masturbation.

If it doesn’t motivate you to work harder at your practice, to understand the connection between practice and belief, you’re not going to make it.

If you’re courageous enough to admit that you struggle to believe in yourself then you have the ability to fully recover. That’s a great place to start. Start by practicing and we’re here to support you along the way.

 

 

Transforming your pain and suffering is a vital part of your Porn Reboot program. Your long-term success depends on one main characteristic: your ability to transform yourself. Why is that? 

You experience many different things as you progress through the Porn Reboot system. There are the highs of consistency with the system and the lows of unexpected slips. Eventually, you arrive at a point where you realize that this entire process matters. 

You’re confronting that voice within you, the one which asks, “Can you really do this?” It matters because you’re boldly facing your deepest fear, the fear that whispers, “What if you never quit?”

It matters.

You’re rejecting the embrace of that dark, terrible horror that rises from the depths of your soul. The one that comes when you relapse after many months, or even years. “How could I let this happen? How could this happen after I was doing well for so long?”

It matters.

In my personal journey, I came to realize that all of these experiences, the fear of never quitting, the voice, the self-doubt, the disappointing relapses, they weren’t bad. They weren’t evil. I chose to label them as bad, unfortunate things, but they were not those things.

See, the fear that comes from a lifetime of bondage to a behavior creates a deep sense of shame. You guys know that shame I’m talking about, the shame that can never be showered off or slept off. It comes from the actions and all those things you feel you can never forgive yourself for.

You have to realize, though, just like I did, that these are simply human experiences. Everyone has their struggles. We are just part of the group of people who choose to confront their struggles. That’s what you’re doing right now by reading this.

Everyone struggles with something but you don’t always see it. This alone is a reason to reject your shame because there isn’t a single person in the world who is perfect. No one walks around without some sort of struggle. Some people aren’t even aware of their compulsive behaviors.

As I observed these experiences and started understanding their nature, it began to fill those holes within me. The pain and suffering left behind by my addiction were soon transformed into something greater: meaning.

All your pain and suffering must be transformed into meaning.

You can use your emotional pain as a catalyst and tool for personal evolution. It’s what sets human beings apart and gives us a truly human experience. Sometimes we condition ourselves to believe that human experiences are only pleasurable things. The real test of a human being, though, is to use your suffering and grow and transform.

How you choose to play the cards you’ve been dealt sets the stage for the rest of your journey. You get to determine how rich and fulfilling your time on this planet is going to be. When you derive meaning from your pain and suffering, you transcend that experience and become something greater.

You’re not alone in the struggle, brother. Your journey may feel unbearable. It might be long and filled with setbacks. Many long nights show no sign of the eventual dawn. 

But remember: it matters.

It matters to you, it matters to your wife, it matters to your children. It matters to your family and your friends. It matters because overcoming your struggle with porn addiction is part of your purpose in this world. There is a meaning to everything you’re going through right now, brother, and we’re all here to help you to the other side.

 

Approach anxiety is a common concern among many single men looking to date women. It doesn’t matter whether you’re in your early twenties or your late forties – approach anxiety is something that affects most men at one point or another.

A lot of men in the Porn Reboot program are divorced, recently single, or have been single for a long time. In this day in age, especially with the existence of dating apps, it’s becoming more challenging to approach women. Technology removes the personable aspect of approaching a woman in real life which makes the problem of approach anxiety worse.

I needed to overcome my own approach anxiety early on during my reboot. It wasn’t easy but I assure you it’s possible. Today, I’m digging up my old notes and going to go over them with you. These are the lessons I learned from my own experiences of failing over and over again while trying to overcome my compulsive sexual behavior.

Barriers to Defeating Approach Anxiety

Whether you’re newly single or you’ve been single for a long time, approach anxiety is overwhelming. There are a few ways men deal with the overwhelming feelings and emotions that come with approach anxiety.

