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There’s a guy in our Porn Reboot group who started a great conversation. He was upfront and honest with his partner when he started his journey with the Porn Reboot system. He shared honestly about his struggles with pornography and masturbation. She was immediately supportive of him, grateful for his honesty, and agreed to be his accountability partner.

A few months later, he let her know he relapsed by fantasizing about her. She found it a bit weird; though, and responded with uncomfortable energy. Our brother came to the group immediately and explained his situation. He wants to be honest with his partner but wasn’t sure whether he did the right thing.

This raises the question: should your girlfriend be your accountability partner?

 

Is Honesty the Best Policy?

The first thing I want to make absolutely clear is that I believe that your partner should know if you are struggling with pornography. I know there are many of you out there who are scared to tell your partner, many of you who are hiding it. On an ethical level; though, your partner must know what’s going on at least to some extent.

That’s where it ends for me with ethics, though. A lot of traditional counseling approaches, 12 step groups, and other methodologies stress the importance of honesty. They believe honesty is the best policy and your partner needs to know everything right away.

While I agree that your partner should at least know what’s going on, I don’t believe that’s the case for everyone. Your partner might not be ready to hear everything. Telling her every detail about your out of control behavior only considers your feelings, not hers.

 

Your Partner Might Not Be Ready

Honesty releases you from the weight of guilt and shame that comes with your secretive sexual behaviors.  “It’s what’s good for her, though, JK. She deserves to know the type of man she’s with,” men will tell me. But, have you taken into consideration how it will affect your relationship? Have you thought about how it will affect your partner’s mental health?

Those traditional counseling approaches and 12 step groups suggest you be honest. Some counselors insist that telling the truth will always work out in the end. Then men take this suggestion and, wanting to relieve themselves of their shame, dump the truth on their partner.

Part of your recovery includes being considerate of your partner. It’s a heavy time right now with the COVID-19 pandemic affecting the entire world. She already has a lot on her plate. Maybe she lost her job, perhaps there are some family troubles she’s dragged into, or she might even be dealing with some existing mental health issues.

What will it do to her if you come home and let her know, “Hey, honey, I’ve been a porn addict for the past seven years”? What’s going to happen to your relationship? You don’t get to uproot her entire world just because you want to relieve your shame and guilt.

 

Getting Ready to Get Honest

This doesn’t mean your partner never finds out about your behavior. Like I said before, I believe that your partner should know about your problem. That’s what I did in my relationship and that’s what I recommend to the men I work with. 

So it’s not a question of whether you will approach it, it’s a question of how and when you’ll approach it. You need to consider what is going on in her life at the moment. What is she going through? 

If she’s going through certain difficult things already, I recommend you wait. I suggest you continue working on your behavior. You should continue talking with a therapist, counselor, coach, or participating in a program, whatever approach you prefer.

You need to utilize your preferred approach to create a plan to tell your partner. Coming straight out with it is not the best way to tell her, especially if she’s already going through something. You cannot take your honesty lightly; you need to consider her first when you’re preparing to get honest.

 

Can Your Girlfriend Be Your Accountability Partner?

Once you’ve found the right time to be honest with your partner, she might appreciate your being honest with her. She may want to support you in your recovery like our brother who wrote into the group. What do you do if she suggests becoming your accountability partner, though?

I recommend you don’t allow your girlfriend to be your accountability partner. It might seem like a good idea because she’s ready to support you but it’s not good for her or your relationship. There are three main reasons why your girlfriend shouldn’t be your accountability partner.

 

1. She’s too close to the problem

Your partner wants to be supportive of you. She wants to help you with your out of control behavior. She might appreciate the fact that you’re coming to her with this. On an emotional level, it may feel great to be able to support you in something. 

The reality is she doesn’t know what she’s getting into. She’s too close to the problem. Sure, your partner might be your best friend but she’s much different from your guy friends. She’s the friend with whom you’re in a relationship, an intimate, sexual relationship. Pornography addiction is a sexual problem. Because you have a sexual problem, it’s going to affect her. 

 

2. She didn’t sign up for this

Your partner doesn’t understand how long it’s going to take you to end your out of control behavior. She doesn’t know how insidious the slips and relapses are. She doesn’t understand the emotional highs and lows that you’re going to be going through. She doesn’t realize that this is a legit addiction. 

When she finds out that it’s a legit addiction, she’s going to reach out for help. I get messages every day from frustrated women. They love their man but they don’t know what to do. Eventually, she’ll reach her wit’s end and at some point, she’s going to sit down and think, “Wait a minute, I didn’t sign up for this. I knew there would be tough times but not this.”

 

3. Your addiction will reduce her attraction to you

A woman wants a man who has self-control. She doesn’t want a man who is pouring out his feelings all the time. She doesn’t want an unreliable man. Your partner wants to be with someone who can control their behaviors and maintains the boundaries she sets.

There were very specific qualities that made her attracted to you. Your inability to control your sexual behavior was not one of them. If you make your partner your accountability partner, you’re going to kill attraction. She’s going to tell herself, “I didn’t sign up to be with a child who can’t maintain his boundaries.”

 

Step Out of Your Shame and Seek Help

Sometimes, we just get caught up in all of the programming that’s pushed on us. You might think your partner is your best friend; the only one you can trust. She’s there for you for better or worse. She’s the one who’s directly affected by your out of control sexual behavior. It only makes sense to have her as your accountability partner.

