Porn addiction is a serious problem for thousands of men around the world. I know this is true because I’ve worked with many of them in my almost 15 years of building the Porn Reboot program. It’s something that can destroy a man’s life and strip him of everything worth living for when it gets bad enough.
Pornography is a growing issue, especially for men who are exposed to it during their younger years. Excessive porn use alters natural brain chemistry and causes a wide range of negative effects. Are you wondering whether your pornography use might be a problem? Over the next few weeks, I want to cover 10 of the most common porn addiction problems I see among men seeking help in the Porn Reboot program. These include:
If you’re like the rest of us in the Porn Reboot program, I know you’ve asked yourself at least a few times why you’re watching certain types of porn. Over time you’ve likely stumbled into some odd genres that you never imagined finding arousing. You might feel ashamed or embarrassed about the things you watch, yet you come back to them night after night.
Unusual porn fetishes are a huge part of porn addiction symptoms. Any guy who watches porn for a long time knows it’s fairly normal to progress from one genre to another. Similar to drugs or alcohol, your brain develops a “tolerance” for your usual porn genre. Once your go-to videos don’t do it for you anymore, you have to move on to another type of scene.
Most of the time we start with straight porn but that becomes boring after a while. Then we move into varying genres, from lesbians to interracial to gay men to transgender people and so on. Eventually, you may progress into watching more intense, aggressive, and hardcore scenes. Some men reach the point of watching illegal material, too.
The shock and excitement of taboo sex tend to be the thing that causes you to orgasm. Unfortunately, you send a signal to your brain that says, “Hey, this feels good and I’m totally cool with getting off on this,” each time you orgasm to one of these fetishes. Oftentimes they aren’t things you would ever participate in in real life, but you continue watching them play out on the screen day after day.
The most important thing I want to stress is that the kind of porn you masturbate to isn’t an indicator of your sexual orientation. I know it’s something that lots of men worry about when they find themselves watching gay porn. Watching these genres of porn doesn’t necessarily mean you’re gay or even bisexual.
I’ve talked with many gay men who, through repeated exposure to porn, developed a sexual attraction to females. They were never interested in women before in their lives yet the porn they watched altered their arousal template. The same applies to straight men who watch gay porn.
Still, this doesn’t keep men from fearing that porn changed their sexual orientation. Again, this isn’t true. If you’re concerned about this, you may be dealing with something called a homosexual obsessive compulsive disorder, or HOCD. It’s the persistent fear that you may have a different sexual orientation than you imagined. Men who watch porn genres opposite to their sexuality often struggle with it but they do so in silence.
Ultimately, any unusual porn fetishes you consume may alter your arousal template for the time you’re watching porn. However, once you eliminate porn, sex, and masturbation from your life, those compulsive fetishes dissipate. You’ll learn what really arouses you and what was porn-induced. And it’s not something you have to handle alone because nearly every man in the Porn Reboot program understands this symptom from personal experience.
Multiple relapses over the years, the guilt, betrayal of loved ones, the erectile dysfunction the jump into acting out in real life
It’s a rough journey, alright!
Sometimes, its easier to deal with everything by unconsciously telling ourselves lies. These lies grow and overtime turn out to be the greatest hindrance to our progress.
This post will help you identify the most common lies we tell ourselves about our porn use.
1) Powerless Lie: I can’t stop watching porn. I can’t quit.
This another lie and a red flag for low self-esteem. Most frequently told when you feel that you are completely powerless to control your addiction.
You CAN quit. You are more powerful than you imagine. Perhaps you grew with some rough experiences that knocked you down a few notches. You can still rise.
Willpower is a muscle- it gets tired, but it will get you far enough to see the mountaintop in this tough climb. Once you have a glimpse at freedom, you will do whatever it takes to get there!
A belief is not an idea held by the mind, it is an idea that holds the mind. – Elly Roselle.
2) Downplay Lie:I must have recovered.
This!
This was one of the biggest obstacles in my porn addiction journey.
I would quit porn and masturbation for a few weeks and feel amazing then the thoughts would begin to slowly creep in well, I haven’t felt the urge in so long- I must be fine! Phew- thank God it’s not an addiction!
Well, guess what downplaying led to?
I fell right back into the porn and masturbation cycle.
Another variation of this lie occurs when you quit watching porn, but then try to masturbate. To your surprise, you find that it’s almost impossible to do so without watching porn. Back to porn again. Both are lies we tell ourselves to rationalize the addiction.