Withdrawing Into Yourself

When you’re single and feeling anxiety with approaching women, oftentimes you’re feeling overwhelmed by her feminine energy. You see a woman who’s beautiful in her own right but this is also magnified by your pornography addiction. After months or years of watching pornography, you’ve placed women on a pedestal. 

A common way men cope with this overwhelming feeling is to withdraw. That anxiety starts to kick in then you’ll draw into yourself and get stuck in your head. You step back from involving yourself in the event and become an introverted wallflower instead.

“Nice Guy” Mode

Another coping mechanism for feeling overwhelmed by feminine energy is to shift into “nice guy” mode. This refers to the times you repress your sexual desires when you’re around a gorgeous woman. You don’t own these desires when you see her. Instead, you repress them and then act out on fantasies when you get back home.

This feeds into the behavior of placing women on a pedestal, too. You can feel an attraction to a woman and not repress that desire. It isn’t something you need to immediately shut down or shut off. Desire is a natural part of being a man. Shutting down that desire instead of acknowledging it is simply fighting against your biology.

Controlling the Situation

This can happen in two different situations. Some men simply feel a natural drive to control the situation from the start. Others shift into controlling the situation as an overcorrection after withdrawing into themselves for years. Either way, controlling the situation isn’t a good approach, either. 

Controlling the situation is really just your way of resisting when things aren’t going the way you expect them to. You don’t like what’s happening. Maybe she’s not as interested as you want her to be. You think, “Okay, I’ve got to assert control now.”

You immediately launch into telling stories about yourself to keep her as a captive audience. If you don’t give her room to respond, though, you’re only reacting to her beauty. You don’t know anything about this woman and your interest is purely physical. Again, you’ve placed her on a pedestal. And I guarantee if you do this you’ll ruin your chances.

Tons of guys do this. Some resort to being overbearing. Others turn to pick-up lines to draw the woman in. The worst is when we turn to overly sexualized comments or gestures. But all these behaviors come back to your anxieties. 

Overcoming Your Approach Anxiety

When you’re stuck in approach anxiety, you’re not calm, you’re not present, and you’re not owning your space. You feel out of control and those behaviors come out as a result. If you want to overcome that anxiety, though, these are the methods I found worked best.

Develop Self-Awareness

The first solution is to develop self-awareness and become more present. I started paying attention and learning how to be more in my body. This means I became aware of my desires rather than running away from them. I acknowledged that I thought she was an attractive woman but I didn’t allow myself to fantasize. Developing self-awareness means those desires and anxieties may be present but they don’t control you.

Hold Your Space

I also practiced something I call “holding my space.” Instead of minimizing yourself and becoming a wallflower, I encourage you to hold your space. Holding your space is all about believing you’re worth the space you occupy without feeling the need to compensate. It’s like those descriptions you hear people give sometimes, where they’ll say, “This person walked into the room and there was something about him.” As you learn to hold your space you’ll develop this confident presence.

Accept the Desires

Finally, you can combat your overwhelming anxieties by accepting your desire. Don’t fight your biology. Feel that attraction to her in your body without shutting down. Become aware of the neurobiological response to seeing her but, at the same time, don’t allow it to take over you. Don’t put her on a pedestal. She is simply another human being, just like you. She has her own desires. She has her own hopes. She has her own dreams and feelings.

If She Wants You, She Wants You

These steps might seem strange at first if you’re still new to your Reboot. Porn portrays women as objects and it takes time to work through these false beliefs. It can be hard to see women for their individual characteristics if you’ve been battling pornography addiction for a long time. 

Separate your anxieties from her, though. You can appreciate her beauty without minimizing her to simplified objectification. Develop self-awareness, hold your space, and accept your desires. It isn’t easy in the beginning but you’ll learn to understand and then control your reactions as you work through the Porn Reboot system. 

Ultimately, you aren’t going to have to rely on “game”, pick-up lines, or “smooth-talking” to draw the attention of a woman interested in you. The more you settle into awareness and acceptance of yourself, the more confidence you give off. After a while, simply being yourself will be enough for plenty of women to be interested in talking to you.