Your partner isn’t the only person you can trust. Your behavior is your responsibility, not hers. You need to find the courage to work through the shame and ask for the help you need. Recovering from pornography addiction is on you, not on your partner.

Maybe you’re telling yourself you aren’t ready to be around a group of men; that’s exactly where your problem stems from, though. If you’d rather mess up your relationship and be comfortable than get honest with a group who understands, you have work to do. You’ve got to make some courageous moves to save your relationship. 

Reach out today and join us here at the Porn Reboot group. This incredible group of men understands the struggles of porn, masturbation, and sex addiction. Each of us has been where you are right now. You don’t need to rely on your partner to help you; there’s a brotherhood right here waiting for you to join us.

 

If you’re here, you’re probably wondering how to overcome your hatred for women. You might not even know how it happened but you’ve realized you can’t connect with the women around you. You’ve tried everything but it feels like your anger is only getting worse. 

You’re not alone in this struggle. Unfortunately, many men reach this point of complete frustration. They don’t understand what’s going on but the longer they live with it the more difficult it gets. 

I’m here to tell you there’s hope! You can overcome your frustrations and learn to interact with women. Eventually, you’ll be able to form successful, positive relationships with the intimacy you’ve been looking for. Before you can effectively deal with your hatred for women; though, you need to understand how it formed.

How Your Hatred For Women Formed

You didn’t naturally start out hating women but men who view pornography compulsively often reach this point. They rarely express their true feelings because it’s not an acceptable thing to say. But, this is the reality for many men with pornography addiction. 

I believe there are three main reasons that men who view pornography compulsively grow to loathe women: objectification, inability to handle rejection, and a lack of understanding about the nature of women. Let me explain…

1. Objectification

Whether you like it or not, when you compulsively view pornography you eventually start viewing women as objects. Pornography portrays women as objects for you to experience pleasure from; it also shows women as objects for you to hurt.

I’m serious when I say this because modern pornography is not intimate. It is not about love. It is not about connection. It is about violence and it is abhttps://youtu.be/GjZYD86o0gcout sex. It fills you with a false idea of the relationship between women and men.

Once you start viewing someone as an object, it’s very difficult for you to have compassion for that person. So when you’re trapped in the cycle of pornography addiction, you’re going to view women quite differently from the way you view other men.

2. Inability to handle rejection

The second thing is the inability to handle rejection. Eventually, you’ll reach a point in life where you realize that you want a woman in your life for friendship, companionship, intimacy, or even just for sex. When you start pursuing women; though, you may find that you get rejected sometimes. Rejection is just a part of the human mating game. That’s just how it works.

Unfortunately, many men who are addicted to pornography have trouble expressing their feelings. They often end up “frozen” at the age when they started watching porn as a coping mechanism. So when you were 14, 15, 16 years-old, maybe even younger, you started using it to numb many of your strong emotions. 

These are the ages when things like anger, fear, sadness, and of course all the emotions that come with rejection, start to surface. Instead of learning to deal with them effectively, you started using pornography, masturbation, and orgasms. 

When you get rejected nowadays, sometimes you’re still reacting like you did when you were rejected as a teenager. You get very upset. You don’t have any way to appropriately deal with your emotions. 

The difference is now you’re a grown man full of testosterone. It’s a dangerous combination if you don’t do something to address it. This is one of the reasons why there’s a lot of violence towards women. It’s often at the hands of men who have no coping strategies or ways to deal with rejection.

3. Lack of understanding for women

Now, when men are rejected and not able to get the women they want, they start looking for answers. This might even be the case for you and that’s how you found yourself reading this blog post. Maybe you ended up here because you’re searching for a solution. Men start looking for other men who understand what they’re going through. 

Unfortunately, there are a lot of communities out there filled with men who objectify women, who have been rejected by women, and who don’t understand women’s nature. They haven’t found a solution to the problem and blame women as a whole.

If you find yourself in these communities, you’re going to notice they promote certain beliefs. These include the ideas that women are conniving and out to get you. Communities of these men believe that all women are manipulative, all women lie, and no women care about you.

All of these things are massive misunderstandings of women and their nature. Most of these communities focus only on the negative parts of certain women because they feel rejected by all women. If you put yourself in an environment where all the men are feeling your pain, all that’s going to do is magnify your hatred. 

How to Deal With Your Hatred for Women

Now that you understand how your feelings formed you can start to deal with your hatred for women. It’s all misunderstanding that stems from objectification and the inability to deal with rejection. Once you realize this truth you can make a change. I have five main ways to confront and solve your frustration.

1. Put a stop to your pornography addiction

Dealing with your hatred starts with putting a stop to your pornography addiction. It’s going to stop you from objectifying women. Eventually, your brain is going to rewire and you’re going to learn how to appreciate women for who they are. Even if it takes a while, you’re going to learn how to be intimate with women again.

I know this sounds crazy, especially if you’re still struggling with pornography right now. When you quit porn; though, you can actually reach the point where you’ll meet an attractive woman and not immediately feel an urge to have sex with her. You can appreciate her for her beauty and then go on with your life.

You need to stop viewing and treating women like objects. You need to realize that they’re just other human beings, exactly like you. That begins with letting go of your compulsive behaviors with pornography.

2. Learn how to interact with women without sexualizing them

Most men can interact with and speak perfectly with other guys. If you put some of them in front of a woman; though, they just don’t know what to say. But think about it, she’s just another person. She’s probably not thinking of you intimately, but you’re acting completely different around her. 

