How Shame Feeds Porn Addiction & Feeling Bad About Porn Makes You Crave It Even More
- Jake Kastleman
- Apr 10, 2024
- 20 min read
Updated: Aug 26, 2024
How do shame and porn addiction go hand-in-hand, and how can feeling bad about porn addiction make you more likely to seek it out?
Let’s say you had a relapse with porn recently. You feel all the typical side effects over the days afterward: low mood, trouble focusing and feeling motivated, trouble connecting with others.
You feel more unhinged, you have brain fog, and you’ve got these cravings and fantasies constantly distracting you and making it hard to stay present and enjoy life and being with your loved ones.
Underneath it all is the shame and guilt. The feeling that your dirty, messed up, and that if others knew about your addiction, they wouldn’t love you or associate with you.
You commit “I’m never going to do that again!” You’re done.
A few days go by and you start feeling a little better. The cravings are still there, but at least some of the fog has passed. You start to feel like maybe you’re getting the hang of this. Maybe you’ve got it handled. Then, something happens - perhaps stress at work, conflict at home, or just a bad day - and you relapse and start the whole cycle over again.
Every time you do this, you feel worse and worse about your problem with porn. More and more ashamed of the behavior, and often more and more ashamed of who you are. If you feel so bad about it, you wonder why you can’t just give it up and move on.
Why are you constantly drawn back to this thing that you hate?
The strange and paradoxical thing about porn addiction - and all addiction for that matter - is that the intense hate you feel for yourself and your addictive behavior - the shame you feel - is actually a big part of what keeps driving you back to the addiction.
This can feel confusing and discouraging for my new clients when they first come to understand this, until they understand what to do about it.
Read on to find out.
The Paradoxical Psychology of Addiction & Shame
We’re often taught in our households and society that the worse we feel when we do something wrong, the more likely we are to stop doing that thing. To an extent, that’s true. Negative feelings like fear and guilt can be great short-term motivators for change.
That said, when some of us feel bad about something, it’s often not from a place of guilt (“I did something bad”), but instead from a place of shame (“I am bad”).
We feel our mistake isn’t simply a reflection of what we did, but a reflection of the type of person we are. And when we feel bad about who we are, not just what we did, this in turn causes us to repeat the negative behavior again and again and again.
This happens for a few reasons, which I’ll list below.
Perfectionism: Our mind believes mistakes define us
Perfectionism is linked with porn addiction. Sometimes, we believe that only bad people do bad things, therefore we must be a bad person because we make mistakes. This unfair unconscious belief keeps us locked in an endless cycle of the same mistakes, due to our negative self-image.
Suffering: The stress weighs us down
The worse we feel about ourselves, the more we suffer. This suffering can fuel a desire to escape and self-sooth - such as through destructive addictions.
Intensity: Negative emotions can add to the mental stimulation of an experience
It’s important to understand that the basest parts of our human brain favor one thing only: intensity. Negative or positive. As long as an experience is intense, our mind may be drawn back to it.
Even if we hate it, that hatred is an intense and highly stimulating emotion. Resisting an addiction can actually cause us to engage with it again and again.
Focus: We get what we focus on
“I’m going to do this”, or, “I’m not going to do this.”
“I want this”, or, “I don’t want this.”
To our conscious minds, the phrases above are opposites of each other. However, to our unconscious minds, they are one and the same.
Whether I say, “I’m going to do this”, or, “I’m not going to do this”, my focus is on whatever “this” is. So, if I say, “I’m not going to give in to my addiction”, or, “I don’t want to look at porn ever again”, what am I focusing on?
Porn: the thing that I don’t want.
If I feel horrible about porn, and I am consistently focusing on not doing it, I am more likely to do it.
Self-Punishment: I deserve to be punished
Feeling horrible about ourselves because of our addictions may cause us to unconsciously feel a drive to harm or destroy ourselves. We may engage in addictive behaviors because our unconscious mind believes that we should be punished for our mistakes.
Afterall, if I am a bad person - if I am unworthy of love - don’t I deserve to live a life of suffering?
So, intense emotions of shame because I am watching porn will not help me stop watching porn, it will often cause me to seek it out more often and with greater intensity.
Solutions to Shame and Porn Addiction
Here are a few things you can do to overcome porn addiction and the shame that drives us back to it.
Focus on What You Do Want
Instead of thinking “I’m never going to watch porn again”, start focusing on what you will do with your time. What new hobbies, interests, purposes, etc. can you get busy with?
It may feel difficult to motivate yourself to do these things at first, but if you stick with it and practice, eventually you will enjoy other interests more and more as they take the place of your pornography addiction.
