Some mental health professionals carry a dangerous belief that porn addiction is not a real condition. You may have experienced this at some point if you went to a mental health professional for help with your out-of-control behavior. Occasionally a therapist will suggest that your problem isn’t porn addiction but a high sex drive and encourage you to take medication for that problem.
Now as you read this, remember that I’m not a doctor and therefore cannot provide legitimate medical advice. I can only speak anecdotally about my experiences and the experiences of the men I’ve worked with over the years. At the same time, a lot of therapists who recommend medication aren’t doctors and cannot provide prescriptions, either. They also don’t have the same level of knowledge about and experience with pornography addiction. So keep these things in mind.
This recently happened to a brother in our group and he brought up a great question. He said,
“My counselor says that I have an exceptionally high libido that interferes with my life, and recommends that I see someone for medication to lower it. I used to take Wellbutrin to help with impulse control but stopped taking it a while ago. Is anyone in the group doing this along with their reboot, or does anyone have experience with taking medication specifically to help you control your behavior?”
Before I dive into my response, I want to share an incredible response from another brother in the group. He responded before I had a chance to and provided an incredibly well-thought-out answer. He replied,
“I also have an exceptional libido, but libido itself has never been the issue for me. Rather, the issue has been my refusal to feel what I feel and know what I know, and my pattern of using sexual indulgence to escape my own experience. Temporarily taking medication or supplements to reduce libido may help you out of a crisis and through withdrawals, but I recommend against them as a long-term strategy of self-control.
“My ultimate objective is the integration of my libido and my integrity without suppression or indulgence. I personally experienced a dramatic reduction in libido for several weeks after minor surgery, and I haven’t noticed anything else in my life that obviously reduced libido.”
I believe this brother hit the nail on the head. Regardless of the “cause” of your out-of-control behavior, I don’t believe that medication is a long-term solution for anything. In my experience, medication often serves as a bandage rather than a true method of healing. It covers up the problem for a short time but eventually, you need to deal with the true source of the issue.
People who take medication for long periods typically become dependent on it. If you choose to take medication for a “high sex drive”, there’s a chance that you’ll eventually have to deal not only with your out-of-control behavior but also with getting off of that medication.
I noticed another red flag in our brother’s original question. He mentioned that his counselor jumped straight from diagnosing him with a high sex drive to offering medication. If this is truly how the process played out, that therapist missed a lot of opportunities to consider and address other important factors at play when it comes to compulsive sexual behaviors.
I’ve found that many therapists don’t truly understand how porn addiction works. While some take the time to learn about the reality of the condition, many dismiss it as not a “real” problem. Occasionally brothers find themselves under the care of these dismissive therapists and that’s a dangerous place to be. These therapists aren’t familiar with the complexities of out-of-control sexual behavior and often neglect to consider alternatives to medications.
They likely don’t understand the importance of anchoring your day. They probably don’t encourage you to find an accountability partner. They might work with you on developing emotional awareness or boundaries, but not through the lens of compulsive sexual behavior. They often don’t understand factors like time of day or specific environmental triggers either. They just want to stick you on medication and call it a day.
Another thing to think about is therapists who suggest that porn addiction is really a high sex drive often neglect to take a blood work panel before recommending medication. How can they possibly know the cause of your supposed high sex drive if they don’t have any data or numbers to back it up? I always recommend taking a blood work panel before making any decisions like that.
I don’t want this to turn into an anti-medication rant. I’m not at all anti-medication; in fact, I think it’s a helpful tool in certain situations. But I do not believe that medication is an effective long-term solution, especially for brothers struggling with compulsive sexual behavior. I think there are many alternatives that therapists and doctors often neglect to recommend before jumping straight to medication.
I think there is a checklist you should run through before deciding to take medication for your compulsive sexual behavior. First, determine whether your therapist is knowledgeable about porn addiction in the first place. Second, get a blood work panel and find out what your total testosterone and free testosterone levels are. Third, identify whether there is any childhood trauma at play that may fuel your behavior. And finally, after checking all of these boxes you can make an informed decision about whether a short-term medication plan is right for you.
I know medication wasn’t necessary for my situation and it often isn’t for the brothers that I work with. We learn to control our out-of-control behaviors by working with our biology to rewire our brains. We don’t need to use medication as a crutch; we lean on each other during tough times and lift one another when we’re on an upswing.
The Porn Reboot program is designed specifically to help you end your out-of-control sexual behavior. We don’t push meds, therapy, or psychiatry on you, nor are we opposed to using those tools when they’re necessary. We simply encourage you to identify the approach that works best for you and take the appropriate action to end your behavior with porn for good.
I often hear from guys in our Porn Reboot groups who were doing well for a period then fell off seemingly out of nowhere. Everything was going right: they were eating well, they were on a good trajectory in their career, their family life was calm, and they were staying away from porn and masturbation. But all of a sudden something happened, a little unexpected twist, and they slipped.
I know I have some experience with that, too. There were times in my life when my gym routine was on point, I could take rejection from women without batting an eye, I was eating well, and my performance at work was top-notch. Then a little thing would happen and completely throw me off.
I have this concept that I think describes these situations perfectly. I call it the three modes of reboot progress. These three modes include:
Survival Mode
Thrive Mode
Impact Mode
If you keep struggling with taking three steps forward and three steps back, this might be helpful for you. I encourage you to read this post and then do some journaling to determine which mode you may be in at the moment.