You have to learn how to interact with women without sexualizing them. Developing confidence and holding conversations with women in social situations is important. Speak with them normally, the way you would speak to another man you’ve never spoken with. You don’t have to sexualize every woman you see.

The funny thing is…you don’t realize how not sexualizing women is exactly how you generate eventual intimacy. Men who objectify women, who don’t understand women’s nature, who feel they’re always rejected, don’t understand that constantly sexualizing women turns them off. 

Many of you have great personalities! There are so many guys in my program, many of my clients who are just funny, normal, cool guys I would hang out with. But, they don’t understand how to interact with women, because they have all this junk in their heads from pornography.

If you just spoke to women the way you spoke to guys, many women would find you attractive. You don’t need to learn “game” or become a pick-up artist or anything. You just need to be yourself and talk to enough women. Your life will change before you know it. 

3. Be honest with women about your intentions

I’m big on honesty when it comes to your intentions with women. There’s a lot of junk around interacting and speaking with women, both because of shame in our society, and the way we’re socialized.

At a certain point early in my pornography reboot, I started being very upfront about what I wanted with women I took on dates. I would be having a conversation with them and say, “Hey, I know this is random, but I just wanted to say that you’re all kinds of attractive.”

She’d either be like, “Oh, thank you!” or she would think it was weird. Most of the time, though, 9 times out of 10, women would just say, “Thank you.” It didn’t matter if anything came out of it. What mattered is that I actually started getting intimate with more women than I ever had before. 

I wasn’t walking around, just handing out compliments everywhere. If I felt a woman was attractive; though, I would let that woman know. As long as there were no boundaries like her being married, being with a boyfriend, or while at work, I would tell her how I felt.

I believe that when you hide and repress your intentions, there’s more of a possibility that you’re going to objectify the woman. You’re going to fantasize about her and create this world that just isn’t real.

It’s so much more freeing for you as a man to let that woman know how you feel. You’ve told her what you’re thinking and whatever comes from it, that’s cool. You’re also less likely to fantasize about her because you let those thoughts out after verbalizing how you feel.

4. Stop trying to control a woman’s life and behavior

You need to stop trying to control the women around you, especially if you’re in a relationship. If you’re thinking about controlling her, then there’s no real relationship. It doesn’t matter how long it lasts because eventually, it will backfire on you.

Although many women indeed like to be led, being controlled is a whole different story. No human being likes to be controlled. Yet, many men believe they should control women in order to find intimacy or have a happy relationship.

Pornography also perpetuates this belief that you need to control women. It lies to you, telling you that’s what they really want. Porn has you believing women want to be dominated and controlled, and if you do that, then the sex is better.

Trust me on this, though. Let women do what they want to do and instead focus on being the best man you can be. If she really cares for you, she is going to be with you. You won’t have to control her. Your success with women and eventual relationships will be a lot better this way.

5. Let go of your expectations

Finally, you need to let go of your expectations. Whether you’re dating or you’re in a long-term relationship, letting go of your expectations is crucial. This isn’t always easy to do, especially when you’re battling pornography addiction.

Pornography creates so many false expectations on a timeline. The understanding of the time between meeting a woman and having sex with her is warped. There is no courting or dating period in pornography. She simply shows up, there’s a brief interaction, and then they have  sex. 

Think about it. If you’re watching pornography hundreds of times per year, it’s framing your understanding of sex. You’re giving your unconscious mind the idea that sex just happens. Naturally, your mind is going to have the same expectations from real life after a certain point.

These expectations are skewed. You might think, “She came home with me on the first date so she must want to have sex.” Or, maybe you’re in a relationship and expect that you should have sex whenever you want it.

When these expectations aren’t fulfilled; though, you end up back at the starting point: objectifying women. At this point, you’re not thinking of her feelings of whether she should feel safe. You’re only thinking of the expectation that if you’re attracted to each other you should be having sex.

Remember, if you struggle with pornography, you are most likely using porn, masturbation, and orgasm to medicate some sort of emotion. You’re filled with unmet expectations and anger, but you don’t have any coping strategies to handle it.

Letting go of expectations and learning to understand women is crucial. I rarely find guys in our group who come in and talk about a rejection situation but talk about how the woman feels. They always say things like, “Aw, man, I didn’t do anything but she didn’t want to have sex with me.” 

But, they’ll rarely talk about her feelings. What do you think she was thinking? How was she feeling? Was there something about your behavior that made her feel a certain way? Men are rarely putting themselves in the partner’s shoes. When you put yourself in the woman’s shoes, it’s easier to let go of expectations.

Looking For Some Help?

Whenever you’re ready, there is a solution to your out-of-control sexual behavior. From pornography to masturbation to compulsive sex, you can escape the cycle. The Porn Reboot system and group is formulated to provide a path out of the darkness of pornography addiction.

Are you ready to take the first step?

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Today I’m going to answer a question that is frequently on the minds of our brothers who are in committed relationships or who are married: “What do I do if I’m in a committed relationship and I still feel the need to be desired by other women? What if I still feel a very strong sexual desire for other women? Does this have something to do with my porn use?”

The first thing I want to let you know is that this is a very common situation. We don’t have many men who speak up about it; though, because of guilt or shame. It often feels wrong to want to be desired by other women when you’re already with somebody. I’m going to dive into the societal, cultural, and religious programming that fills you with these feelings.