Use Relapses as Learning Experiences
Instead of allowing yourself to become overwhelmed by shame and regret because of a relapse, ask yourself what you can learn from the experience.
What negative thoughts, emotions, or situations led you to the relapse in the first place? What can you do differently next time to avoid these factors and transform your situation?
Reduce Harm
This advice is a bit unorthodox. But, instead of expecting yourself to quit porn cold turkey, reduce the harm of relapses. In other words, if you would typically spend an hour watching porn and masturbating, see if you can decrease it to a half hour. Or, see if you can reduce the intensity of the material you are watching. Or, see if you can only masturbate and not watch porn.
I have never had a client who has quit cold turkey. I didn’t quit cold turkey. Once I started taking real strides in developing a recovery mindset and lifestyle, it still took me months to wean off of porn, and years to wean off of masturbation.
For most people, it doesn’t all happen at once. So show yourself some compassion as you learn to reduce the frequency and intensity of your addictive behaviors.
Celebrate Progress
Get focused on your victories. Celebrate the days you are sober. When you relapse or slip up, determine what you can learn from the mistake, and then move on.
Celebrate any ounce of progress. If you used to watch porn 5 times a week on average, and now you watch it 4 times, celebrate that. Focus on your successes, and let that focus motivate you to do even better next time and push for eventual long-lasting sobriety from porn.
Hope this helps, brother.
If you want to take the next step to overcome your porn addiction, check out my Free Workshop: The 8 Keys to Lose Your Desire for Porn. I will give you a practical and applied roadmap for recovery, including…
The REAL root causes of porn addiction.
How to stop porn cravings before they start.
The 5 Levels of Cognition that influence addiction.
The 4 Unconscious Drivers of porn cravings.
How sexual shame fuels pornography addiction.
1 simple daily practice to get out of the addiction funnel
And a whole lot more
You can also check out my Free eBook: The 10 Tools to Conquer Cravings, which gives you 10 quick mental techniques that you can use anytime, anywhere to redirect your mind and replace porn cravings with new thought patterns and mental habits.
So, head to nomoredesire.com to watch the Free Workshop or pick up the Free eBook and get going on the next steps of your recovery journey.
BUILD THE NO MORE PORN LIFESTYLE
MORE ARTICLES
Transcription of Episode 48: Feeling Bad About Porn Makes You Crave It Even More | How Shame Intensifies Porn Addiction
Hey my friend and welcome to the show this is Jake Castleman with no more desire let's say that you had a relapse with porn recently you feel all the typical side effects over the days afterward you know I know exactly how it is the low mood trouble focusing trouble feeling motivated trouble connecting with others you feel a little more unhinged you have brain fog and you got these cravings and these fantasies that constantly keep distracting you and making it hard to stay present and enjoy life and being with your loved ones and underneath all that is the shame and the guilt the feeling that you're dirty you're messed up that if others knew about your addiction they wouldn't love you or associated with you I know what all that's like man and I know about the commitment I'm never going to do that again I'd say I'm all done this is never going to happen again and then a few days go by and you start to feel a little better the Cravings are still there but at least some of the fog has passed feel a little more motivated a little better mood you start feeling like maybe you're getting the hang of it maybe you've got it handled right maybe you've got the sobriety thing under control and maybe you don't need porn anymore and then something happens maybe it's stress at work Conflict at home with your spouse or just a bad day and you relapse and you start the whole cycle over again and every time you do this you feel worse and worse about your problem with porn feel more and more ashamed of behavior and often more and more ashamed of Who You Are and you feel that this is a reflection of who you are and you wonder if you feel so bad about it why can't you just give it up and move on why are you constantly drawn back to this thing that you hate now let me tell you something that can sound or feel confusing or discouraging at first at least it was confusing for all my clients at first when I discussed with them talked about talked about it in the introduction to my program the strange in paradoxical thing about porn addiction or really any addiction for that matter is that the intense hate and shame that we feel for ourselves or for The Addictive Behavior is actually a big part of what keeps driving us back to the addiction and that might sound strange you think if you hate the thing or you say I can't do this because it obviously is is bad for me right and we fear it we want to run from it stay as far away from it as possible we think all these intensely negative thoughts about this thing wouldn't that cause us not to go back to it so that's the paradoxical thing about the psychology of addiction and shame and that's what we're going to talk about today and so I'm really going to delve into five different reasons that feeling shame and negative emotion about something can drive us back to it and then I'm going to give you a few Solutions of what we can do about these negative feelings so we can replace them with positive ones that are going to actually fuel recovery rather than keep driving us back to our addiction so we're often taught in our households and in society that the worst that we feel when we do something wrong the more likely we are to stop doing that thing and in some cases that can be true right negative feelings about something or guilt or fear can actually be a great