You’re a unique and incredible individual with your own experiences. Stepping into this is the best thing you can do for yourself and for the women around you. Approach anxiety wears off the longer you practice. It’s going to take time, brother, but you’re not in this struggle alone.

 

Today I want to talk about relapse. I don’t want to talk about relapse in the traditional sense, though. I want to talk about those relapses that seem like they might not be one. Those that sneak up on you without you realizing it’s happened.

We had a brother write in with this scenario:

“Hey brothers,

I’m here to report a slip. The interesting thing is that it’s an intentional slip. I purposely removed my boundaries and got a female escort. Everything worked out fine, though. And, I proved to myself, the “wrong” way, that I have a healthy sex drive and I’m still attracted to women. 

The last time I got a female escort, I lost my erection during sex due to some emotional things I was going through with another woman I know at work. Since then, I thought I lost my erection because I acted out with shemales, and I watched shemale pornography in the past. I thought that made me lose interest in women. 

You know, it’s been months, even before the program, that I’ve been doubting my sexuality. I even developed homosexual obsessive-compulsive disorder (this is similar to OCD, the only difference being that you compulsively obsess over whether or not you are gay). 

Today, though, I do regret getting a female escort. I don’t want to get escorts anymore. It disgusts me, and it’s not what I want. What I want is really a healthy relationship with intimacy. Now my head is clear of all of those irrational beliefs. Now boundaries are set back and will continue, and I will continue implementing the program as it should be.”

There were two camps of people who responded to his post. One group said, “Oh wow, that’s an interesting approach to dealing with this.”  The other group said, “Hmm, that sounds like a load of crap.”

 

I agree with the latter. It’s still a relapse.

 

First of all, I appreciate his honesty. There is no judgment in our group at all. We’re a private, supportive group so guys feel very comfortable sharing stuff like this. Also, anyone who mentioned feeling like our brother’s thoughts were B.S. said it in a very loving way. We’re very direct, and we tell it like it is.

What our brother shared about is a typical justification after a relapse. It’s not bad, and it’s not wrong but it does require our brother to sit back and analyze what happened. He needed to separate the story he was telling himself from the facts. He’s simply at the restoration stage of the porn addiction cycle. 

The restoration is an important stage in the process. Many men need to build themselves up during this time because they’re experiencing shame. They feel bad. Some very strong emotions come up during the restoration period. Oftentimes you’ll reset your boundaries, re-write your goals, and make a huge recommitment to ending your behaviors.

Even during the restoration stage, though, you’re still addicted. Many men find themselves intellectualizing their emotions and triggers before a slip instead of dealing with them directly. In the case of our brother, he asked a few questions and also mentioned shemale pornography specifically. 

He wasn’t sitting down and doing the work necessary to prevent a slip. When you feel a slip coming on, you need to use whatever tools and coping strategies you have developed so far. You have to address the emotions coming up before the slip happens. 

Understanding the process of addiction isn’t enough, though. It’s why the men who buy all those books on quitting pornography still can’t make progress. You have to have tools in place and you need a supportive group that encourages you to use those tools. 

If you aren’t doing the work to combat your addiction, then after the restoration stage comes the dormant stage. Some men confuse this with progress but it’s really a return to the first stage of the porn addiction cycle. This is when men will tell themselves, “Oh, I’m just going to try this behavior or to watch that type of porn to see if I’m still addicted.”

What really happens, is whatever you feel you gained from your experience so far, whatever insight you might have found ,will be wiped away by the reality of your behavior. That’s why you’re still struggling with this behavior right now. Stop lying to yourself. You’ve played this game many times.

The truth is, our brother chose sex with an escort over putting his trust in the system and again, that’s fine. I’ve done it myself many times. I’ve chosen to act out a certain way instead of using the tools I had available to me.