3) Whitewash Lie:I was drunk., I was high, It was right there.
In my college days, excessive drinking and smoking was a one-way ticket to the masturbation station.
No matter how much I wanted to quit, putting myself under the influence invariably led to a relapse. For those trying to give up porn, the effects of alcohol and drugs on the process of quitting cannot be emphasized enough.
Once your inhibitions are lowered, or certain senses chemically heightened, the last vestiges of restraint fly out the window.
4) Minimize Lie: Just 5 minutes.
I’ll only look at this anime porn on Tumblr for 5 minutes.
Two hours later and 30 Firefox tabs later, you’re exhausted and disgusted from your porn binge.
The time trap always escalates. You play down and attempt to minimize the actual amount of time you know you will spend on porn.
5) Inflation Lie:I’m stressed
I feel like crap, so I deserve to watch porn. It’s been a crazy stressful day, screw it, I need this.
Another common lie where you inflate a rough situation into an excuse to binge on porn.
You haven’t developed alternate means of coping with stress, so when you experience above-average stress, you automatically return to the thing that soothes you.
Solution: Work on developing positive habits that you can turn to the moment your triggers kick in. Meditation has worked very well for me.
6) Implication Lie:My significant other isn’t into what I want.
My girlfriend doesn’t give blowjobs and she doesn’t like anal.
Yeap- I used that one too, and it nearly cost me my relationship.
It’s easy to blame or implicate someone for your porn habits. An easy, but a weak lie.Its also one of the top lies we tell ourselves before, during and after we act out porn fantasies in real life.
In our program Porn Reboot Intensive, I emphasize that taking responsibility is among the first steps to giving up pornography.
7) Privilege Lie:I’m a late bloomer.
I’m a late bloomer, and I missed out. I married early, that’s why I’m acting out. Wow. I feel like I’ve used every lie so far!
As a guy who teaches men how to meet and attract women, I’ve noticed that this lie is most common among the “Get Girls” crowd in the community.
Men who gain success later on in life develop confidence and improve self-esteem through self-improvement or career success tend to develop a sense of entitlement when justifying their porn or sex addiction. If your habit of having with women outside of your relationship is fueled by porn, it’s time to start cutting back.
8) Standard Lie: A man’s biology dictates that he should sleep with many attractive women as possible, or every guy does it.
I am guilty of this lie as well. While the statement is true, painting the picture of porn as a normal, standard part of a man’s lifestyle as an excuse for porn addiction constitutes lying to yourself.
Not every man watches porn and masturbates on a daily basis. In fact, some of the most accomplished men in history stayed far away from pornography.
9) Non-acceptance Lie: I don’t watch porn anymore.
I used this lie for too long. My rationalization was that spending the same amount of time that I used to spend on porn browsing Instagram for chicks in bikinis was obviously not watching porn.
The reboot process is sabotaged the moment you replace your addiction to porn with something else. Its the equivalent of someone addicted to cigarettes trying to quit by switching to e-cigarettes. It doesn’t work.
Quitting porn by rebooting involves completely avoiding and isolating yourself from any habits that that may potentially lead to a trigger.
10) Negating Lie:There is nothing wrong with porn, or playing out my addiction in real life.
If you say this, but one day you are attracted to women, and the next you’ve had sex with more sex workers or prostitutes from Craigslist than actual women, you’re lying to yourself.
Porn use escalates as our brain craves more stimulation. Negating the effects of pornography is the singularly most devastating lie you can tell yourself.
What are some of the lies not included here that YOU frequently tell yourself?
Do you remember when you were a kid and your imagination allowed you to visualize an amazing life?
I remember watching movies with my friends as a kid and pointing out the fast cars that the heroes and villains in the movies were driving and claiming their cars as mine when I grew up. I remember the beautiful actresses that I would marry one day and the physiques of those on-screen action heroes that I would one day possess.
The funny thing was that I really believed everything I said!
Have you ever wondered why none of the wonderful things you imagined as a kid ever happened to you?
Like, as kids it wasn’t as if all our dreams were impossible. In fact, for the majority of people living in a first world or developed country, things like creating wealth, dating or getting married to a certain type of person, driving a specific car, living in a certain type of neighborhood aren’t goals which are out of our reach.
Yet, for many men, as they go into their twenties, thirties, and forties, these things just completely slip off of their grasp. When you add porn, masturbation or sex addiction to the mix, you find yourself stuck in a hole of mediocrity with no way out.