So, what does each mode entail?
Survival Mode
The dictionary defines survival as continuing to exist or remaining intact. Living in survival mode means doing just enough to get by without completely breaking down. From what I’ve noticed in over a decade of working with men and observing general human behavior, the majority of people live their whole lives in survival mode. They spend the entirety of their time on this planet doing what they can scrape by but never moving beyond this.
When you’re in survival mode you lack clarity, purpose, or aim; you’re simply doing all you can to make it through the day. You’re treading water trying to pay the bills, support your family, and make ends meet. Maybe your ideal weight is 175 but you’re sitting at an overweight 230 pounds doing what you can to keep the scale from climbing higher, but nothing to bring that number down.
People living in survival mode are terrified of taking risks. They aren’t willing to bet on themselves. They’re not willing to step out of their comfort zone (no matter how uncomfortable it looks from the outside) and do what it takes to rise above. And if you’re in survival mode, you’re going to stay stuck in the same miserable cycle of three steps forward, three steps back.
Men living in survival mode feel entitled. They believe the government should take care of them, that women owe them sex, and that they deserve compliments for completing even the most basic of tasks. If you’re stuck in survival mode, chances are you’re too busy blaming others for your problems or looking for shortcuts to take responsibility for your actions. But realizing and accepting personal responsibility is necessary to escape the survival mode cycle.
I don’t work with men stuck in survival mode. There’s nothing I can do to help them. Until they are willing to step up to the plate and take responsibility for their lives, there isn’t a single thing I can do to make them see what they need to do. If this is you, I suggest you swallow your pride, own up to the truth of your reality, and get ready to make some changes as soon as possible.
Thrive Mode
The next mode is thrive mode. Men in thrive mode have escaped survival mode but are now stuck in a different type of downward spiral, and often can’t understand why. These men are experiencing growth in every area of their reboot, doing well in their careers, rebuilding their families, and getting their health in order, but they don’t know when to stop. It’s like the pendulum swung from one extreme to the other.
Thrive mode is deceiving because it feels like you’re in a good place. You make good money, you have nice things, you don’t need to worry about your bills, and you can often afford to do whatever you want to do. Sure, you still experience challenges but they are different types of challenges than those you face in survival mode.
The men in our implementation and intensive programs typically tend to be in thrive mode. Men who make the financial commitment to our group have usually escaped survival mode and recognize the worth of investing in themselves. However, they still can’t seem to make it over the final mental hump. They still have an empty pit inside that they try to fill with this insatiable hunger for success, but no matter how far they move up the ladder they still feel like they aren’t winning.
Does this feel familiar? If so, there’s one final piece of the puzzle that you’re missing. The seeming strengths that brought you this far will continue to be your weaknesses. You can continue building your business, expanding your stock portfolio, adding 0’s to your bank account, and showering your family with everything they could possibly need or want, but you won’t fill that emptiness inside of you until you move into the final mode.
Impact Mode
Impact mode is the third and final mode of reboot progress. It’s the most difficult one to come to terms with but it’s also the most rewarding. I didn’t get there myself until just the last few years but I believe it’s something that every man should aim for. You transition into impact mode once you recognize that you didn’t move from survival mode to thrive mode alone, no matter how self-made you believe you are.
People paved the way and lifted you up in different ways along your journey. It happened with a little bit of kindness here or an important bit of well-timed wisdom or advice there. Now you’re at a place surrounded by abundance, every area of your reboot is thriving, and you have more than you could ever need. Your life is so full that you have almost no choice but to help other people, but if you choose to continue amassing things trying to fill that empty pit then you miss the beauty of impact mode.
Once you realize that true joy and fulfillment come from helping others, you cross the bridge from thrive mode to impact mode. It’s a wonderful gift to turn around and help others the way you were helped along the way, too. You’re not consumed by the fear of not making it in life or the fear of losing everything; you know that you’re in a good place and you want to share the path to this place with others.
What Mode Are You In?
So I want you to ask yourself, brother, what mode are you in? Put your ego aside, look around you, and answer honestly. If you’re in survival mode, stop blaming other people. Start hanging out with those doing better than you are and set some goals. If you’re in thrive mode, start asking yourself what you can do to remove the focus from you and shift it to others.
Set some time aside, do some writing, and figure out which mode you are in. Once you can answer honestly, start doing the work to move into the next phase, with the goal of ultimately arriving at impact mode. And on the off chance that you are already in impact mode, what can you do to create more impact? Can you turn up the volume? Can you do more?
As men who have learned to control their out-of-control behavior, I believe we have a responsibility to help others. Aside from meditation, I feel most fulfilled when I’m working with other men. Maybe you disagree with that, but I know it’s the case for me. And maybe it’s because you haven’t reached impact mode yet, brother, because there is so much more to life than simply amassing things. We have the opportunity to impact the world for the better.
Can you believe we’re already in the final week of 2021?
Winter holidays have come and gone and we’re only a few days away from New Year’s. If you haven’t already, now is the time to sit down and outline some goals for yourself during the upcoming year. Take a moment to reflect on 2021 and look forward to what you want to accomplish in 2022.
One critical aspect of setting effective goals is ensuring you can measure your progress. If your goal isn’t measurable, how will you know whether you’re on track to reach it or not?
