Today I’ve got another great question from a brother in the Porn Reboot group. He asked:

“J.K., why do you say ‘At this moment in my reboot’ sometimes? You are 15 years free from pornography. Doesn’t it take two years to reboot, or at least for your brain to rewire? That sounds more like saying ‘At this point in my recovery’, which you regularly point out has no deadline. Don’t you often say you kick people out of the group once their reboot is ‘done’?”

A lot of men who first arrive at the Porn Reboot program assume that it’s just about quitting porn. Sure, quitting your out-of-control behavior with porn, sex, and masturbation is the primary goal. However, quitting porn is only the beginning of the Porn Reboot process. 

Instead, Porn Reboot is a holistic process. Cutting porn out of your life doesn’t magically heal all the other areas that you harmed. It doesn’t build back reboot capital in the parts of your life that are suffering. Eliminating your behavior with porn, sex, and masturbation is only the beginning.

Too many men think that quitting porn is all it takes to overcome porn addiction. If it were that simple I wouldn’t be doing what I was doing. I wouldn’t work with hundreds of men every year who burn their lives down because of their porn addiction problems. You wouldn’t be here reading this either if you truly believed that quitting porn was the only thing you needed to do.

No, brother. Quitting porn is only the start.

This is exactly why I’m so against things like “no fap.” Yeah, it’s great you stopped jerking off. That’s wonderful. But that’s not going to fix your financial issues. It’s not going to fix your mental health issues. It won’t fix your attachment issues or your social anxiety. Truthfully, quitting porn does nothing but magnify your lack of effective coping skills.

Remember that something made you rely on porn in the first place. Maybe it was medicating stress, maybe it was rejection at school, or maybe it was simple curiosity and seeking pleasure. Whatever the reason, though, porn became your solution to problems instead of actual problem-solving skills.

Eliminating porn is the first step. But developing coping skills and building a life worth living is where the true work lies. The system will get you to the point where you are no longer dependent on pornography, but it doesn’t mean the unresolved issues in your life are suddenly resolved. And that may take much longer than the two years required to rewire your brain. 

I’m not some magical guru who has fixed every area of his life. I’m very aware of the areas where I’ve made a lot of progress but I’m also more than aware of the areas where I’m not where I want to be. I use the phrase “At this moment in my reboot” because I recognize that I still have work to do, too.

I view rebooting as a lifestyle, meaning I apply the principles I used to control my behavior to dealing with other unresolved issues. The system isn’t only useful for pornography, it’s useful for every area I want to work on in my life. I practice what I preach which means I’m still working on myself to this day.

Our brother was keen to recognize this point and I’m grateful that he brought it up. I don’t want you thinking that I believe I’ve got all the answers. I don’t. I simply have a system that works for me and the other men in the Porn Addiction Counseling group. And I don’t just sit here writing blog posts, making YouTube videos, and recording podcasts without continuing to do the work.

When you hear me say “At this point in my reboot,” I’m not referring to my sexual behavior or my behavior with pornography. I’m referring to the other unresolved issues that I’m dealing with in my life. I’m no better and no worse than you, brother. I’m on my own journey through life and dedicated to helping others escape the same hellish cycle I found myself in.

While I don’t believe we are porn addicts forever, I do believe we are forever works in progress. Very few people will ever truly achieve enlightenment. We’re always going to have things we need to work through in life. But when you remove your out-of-control sexual behavior from the equation, working on these issues becomes far more effective and manageable. And life becomes that much more beautiful, too.