Let’s talk about that.
Do you feel sick and tired of the endless monotony of your life?
Are you frustrated and unsatisfied with the direction things are headed, but still believe you could live a more satisfying life if you had a chance?
Is there an area of your life that you struggle with that you can’t seem to shake no matter how hard you try?
Seriously, how many of you ride in your cars, and when a high energy song comes on you begin to daydream about the awesome life you could have had then wondered why the fuck your life is so shitty right now?
You wanted to:
Find a purpose in life and follow it till the very end, but now you are stuck in a 9-5 job which you are not satisfied with, and trying to figure out if your 401k will be enough for you to survive on when you are an old man full of regrets.
You thought you’d have it all figured out by your mid-twenties, but now you are not on track to be where you hoped you’d be and you have NO IDEA if you’re even on the right path.
Maybe you’re one of those highly motivated success minded hustler types.
You read books like the 4 Hour Work Week, or Rich Dad Poor Dad, or Think and Grow Rich, decided to become wealthy, but ended up in debt up to your eyeballs, payment plans till infinity, and becoming wealthy is only a dream because you are always in survival mode…always.
You dreamed of seeing the world with the gorgeous woman of your dreams by your side, but now all you get in life is two weeks vacation and an average girl whom you don’t have the balls to leave because you’re afraid you can’t do better.
You spend more time watching porn than having sex with her.
So what went wrong?
You did the reasonable thing. You followed the right path, but how come your life sucks?
This is not a YOU problem. It’s a MAN’s problem.
Men today are no longer striving for greatness- even though we live in the best time in history to achieve all our dreams.
We’re numbing our minds with porn, video games, TV and whatever else technology has to offer us.
In the meantime, did you know that Men are and 9x more likely than women to be addicted to sex or pornography?
Women initiate 70% of all divorces, leaving us devastated, broke, and at the mercy of a court system which prioritizes women.
Men are 4x more likely to commit suicide
Men are more likely to be sexually abused as children and adults ( thanks to the prison system)
Heres the interesting thing. With all these stats against men, you’d think they would reach out for help- but no.
Men are far less likely to reach out for help and support than women. Women have numerous support communities online which help them overcome addictions, abusive relationships and help them start businesses which is one reason why women start businesses at a much higher rate than men.
Let me make one thing clear:
Having a recovery coach or a mentor does not imply that you are a weakling, or that you are not capable of doing something for yourself. Instead, recovery coaching and mentorship allows you to grow faster by taking advantage of the experience and point of view of a person who is already where you want to be.
A person with training and a background in addiction recovery who will hold you accountable, call you out on your bullshit and give you the straight truth without sugar coating it.
Someone who is not afraid to offend you and cares more about your success than your feelings.
If you think you can make it not just past porn, but on to greater things in your life without a coach, you’re fighting a losing battle.
No one does this on their own.
Show me a man who has successfully recovered from his addiction and I will show you a mentor hiding somewhere within his self-made story.
If you aspire to a great life, you’re going to need help getting there. More than anytime in history, men need mentors to guide them towards achieving greatness in life, relationships, and business.
Here’s why a recovery coach is so useful and necessary to you today.
1) Serious Accountability
Anyone can tell a therapist they will do something, then not do it. It’s an entirely different story with a strong, masculine mentor and recovery coach.
It’s about being a man. You develop a bond based on mutual respect with a mentor.
Men keep their word- especially to other men whom they respect. The greatest shame you will feel is when you have let another man down.
Many men have formed a habit of casually not keeping their word. They have no idea what masculine accountability is. Being around strong men who demand accountability is a requirement to grow as a man.
When you have a masculine mentor keeping you accountable, you’re not a weak person. You are a smart man for investing in yourself with a man who will help you become your greatest self.
Weakness is shying away from help because you think it makes you look silly or like a pussy. True strength is asking for help where it is needed.
2) You need a person who doesn’t just listen but challenges you to step up
A good recovery coach will call you on your bullshit before your story even begins.
A counselor, therapist or psychiatrist will do three things:
a) Listen to you, which is great
b) Give you a prescription for a drug
c) Work with you in a group with other men and encourage you to share your feelings.
These are all fine, BUT a lot of men have therapists even though deep down they KNOW they aren’t accomplishing anything. All they have is an allotted time to unload their guilt to someone who will listen, then go right back to the behavior that’s destroying their life.
Come on!