This is what we call a “Trial Reboot.” It simply means that while you might be serious about ending your out of control behavior, you haven’t fully committed. Commitment is simply doing the thing you said you’re going to do long after the emotion you felt when you made the decision has passed.

This means that, although you really want to end the behavior, your priority is something else. In our brother’s case, his priority is his sexual performance, his anxiety, and his porn-induced erectile dysfunction. The anxiety comes up because he isn’t ready to fully trust the process because he’s not committed.

I want to make it clear that I share these stories from a place of love, a place of brotherhood, and a place of struggle because I’ve been through it. I’m in the trenches every single day helping hundreds of men. I understand it.

But it also comes from a place of accountability. You deserve someone who will call you out on it. Over the past nine years of coaching, I’ve seen it again and again. A man will step out on his wife after he hasn’t cheated for months or years. He says, “I just wanted to find out if I wanted intimacy with my wife. I wanted to find out if I could still do it.”

Whatever the excuse is, it’s still a relapse, especially if secrecy is involved. I’m telling you guys: you’re just playing games with yourself. Everything you say after that is just being in the restoration stage. 

So gentlemen, for those of you who are curious, this relates to the different stages of the point addiction cycle. You can hear more about the porn addiction cycle here. And if you’re ready to take the final step back from pornography addiction, the Porn Reboot group is here to help you.

 

Today, I’m going to be sharing a few steps that you can take to improve what I call reboot confidence. Oftentimes, when we try to end our behavior with pornography and masturbation, or other out of control sexual behaviors, we lose confidence. 

We lose confidence because of slips and relapses. We lose confidence because we lose motivation all the time. We’re doing really well but then we stop doing the things that we know are working and then we slip. 

We lose confidence because we always seem to have something come up in our life that causes us to slip. We feel as if we can never catch a break. Why does something so stressful always have to come up when we are trying to deal with our behavior?

I’m going to share a few simple steps to help you in this area.

1. Ask yourself, “Is this something that’s going to help or hurt my reboot?”

It is as simple as something like deciding whether that third drink is going to help or hurt your reboot. Many men don’t think about that. They just have the third drink and assume, “Hey, you know what? I’ll be able to control myself.”

Now you’ve got to ask yourself an honest question. It’s just like when you’re trying to stay on a diet to lose weight or body fat. Every time you eat, you’re going to ask yourself, well, is this going to get me closer towards my goal? 

The same applies to your reboot. This goes from the things you do to places you go to. It’s choosing to stay up for one more hour to watch a show, choosing to go out late at night, choosing to binge eat certain types of food. Maybe it’s the decision to watch YouTube videos for three hours in a row, choosing to sink into negativity for hours.

Ask yourself, “Is this choice going to help or hurt my reboot?”

2. Learn how to make decisions based on goals

When it comes to dating, when it comes to your environment and boundaries, learn to make your decisions based on goals. Don’t make them based on emotions. A lot of times guys will just make certain emotional decisions, right? Think about some of the emotional decisions you’ve made.

“I’m going to text this person because I feel this emotion.” 

“I’m going to skip this class or skip this session because this is how I feel.”

How you feel really is not relevant to what you have to do at that moment. I’ve mentioned this before: your emotions have nothing to do with what task is at hand. At that moment, you’ve got to learn to step past it and still complete the task and make that a habit. 

At the same time, that task needs to be based on a goal. So what is your reboot goal? And this decision you’re making, is it emotional or is it based on that goal? You will always find that you come back to a rational, logical place, which may not be as fun a place as your emotion was going to take you. 

3. Visualize the results of your decisions and follow through on them

Once you make a decision, especially with regards to your reboot, you need to follow through on it. You’ve decided that you’re going to get off social media for the next week. You’re going to delete all the apps from your phone. You’ll put a porn blocker on your device. You plan to go to bed at 9:30 PM every night. 