The False Ideal of Perfection

Whether it’s influenced by society, culture, or religion, most of us have an ideal programmed into us. We believe there’s a certain level of perfection we need to attain when we’re married or in a committed relationship. I’m generalizing here of course, because not every relationship is the same, but there’s a lot of shared understandings for women and men.

Women have certain expectations to deal with: She cannot gain weight. She is expected to love you forever. She’s expected to not cheat on you. All these things are implied because you put a ring on her finger. 

Then men have their own set of expectations on their part. You’re expected to be the provider, and you have to be there for her. It’s your job to take care of her and eventually to take care of your family as well. 

There are also expectations of you two as a couple. You’re expected to keep having sex, to remain faithful. Usually, there’s nothing wrong with these expectations. Most of us have an innate biological need to pair up with another person. Again, I’m speaking generally, but many people want to partner up with someone at some point.

Oftentimes, though, we pay too much attention to the social, cultural, or religious programming that got us there. We don’t pay enough attention to the biological part. See, the thing is our biology is our biology. It doesn’t care about the programming. The only thing you can do is force your programming over your biological urges.

Problems arise when you force too much programming onto your biology, though. You repress your biology when you work against it instead of with it. This leads to men or women who feel strong urges eventually stepping out on their relationship by having sex with other people or viewing pornography. 

 

 

Programming vs. Biology

Chances are if you’re in a relationship and you are here, you most likely watch pornography. What does pornography have to do with being attracted to other women, though? 

It’s funny – when I ask men who are in committed relationships, who are okay with viewing porn, “Do you think this has anything with your desire to have sex with other people?” They’ll respond, “No! Absolutely not. It’s just my programming. I love my wife and only want to have sex with my wife. Pornography is just entertainment.”

If there’s no need to have sex with other women, though, why do you watch pornography in the first place? Why aren’t you biologically satisfied with your partner? I get all sorts of answers to this but at the end of the day, it comes down to programming.

Many men who are asked this question usually feel guilty. Both men and women feel that wanting another person means there must be something wrong in the relationship. They also feel that all relationship problems can be fixed. Marriage counseling is a common way couples try to work through these problems. 

Truth is, the programming part of the relationship can be fixed. The societal, cultural, and religious programming can be fixed. However, you cannot fix your biology. You only have two options when it comes to your biology: you either work with it or against it.

 

The Influence of Programming

You have a strong biological urge to continue your lineage by spreading your seed and impregnating different women. It’s why you see other attractive women and feel the urge to have sex with them, even when in a committed relationship.

Your societal, cultural, or religious programming teaches you to repress those urges. You’re conditioned not to act out on it, to stuff it, to not think about it. Repressing it leads to compulsive sexual behavior, though, like porn, masturbation, and sex.

Programming does not explain to you why you shouldn’t act out on these urges, though. Religious programming tells you it’s a sin, that you’re bad and you’re going to burn in hell. Social and cultural programming tells you it’s a bad thing to do, that you’ll be ostracized from your community.

Neither of these things talks about the biology of your attraction to other women, though.

 

Working With Your Biology in a Relationship

If you want to work with your biology, you have to accept the fact that you have desires for other women. Don’t run away from it. You’re a man, you’re a human being, and you’re going to see other attractive women. There’s actually nothing wrong with that. Once you can accept it, you can start to work with it. 

Ultimately, it’s advantageous to be in a committed relationship. I’ve grown incredibly by being in a committed, intimate relationship and it’s the same for most men. At a certain point, many men want to find a partner they can spend their lives with. In order to do this; though, we do something that we call, “rewiring your brain to monogamy.”

You’ll learn to see a woman who is beautiful and attractive without having a significant biochemical reaction to her. You reach a point where you’ve conditioned yourself through the reboot process to acknowledge that about her without carrying it any further.

You can see a woman, appreciate her, and then move on with your life. You have no sexual urge to do anything with this woman because you are committed to your partner. It doesn’t matter how gorgeous she is. You can appreciate that because you’re a human being with biological desires, but you’ve also trained your brain to prioritize monogamous intimacy.

It’s not just sex for the sake of sex with your partner, either. Rewiring your brain for monogamy is much more than that. It’s true intimacy with your partner because you’ve chosen to commit to being intimate with only her. 

Over time in the Porn Reboot process, you’ll find that your values and principles will even change. This isn’t only about attraction to other women if you’re in a relationship. It’s much more than that. When you’re going through the reboot process, it’s a complete transformation of your life. We’re not just changing one part; we’re changing the entire thing. 

Ready to take the next step?

 

Wondering how you can measure progress on your pathway to recovery from porn addiction?

Whether you’ve struggled with porn and sex addiction for decades, years, or even just a few months, you’re not alone. I’m here to help you discover the pathway to a life free from the chains of pornography addiction. 

You can escape from the trap of porn addiction and compulsive sexual behaviors, too. I built the Porn Reboot system using my own experience because I want to help other men. Hundreds of men who reach out want to know what the system is like and how it’s broken down. 

After thinking about it, I realized that a hierarchy model is one of the best ways to explain the program.

Are you familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs?

It’s that pyramid you might have learned about in school, the psychological theory outlining basic human needs. At the bottom, you have your most basic needs: air, water, food, shelter, and the like. They’re your survival needs.

Next are your safety needs. These are the ways you need to be able to take care of yourself, including security, finances, health, and resources. Then, you have the need for belongingness. Everyone needs to be part of a group of some type, whether it’s a community or a family.