Some goals are easy to measure and track. Things like financial numbers or business milestones are straightforward and measurable. You can see precisely how close you are to accomplishing what you’re working toward.
When it comes to your porn addiction recovery, though, setting measurable goals is a bit more difficult. Many brothers are tempted to measure their success by their porn-free time. Sure, counting days is the easiest way to measure but it’s the least effective way to track progress. I’ve always been very vocal about encouraging men in the Porn Reboot program to not count days. I believe that porn-free streaks don’t matter, nor do I believe they are a true measure of your progress.
Counting days means nothing. What is the point of not masturbating if you aren’t going to make any other changes? Why would you not bust a nut for months and months but remain the same cranky, irritable, emotional person you’ve always been? If you remain undisciplined, isolated, and lack determination, then who cares how long your streak is?
There are better ways to measure your reboot goals in 2022.
Measure your improvement by recognizing whether you’re still acting out in ways that lead to slips. Measure your improvement based on your emotions and behavior. Measure your improvement by tracking the coping skills you implement or reboot capital you gain. Measure your improvement using the strength of your relationships.
These are all far more useful indicators of success than the number of days since you last jerked off or watched porn.
The Porn Reboot program is not for men who only want to overcome their pornography addiction. It isn’t for men who are concerned with their porn use or masturbation but not the other areas of their lives that are falling apart. It’s not for men who aren’t willing to make drastic changes in their lives to leave their old ways behind.
Instead, the Porn Reboot program is for men ready to dedicate their time, attention, and energy to becoming the best version of themselves possible. It’s for men who are tired of living directionless, pathetic lives that center around watching porn and masturbating. The program is a pathway to help you not only overcome your compulsive sexual behavior but to enhance your entire life.
If you want an easy way to measure your porn addiction recovery goals in 2022, I encourage you to sign up for our free “Best Year Ever” training program. It’s my gift to you for being part of the Porn Reboot community. Whether you’re new to the blog or you’ve been reading for a while, I want to offer this free blueprint that will help you start the year strong as a way to thank you for joining us here.
Once you sign up, I invite you to join us in the free Porn Reboot Facebook group if you haven’t already. We’re a group of hardworking, high-performing men dedicated to helping every man who wants to overcome his behavior with porn and reframe his life. If that sounds like you, sign up for the free program, join the group, and let us know that you’re starting 2022 strong with us.
If you’re anything like me, brother, you’re probably pretty hard on yourself.
I’ve noticed that a lot of us are pretty hard on ourselves even after we start gaining a hold on our out-of-control behavior. We spent so many months and years consumed by pornography and compulsive sexual behavior that it’s difficult to look at how our lives panned out.
I remember I hated myself when I was still struggling with my behavior. I was very hard on myself because I’d become the type of guy who said I’d do something but never followed through. I was also the type of guy who could see that I was doing something that was hurting me but I couldn’t do anything to stop it.
I can’t tell you how many times I promised myself that this would be the last time, that it wasn’t going to happen again. Then I would relapse and end up back where I started, or in an even worse place, over and over again. Eventually, I lost trust in myself because I continued doing this week after week, month after month, year after year.
Imagine depending on someone who tells you they’re going to do something, but whenever the time comes they have an excuse. Every single time you need them they let you down. This person you depend on has some reason or another to let you down each time you look to them to follow through.
It’s pretty hard to love this sort of person especially when the things they mess up are important to you. But that’s exactly the type of person that many of us believe ourselves to be. We’ve let ourselves down time and time again so we’ve lost faith in ourselves over the years.
You have to build that faith and trust back up if you want to be successful in your reboot. It’s not easy at the beginning when you have little reason to believe that this time will be different, though. One tool you can use to get yourself through these lulls in belief is self-compassion.
The idea of being compassionate with yourself might sound silly or even impossible. You might think it’s cheesy or woo-woo science. But today I ask that you leave behind whatever preconceived notions you have about self-compassion.
I started using a very specific technique to practice self-compassion in my life. Think about the way your grandmother views you. If you don’t have a grandmother around, consider the typical ways grandparents treat their grandchildren.
More often than not, grandparents don’t carry the burden of raising their grandchildren so there’s some space between them and that responsibility. This is why you see the stereotype of grandparents who spoil their grandchildren; they love endlessly and often lack the weight that comes with raising you themselves.
Think of the compassion your grandmother or grandfather holds in their heart for you. They have so much love, compassion, and forgiveness. They want what’s best for you and want to see you do well. No matter the mistakes you make, your grandparents will continue loving you through it.
I still struggle with the self-compassion aspect of my reboot to this day. It’s not easy to cut myself some slack or give myself a break. I expect myself to be a high performer at all times. So I adopted this practice of viewing myself as my grandparents would in the last few weeks. I’ve been working on it as a way to allow myself to be more compassionate toward myself.
When I look at myself as a grandparent would, I feel endlessly loving and forgiving. I feel like I wouldn’t give up on myself. I would be patient with myself. No matter what happens, I would always find love for myself despite the circumstances.
I’d love for you to try this out and let me know what you think. If self-compassion is difficult for you to achieve like it is for me, this practice may be useful for you, too. After trying it for a few days, hop over into our Porn Addiction Recovery – Reboot Facebook group and let us know about your experience!
You’ll often hear that a long-term, monogamous relationship can’t compete with the novelty and dopamine-inducing effects of having sex with a new person.