You need to first visualize the results of your decisions before you even start to act on them. See yourself as you start preparing for bed. Decide ahead of time that you’ll stop bringing your phone to bed. You’re going to stop using your computer with all the doors and blinds closed. You decide that keeping things open keeps you accountable.

Visualize how everything will look, smell, sound, feel, and taste. Have a vision of what that completed goal looks like for you. See yourself leaving your phone in your living room, going to bed at 9:30 PM, and then waking up refreshed and happy the next morning. Visualization also increases your confidence.

Then follow through on your decisions.

4. Don’t run away from your challenges

One of the things that I’ve learned in my years of coaching is that the men who are most successful at rebooting were the ones who didn’t crumble in the face of challenges. Challenges will always be an opportunity for them to grow because they understand that confidence comes from challenges.

It doesn’t matter what it was. I’ve had men who were doing so well in their reboots and suddenly their wife who was supportive for months or years, one day she just snaps and says, “I’ve had enough of this shit. Like I’m, I’m done with this.” And at the same time, their career got T-boned by something else that was happening. 

So now they have this career issue that requires almost all their energy and at home, this person that they love very much is drifting away. This person they care for, this person who is important to them might disappear.

Those are challenges and we often get overwhelmed. The best thing to do, though, is face it and embrace it. It can be as simple as sitting down and going, “I embrace this challenge.” You have to do what you have to do anyway. It doesn’t mean it’s going to be less painful, but it will probably become less overwhelming and it will definitely build your confidence. 

5. Consistency

There is no way that you are going to reboot and end your out of control behavior if you don’t build up some form of consistency. You do not have to be perfect every day but you have to be consistent. You want to reach a point where you feel off when you miss something in your routine.

For example, if I miss my workout, I know something is off. You could knock me out for four days and I would still wake up and go, “Yeah, I have missed many workouts. I don’t know how many, but I know I missed some, and I do not feel great.” 

That level of consistency is critical to ending this behavior. You were consistently jerking off viewing pornography and putting yourself in that situation. You’ve got to recondition your brain to do it. You’ve got to keep doing it till the entire reboot process becomes simple. Simple, but not easy. 

That means that just as you would come back and you would routinely masturbate to pornography, you’ve got to get to that same level with your reboots. You’ve got to wake up in the morning and do your recovery time. You’ve got to read the right books. You’ve got to visualize. You’ve got to do the exercises from the program. You’ve got to be consistent with it. 

The beautiful thing is that it takes a shorter time to step out of this behavior than it did for you to build it when you use our system.

6. Compete with yourself

You have to compete with yourself. This kind of relates to consistency, too, because you want to be better. When I talk about it taking a year and a half to two years to rewire your brain, it doesn’t happen passively. 

That happens when you take action. In 90 days we’ll get you to a point where many of these things are habitual. At the same time, as human beings, we always tend towards homeostasis. We will always get to a point where our brain and our body doesn’t want to change. It’s what’s comfortable.

But you must understand that the process of ending your out of control behavior involves a transformation. It involves your brain rewiring itself. So you cannot afford to have that process stall. One of the best ways to break out of this is to build a habit of competing with yourself.

Consider the areas you want to get better. Maybe you want to practice your meditation. Perhaps you want to get better at committing to a great sleeping schedule. You want to feel more alert and focused today than you were yesterday. I want to be more aware of my triggers today than I was last week.

Competing means that sometimes you might fail but that’s okay. You’re a competitor, right? So come out and keep doing it and you’ll get better and better and better. At this point, you’re rewiring your brain to move forward the better you get. As you continue, you’re building up all these wonderful skills that improve your reboot confidence.

7. Stop complaining to yourself and stop complaining to others

Oftentimes, we don’t verbalize how challenging something is, but we have a lot of negative self-talk. We complain to ourselves about waking up early. We complain to ourselves and say, 

“God, why do I have to have these filters?” 

“Why can’t I just be like a regular guy?”

“Why do I have to be in a group?”