Now we’re getting closer to the top of the pyramid. You have the need for self-esteem, respect, status, and recognition. These are things that you do that give you a sense of pride and the feeling of contributing to a greater purpose. 

Finally, self-actualization is the top of the pyramid. This is your ultimate form of personal fulfillment in the world. It’s the drive to be the best version of yourself that you can be.

Your path to freedom from pornography addiction follows along similar lines. I created this five-step hierarchy to the Porn Reboot.

 

First Step: Physically and Mentally Letting Go of Pornography

 

The first thing that you want to work on is physically and mentally letting go of pornography and compulsive sexual behavior. This means making the decision that you’re going to release your need for porn and casual, compulsive sex. But, how do you do that?

You’ll want to start with setting boundaries. These boundaries might look a little different for everyone depending on your specific case. 

Maybe you need to delete the gigabytes or terabytes of pornography stored on your hard drive. 

It might be letting go of all those dating apps. When you’re trapped in out of control sexual behavior, dating apps can be huge triggers. 

Perhaps it’s setting up strong boundaries with social media. Twitter is teeming with porn and even Instagram can lead to a relapse if you’re following certain accounts.

You need to realize that you can’t make progress when pornography and compulsive sex controls your life. This carries over into other important parts of your life, too. If you don’t physically set boundaries, you can’t mentally prepare yourself to move forward.

 

Second Step: Staying Off Pornography

 

The next step is staying off pornography and away from compulsive sex. Why do you do this? You need to give your brain some time to get used to living without the overwhelming stimulation. 

If you’ve been struggling with these things, you’re most likely using them to self-medicate. These behaviors can help you numb strong emotions or distract yourself from some unresolved conflict. 

You also want to give yourself time to change your self-image. Too many men stay abstinent using willpower but don’t use that time to change. They focus more on avoiding their behaviors instead of bettering themselves.

Using the Porn Reboot system equips you with strategies and skills to replace your behaviors during that time, you’re not only staying off pornography and away from casual sex but making yourself into a better man. It shows you that you are a man who can live without these distractions. 

Men who use the system, even if they slip a couple of times in the first 90 days, still have a stronger self-image than the men who had been completely abstinent. Why? Because, they were actually using their time to develop new tools.

 

Third Step: Being Part of a Group

 

The third step is being part of a group. Just like Maslow’s Hierarchy of needing to feel part of a community, a tribe, or a family. In the case of the Porn Reboot system, though, you want to be part of a specific group with similar goals and values. If you’re part of a group that doesn’t share the same struggles, it’ll be harder to relate. 

Our group is made up of men who are all on a common path of recovery from porn and sex addiction. They want to stay off pornography, improve their finances, improve their health, and be happy. We talk about our goals and how our behaviors negatively affect what we want from our lives.

Joining a group of men who understand what you’re going through is important. You’re more likely to succeed when you’re surrounded by a group that not only shares similar goals but similar struggles as you. 

 

Fourth Step: Accepting Who You Are Becoming

 

The next level of the reboot hierarchy is accepting who you are becoming. Once you’re through the first three levels, you’re now becoming a new man. You’ve started changing into a newer, better version of yourself.

You’ll start realizing you’re going to bed earlier. Now you’re in bed by 9 or 10 o’clock instead of staying up until 2:00 AM 3:00 AM chatting with women online or acting out. You’re making healthier choices in terms of diet. Going to the gym and getting exercise is now a priority.

You have to start accepting that you are becoming a new person. You’re also going to come up against some resistance. People are still going to be concerned with things that no longer interest you. Celebrity scandals and pointless gossip aren’t on your radar anymore.

We also have guys in our program who loved to drink but have shifted to drinking in moderation. Heavy drinking isn’t going to contribute to your new lifestyle. If you have to go to a party, you can still drink but try to stick to a two-drink maximum.

It’s not an easy task at first. As you start accepting who you are, though, you also start accepting the positive things that are happening. You start realizing that you’re not acting out the way you used to. You’re above things that you used to obsess over. Your journey in life has shifted in a more positive direction.

 

Fifth Step: Fulfilling Your Wants and Needs

 

The final stage is fulfilling your wants and needs. You start looking toward personal fulfillment. What makes you happy and what do you want to do with your life? 

Many men have a lot of dreams that fall to the wayside over the years of compulsive sexual behaviors. Your self-image feels crushed after a while. You have all these secrets and lies that you’ve been hiding behind and you have so much shame. Then that shame prevented you from stepping up and being the best man that you could be.

Those failed attempts to quit porn and other behaviors over the years end up leaking into other areas of your life. You might develop the belief that you don’t have what it takes to win. But now that you’re stacking up wins and shifting your path in life, now that you’re in control of your behavior, you can see it. 

Now you are around other successful men who prioritize controlling their sexual behavior, who prioritize their health, their families who have powerful, strong, positive beliefs, and who all accept themselves. You’re part of a strong group of men who have overcome their compulsions.

You’re a good person who just did some bad things and that’s okay because you’re still alive. And as long as you’re alive, you’re breathing. And, there’s a future in front of you that you can go into, or even in this present moment, then you can change the way your life turns out.

You’re now at a place where you can start looking at all the things in your past that you really wanted to do that will truly bring you happiness. You can do anything you want to do. You really can. You just have to find a way to do it. If you’re willing to make some sacrifices, you’re able to do anything you want to do with your life.