This is a widespread opinion.
And as a result, many people decide not to even try to be monogamous – they think they’ll never make it. This applies to pornography addicts as well.
Now, I’m not going to lie and say that there isn’t a small element of truth to this opinion. But it doesn’t take into account one factor:
There are many men who had a lot of casual sex. But that was before they got married and stayed committed for the rest of their lives.
These individuals have an advantage over others because they’ve had their fill of sexual experiences on purpose.
But what about men who recover from sex addiction and get married?
Well, that doesn’t mean they’re actually ready for marriage. Most of the time, that goal’s been set for them and conditioned by society.
These men then feel like monogamy is the only way to go. So, they end up in relationships and just play along because they feel like that’s what they’re supposed to do.
But in doing so, they most likely won’t become a happy, fulfilled person. It’s because whatever issues they had with women and sex won’t just go away because they’ve become monogamous.
Now, you might wonder why don’t more coaches and therapists talk about this.
Well, apart from myself, I have yet to meet a non-religious counselor, coach, or mentor who wasn’t a sex addict and had an active and healthy sexual life involving multiple women.
While some therapists have recovered from their addictions, none of them put themselves through a structured method regarding women.
I have clients who don’t recover from their porn addiction.
That’s the reality.
6 years of recovery mentoring and a few hundred clients in, I’ve seen men in their mid to late twenties who choose to keep on watching porn enter their thirties and totally f**k their lives up.
While, as a professional, my clients do have the highest porn addiction recovery rate out of all the options out there, I still fret and stay up late trying to figure out how and why some clients don’t recover. Not everyone can be saved and this frustrates the hell out of me sometimes.
Not to sound all “zen” and deep- but today, during my morning meditation, I figured out a few reasons why. (this also means that my meditation session sucked, lol)
Don’t get me wrong, though. This process took about 5 years and today was the day I experienced my “revelation”.
The first thing to understand is that YOUR BRAIN DOES NOT WANT TO CHANGE.
The older you get, the tougher it is to recover. If you are over the age of 26, your brain has made enough sense of life and society that it doesn’t really need to change that much. You’ve created mental models for most things in life and complacency sets in. The human brain naturally resists rewiring of any sorts and prefers comfort and familiarity.
This process is called homeostasis.
This is one reason why recovery from porn addiction is not as easy as “staying away from porn for 90 Days”.
There are MANY things that our brain doesn’t want to change- not just watching porn and masturbating to it. I’ve compiled them into three main things which I call the three enemies of recovery.
Enemy #1: Confirmation Bias
Confirmation bias is the way your brain goes through information and discards anything which doesn’t fit the way you see the world. Remember- the brain resists change. Confirmation bias keeps us comfortable and prevents us from rewiring our brains neural pathways.
You can see confirmation bias demonstrated online where different people have polar opposite reactions to a video or article.
Another example is religion or some sort of ideology. Your ideology comes from two things: your beliefs and emotions.
Your beliefs are formed from a neural pathway in your brain being used over and over again- for years. Your emotions are neuro-chemical reactions. When combined, you get an ideology- like a religious conviction, political belief, radical feminism, socialism, radical veganism (this is apparently a thing), and so on.
The problem is that confirmation bias makes it difficult to analyze anything which is different from your belief or emotions. This is why many men cannot accept the fact that they are “porn addicts”. Your idea of an addict is not linked to pornography. Your beliefs about quitting porn hold you back.
Here’s an example you can probably relate to:
When you are experiencing a streak of not watching porn and masturbation, you begin to believe and tell yourself that “I’ve got this under control”- then you start getting sloppy with the things that kept your off porn in the first place and next thing you know, you are relapsing to something like a very light sex scene in a movie.
This happens OVER and OVER again…but you never change. You never change and keep thinking you have it under control because you haven’t changed your belief to something more realistic such as: “I don’t have this under control until my brain rewires itself AND it takes more than a few months to recover from porn addiction.”
Enemy #2: Technology
Many men- especially millennial men, use technology irresponsibly and there is a price to pay for that. The cost is damage to their ability to synthesize information and to think independently.
My research into my clients revealed a few things:
The more you watch T.V, the less likely you are to recover from your porn addiction. Men who watch T.V, Netflix, and Youtube as entertainment for more than 10 hours a week have a HIGH relapse rate.
Men who are most likely to relapse consume information via technology without discipline. They look up anything they don’t know on their phones before thinking for themselves. They would rather watch a video than read a book about recovery.
See, the majority of modern humans cannot deal with boredom or lack of satisfaction in their lives simply because every time they feel bored, they tune into T.V, Social Media or….porn.
We have not trained ourselves to sit and think in silence. As a result, many men cannot sit still and evaluate their emotional state- a necessary step in recovery.
They don’t THINK enough and as a result are not only prone to relapse but are prone to being unfulfilled and unsuccessful.
In our current world, success is not determined by how much manual labor you can do, or how hard you can work. It’s predicted by your ability to think and be creative.
Enemy #3: Lazy Thinking and Beliefs
Lazy Beliefs are basically beliefs which you formed to make life easier for you and make you feel better when you don’t achieve your goal.
Easy thinking makes you soft and fragile because it often puts the responsibility of your situation on someone else.
Here are a few examples:
a) “This time will be different because____________ will happen!”
