3 Easy Steps to Stop Porn Addiction | The Frontline Framework

You may have been told that quitting porn simply requires discipline and self-control, that you just need to be more productive, more focused, and more motivated. Man up. What's wrong with you? Why can't you just stop? Have more self-control.

Don't you even care about your wife or your kids? I'm here to tell you that these voices are lying to you. Through a personal journey of over 20 years, as well as working with men from the U.S. to the Middle East, I can tell you that porn addiction is just a symptom. And here on the No More Desire podcast, we don't deal in symptoms.

We pull up the roots of addiction by building a recovery mindset and lifestyle, one step at a time. Welcome to the show, my friend. I'm so grateful to have you.

Let's take one more step together on the path to not only quit porn, but lose your desire for it entirely. It's time to go deep. Welcome to the show, my friend.

My name is Jake Castleman. I'm so excited for today's episode. Today, I'm actually talking with Dan Johnson of New Paths, another man just like myself, helping those struggling with porn addiction.

He's a coach in the field. He's very good at what he does. And he has his own personal experience with recovery.

And so today, we're going to dive into his story. We get into what really has driven his recovery, what he's utilized, specifically the frontline framework, as he terms it, to overcome addiction. After 20 years of addiction, in and out of slips and relapses, and trying everything from A to Z to overcome porn addiction, he could not do it until he discovered this frontline framework and developed it, and is now teaching it to others to help them overcome porn addiction.

So he shares his story. We talk about advice that other people give, that even professionals give, those addicted to porn, that does not work. We talk about really what's driving porn addiction today for so many men.

And we dive into what you can do right now, the mental and psychological strategies that you can begin using right now, the things in your lifestyle you can begin using right now to overcome porn addiction. So from a personal standpoint, just such a pleasure to speak with Dan Johnson, really a down-to-earth, kind man that I've gotten to know over the past few months. Dan and I have grown a special relationship, and just a kind, good, down-to-earth guy that's looking to do right in this world and looking to help people out.

So impressed with him. So blessed to have him on the show. Without further ado, Dan Johnson and I hashing things out.

Well, Dan, welcome to the No More Desire podcast. It is awesome to have you here, my friend. Thanks for coming on.

It's been such a privilege to have someone in my same field doing work so similar to my own. And just a blessing to have you here as both someone who gets all that and then as a friend as well. So thanks for coming on, man.

Yeah, thanks, Jake. I'm really grateful to be on with you and to have this conversation with you. So I really appreciate it.

Yeah, yeah. Well, first off, I want to ask you and just for you to tell people kind of what motivates you. You chose to become a porn addiction recovery coach or a freedom coach, I think as you term it, right? It's a great, great term.

It's the same as I did. So I know from firsthand experience, this isn't something someone does just because they want to, like, build a business and make money. So that's great.

But you do it for deeper reasons. So what is that driving force behind that for you? Yeah, I think the same as for anyone who kind of has a passion project. It has to do with my own story and, you know, kind of struggling with porn from my early teens.

Struggling with it for really decades. It was over 20 years. And the just ongoing pain and shame and guilt that it brought.

I brought it into my marriage. And just the pain that it brought my wife. And just the constant feeling of living a double life, knowing that I'm not living up to my potential.

Feeling like porn is a leech and a siphon on my life and my energy and my just potential. So having lived in that for over 20 years, then finally after trying pretty much literally everything, and a lot of them were very helpful things, but eventually discovering real freedom. Now being on the other side of that, you just almost can't just keep it to yourself.

So that's kind of the motivation behind trying to help other guys as well. Yeah, yes. I love what you say about you can't help but go out and help other people.

I think I spent a lot of years fighting that. As in I was afraid, like, what if what I did doesn't work for other people? Or what if other people don't benefit from it? What if they, you know, what will people think, right? Of me talking about this and trying to help other people with it. So good for you for leaning into all that discomfort and moving through it and saying, I'm going to do this and help other people.

Well, you as well, Jake. I really, really admire what you're doing and the guys that you're helping. So huge kudos and admiration for you as well.

Thanks, man. Thanks. And one of the things you said there, I want to touch on and kind of go a little deeper with.

You were talking about how porn for you really was a leech, a siphon you described as I think very apt descriptions. It was taking from you. And I think as I look back, when I was caught up in the depths of my addiction, I didn't realize all the ways that it was taking from me.

I think it wasn't until I started to get sobriety time and then relapse and then get some more sobriety time relapse and started to see, whoa, a lot of things are changing for me. To you, what does, what are some of the things that porn takes from you? Or how does it impact people? Because there may be some men listening who are still in the thick of that. And you and I know what that's like.

But what are some of those big motivations of, man, this is what you can have, or this is what it's really taking from you? Oh, man. Yeah, good question. There's so many.

The things that come to mind, so this is just one example. So I remember there would be, you know, like when I was in the thick of it, you know, for many years, thick of the addiction, you know, you could probably relate to this. There were, I would have days where, you know, I would have a really good day, just a really good day in general, you know, like great time with friends, great day at work.

You know, I was just feeling really good about myself and everything. And then that thought would enter my mind. Yeah, but you still watch porn.

You're hooked on porn. These people don't really know. And so it would put a damper on what would have been just an otherwise good day.

So that's just kind of an anecdotal example of how it just would steal what would have otherwise been joy. The one other thing that comes to mind is, oh my goodness, is time. So, you know, if you think about if you're hooked on porn, or even watching it on a somewhat regular basis, you know, for some guys watching, they might say, I'm not, you know, I'm not really hooked on.