Maybe there were some goals you wanted to pursue but now you think you can’t because you’re married and have kids. That’s no longer the case! You’ve dealt with your main issues; nothing is stopping you from taking your wife and your kids to travel with you.

You might realize you’ve been stuck in a dead-end relationship and make the changes to get out. Maybe you’ve spent years away from the dating scene, but can now start getting into the game again. 

Once you have dealt with all the other issues that are holding you back, you can live that life. After you’ve taken a clear look at the unresolved issues you medicated with out of control sexual behavior, you step into your power. You’ve reached the top of the hierarchy and your life is in your hands.

 

Avoiding relapse is one of the most difficult parts of pornography addiction recovery. Quitting is hard but staying away from pornography is harder. You’ve spent months, years, or decades developing your addiction and you’re not going to feel relief all at once. Learning relapse prevention methods is a vital way to protect your recovery.

Once you incorporate skills and substitutes into your life, you won’t obsess over porn the way you used to. Until then, it’s important to have some tips in mind that will keep you focused on your recovery. These four powerful relapse prevention tips will help you during your early days and weeks away from porn.

 

 

1. Relapse starts when you lose control of your emotions

You’re in a rational, clear headspace when you make your decision to quit pornography. But your pornography addiction stems from an emotional place, not a rational place. You use it to calm yourself when you feel upset, anxious, or any other overwhelming emotion.

Relapse beings the moment you lose control of your emotions. If you lose control of your thoughts, your control over your judgment goes out the window, too. It doesn’t matter how rational you are, your addiction is more powerful. Learning to control your emotions is a necessary part of recovery.

 

2. Understand that many symptoms are subconscious

Recovering from pornography addiction is hard because much of your addiction is subconscious. Addiction develops slowly over time and you train your brain to use it in times where you feel out of control. Your relapse symptoms might not be apparent to you even as a relapse is about to happen.

Think about it. It happens to men all the time. How many times have you told yourself, “Okay, I’m done, no more,” then found yourself watching porn a few hours later? Why is it that no matter how many times you tell yourself to not watch porn, you still relapse? You tell yourself that you’ll quit tomorrow but you’re doing it again the very next day. 

This is because your addiction acts subconsciously. Accept the nature of your addiction and use your understanding to your advantage. One of the best things you can do is learn to work with your brain, not against it. Using willpower to quit is working against your brain. Developing the skills and tools to stay away from pornography is working with it. 

Start building a checklist of things that lead you to a relapse. Every man has his own set of things that set off his subconscious pattern of relapse symptoms. These include things like:

• Not getting enough sleep
• Spending too much time on social media
• Reading materials that increase your anxiety
• Neglecting meditation
• Not incorporating a healthy diet or exercise habits
• Disconnecting from your support network

Look over the list above and create your own. Understanding the subconscious things that lead to relapse, then working with your brain to avoid them, leaves you less susceptible.

 

3. Relapse doesn’t “just happen”

Plenty of men try to say that their relapse “just happened”. They don’t know what led up to it, they had no way to predict it, there was nothing they could have done. One moment they were chilling, the next moment they were overcome with an insatiable urge and it just happened.

Relapse might be subconscious but it’s not that simple. If you’ve been struggling with out of control sexual behavior or pornography addiction, it’s time to get serious about it. You need to develop a deeper understanding of what’s happening and realize that your decisions landed you here.

This also means your relapse comes about as a result of your attitude and your values. You have to decide to use the tools and tips to create your new life. Recovery is the result of whether or not you’re putting in the work to change your self-image and behavior. It won’t work unless you examine your beliefs, values, attitudes, and responses.

 

4. Relapse can be interrupted at any point

It might sound contradictory to everything above, but relapse can be interrupted. Yes, it happens when you lose control of your thoughts and emotions. Yes, it is a subconscious process. Yes, it’s a result of your beliefs, values, and responses. But at the same time, if you learn the skills and the strategies that you need, you are going to be able to stop it. 

Life is going to happen once you’re in recovery. You’ll still have difficult points in your life where you’re feeling very low. You might feel depressed. You might’ve lost somebody. Maybe you’re going through a tough time financially or mentally, and these things put you at risk for relapse. 

There are so many moments where you’ll be challenged, and it’s better to have a system in place to help you stop relapse in its tracks. It’s your responsibility to take your life into your own hands and develop the tools. That’s what Porn Reboot is here to do. It teaches you the skills you need and surrounds you with a supportive group that shares the same struggle.

Make the choice to fight back against your addiction. You don’t need to do it alone, either. There’s an incredible group waiting for you to join our ranks. Our system can help you find your way out of the darkness of addiction and back 

 

Are you wondering how you became a porn addict?

That is a question we ask ourselves after we’ve reached the breaking point in our addiction or if we’ve had a particularly bad relapse. We wonder how we, as mature responsible adults, got to this point.

It could be anything. Maybe, it’s masturbating after you’ve stayed off pornography for a long period of time. Perhaps, it’s stepping out of your marriage. Maybe, you had sex with a man when you are straight. It could be going out and meeting an escort or going to a massage parlor. 

It could also be getting caught. Maybe your kid caught you watching pornography, or your wife found out about your affair. Whatever the case may be, we all at some point ask ourselves, “How did I get here?”

 

Porn Addiction Happens Gradually

Porn addiction comes on slowly over time. It doesn’t happen all at once. There was a very subtle onset of certain symptoms but you probably weren’t aware of them for various reasons. It usually starts with masturbating, often while watching porn. You realize you have control over this unbelievable feeling and as soon as you learned this, you probably kept doing it.