This is the belief that something positive will happen in the future that will change your life without any effort on your part. For instance:
“I’ll stop watching porn and masturbating when I have sex /get a girlfriend/to get married to the right woman .”
“I’ll become more attractive/ stop being stressed when I get a good job/ become very successful ___years from now.”
“I won’t slip or relapse this time because I got a therapist/ recovery coach/ joined a group.”
b)”I’m ___________ therefore ____event probably won’t happen to me.”
This happens when you believeyou are exempt from something happening to you because you are “special”.
Let’s start with my favorite:
“I watched 70 videos about not fapping on Youtube and I am a Level 5 Black Belt with 500 Days of not fapping. so I’m going to recover for sure!”
Reality: You can remain in the early stages of recovery from porn addiction with no relapses for months and even YEARS only to relapse 2 years later because you still haven’t rewired your brain or dealt with the underlying issues that made you addicted to porn in the first place.
The ugly truth is that many men who claim to have recovered from porn addiction have not. They simply regressed to a stage of their addiction where they can go months without watching porn or masturbating- but they eventually slip and binge for a few days, then get back on the horse. This pattern will likely continue throughout their lives.
“I’m a strong Christian/Religious person- my faith and belief in Jesus Christ/ religious deity will pull me through”
Reality: God helps those who help themselves. Faith is an amazing thing to have in your arsenal against addiction, but Faith without a realistic goal, faith without doing the necessary recovery work, heck, even faith without a filter installed on your devices will NOT work.
” I won’t be unemployed and lonely in my thirties because I’m in college now and I have some friends.”
(Actual quote by a twenty-something-year-old porn addict who is an “introvert”, has no close friends, is failing his sophomore year in college and is broke because of his severe addiction to live cam sites).
Reality: As I mentioned earlier, I have followed the lives of dozens of my clients over the years. If you don’t fix your porn addiction and any other unhealthy behaviors in your twenties, it only gets tougher as you get older.
It is heartbreaking to speak to men in their 40’s who literally watched all their dreams slip away because of their effects of pornography on their lives:lack of focus, complacency with their career, lack of friends and an encouraging network, never attaining any form of financial independence, never being in a fulfilling long term relationship, or choosing porn over their one relationship.
“I can’t wake up early because I need at least 9 hours of sleep to function”
Reality: Sleep is important, so sleep as much as you need, but if you consistently go to bed at 2 am because you’re up watching Youtube videos, catching up on TV series, edging to porn or juggling 5 dead-end conversations on Tinder, you are only fooling yourself. Try going to bed at 9:30 PM if you can and see how many hours you really need. Some of you will literally solve 90% of your problems by being in bed by 10 PM every night.
“I would be more successful/ have more money if not for the____(blame someone else) who keeps me down!”
Reality: Who is the scapegoat in your life? Your parents? Your wife or girlfriend? Trump? The porn industry? Take 100% responsibility for your life.
Here’s what I mean by 100% responsibility: If my car gets rear-ended while I’m rushing to an important meeting and I am late as a result, its MY responsibility, not the idiot behind me who was texting and driving. If I wasn’t rushing and had left 30 minutes earlier, I would not be the victim in the accident.
If I am in a bar with friends and some drunk pick a fight with me and I get knocked out, it’s 100% MY RESPONSIBILITY because I could have
1) Not reacting in a way that resulted in a fight
2) Not been as easy to knock out (taken my martial arts training more seriously)
3) Not been drinking in a bar
One last one since I’m on a roll (this will probably lose me some subscribers- but whatever): if you are in a relationship and your girl cheats on you, its 100% YOUR RESPONSIBILITY.
1) There were probably warning signs that she was not long term material, but you ignored them because “she was the One”.
2) You got comfortable in your relationship and didn’t give her what she needed, so another guy swooped in.
3) Your relationship game wasn’t great/you weren’t experienced enough and some other guy who was better suited to her seduced her. In which case, she wasn’t long term material in the first place and most likely not the right woman for you.
The point is- take full responsibility for your life and trust me- you’ll be a much happier man.
There you have it- the three enemies of recovery.
It is my hope that bringing these to your awareness will prevent you from falling into this trap.
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 have a resistance to admitting that you have a porn addiction?
I admit- when I began my journey to end my out of control porn and masturbation behavior, I simply refused to categorize myself as an addict. After all, I came from an educated, moderately religious family with conservative values. I experienced a relatively happy, and memorable childhood. I never tried any hardcore drugs, and in early adulthood, I tried to live my life by the book.
Yet, I would find myself acting like a possessed heroin junkie anytime I went without porn or masturbating for three days.
Many men find it really difficult to admit they have a problem with pornography because it simply hasn’t been labeled an addiction by the mainstream media or society in general. That’s going to change over the next few years, but in the meantime, I’d like to point out why porn and masturbation addiction is so much trickier to beat than other addictions.
In fact, some of my clients who recovered from alcohol and drug addictions confirm that porn addiction effect, sex, and masturbation are harder to quit than those substances.
There are two simple criteria when it comes to identifying where a person’s porn use is addictive:
1) You have no control over it. This means you’ve made a firm decision to quit, but gave in several times.
2) Negative Consequences. It is affecting your emotions, career, relationships, productivity, academics or lifestyle in a negative way.
BOTH criteria must be met for porn, sex or masturbation to be classified as an addiction.
But the LEVEL of loss of control and the level of negative consequences must also be considered when trying to stop this behavior.