I just watch it, you know, once, once every few weeks, you know, for a couple hours or whatever. But if you add that up, if I add up the amount of time that I watch porn, you know, even just in one year, you know, that is just so much time that I could have been using. I'm 42 right now.

I just think about, golly, the hundreds, probably thousands of hours that I was using for porn for something that was just making me feel it was stealing from me. It's making me feel shame and guilt. And the things that I could have been using for that, the potential, the goals, the dreams that I could have been pursuing.

There's so many more things, but that's kind of two things that stick out to me. One, just the joy that porn steals from you. And then two is just the time.

And, you know, we get one life here on this earth, and time is really all we have. And so just it's stealing life, basically. If it's stealing your time, it's stealing your life.

So those are the two things that come to mind. Yes. Yeah, it's true.

And as you were talking about that, Dan, a couple of things I thought of is it's not all as linear as some people make it sound where I think I used to think like, well, yeah, but like, I don't spend that much time watching porn. You know, maybe it's an hour a day, which is a lot. But at that time when I was in the addiction, right, it's like, it's not that much time.

And some days it was more, obviously. But it's not just that, it's that how much time did I spend triggered and fighting it and focused on it, obsessing about it, planning and anticipating it, wanting it, craving it. The amount of time I spent doing that and the amount of bandwidth emotionally that that took up for me, those are really, really big as well.

And then how it takes from you, from a perspective of, from a neurological perspective, obviously it's draining your dopamine, right? It was draining my dopamine and dopamine being that, for those people who don't know, dopamine drives your motivation, your feelings of purpose, your feelings of connection with other people. And I didn't have as much of that in my life, not near as much because of the addiction. And so because I didn't have that, now I can't focus as well.

I don't know if I mentioned it's deeply involved in focus, right? Because we understand ADD and ADHD, right? For people who have those disorders, they lack as much dopamine as they need in the brain in order to have focus. So addiction is extremely similar to that. I find like if I would have been diagnosed when I was in my late teens, I think I easily could have been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD.

And I'm not saying that all people with ADD or ADHD are addicts, but I am saying that it can easily, it can be a disguise, right? Or a major contributing factor to having issues with attention and with focus and motivation. That was one of the things that discouraged me the very most and what upset me the very most because I had a very high degree of ambition and desire to do great things with my life. And I think that's what I've seen actually with the clients that I work with.

And then the friends that I have that are either addicted now or have been in the past, all of these men that I've known and women have massive drives to do great things with their lives. And then they can't, and there's that dissonance, that internal conflict. It just drives the addiction all that much more.

I think it's one of the big contributing factors is it's that drive between here's what I want in life and who I want to be. And here's this massive gap between me and that life I want, that person I want to be. I'm not meeting it.

It just overloads you. It overloaded me with shame, feelings of I am not good enough and fear of like, what am I doing with my life? And am I ever going to get this figured out? And if I could just get rid of this addiction, I could finally start leading the life that I want to lead. Do you relate to any of that? Without a doubt.

So yeah, I feel like, so I've been what I would consider free for about four and a half years. And I feel like, what was that? I said, good for you. Yeah, I appreciate it.

And so the last four and a half years, I would say it's felt like a skyrocketing of growth over the past four and a half years. So exactly what you're saying. For the longest time, there was a dissonance, just like you said, between who I knew I could be and who I wanted to be and who I actually was.

And for me, when porn was gone, it was just a massive skyrocketing of growth. And it makes me excited about the future. It makes me so excited about the growth as a man, as a husband, as a father, just being more authentic, having more congruence between the person that I'm on the inside and the outside.

So yes, I definitely agree with everything you're saying there. Yeah, that's wonderful. It's very, very true.

So tell me, let's go deep into your story. And if you don't mind, kind of into your past before porn addiction, because in explorations of my past and trauma I experienced and things I grew up with, that all contributed very heavily to me eventually turning to porn. You don't have to necessarily share all those things, whatever you want to share, but kind of what you feel like contributed to you developing the addiction and then your story of coming out of that.

Yeah, I'll try to make it the short version. So I grew up, I'm in Charlotte, North Carolina. Now I grew up in Minnesota.

Great state to grow up in, southern Minnesota. And I grew up in a wonderful, wonderful home. So one older brother, two amazing parents.

I'm very close with all of them still. I was just with them last week for Thanksgiving. There's the phrase, winning the parent lottery.

I feel like my brother and I won the parent lottery. I know that they're not perfect in any way, shape or form, but I feel like they were just amazing parents and they are amazing parents and amazing grandparents to our girls. So my brother and I just reminisce about our childhood all the time.

We feel like we had the best childhood. I've explored a lot of my past, and I know that my situation is definitely probably unique in that I don't have what people would consider big T traumas. I have a lot of little T traumas, a lot of just feeling left out and not good enough, not cool enough, a lot of that, which I've done a lot of exploring in.

I grew up in a wonderful Christian home, going to church, heavily involved in youth group. I thought I was going to be a youth pastor. I actually went to college for it.

I didn't end up doing that. Before getting into porn, there was a wonderful childhood, wonderful home that I grew up in. I think as I got maybe 9, 10, 11, I started to surf the channels.

The old days of the cable box on top of the TV, just surfing. I would look for those stimulating scenes, those sex scenes. When parents weren't around, I would start doing that, the preteen years.

Then when I was 13, I went over to a friend's house after school. This was around 1995. Back then, the cool thing was the Sony computers.