Many men use porn and masturbation to calm themselves or distract from other issues from the time they’re young. Puberty is a difficult time. Life starts getting tough. You don’t have the tools to deal with them yet, though, so you turn to what you know: masturbating. How many times did you head home after a long day and rub one out to relieve the stress?

Then you started having sexual encounters. You’d still watch pornography on your own time, though, and maybe noticed that your encounters weren’t as exciting as the porn you watch. You started desensitizing yourself to real-life experiences and looking to porn to fill the empty spaces where you didn’t feel satisfied.

Eventually, you need porn to get aroused in real-life sexual experiences. You’ll have to watch porn with the woman you’re with, run to the bathroom to watch a quick scene, or vividly imagine one in your mind. If you can’t keep the arousal up for long enough, you won’t be able to climax. Perhaps you use Viagra or Cialis to aid in the process.

Once you finally realize that you’re trapped in the pornography cycle, denial, rationalization, and justification step in. They provide a buffer between you and the rest of your life. If you can convince yourself that there’s nothing wrong, then maybe you can keep the secret hidden away. These excuses do little to limit the sense of shame you feel, though. 

You start staying in the office later, playing video games later, spending more time out of the house. Over time you develop an aversion to people without even realizing it. You’re pushing people away because you’re terrified of them finding out what’s going on behind closed doors. If you do get caught, it only makes your fear and paranoia worse.

Asking For Help Can Be Hard

Pornography is a sticky subject for most people. Masturbation and pornography aren’t talked about openly, especially as it becomes an addiction. You don’t talk about it publicly, mention it to your friends, or speak about it with your wife. It’s not a common conversational piece because it’s not a healthy way to live your life.

When you’re younger you don’t quite understand what’s happening. You just know that you enjoy watching porn and it’s a quick way to feel good. As you get older, though, you start realizing that porn and masturbation are controlling your life. You’ve adapted your entire lifestyle around porn over time, from physical to psychological to social.

That’s what causes you to feel shame when you realize that you’re addicted. You feel like you need to hide your behaviors from the world which makes it nearly impossible to ask for help. The worse your addiction gets, the harder it gets to ask for help, creating a vicious cycle. 

There’s a way out of the cycle, though, as soon as you’re ready to reach out for help. And, there are hundreds of others here to support you. You’re not the only man in the world who struggles with pornography addiction. That’s why Porn Reboot exists – it sets you up on a path to recovery.

Addiction Recovery is Also Gradual

Once you’re asking yourself, “How did I get here?” you can start making a change. Porn addiction doesn’t happen overnight and recovery doesn’t either. Learning to undo years of compulsive behavior takes time. 

Implementing the Porn Reboot system in your life makes a massive difference, though. Instead of spending your time focusing only on not watching porn, you learn to replace your behaviors with newer, healthier ones. You’re going to learn how to become the man you were meant to be.

It might feel scary but you’ll find yourself surrounded by a strong community of men who understand. These men challenge themselves daily to become better, more responsible members of society. They don’t need the crutch of pornography, and they no longer hide from the world. 

The men in the Porn Reboot program face their lives head-on while supporting their brothers. Aren’t you ready to take a step toward getting your life back?

 

When you’re worried about an addiction, one way to assess the situation is to look at the overall context of this kind of social problem.

 

We do this a lot at Elevated Recovery, where we help men to deal with the consequences of their addictions. We start to see patterns in behavior and how to frame these things in the proper way, in a way that leads to help, to redemption and renewal, and better protections for marginalized people in our communities.

 

Impact on the Individual

 

You often have to start with the negative impact on the individual.

 

A lot of times, people focus on the cost – how people get money and resources to feed their addictions – but it goes much deeper than that. There are all kinds of emotional costs to consider and unseen issues that only come to the surface in extreme situations.

 

Really digging into the bitter truth about an addiction helps the healing to start. This helps to evaluate how a life change could improve the situation.

 

Impact on the Community

 

Addictions have an impact far beyond the individual. They have negative consequences for the community.

 

If it’s a drug addiction, the impact may be theft and vandalism done to others in order to feed the addiction.

 

If it’s a sexual addiction, it involves how pornography is made. You see people, many young women especially, having all sorts of things done to them that they wouldn’t reasonably like. There’s an industry set up to serve this addiction and it’s not hard to see the negative impact there.

 

Education and Awareness

 

Another key component to look at is how education and awareness happens in the community.

 

This starts us talking about how to remediate the impact of the addiction for everyone involved. You start to look at what resources are in place.

 

We operate our own services here at Elevated Recovery, but we like to see more advocacy and commitment out in the greater community. This might take the form of doctors and medical or mental health professionals getting involved, or it may have to do with concerned citizens taking their own initiative. Ultimately, it also has to do with people deciding to live better.

 

If you have trouble with addiction behavior, call Elevated Recovery. We do our best to help, based on specific models of how to address these concerns as mentioned above. We are committed to helping you find your way in a discrete setting. Take a step to improve your life and the lives of others.

It has long been misunderstood that habits are formed in 21 days. This is, unfortunately, not the case. To make real changes in behavior and perform a new good habit, it will take quite a bit longer. Forming a new habit, especially when it is related to healthy and positive behavior, is quite difficult. There are, however, many things that you can do to make this process that much easier. With the help of coaches and mentors and following a program that works for you, you can move closer to this twenty-day mark even though the average for people is usually around 60 or 70 days. Here are some of our best tips to help you form a new habit. 