“Look, there are all these guys out there who watch porn and enjoy it and have done so for years, why did I have to have porn-induced erectile dysfunction?” 

“Why did I have to be the guy who’s addicted to shemale porn?”

“Why is my marriage falling apart?” 

“Why can’t my wife be cool with me watching pornography?”

Basically, you’re bitching to yourself. Sometimes you’re bitching to others, but you’re mostly complaining to yourself. It’s important to change that negative self-talk. We have several modules on this in the Porn Reboot system but this is something you can quite honestly learn on your own, too.

8. Stop trying to please the partner(s) you are intimate with

Some men are so averse to conflict that they will do anything that their partner says to please her. They even do this at the expense of their reboot. For example, you know you should be going to bed early because you have this great schedule. When your schedule is off, you’re more likely to slip during your reboot.

Your partner might want to stay up late but you’re such a partner pleaser that you don’t tell her. You tell her, “We can’t do that today because I’ve got to go to bed.” Then she’ll say, ”Oh, you’re no fun. You always have to do something with your reboot. You always do this.” And you say, “Okay, okay, just this one time.” 

But then you end up relapsing, and she gets pissed at you and upset that you can’t say to your reboot. It’s still your fault; though, because you were so busy trying to please her. Stop trying to be a pushover to please your partner, especially at the expense of your reboot.

If you were anything like me when you were a teenager, you had some big ideas for what your 20s would look like. There’s this “male dream,” so to speak, of all the things that the ideal life is made of. Honestly, who didn’t want to be a baller by 25?

That “dream life” of your mid-20s probably didn’t play out the way you imagined it would, though. Things that felt like goals during your late teens probably feel like fantasies now. You aren’t alone if you’re just now reaching this realization point.

I talk to men all the time who feel like they aren’t accomplishing their goals. What I’ve realized; though, is many of these men don’t understand what the definition of a goal is. I’ll ask them what their goals are, and they’ll explain what’s really a fantasy. 

This is something we talk about often in our group. What is the difference between fantasies, visualizations, and goals? Are your dreams really fantasies? Are you setting yourself up for disappointment? Today I’m going to outline the important distinctions between these three things.

Fantasy

At its most basic, a fantasy is a thought that is rarely ever real. Even when it is possible, it usually takes a high price to make that fantasy a reality. And since we deal with porn addiction at Porn Reboot, the fantasies we’re living with are usually sexual fantasies.

Men who struggle with porn addiction often have fantasies that are different and far-reaching, fantasies they wouldn’t express verbally. You likely don’t verbalize your fantasies because you feel shameful and you’re worried others will judge you. They might think you actually want to engage in those types of behaviors when you don’t actually have the motivation to make them a reality.

Pornography provides a middle ground for these fantasies to play out, though. It takes these things in your head and plays them out with actors in video format. Instead of masturbating to something in your head, now you’re masturbating to something that seems like reality. This makes you believe your fantasies are something that could happen in real life.

You can watch it play out in pornography or see it in movies. It could even be drawn out or made into an animation. These things are still just a fantasy, though. They rarely play out or happen in real life.

Visualizations

Visualization is the process of using your subconscious mind to assist you in accomplishing your goals. Your subconscious mind often cannot tell the difference between reality and a vividly imagined situation. There are plenty of ways to use the power of visualization to your benefit.

Think of all the things you want in the future. Vividly imagine it using all your senses: smell, touch, taste, sight, and sound. Take these dreams for your future but feel and experience them here and now with the power of visualization.

As you start using this, your body starts to develop a feeling of normalcy with the visualization. It breaks down the mental blocks and barriers that would usually stand in your way of accomplishing these dreams. You start to realize that you are capable of the things you’re visualizing.

For example, when I was running a sales organization over a decade ago, I was terrified of cold calling. Showing up unannounced at an office and presenting a pitch felt impossible. I’d always think of their inevitable rejection and the feelings of fear and frustration that came along with it.