I don't know how long those lasted, but we were in his basement. He had this really cool Sony computer. He showed me porn on his computer.

That was the first time I'd ever really seen that. I just remember thinking, this is amazing. This is the best thing ever.

I just wanted to keep going back to his house and see more of it. Then eventually, we got the Internet eventually. I discovered how to view that on our computer at home, in the basement.

I got hooked that way. It was never discovered by anyone. Eventually, I have and had a very close group of friends.

Just some really close-knit guy friends that I'm still friends with today, thankfully. Pretty early on, we shared that struggle with each other, just trying to hold each other accountable. The glass jar where we put in the money if we mess up that week or whatever.

I did have accountability pretty early on, but I was never able to have any sustained sobriety or freedom during that time. Went off to college, brought it with me there. I was heavily hooked on porn during college.

Graduated, living on my own. Started working full-time, fully hooked. All throughout this time, I had one or two close friends that I was telling.

You were in your 20s at that time? Yeah, 20s. Graduated from college, mid-20s. Continued to struggle on a weekly basis, multiple times a week.

Eventually, I joined the Air Force. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do. Still up in southern Minnesota, just weighing my options.

I ended up joining the Air Force. Secretly, in the back of my mind, I was thinking, this is going to force me. This is going to be the thing that finally sets me free.

You go to basic training for two months. Then, you go to tech school. They finally give you your stuff back.

In tech school, I just picked right back up. That brought me to the Carolinas. Eventually, I met my wife.

We got married. I told her about my struggle before we got married. That's unusual in a lot of circumstances.

I know. I knew that I had to tell her before we got married. It just wasn't a question in my mind whether or not to tell her.

I just knew that I was going to have to. She showed me so much grace with that. We went into marriage.

We put filters on the computer. Periodically, I would confess to her, while you were gone, I got around the filters. We were more stringent with the filters.

We got rid of DVDs. We got off of Facebook. I would still find ways around it to scratch that itch.

This was getting into my late 20s and 30s. It's the hunt as well. When you try to find your way around the filters and find a way to get your fix, much as people who are addicted to anything will do, that hunt adds to the experience, the intensity of the experience.

It's a different topic, but just thinking about that, it adds to it in a way. Definitely. Eventually, we had our first daughter.

We ended up getting an iPad. In order to take videos and send them to family. We never put a filter on the iPad.

After a little while, it dawned on me. I started exploring that a little bit. Then I was back into unfiltered porn.

That went on for a few years. Finally, through a series of circumstances, on Super Bowl Sunday 2019, I knew that I had to confess to my wife about that. I had a reconfession with her.

You had kept it a secret from her for a few years with the iPad and kept it to yourself. Yes, I would do these partial confessions. I struggled looking at this, but not on the iPad.

She didn't know. What was that like for her? That was pretty devastating for her. That caused a lot of hurt.

It broke a lot of trust. It's not just about porn. It goes much deeper than that.

Very much so, yes. She was very angry with me. Understandably so.

Completely justified. It caused a lot of hurt. Trust was broken.

It was really hard for her. So hard. Yes.

At that point, it was like, I have got to be done with this thing. Shortly after that, I discovered a cool discovery. Shortly after that, we discovered this thing called Pure Desire, which is a ministry.

You can join groups around the country. You meet in person. It's a curriculum.

You go through it. I've been involved with that. I recently stopped, but I was involved with that for about five years, five and a half years.

I facilitated my own groups for about three years or so. Super helpful. You're learning a lot about the brain.

You're exploring your past big time. You've got accountability. You've got a safe community.

You're talking about this stuff for the first time. I call it the circle of nodding heads. For the first time ever, you're saying this stuff.

Everyone around the room is nodding their heads. It's that moment where you're like, I'm not a horrible person. There's all these other people that get it.

They seem to be pretty good people here. I must not be incredibly screwed up like I think I am. You just meet some of the most brave, courageous, heroic people ever because they're like, yeah, I want to be free of this.

I'm willing to do the work to get there. The problem was, I was doing that. I was doing all this work.

I was seeing a certified sexual addiction therapist. I was reading books, had the accountability, was in the group, was diving into my past. I would still get to those moments.

I call these the frontline moments when you're alone and you feel that strong urge and temptation. I couldn't resist it. I would still look for ways to scratch that itch.

I just felt like I was at a dead end. I'm like, what in the world can I do? It was extremely frustrating and hopeless at times. Yeah.

Then at that point, when things finally changed was when I discovered, just kind of haphazardly discovered, allowing the urge, this phrase, allow the urge. Forever, I had heard you need to resist. You need to fight.

It's a battle. You're fighting against an enemy inside of you. It's an internal battle.

That never worked. Never, ever works. Not even close.

But then I discovered this complete opposite thing called allow the urge. I just discovered it on an unrelated podcast. And I was like, allow the urge.

Okay. And so I started to run with that concept, turned it. I'm a, I'm a very practical person.

I need actionable, practical steps. So I kind of turned it into a four step process. Where you, you just, when you feel the urge, you pause, you take a breath, you name the urge.

This is all, you know, I wasn't doing the research on this. This is just things that I've been hearing and tried it and it worked. Yep.

You set a timer for 10 minutes. You just let you allow the urge to be there for 10 minutes. And then you record the way and you high five yourself when you've done it.

And it was really dramatic for me. It was just a radical shift where within a few weeks, I knew that I was stepping into freedom. It was crazy and it was exhilarating.

And so that was summer of 2020 and just have a look back. Wow. That's fantastic.