Start Small

You don’t need to, and you shouldn’t try to fix everything in one day. Creating one small positive habit will teach you and your brain that you are capable of. This simple new habit can give you the confidence that you need to start tackling more significant hurdles. Starting small is not a bad thing. 

Find Help

As you get older, you may realize that trying to accomplish life entirely on your own is very difficult. Humans need mentorship and help and support. Having a partner or coach to help you get through even the simplest new habit-forming activities will make a world of differences. Coaches, mentors, and friends can hold people accountable for their actions and give you a reason to care and continue moving forward. 

Reminders

You must remind yourself daily as to why you are trying to form a new habit. Don’t let the overall goal and picture escape the forefront of your thinking. The more you remind yourself where you were and where you have headed, the better chance you have of actually making It there. If you need to write these reminders down and put them in a place where you can see them each day, that is entirely acceptable. 

Automation

Make things easy for yourself and try and accomplish your new habit every day. Carve out a spot in your day, try to make it the same time from day to day whenever possible. The more automated the habit becomes, the easier it is to stick with it. Remember that doing this for a week and stopping is not automating. You must continue working towards your goal for months and months before you will have truly created a habit that is meant to last a lifetime. This is not always going to be an easy thing to do, but it will be worth it. 

Creating new positive behaviors and replacing the bad ones is a process that nobody should have to do on their own. You must fill your time with new and positive habits so that you can eliminate the old ones. We will help any of our clients restructure your life to make sure you are living and feeling the way you need to thrive.

People sometimes ask us: what’s the whole point of this kind of coaching? What does it do for people?

The answer shows you quite a bit about why we do it, and why so many of our visitors experience real change in their lives.

It starts with understanding the nature of addiction, what it does to your life, and how it happens and what you can do about it.

You may have heard the old joke (which is kind of grim humor to some who suffer from porn addiction) where a guy goes to the doctor and says “Doctor, it hurts when I do this…” (raising his arm and lowering it again.) The doctor says: “Don’t do that. Here’s your bill – it’s $150.”

While it’s a funny way to talk about the lack of adequacy in some types of medical services, it really does highlight some of what’s missing in a lot of doctors’ offices and therapy offices around the country. You can’t just tell somebody to stop doing something. That’s a very simplistic and primitive way to address any addiction or habit. Instead, it would help if you were looking deep underneath to figure out the origin of a habit and how to conquer it through a complicated strategy and pathway.

People don’t get trapped in things like porn addiction overnight or in a nonchalant way.

These addictions develop through deep emotional connections and often run their course over years and years. People may never get out of addiction like this unless they have help.

It’s also important to understand another aspect of how addiction works.

People think of porn addiction as simply a problem that takes up your discretionary time and maybe makes you ache a little bit.

What they don’t realize is that the addiction takes its toll, socially and emotionally, and that when you fix the addiction, people get a new confidence and new satisfaction in other areas of their lives.

You will see this on display when you read the reviews from people who we’ve helped, but unless you read those, you may not understand the real value of this kind of coaching and why it matters.

But we do. We’ve seen it firsthand, where so many young men walk into our office in so much emotional pain and emerge with a new confident outlook on life.

Especially in the Internet age, porn is all around us. Beating it takes work. Talk to us about porn addiction and what you can do about it.

For decades, pornography has been high on most people’s taboo list. While pornography is definitely controversial, there has been a definite shift in how people talk about this subject. Nowadays, you can find just about any pornography you want on the Internet. A recent study found that nearly 10% of the American population struggles with an addiction to pornography. 

Whether you or a loved one is struggling with this type of addiction, getting help is crucial. The Elevated Recovery program is designed to help individuals beat their addiction to porn once and for all. Receiving help from mental health professionals is crucial when trying to take your life back. Below is some helpful information regarding identifying and treating addiction to porn. 

What Does Porn Addiction Typically Look Like?

In order to start treating this addiction, you need to know about the warning signs to look for. If you notice any of these behaviors mentioned here in this article in yourself or a loved one, you need to reach out for professional help. One of the may things a person with porn addiction will notice is a compulsion to watch this form of entertainment continuously. If you are spending more time watching porn than you are working or spending time with your family, chances are you need to seek out treatment for porn addiction. 

Some people get a rush or endorphin high from watching pornography. If you find yourself seeking out this “high” multiple times a day, then it is time to take your life back. Another sign of possible porn addiction is the inability to enjoy sex with your partner without first watching pornography. Rather than letting this addiction disrupt your life, you need to figure out what your treatment options are. 

How is Porn Addiction Treated?

Now that you know more about what the signs of porn addiction are, you are probably curious about the treatment options on the market. One of the best ways to get your porn addiction under control is by working with mental health professionals who provide therapy. Understanding the underlying issues creating your compulsion to watch porn is imperative when trying to move past this point in your life. 

There are also a number of support groups designed to help people with this problem. Even after you kick your addiction to porn, you need to go to these support groups. 

Taking Control of Your Addiction 

Not only will you need to receive professional treatment for your porn addiction, but you also need to do things to avoid relapsing. This includes things like deleting all pornography from your computer and even investing in anti-porn software. Controlling your compulsion to watch porn will be difficult at first. However, the longer you do this, the easier it will become. 

We Are Here to Help!

At Elevated Recovery, we are passionate about helping our clients kick their addiction to pornography. Contact us for more information on the programs we offer.