I decided to use the power of visualization to change those thoughts, though. Instead, I started imagining my prospects opening the door when I stopped by. I still considered their possible rejection but now countered it with the reasons why our product was the best thing for them. I visualized sitting down with them, showing them the product and all those feelings.

Now there wasn’t some magic, sudden shift after I started using visualization. Over time though, these imagined scenarios started carrying out in my cold pitches at offices. It helped me develop a sense of confidence and conviction in what I was selling. All the time I spent vividly creating this world in my mind now played out whenever I went to a new prospect.   

Goals

Now that you understand the distraction of fantasies and the power of visualization, what is a goal? There are two main ideas I love when it comes to goals. The first is that the definition of a goal is a dream with a deadline. The second is an acronym you can use to set good, long-term goals: SMART. SMART stands for:

1. Specific
2. Measurable
3. Achievable
4. Relevant
5. Time-based

These two ideas establish everything you need to know about setting a good goal. Your goal must be specific, measurable, and achievable. It also needs to be relevant to a greater purpose that you hope to accomplish. Finally, it must be time-based or time-sensitive, which ties into the definition that a goal is a dream with a deadline. 

How do you know whether a goal is SMART or not? What does each of these parts of a SMART goal mean? Let’s look back at the idea of “being a baller by 25” again and break down whether that fits with this outline.

Specific

A good goal is specific. “Being a baller by 25” isn’t very specific. What does it mean to be a baller? That’s a subjective term, and if you asked five different people, you could get five different answers. To make a more specific goal, you could say, “I want to have a six-figure salary by 25.” That’s a precise number to reach for.

Measurable

A good goal is also measurable. You must be able to measure your progress towards your goal along the way. “Being a baller” is not a measurable achievement. Again, because being a baller is subjective, there is no single set of steps to “becoming a baller” that applies across the board. If your goal is to have a six-figure salary by 25, though, that’s a measurable goal. 

Achievable

Your goal must be achievable. If you can’t achieve your goal in real life then it isn’t a realistic goal, nor is it a good one. You might be able to achieve “being a baller” by your definition but it might not be the same definition for someone else. Reaching a six-figure salary is an achievable goal, though.

Relevant

Good goals are relevant. They’re something that gets you closer to your ultimate path you want to follow in life. “Being a baller” might be a relevant goal when you’re a teenager but is it something that will contribute to your long-term dreams? Using the six-figure salary idea;  though, is a much more relevant goal. It’s a good benchmark for any man pursuing a career.

Time-Bound

Finally, all good goals are time-bound. There’s a certain amount of time you have to complete the goal. The only mark that “Being a baller by 25” has of a good goal is its time-bound component. You have to reach the status of “baller” by 25 to reach your goal. But, again, the goal of making a six-figure salary by 25 is a good goal on all counts.

Setting SMART Goals with Porn Addiction

It’s important to set SMART goals for yourself when it comes to your out of control behaviors, too. A lot of men come into the Porn Reboot program with fantasies about their addiction. They’re convinced they’ll quit in two or three months. They’ll become an instant stud in bed with their partner. They’re going to have a better business than ever.

None of that is going to happen; though, at least not at first. If you come into the Porn Reboot program with fantasies you’re going to be sorely disappointed. But, we aren’t going to leave you to deal with it on your own. We’re going to show you how to create SMART goals not only for your out of control behaviors but for your life as well. 

Of course, you want to control your compulsive behaviors. You have to set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound goals, though. What does that look like for your addiction? Maybe you want to quit masturbating and stop viewing pornography for 90 days. That’s a SMART goal. 

You might have issues with other things, too. It might be drugs or alcohol or another mental disorder or illness. You can set SMART goals for every area of your life from your porn addiction to any additional issues you may have. 

Joining a brotherhood of men who understand what you’re going through is important. The Porn Reboot system not only provides a pathway back to life but it also provides a strong group of men who support one another. Are you ready to join us?