I appreciate you sharing that down. And I, one of the things that I thought of as you were saying that is, you know, I, I teach my clients to take a similar approach when there's a trigger. Which is, I call it, uh, aware.

Awareness is the first step. So I have a five, a five step. It's one more step than yours, but, uh, not saying it's better or worse.

Uh, probably a needed extra step. Right. And I'm, I'm, I'm being facetious, but, uh, but I, so I tell them to be aware.

And then, uh, step two is, is care. And I think those first two initial steps and care is, um, is compassion for yourself. And when you talk, yeah.

When you talk about allow the urge to me, there's this self compassion that needs to be in there. I talk, I talk all the time about acceptance and compassion. Yes.

And those can be, sound like some of the simplest answers, but they, they're extremely powerful for people when they will practice them. Right. Cause we can hear as okay.

I guess I need to accept myself and feel compassion. What does that mean? I think many, many of us, when we struggle with addiction, we don't know how to do that. Uh, and we need to learn and we need to explore it and practice it.

Um, and that's what I, I spend some time doing that with my clients, teaching them that how that's done and then practicing it on a daily basis. But if you can become aware of the urge, right, like you're saying, um, and you, you sit with it and you say, okay, you say, name it. Love that.

It's a way that awareness. What am I feeling? What am I experiencing right now? Okay. So it's like kind of mindfulness of getting into your body, into your thoughts, observing them, and then bringing that compassion to yourself of that could look like, hey, I've had this addiction in your case, right? 20 years. Well, no wonder this is triggering for me. It doesn't mean I'm bad.

It doesn't mean I'm a horrible person or I'm screwed up. It's just, yeah, I've got a history with this stuff. It makes sense.

Yeah, it makes sense. It makes sense. And there's a lot of other ways we can express self-compassion, but I think just that mindfulness of calling out what you're experiencing and just being there present with yourself Hey, my friend If you've been struggling to quit porn, I'm here to tell you that you're not a bad person You're not a bad husband.

You're not a bad father and you're not damaged beyond repair I'm also here to tell you that you can overcome this addiction for good It's not about simply fighting cravings staying busy or attending support groups You can't expect yourself to just be more disciplined and get over it Here's a secret Your addiction is a symptom and by building a recovery mindset and lifestyle you can actually get rid of your cravings for porn And i'm helping men across the world from the us to the middle east do that right now In my intensive one-on-one recovery coaching program. I'll teach you step-by-step methods to successfully process your thoughts and emotions So they don't evolve into cravings These methods are evidence-based and founded in psychological approaches like parts work and CBT We'll also work on lifestyle changes that utilize principles from neuroscience religion philosophy and even nutrition And i'll help you improve your relationships by learning how to engage with your spouse from a place of acceptance compassion and courage If you want to become part of a worldwide movement of men who are developing This recovery mindset and lifestyle head to nomoredesire.com and set up a free consultation I'll see you in the program my friend The self-compassion is huge because You're exactly right sort of embedded in this phrase allow the urge you cannot allow something that you view as an enemy You cannot allow something that you view as bad Mm-hmm. And so you're I could not agree more like the self-compassion which is the opposite of what a lot of us have been kind of putting on ourselves is Self-compassion that is so so important and just like you said I mean we are like we're living in the most stressed anxious lonely society in human history Yeah, if you're a functioning human male and you have this phone at the at your hip 24 7 365 and you can literally See anything you want Within two or three seconds and that'll immediately make you feel better for a little bit What what you know functioning human male can resist that all the time You know so absolutely it makes sense if you struggle with this and if you feel tempted like that's It makes sense just like you said and so that's where that you can start there if you haven't had compassion on yourself just like Just take a look at the situation you're in and it makes sense that you struggle with this, you know yeah, and I think I think the question we need to ask ourselves with that is it's not so much a question of man.

How did How do you know, how did I get addicted to this or what's wrong with me? It's how do people not get exactly this? How how do people stay sober and clean of porn that's the real question those are the real It's it's not a question of how you got addicted because that's easy to happen these days Uh and why and that's why so many People are in that now we haven't I think one thing i've reflected on is This is the first time as far as we know in the entirety of human history where we've had the option Of pulling up this virtual device at a in a second Uh and seeing anything we want And so you can see yeah, whatever you want in a moment and I don't think that we were at all prepared For what that would look like And what it would do to us as human beings uh, and it's only been 30 years and I think I think uh, because sometimes I think I can get in the space of why like why is More action not being taken on this or how come we haven't you know? Why is there not more widespread knowledge on this? Because it's fairly widespread there's still plenty of voices out there that are saying porn is normal. It's fine. It's healthy But it's only been three decades, which is actually not that long.

Um And compared to all of history, obviously So we're just we're just we're just barely kind of digging into this and realizing wow, we got a real problem here Yeah, well, yeah And no one, you know, I tell guys too like it's not your fault like no one taught us how to deal with with that Incredibly intense urge and trigger that floods you like no one taught us. Well, what do I do with this? I I can't you know resisting it doesn't it's i'm trying to fight it, but I just can't Because how could they no one could have taught them because no one else has experienced it before right exactly not to this level Yep, and and people, you know kind of give well-meaning but uh kind of misguided advice like, you know, if if you're not if you're not Able to be free of this and if if you're still giving in you're just not trying hard enough Like you're not fighting hard enough. You just get you got to really want it I mean you gotta fight man.