In my experience, the LEVEL of porn addiction varies depending on different factors in your life.
This is one crucial fact that many things all the quit-fapping influencers on YouTube, and even therapists don’t understand.
Excuse me while I rant for a moment.
This is not a game or a challenge – it is a serious problem that destroys lives.
A handful of techniques, tips, and philosophies MIGHT help a 21-year-old who spends 80% of his day glued to his smartphone or computer- but it will do nothing for the 28-year-old young professional who is trying to succeed at his career, or the 33 year old who realizes that he’s thrown away his twenties, or the 40-year-old who feels that he sabotaged his career and serious life relationships perhaps losing his kids to divorce, or the 52-year-old who feels that its pretty much over for him.
Just because a high testosterone 21-year-old feels guilty about masturbating twice a day doesn’t mean that a 27+-year-old man going places in life has the same problems as he does.
Some young men don’t know what it like to go through a break up (because they are so stuck on porn, that they can’t get in a relationship), deal with real-life stress such as paying mortgages, keeping employees on payroll, juggling work and kids, taking care of aging parents, paying taxes, deal with workplace politics- the list goes on.
Any 18 to 24-year-old reading this email is without a doubt above average and has some big aspirations in life. Take your problem with porn seriously, handle it and start living your best life instead of spending years playing 90 Day challenges.
[Rant Over]
Ever wonder why sometimes, you binge watch porn for weeks and sometimes you have the ability to 100% abstain for months or even years?
I used to wonder the same thing as well.
This happens because your level of porn addiction and your COMMITMENT to quit varies depending on life circumstances such as your : 1) Emotions 2) Stress 3) Relationships 4) Financial situation 5) Family
Next time you are watching a video, reading a book, or looking for a counselor to help you with your porn addiction, screen them to find out if they understand this.
Here are the levels of behavior with pornography:
Level 1
This is the person who watches pornography three or four times a year. In fact, if you can count the number of times you’ve watched porn in a 12 month period on one hand, then this is the level you are at.
Due to the highly sexualized world we live in, there is of course always a risk of increasing involvement with pornography. If you have well established healthy ways of managing your emotions, stress, and family life, you are in a good place.
Level 2
At this level- you are not addicted either. However, you have watched porn and masturbated to it 6 to 12 times a year. In some of those cases, you were not simply aroused.
One or more sessions may have been triggered by curiosity due to something you came across online or perhaps because of a reference someone made. At this level, you may have watched porn to medicate/feel better about some undesirable situation in your life.
Level 3
At this point, pornography is quite likely to become a problem. You are viewing porn at least once a month, possibly for a few months or years. You know you are at level three when you try to stop yourself each month, but no matter how hard you try, you always end up slipping. Usually, you binge for a while, then try to quit again.
This is the point where many men begin to use their will power and count down the days which they have spent off porn. It’s not an out of control problem yet, but it does take an effort to quit since the porn you are watching at this point is no longer soft core porn- your tastes are gradually changing.
FANTASY is what moves you from level 3 to level 4.
At Level 3, when you are not watching porn, there is a very high chance that you are fantasizing or sexualizing your encounters with other people.
When you fantasize intensely for prolonged periods of time- away from your device, you release chemicals which make you feel good- a feeling that only gets better by watching porn.
Level 4
At this level, pornography is having an obvious effect on your life. You may start noticing that porn is affecting your career, your family or your school work.
Your fantasies are out of control at this point. When you are not watching porn, you often find yourself fantasizing about porn and sex. You are watching pornography a couple of times a month and you have been trying to different ways to stop. Usually, nothing works at this point and you start getting worried about why it seems so difficult to quit. This is the point where you may search for how to stop watching porn online.
In my experience, this level is also your final chance to end your porn use on your own. Beyond this, your entire life, whether you realize it or not, will begin to be dictated by your porn addiction. The reason why is that left unchecked, your behavior with pornography begins to generate deeper psychological issues.
Over the years, I’ve realized that there are only TWO responses to level 4. For the purpose of simplicity, I’ve divided these responses into two groups of men which we will call Type A and Type B.
Type A:
This is an already accomplished person who understands what it takes to achieve success on a consistent basis. They have usually established themselves in their career, and have a relatively balanced lifestyle. This means that you have friends, close bonds with family, take care of your health and know how to go about getting most of the things you want in life. If you are a student, you are also relatively successful in your academic life.
Type A men, once they understand that they have a problem, see it as an obstacle to their life. Their natural reaction is the same as it is to every other obstacle in their life- to get rid of it by any means necessary because they have places to go. They will usually visit a counselor, get a mentor or invest in something actionable to get back their edge on their own.
When searching for help online, they screen everyone for results and success – that is, whomever they seek help from must be moving forward in their life as well. Action has always worked for them and thanks to this habit, they usually experience positive results in their recovery.
Some of my most successful clients are driven lawyers, engineers, students in law school, student-athletes, salespeople, doctors, and business owners.
It must be noted that some Type A people do not seek help- usually because they are never informed that one could have a compulsive behavior with porn, they are misdiagnosed by a counselor or they are at a level of financial success that insulates them from the true impact of their problem.
Type B:
This person has usually not achieved their goals or is lagging behind for one reason or the other. Typically, they have good intentions but already have problems motivating themselves, have developed bad habits such as social media/smartphone addiction/internet addiction, bad diets, play video games compulsively or a minor drug/alcohol problem.