You know you can bullshit your therapist and the reality is that you actually like doing that because it takes away responsibility from you and you feel like you are doing something.
With a recovery coach, with a mentor, you have to step up.
With a counselor, therapist or psychologist, you can keep acting like a little child and manipulating them and they’ll let you get away with it.
A recover Recovery Coach/Mentor will tell you:
“I see your challenge. Instead of dwelling on the past, let’s move forward and grow with this challenge. I’ve been where you are and I feel your pain. I overcame that very issue without sitting on a therapists couch for years, taking medication, or spending a fortune.”
A recovery coach listens to you- but deeply, beyond your words. He only speaks the truth and is only concerned with actions that get you specific results. Results that lead to growth.
During the process, you will discover that overcoming all the challenges you faced in the past are the very things that make you a strong, complete man.
A recovery coach will not allow you to run or hide from your challenges. He will guide you towards battling them face to face and in the process, you will grow in strength and resilience.
It certainly won’t be easy. But it will be worth it.
3) Discussing dating, relationships, and women with your friends and family is always a failing move
If you are aiming to overcome your porn addiction and create great relationships with women – relationships bursting with deep intimacy and connection, your friend who has been in a relationship and is now engaged to marry his high school sweetheart is not your best go to.
Your friend who has been a “natural” with women from day 1 has no idea what he is doing- he just does it and women love it. Your female friends can only tell you to just be yourself and the right woman will show up. But you know that your relationships with women are nowhere close to where you wish it to be.
Some of the best men’s recovery coaches have a background in dating, pickup and some sort of formalized dating training. Over time, that approached usually evolves into a healthier method of working with men.
A good mentor will start from the inside. He will teach you that being accepted by women, being attracted to the women you deserve begins with loving yourself. It begins with developing healthy self-esteem.
After that, you’ll know for the first time, the exact sort of woman that you desire. He’ll coach you into finding out where this woman hangs out, what she enjoys, and the specific aspects of your personality and lifestyle that she finds attractive. Many men can picture their ideal woman, but they are simply searching for her in the wrong places.
4) Didn’t have strong masculine role models while growing up
Perhaps you grew up without a father or, more likely you grew up with a father who wasn?t emotionally present for you. Maybe your father was a great man and did his very best, giving all he knew how to give.
Maybe your struggle with dealing with conflicts and you always try to avoid them, because you don’t want any problems. Maybe you have no idea what to do with attractive women.
Maybe you’re a submissive nice guy who always finds himself seeking men and women’s approval.
Maybe you’re the driven alpha male- always hustling, always struggling to validate yourself through hard work, financial and career achievement, nice cars, brand name item, and sexy women to mask your deep-seated pain.
Maybe you’ve even been described as feminine. There is nothing wrong with that. The masculine must eventually balance it out.
A masculine mentor will take your masculinity to the next level or several levels. He has demonstrated (not tell you) the healthy way to be authentic, respected and have all your physical, emotional and spiritual needs met without compromising your values.
5) Women subdue your masculinity
Everywhere today, women are wondering: “Where are all the real men??”
The real men are out there they just don’t know how to bring forth their masculinity.
To you, Women have become mere objects to be conquered sexually. Every time you are in the presence of an attractive woman, you are sexualizing her, wondering what she looks like naked or what it would be like to have sex with her.
The more attractive she is, the higher on a pedestal you place her. Women know this, and as result, they emasculate you and treat you like a kid.
You have only yourself to blame for this behavior as a result.
A recovery coach will not only show you how to maintain your masculinity with women, but how to magnify it so that there is no doubt in her mind that she is in the presence of a real man.
6) You are stumbling through the wilderness with no purpose
When was the last time you ask yourself:
Who the fuck am I??
What do I truly want for my life??
You work for someone else whom you don’t like and who dictates your hours and even your finances.
You keep your opinions to yourself even when your boundaries are crossed.
You drink, watch porn, smoke weed, browse facebook and watch sports to numb the pain of having no idea who the fuck you are.
You buy houses, cars, clothes, and electronics to make you feel good. Two weeks later, that new device isn’t making you as happy as it did initially- it’s just another object.
You are a fucking MAN.
Men need a mission. Men need something to conquer, something greater than them.
A recovery coach reignites the fire that died within you. He guides you towards your unique mission – One that you are willing to give your heart and soul to.
7) Emotional Freedom
Men are conditioned to keep their emotions bottled up. Crying is for little bitches. Showing emotion is seen as weakness.