Like this is a battle. You just gotta really uh, you know this again, like When I when I was transitioning into freedom, I wasn't like doing the research on on this but if you do that and I have since then and There's a reason why I was addicted for 20 years. It's because I was trying to resist it Uh, I think it was carl young at first coined the phrase what you resist persists I'm sure you've heard that a million times a lot of people haven't But it is absolutely true when you look at the studies and the research when you try to resist a feeling Like a trigger or or an urge or temptation? It's a feeling it's sexual desire, you know, it's just feeling It when you try to resist it, it actually intensifies it and it increases the duration There's no wonder why so many guys and my I was hooked because we're trying to resist it and that's just pouring gasoline on it uh, and so yeah, that's what a lot of guys are trying to do and You know well meaning but no one's told us there's a better way, you know Yes, and a few different thoughts come to mind for me with that ban One is you know I think that so I love the ifs Psychological modality that explains addiction this way Well, do you know ifs at all yes, I love it Fantastic.

Okay, great. Well, we can nerd out together then so the the manager firefighter cycle, right and for those who don't know ifs I think it it's clarified so many things about addiction to me because Years ago. I realized wow I think there's a lot more behind my addiction than just me craving porn There's some deeper underlying things going on here And one of the things I found was perfectionism was behind a lot of the pressure and stress That I felt which made me want to seek out porn it increased my craving Substantially for porn and for a long time.

I was like for years I was just like does everybody have perfectionism that like wants to that's addicted, you know Or or is it just me and then I you know, obviously started volunteering with people and getting in the circles of you know People that were going through recovery and helping them and then working with people who were struggling with addiction porn addiction and realizing Oh my gosh everybody Has this part of them? That is this manager, right? In other words this part of you that uses judgment and control To try to motivate you and to get results and to get outcomes and try to push you to do things And we'll use that externally on other people in your relationships And that part of you does that thinking it it has your best interest in mind of This is how we're going to get results Right and so that manager part of me is as ifs describes it Essentially because it's such high pressure There is no choice I heard I was listening to a podcast a while back with some experts in ifs that were explaining from a standpoint from a neurological standpoint Your psyche must come up with a counterpart To this immense stress and pressure you feel from these this manager a host of managers Parts right that they talk about in ifs And so we so firefighters emerge. I don't know whether it's simultaneous or what the order is, but They emerge firefighters for those who don't aren't aware. These are kind of the addict parts I might describe them as of us, right? So we go to food or we go to porn or we go to video games We go to whatever it is for us based on our experiences and varying factors Firefighting in other words, they're going to spray out our negative emotions.

You're just gonna just gonna wipe them out extinguish them We have those addictions come up because We are so critical of ourselves and we feel so much shame and we feel so much weight and pressure and then What's amazing is for many years and this is I think for the most part. This is only changing now in the last A couple of decades or maybe the last decade. It's kind of becoming mainstream of a lot of people understanding You can't sit your managers on top of your firefighters and recover long term in other words You can't just say I am going to judge and control myself into overcoming my addiction because you do that and you're fueling the very The very counterpart to that pressure and stress and control which is going to be the addiction There must be a resultant Response right in your body because it's too much pressure for your mind And so what you're talking about with awareness and mindfulness and self-compassion self-acceptance this foregoes that whole And we haven't even gotten deep into exiles or other things that go on in ifs, right? but This foregoes that cycle between manager to firefighter manager to firefighter, right? Self-critical to addiction and then i'm self-critical again.

I go back to addiction It foregoes that And I go straight to this source of this inner peace being a becoming aware of these feelings and these thoughts and these All the kind of this whole system that's going on inside of me and inside of me psychologically And if I can just stay in that place of awareness And as you said, um How did you say allowing allowing right and compassion for these parts of me now I don't need to see them as bad anymore. I think that's it's so key and that's So life-changing for people when they can embrace that of This addict part of you that shows up and it's like hey go to porn that's going to fix your problem We can fight it and batter it and hate it and and resist it That's just going to make it get bigger. It's going to make it get more out of control.

It's going to fight for dominance whereas if you say You know something the effect of hey I see what you're trying to do for me like I appreciate you. I appreciate that. You are trying to show up to help me out in life the best way that you know, how Which ultimately I think comes down to that was in our childhood with traumas that we went through big t traumas or little t as you as you um described These managers and these firefighters these addict parts of us popped up That's the best way to handle the insecurities the loneliness grief and you know Different thing different things that we dealt with as a kid Because we didn't know how to handle them.

We were just a little kid And we carry those throughout our lives Yeah without a doubt like You know and for the guys that are listening that aren't uh, You know familiar with ifs you ever see the movie inside out Oh, man, I love it. Okay, so love that movie. So like think about like the those those emotions that are in Riley's head so riley, you know for the guys that haven't seen the riley as a girl She's got these emotions living in her head sadness anger uh fear Trying to think what else joy disgust disgust Yeah, yeah, and so each one of those feelings living in riley's head they they Always have the answer for anger It's it's always the best response to be angry about it And you know for fear, it's always a good response to be fearful all these little parts inside riley's head Two things about it and this is what I took away from ifs, especially that was super helpful for for achieving freedom One all those parts of you.

So that part of you that's urging you to view porn it Loves you So all those parts in riley's head all those feelings they care deeply about riley. They love their girl. They just want the best for her They love you and number two they are Very misguided They have one answer That urgent side of you the the answer every time is watch porn.

It's going to make you feel better Um, and so that yeah, I love ifs there's a book called all together you by jenna reemers ma I've heard of it. I haven't read it That was one of the probably one of the top three books that changed my life more than any other books. So And that was the main takeaway.