They may have a career or be in college, but they would not rate themselves at anywhere near their potential. Some have a genuine desire to be successful and have tried, but their repeated failures have left them with a lot of self-doubts.
As is sadly the case of most men seeking direction, I have noticed that Type B men were often diagnosed with depression, ADD/ADHD or some other disorder at some point in their life. This diagnosis then served as a subconscious crutch throughout their lives- frequently sabotaging their attempts to excel in life.
Type B men, once they understand that they have a problem, will respond as they have to most things in life. Typically, they will seek the opinion of someone who is similar to them. They gravitate towards influencers on social media who are entertaining or are in a similar demographic to them. They are more likely to accept popular opinion as fact as opposed to doing their own research.
The popular way, of course, is usually the easy way. In the case of quitting porn use, it is:
1) Stay off porn for 90 Days and count REALLY HARD
2) Improve your lifestyle and be a man
3) Watch more videos about not masturbating and the more you watch, the more you will understand
Type B men take massive action- but their action is typically limited to watching a lot of videos or reading a lot of articles, comments, and opinions. When they do try to curb their behavior with porn, they usually fail since they don’t have a definite plan.
Their self-doubt, reinforced by underachieving in other areas of their lives kicks in. When the effects of porn addiction on their life become too unbearable, the Type B man start seeks help, but unfortunately, because he doesn’t believe in investing in himself, seeks cheap and quick fixes which usually makes them prey to scams and hustlers looking to make a quick buck online.
If you fall into the Type B category or are a Type A person with a few character traits of Type B showing up in your life, don’t get discouraged.
I was in that category as well till I was fortunate enough to find a mentor who opened my eyes to my self sabotaging way of thinking.
Level 5
At this point, viewing pornography is a daily habit and a major part of your life. You are watching porn and masturbating just to fall asleep. You sexualize every single woman (and sometimes even men) you see.
Level 5 is when you stop growing and developing as a person. Your career, your relationships with people- everything is set up to maximize porn use.
For instance, you spend a lot of time alone in front of your computer or phone. You never initiate a social meet up of any sort for dinner or a movie. All your hobbies are solitary and you never step out of the comfort zone of those who were already in your life when you reached Level 5.
Anytime I speak to a man at Level 5, I find that he has paid a heavy price for his porn addiction.
Some of the things he has sacrificed at this point are:
1) Career: He has lost a job, or severely underperformed at his career due to his porn use. 2) Relationships: Intimate relationships have ended. Either due to his partner leaving him because of his incessant porn use or due to him sabotaging the relationship due to his inability to fully commit. He always feels that there is a better woman out there..always wondering if perhaps he can upgrade. 3) Education: Mediocre to failing performance in academics
When you try to quit at this point, you begin to experience strong withdrawal symptoms such as erectile dysfunction, irritability, extreme daytime fatigue, headaches, problems sleeping and social anxiety- worrying more than often about peoples opinions.
By this point, you quite literally do not know how to stop. Both Type A and Type B men realize that they need help at this point. Again, their responses at Level 5 are quite different.
If you are a Type A person, you will usually disclose your struggle to a trusted friend or some sort of mentor. This is usually a good step, as it brings your porn and masturbation use out of secrecy. You then have the courage to share it with more people. Many Type A men are surprised to learn at this point that the person they shared it with faces the same problem!
If you are a Type B, you will do one of two things.
Break psychologically and ignore the problem-effectively incorporating Level 5 into your life. You might find rationalizations to back up your decisions such as everyone does it, sex/porn addiction does not exist, on and on…
At this point, you fall for the ideology of sex-positive counselors, MGTOW, or some group with relieves your guilt and shame for viewing porn.
The second thing a Type B man does is send desperate emails, comments, and one-liners to others online asking for advice. Since you haven’t developed the habit of taking action like the Type A man- which involves a small element of risk, you take action any way you know how- by seeking help in the most risk-averse way.
Level 6
This level is characterized by feelings of being completely out of control. Every single day of your life involves thoughts of pornography and in an age of free porn, you are spending money on porn in the form of paid sites and cam sites.
Depression and hopelessness are two common feelings at this level. This doesn’t mean that you have no desire to quit, on the contrary, you do want to quit, but your self-doubt and lack of hope are overwhelming. Many men at Level 6 continue using pornography, even after being caught with it.
The type of pornography you are viewing has drastically escalated to violent material including bestiality, gore, snuff ( death), incest, rape, extreme violence, and other depraved material. These are the only genres of pornography that can elicit an orgasm and sometimes even an erection. Staying in Level 6 leads to acting out.
This means seeking real-life sexual encounters to satisfy your addiction. This can range from seeking female, male or transgender escorts via different websites and apps, searching for random hookups, or in some cases, predatory behavior towards vulnerable people.
At Level 6, every aspect of your life is filled with lies as you need to do so in order to cover up your secret life. A man at Level 6 can maintain this behavior for years-even decades. When discovered, there is always a very high price to pay. Relationships fall apart in traumatic ways, careers are destroyed, sometimes, men end up in jail.
The good news about Level 6 is that the stakes are so high when you get caught, that it can trigger a very strong emotional desire to quit.