The reality is that true strength in a man comes from vulnerability. Keeping your emotions deep inside you only cause pain and eventually leads to you releasing them in unhealthy ways.
Men process emotions differently from women. A mentor does not fear emotions- neither his nor yours and he will teach you how to handle emotions in a masculine way.
8) Going through life without close male friends.
Close male friends are not your boys that you grab drinks with, but real men who are supportive of you.
Men are afraid to approach other men and tell them they have a fear or problem because they are afraid that they will be told to shut up and Man up.
I GUARANTEE you that ANY man who cannot connect with other men is a sad, sometimes depressed and most definitely lonely man.
As a human being, you have a need for connection- without it, you are incomplete and you will wither. Men are literally killing themselves because they have no outlet. No one talks about it because society does not care to broadcast the statistics of men who take their lives.
That’s why you are sitting alone in your room with your escalating porn addiction, your loneliness, your shame, guilt and lack of self-confidence. That’s why the male suicide, domestic violence, and sexual assault rates are at an all-time high and you will never hear of it.
No One Is Coming and men die because of that.
Where are other men you can share your truth with? Do you have men who will listen and not judge you?
Your close male friends are often the only people you can count on. Yes, even after your family, spouse and even children have deserted you, you close masculine male friends will be the only ones standing by your side in brotherhood.
This is such a powerful fact, yet many men neglect this all-important part of their life.
9) You believe that strength means being a lone wolf
What makes you a man is NOT your ability to figure life out on your own, but instead seeking the help and companionship of others on your journey. So many men stay hooked on porn because of the feel that they can figure it out on their own.
You can’t!!
Our egos will cause us to spend time, money and incredible amounts of energy trying to make it on our own because we are afraid of looking weak in the eyes of other men.
Issues that could be solved in moments by seeking the help of someone more experienced go on for years unsolved as you scour the internet, credit card in hand, searching of the magic pill that will solve your problem.
There is nothing in the world that another masculine, experienced man somewhere doesn’t already know.
This is why in ancient times, there were Masters and Disciples. There were craftsmen and apprentices. When men were men, they knew that they had to learn from one who had gone before them. These days, Google is most men?s recovery coach and mentor.
When you seek help from a mentor, you are not weak. Your mentor will not judge you or make fun of you. Instead, you gain another man who is serving out HIS purpose, which is- getting you back in touch with your true masculinity – your true power.
10) You are no longer going all out
All we have is this one life and all we do is look at what others are doing and try to keep up.
At one point, maybe you did go all in. Now you’re comfortable. You’re playing small. Maybe you’re waiting for the benefits of not masturbating to kick in…maybe you’re waiting to quit porn.
When you are going all out and playing the game of life for real, life PLAYS BACK.
Life charges up the masculinity in you. You find yourself getting respect from other men, becoming less tolerant of your addictions, you get more attraction from women and most importantly, you respect yourself.
Finally:
You may not know it, but there are recovery coaches- mentors out there who live to support other men.
Porn Addiction Counseling lead men to their authentic selves and empower them to experience freedom, love, and fulfillment in their relationships businesses and in their lives
Recovery Coaches keep you in integrity. They make you a man who loves women vulnerably, and shamelessly. They help you regain and maintain that fighting spirit that is every mans genetic right. They unleash the true masculine man within you.
You have two options.
This can be just another blog post to you. You can lie to yourself and tell yourself that this is just more motivational, rah-rah feel-good bullshit. Or you can take the difficult path. You can put your ego aside and ask for the support you need to become the Man you know you really are.
Yes, it’s scary.
It’s scary to go all out, to decide to make something of our lives. It’s not a journey you have to take alone, though. There are men out in the world who will help you achieve your greatness.
Are you ready to become the greatest man you are capable of becoming?
It isn’t too late to late gain control of your out of control sexual behavior and bad habits to become the hero, the movie star of your own life.
Personally, There is nothing you have experienced when it comes to porn addiction that I haven’t, so don’t feel any shame or hesitation about finding out if you need a mentor.
Do NOT put in an application if you are not 100% ready to change your life.
I’m J.K, your brother in this struggle and I wish you the best in your recovery from your porn addiction. If you found this helpful share it a few other men, and don’t forget to subscribe. I release two every week.
Porn Addiction and compulsive behavior can affect anyone regardless of their socioeconomic background. Unfortunately, many highly successful individuals struggle with their addictions in silence and are unable to get help for a myriad of reasons. …