It's just just like you said Hey when i'm feeling triggered I see you Thank you like that's Powerful when you can say thank you to this temptation. I know you love me and you're trying to help me Thank you. I appreciate it.

Just like you said But i'm good now i'm i'm moving on and you can move on to to something better Yes, and you can move on to to something better. I think that's Key to again, it's a good part of you and it ultimately has As i've done parts work in my life the the addict parts of me Have those good intentions and they ultimately have gifts that are really really positive they can become they they have become my friends right like Good positive parts of my psyche that have become helpful to me. Are they always helpful to me? No, when I get stressed out, right? They can go kind of back into that more that burden or that unhealthy space, right if I allow that to occur And I need to then pull back and be aware and practice that acceptance and compassion for myself again right so important to to know that it's not uh An all or nothing black and white, you know perfection kind of thing.

You're always you know, it's i've been sober almost 10 years now and uh while I While it's really rare for me to experience a desire for porn There's other addictions that I have, you know being a workaholic productivity addictions addiction to being really neat or You know, I have addictions to being controlling or angry and some people hear that they'll be like, oh you're a crazy person, but We all we all have those addictions when we can Really become and whatever they are for us, right? It's going to look different for everyone But when we can really become aware of them and become a witness to them give them that acceptance and that compassion Now they can start to heal they can step into better roles We can live more according to Who I believe we actually are which is good at our core Yeah Yeah, so tell us about this. Uh Well, I have I have two different questions I didn't know if there was other things you wanted to talk about advice That others give us that really doesn't work. It's well-meaning.

It's well intended You addressed some of that but uh What are maybe some other common misconceptions? about porn addiction Where it comes from or how people tell us to handle it If you have anything else you want to address on that Yeah, definitely the number one is just you know resist fight, you know, that's that's Unfortunately is pouring gasoline on the fire the other one too Um, a lot of people may not agree with this but just one thing that I found helpful is um You may you may not even agree with it. Uh, but one thing that I found helpful is don't track your streaks Um, you know, so I said before i've been Living in freedom for about four and a half years, but I I don't have a sobriety date I know that that is a lot that is very helpful for a lot of people um, but One thing that i've found for me and for a lot of other guys too that have just witnessed personally You know you go You go two weeks without porn and then three weeks and four weeks and for a lot of guys four weeks is huge It's a huge streak um, you know, you go two months and then you're like, oh man and the pressure builds And yeah, you're like i'm gonna i'm gonna fail any day now. Oh, yeah on way longer than I ever have There's no way I can make it further.

Yeah, and it's the craziest thing but this happened for me and i've seen it in so many guys like That just that pressure, you know porn is an escape from pressure it's it's a release for from pressure and It's just just that added pressure of oh man. Can't mess up. Can't mess up.

I cannot start over I cannot restart that clock. It's gonna be terrible Um, i've just found that it's far more helpful to track your wins So instead of tracking your streaks your lengths, you know the length of time in between relapses or whatever Track your wins track how many times so I use the path plan And when I go through all four steps, the last step is high five yourself you record the win Track your wins because that's like, you know, you talk about dopamine. That's a tiny dopamine hit When you see it galley i've had 20 wins that's 20 times that i've you know So that's just one thing one personal thing again take it or leave it But that's one thing i've found helpful track your wins not your streaks no, I think that's wonderful and I I think that uh, one of the things that I teach my clients is you get what you focus on And one of the things we can't perceive often often don't perceive with that until we Learn it or we're taught it is If you focus on what you're afraid is going to happen It's it makes it much more likely to happen We think by fearing something and I you know, obviously I still do this if I don't remember I think by fearing something i'm going to Avoid it When in fact by focusing on the fear that i'm feeling or or by by focusing on this is the thing I don't want It just draws me towards it and so when I fail right in my goal of long-term sobriety And I focus on that and I say man.

Gosh, what's wrong with me? And why can't I figure this out? And I relapse day zero I'm here again I'm just focusing on relapsing and Not being sober and failing and that doesn't mean that I think one thing that's really important to be said with that is it's very Important to acknowledge the failure to see okay What can I learn? from this That's so important because we don't want to just skip over and be like that didn't happen Okay, i'm going to ignore it jake and dan told me not to focus on my failures It's not what we're saying no not at all what we're saying you got to look at that and have it and really Delve into it dissect it say. Okay. What got me here, right? I I give my clients three simple steps for relapse what happened and describe describe generally what happened, right? What led to it in other words in the hours days weeks months? Previous there were there were other factors in your life mentally emotionally in your relationships, etc things that led up to Like you said pressure all the things you were feeling that led to you Desiring that escape, right? And then the third step is What did you learn from it? What are you going to do differently in the future? right Setting yourself up for success Notice that none of that is punish yourself beat the crud out of yourself That's that that's not getting us towards our goal And I think ultimately it needs to be that place of That's acceptance and it's it's it's compassionate right and it's empowering.

How am I going to empower myself? uh And so that that comes to mind for me But Tell us about this frontline framework dan if you wanted to give any more details on that All right Go ahead. Yeah, so uh the Kind of reverse engineering what what led me into freedom? The first step was definitely having a plan Having a practical plan Every single time i'm triggered every time I feel the urge and that's what the path plan is um, so that that's That's ultimately what what kind of? It was the doorway for my freedom it gave me I had all these back-end things that I was doing, you know the The the c-sat and the community and the filters and everything. I needed a frontline plan And so that's the first piece of what I call the frontline framework Reverse engineering it again you need I don't know any way that you can achieve freedom without all three of these things To to be able to handle temptation and triggers probably hundreds if not thousands of times Um and do it successfully with the the winning winning track record So the first thing is a plan there's three pieces to it the plan the path plan.