The bad news is that in Levels 5 and 6, you are delusional in your beliefs- that is, while you may acknowledge that your behavior is out of control, you don’t see its true impact on your life. You have also incorporated compulsive lying and manipulation into your day to day life since your behavior must be maintained in secrecy.
Breaking The Armor
Over the years, I’ve developed an exercise which I call breaking the armor. The purpose of this exercise is to help a man at Level 5 or 6 drop his conditioning for a brief moment and actually see what his life could look like without porn.
In my opinion- this is VERY important. After years of porn use and masturbation- let’s say you started between the ages of 8-14 and carried on for 12-15 years, you truly have no concept of what a life without pornography looks like.
Porn is your first “relationship”.
Its comforted you as a teen when you were anxious.
It kept you company when you were lonely.
When you were stressed and overwhelmed, porn was always there to take off the edge.
On restless nights it helped you fall asleep.
It taught you about sex and perhaps even gave you some sexual confidence.
It was always there for you when your heart was broken.
Unfortunately, porn overstayed its welcome…
But how do you let go of the one thing you could depend on for years?
What would life look like?
That where Breaking The Armor comes in.
Through a series of coaching questions, we gradually remove all your emotional armor or conditioning. This is a temporary process- but for a brief moment, you are free of your shame, your guilt, your lies, and your rationalization.
You are YOU.
This is a powerful moment for many men.
When some of my clients at Level 5 and 6 see the incredible damage porn has had on their families, finances, careers, relationships, self-esteem, social life and on their emotions, some break down and cry.
It’s like being possessed against your will and knowledge by a different personality which pretended to be you for years…and one day realizing who you really are for the first time.
The loss, self-betrayal, and lies you told yourself become evident. You see the man you COULD have been if porn didn’t get out of control in your life.
At that moment, most men decide that they are done for good. This is when the recovery process truly begins- when you have actually FELT what it’s like your greatest self.
Understanding these levels are so important to your recovery. This is why I have never paid much attention to all the fapping/not-fapping movements. It is a willpower solution that only helps men at Level 3 or below.
To effectively recover, you or the person guiding you in your recovery must first determine what level you are at.
Once I determine what level a man is at, I know the exact steps needed to help him recover.
He will be able to identify his boundaries, develop the right amount of self-awareness, control fantasies, dialogue with himself, anticipate urges, deal with strong emotions of sadness, loss or hopelessness, accurately examine his rationalizations and much more- depending on the Level he is at.
Withdrawal symptoms are also experienced differently at each Level. The effects of withdrawals are physical and emotional. In the past 7 years, I have not met a single client out of 400+ who could identify more than two withdrawal symptoms. They are able to identify them weeks later.
Now, at this point- a Type B man will be thinking:
“J.K…man, I really want to quit, but you make it sound so complicated and even impossible.”
If that is you, understand that your habit of taking the easy way is kicking in right at this moment. Fight it.
The Type A man will be thinking of how he can best put this information to good use.
I could keep going, but I’ll end up writing a book. The point is – take the first step of identifying your level of addiction to pornography.
Bookmark and review this blog post again and ask yourself whether you have moved from one level to the next (up or down) over the years.
Honestly identify whether you are a Type A or a Type B kind of man.
There is nothing wrong with either-such is life, although the Type B man is clearly at a disadvantage. As I mentioned earlier- I was a typical Type B guy with a few Type A traits until I broke my armor and dedicated several very painful years to change my life.
If you want to hear a little bit about how I changed myself to more of a Type A man, watch this Video:
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 problems, which includes an addiction to internet-based sex is becoming more common.
Watching a lot of pornography online does not mean that you have a porn addiction. But there are many people who find that they can’t stop watching porn even if they really want to. That is when a hobby becomes an addiction.
How Can Porn Addiction Affect Your Life?
Now, porn addiction can affect your career, your family life, and your ability to date or develop intimate relationships.
The internet has made it easy to access various ways of fulfilling your sexual desires and have anonymous sex. This can be very problematic for anyone who feels that they don’t have much control over their sexual impulses.
Porn addiction is using pornography to the point where you experience negative consequences. Porn addicts feel an absolute lack of control over their ability to stop watching pornography even in the face of severe negative consequences in their life.
You find yourself wasting a significant amount of time, taking away from the time you usually dedicate to your family, friends, or career.
Your ability to be sexually and emotionally intimate with a real person drastically reduces. This sometimes fears of intimacy and social anxiety because it’s much easier to watch a video than to go out and interact with a real person.
Internet Sex and Porn Addiction
Porn addiction also includes an addiction to the internet or cyber sex. This happens through chat rooms, smartphone apps, various types of social media and websites.
A lot of people enjoy internet sex because it doesn’t require intimacy and your fantasies can be easily fulfilled. Internet sex is so dangerous because it is a gateway to dangerous and risky situations such as anonymous sex. This happens when you’ve used internet porn and internet sex to the point that you become desensitized to it.
Compulsive masturbation with or without pornography often accompanies internet porn addiction. Porn addicts can spend hours and hours isolated in a world of fantasy and masturbation.
If you feel an obsession with pornography and masturbation in addition to a loss of control over your life, it’s important to seek help. Working with an addiction recovery coach is a necessary step to overcome porn addiction, masturbation addiction, and internet sex addiction.
A trained recovery coach can help you stop your most compulsive behaviors and also overcome your feelings of guilt and shame.
Enemy #3: Lazy Thinking and Beliefs