The second thing is Awareness now. I know you you and I both talk about awareness I actually have this as one of the three pillars that you need In order to actually implement the plan because imagine you can have the best plan in the world But let's say you have a plan where you or someone says if you just do this every time you feel the urge You will have no problem with it whatsoever. No problem.

Okay, so you have that plan in place but the problem is you get to that moment and that urge floods you and You're thinking rational brain shuts off And Any plan that you had or any promise that you made previously when you get to that moment and you're flooded you go into what? I call porn zombie mode Any previous plan or promise that you made goes out the window. Yep so that's one of the benefits of awareness is Uh, it helps you stay present helps you stay in the driver's seat When you're feeling triggered and for me the best thing that i've found um for awareness specifically for the urge to watch porn is Something called mental rehearsal So this is a daily practice that I recommend I do it probably five times a day for different things now, it's just a part of my life now, but For guys that that want they have a plan in place and they want to increase their chances of implementing it Every morning two three minutes sit down and just ask the question When am I likely to feel? The urge to watch porn today when will I likely feel triggered today? The answer will come right away because this is such a predictable struggle They'll be able to say exactly when that's going to be Then they just spend a minute Kind of seeing themselves play out that plan in that moment So if they struggle typically at you know, 8 30 at night they say okay, yep, that's when i'm going to struggle and they They they watch they visualize themselves actually doing each step of that plan At that time later in the day at 8 30 And you know the research shows, you know, if you visualize yourself doing free throws uh in your mind that is Just as effective as actually shooting free throws So same thing with practicing your plans. That's the best way that i've found to Increase the chances of actually implementing your plan.

So you have the plan You have the awareness to increase your chances of implementing it and the third pillar that I of the frontline framework is reasons So imagine you have the best plan in the world. You're doing your mental rehearsal you get to that that frontline moment You see okay I'm feeling the urge right now i'm In the driver's seat. I'm not in zombie mode.

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Here is part 3 of the transcript (this is the final part):

I have my plan but Why Why should I just not view this? It's so It's so good. If you don't have reasons That are more compelling than the porn that you want to view You're not going to be able to to Really step into freedom you have to and we all have reasons We all have them, but I think most of us have not clearly defined them and we haven't like supercharged them you know and the The Thing that I would say about reasons is there are negative reasons and there are positive reasons most of us talk about the negative reasons Yeah, I feel terrible about myself. It's destroying my relationships I feel guilt and shame.

It's stealing our time and potential like we were talking about Those tend to in my experience be the main catalysts to push you into freedom. Um, but Just as important are the positive reasons So if you think about like a jet or aircraft The negative reasons are the ones that are going to start to accelerate the jet down the runway Once it takes off the positive reasons are what's going to be keeping it soaring in the air. The positive reasons are like Wow, I can finally start pursuing this relationship that I was scared to pursue before wow that I can start working on this side hustle that I would i've been putting off you know, I can Start, you know a weekly get together with friends, you know, i'm no longer Viewing porn every friday night.

So now I can have friends over, you know, you get excited about your life and when you define those reasons you write them down both the negative and positive and you Review them every day And actually feel them That is the the jet engine for for freedom for you.

I wondered if I might ask this question for you, Dan, what are your reasons that you continue to stay sober after four and a half years? Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest reason is definitely my wife and family.

To think about going back to that and the pain that I caused my wife. I just want to be a good husband to her. I want to be able to continue to look her in the eyes without fear or shame.

And then for my girls to like we have two girls and I want them to to know their dad. I want them to have a dad who's not hiding and who's fully present and authentic with them and not having a secret side. And, you know, it's just life is life is so much better without porn.

You know, it's I can feel like I can walk upright, you know, with my chin just a half inch higher. And, yeah, it's just life is not meant to to be lived in the shackles of porn. So I'd say those are those are the main reasons I'm much more excited about my life without porn and the potential for it than just for my for my wife and our family.

I'm going to I'm going to ask you another question based on what you just you just said. I think that a lot of us, myself included, during my first year or really a few years of being sober of porn, I think a lot of people don't anticipate what that's going to be like. A lot of good.

It's really very amazing. But I think there's some unexpected things that happen psychologically or things that are difficult. Do you have any insights on that and things that have been challenging or unexpected in being sober for four and a half years? Because it is a lot different than being sober for a month that comes with challenges.

That's a that's an accomplishment. But to be sober for years comes with things that are that I think we wouldn't anticipate. And if you have any thoughts on that.

Yeah, that's a really great question. The first thing that comes to mind is I had a counselor tell me that choosing to do life without porn, especially if you've been doing it for a while, it's almost like losing a friend. Yeah, it's almost like a grieving process.

So that is one thing that, you know, for guys that are stepping into freedom, you know, just kind of be aware of that. And that was one thing for me where it's like. This was a helpmate for me for many, many years.

And, you know, it's yeah, it's kind of a grieving process. I think the other thing is, you know, I don't want to say replacing it, but it's almost that, you know, it's it's those positive reasons. I think that's why that's so important is because.

It's finding those passions and exciting things, things that fill you up rather than drain you that you can start pursuing. With that new time and bandwidth and energy that you have, I think that is what is going to make it sustainable as well. So not sure if that's answering your question, but that's that's what I'd say.

That's fantastic. One of the things that brought up for me is. I know that earlier on in my recovery, I pursued sobriety through a lens of fear.

It was all about avoiding relapse. It was how am I going to avoid relapse today? And how and fearing, oh, man, if I if I don't stay sober, all these bad and horrible things are going to happen. And so I better stay sober today.

And I managed to stay sober for quite some time that way. That was during. Well, it's interesting, I had a year of sobriety and then I relapsed.

It was one a one day, one day thing. And then I had had another several months. I think the relapse scared me so bad, right after a year of sobriety that I was like, that can never happen again.

And so I obsessively focused on staying sober and not going back to addiction. And there's a lot of. Oh, boy.

I mean, I, I meditate. It sounds strange, but I meditated and I was deciding whether or not to go into these details. But I think it'll be helpful for a lot of people.

I meditated for two hours a day. I had these visualizations and things that I would do of essentially not going back to addiction of it not mattering to me of it, you know, not being a part of my life. And that would sound positive.

But what I ended up doing, I actually developed like a, an anxiety disorder, where I start I was on the, on the verge of, I mean, that the highest anxiety I had ever known, I was I felt like I was on the verge of a panic attack all the time for several months. And eventually I, it brought me to the realization through a great deal of pain and truly getting to the point where I was ready to, I was, I was having ideations about ending my life because it was so, so much suffering. And, and that came right along coupled with and I'll say this for a lot of people.

Because it's not something I used to be open to saying, but it was an obsessive need I had to not masturbate ever. And that came right along with religious shame and, and all of that. And so it was, it was such a deep, heavy weight that I carried that I couldn't ever mess up and I couldn't ever let anything go wrong.

And it eventually brought me to this truth of it's not about the darkness. It's not about focusing on the darkness and what I don't want. It's about what you were saying, which is the light, focusing on the light.

What do I want in my life? What am I pursuing in my life? What am I filling? As you said, that gap with it's not about, I can never relapse again. It's about I'm going to stay sober today. And I think that, that goes right along with what you were saying about counting your days.

I don't do that either. I count today. That's it.

Don't worry about tomorrow. Don't worry about next month. Don't worry about any of that.

Just today. And if you're in the middle of trying to figure out this whole sobriety thing and you relapse, learn from it. But you didn't lose all those other days of sobriety.

Often we will treat sobriety so much different than anything else, like practicing a sport or a musical instrument or some skill that we learn or things in our relationships or whatever it might be that we're practicing. If we relapse, culture teaches us, Western culture, I don't know how it looks on the Eastern side, but Western culture, at least, will teach us you failed. And now you failed so bad, like this is the end.

You know, now it's day zero again. You've ruined all of it. Everything that you did previous to that is gone.

It's not, it's not gone. It's all still there. If you were sober for two weeks, you still have those two weeks of sobriety that you, you learned, you gained skills, you put in work and effort.

Now you want to get to the point eventually where you do have the long-term sobriety and you don't go back, right? But that's only lived today. That's it. And it's so important to focus on that light and the good things.

What are you filling that gap with? Where does your new meaning in life come from? It's like you say, it started with the fear. It started with the fear. I just fixated on that much too long where eventually, yes, those things get you off the ground, like you're saying, but what's going to give you the fuel to keep going long-term? Yeah, I couldn't agree more.

And I really admire your, your honesty and vulnerability. And I think a lot of guys are going to resonate with that because it is such a crushing thing, you know, and you're dealing with it for the most part by yourself. And like you said, you feel like you're failing, you know, and so I think a lot of guys will resonate with what you said.

I really appreciate and admire, again, your honesty and vulnerability and giving guys hope because they're not, they're not failing. It is a skill. It's just, you just keep practicing, just like you said, and you just get back up because like you said, each day is a new day and you haven't erased the progress that you've made prior to that.

Yep, exactly. I love it, Dan. Well, this has been such a pleasure and such a valuable conversation that I think will be a blessing to a lot of men and others.

So I wondered, where can people find you if they want to learn about the frontline framework or new paths? How do they link up with you? Where should they go? Yeah, so I have the path plan for free. They can get it. It's just a one-page PDF.

It's at newpaths.me forward slash plan. And that's the four steps that I talked about. That's the plan, these steps that was the doorway to my freedom.

So they can pick that up for free if they want. Fantastic. newpaths.me. Perfect.

Okay, awesome, Dan. Well, thanks so much, man. Such a pleasure to have you on.

I really, really appreciate and admire you, Jake, for what you're doing. And I really appreciate you taking this time to speak with me and the amazing questions you asked. So really appreciate it.

I hope you've been inspired today by this episode with Dan Johnson and I. Very enjoyable conversation for me. Again, if you want to check out Dan Johnson, get in touch with him or check out his frontline framework. You can get that for free at his website, newpaths.me. You can also get my free workshop at nomoredesire.com. That workshop is the eight keys to lose your desire for porn, or you can check out my free ebook, 10 Tools to Conquer Cravings.

If you found today's episode helpful, follow this podcast and go ahead and check out the other episodes that I have here to help with all sorts of things in building a recovery mindset and a recovery lifestyle and rate this podcast so that other people who are out there looking for help can find help as well. God bless and much love. Everything expressed on the No More Desire podcast are the opinions of the host and participants and is for informational and educational purposes only.

This podcast should not be considered mental health therapy or as a substitute thereof. It is strongly recommended that you seek out the clinical guidance of a qualified mental health professional. If you're experiencing thoughts of suicide, self-harm, or a desire to harm others, please dial 9-1-1 or go to your nearest emergency room.