short-term motivator for change not a long-term motivator but a short-term motivator that said when some of us feel bad about something it's often not from a place of guilt in other words the kind of the concept I did something bad which is guilt but instead it's from a place of Shame I am bad because of the thing I did and that kind of shame we can carry around with us and And again and this happens for a few reasons exactly five reasons and we're going to talk about those so the first reason is perfectionism our mind believes mistakes Define us when we struggle with perfectionism and perfectionism is tightly linked with I would think I would I would say based on my experience working with clients in my experience in the addiction field it's particularly connected with porn addiction I think people who struggle with perfectionism tend to go to pornography addiction over any other addiction perhaps these days but I could be biased I'm not basing that on any kind of fact just my personal anecdotal experience I think the perfectionism as far as in my experience working with Alex both on a voluntary and professional basis perfectionism's always involved and perfectionism is this again this this belief that mistakes make us bad or we want to avoid mistakes at all costs we want to avoid the feelings of shame or embarrassment or negative feelings from mistakes and so we try to prevent ourselves from making them at all or denying them when others bring them up or avoiding situations where we would have we would make mistakes or do things in perfectly which prevents us from trying new things and taking risks it gives us a lot more fear right and we have trouble leaning into that fear and these kinds of feelings and this avoidance can cause us to want to escape and numb out and it doesn't mean we can't overcome it in ways you know or or live differently right it doesn't mean obviously in the long run that we can't heal from it and really overcome perfectionism and really do those things that we feel afraid of and lean into the fear and conduct ourselves differently and think about the world and ourselves differently and one of the aspects of that is really turning mistakes rather than them being reflection of us being flawed as a human being we can see them as normal a normal part of progression and learning and to see our mistakes is learning experiences for the future rather than something to regret and look down upon ourselves four we say so sometimes right when we start with Perfections and we we believe that only bad people do bad things therefore we must be a bad person because we make mistakes we can really dive deep into that shame that perfectionism comes from and it can become this cage that we live in this this unfair unconscious belief Keeps Us locked in an endless cycle of the same mistakes over and over and over and over in part due to our negative self-image and then another reason that we can go back to addiction again and again even though it fills us with such negative emotion is just the pure suffering of it when we feel so bad and so horrible about something that stress that suffering ways us down the worst that we feel about ourselves the more that we suffer the more we really focus in on and hone in on our weaknesses and how flawed and messed up we are this suffering can fuel a desire to escape and self-soothe such as through destruct destructive behaviors and I would say that that can become our default right when we are caught up in this perfectionism and negative self-image and suffering we can go to destructive means of of coping and escaping rather than healthy or productive means of getting kind of a an escape or satisfaction in life something to relax or take the edge off things like that would be meditation or you know gratitude breathing or little things that we get interested in maybe making or creating something like you know some of my some of my clients right or or make things right right it could be reading it could be music right playing a musical instrument or just listening to music We're not going to default to these if we're in a state of high anxiety and high stress because if we're in a state of high anxiety high stress negative self-image we'll talk about this a little more in another reason but this can really this can really teach us that we deserve less than what is good you don't deserve happiness and so we seek out destructive means of coping the third reasons we have perfectionism suffering and then the third reason is intensity and this is a big one this is one that I've talked about in other episodes negative emotions can add to the mental stimulation of an experience this is a hard concept to grasp but essentially the idea is this the basis parts of our human brain favor one thing only and that is intensity doesn't matter if that's negative or positive in a lot of circumstances as long as the experience is intense our mind will be drawn back to it and this is why we need to focus on what we do want our mind may be drawn back to the thing even if we feel so negative about it if or if we say I'm not going to do this right we're focusing on the thing itself even if we hate it the hatred is an intense and highly stimulating emotion resisting an addiction can actually cause us to engage with it again and again and again and it's like Carl Jung says I'm famous psychologist he says what we resist persists and that's 100% true it's 100% true and so we're going to talk about what we need to do instead of that a little later on but before we move forward I just want to add a little plug here a little self promotion but something that can really help you my free ebook on no more desire.com if you'll go pick that up I talk about a lot of these Concepts and Far Far More an ebook 80 Pages loaded with tons of information from the last decade of my experience and my own recovery and also experience working with clients and helping others recover all of that information all that kind of a general overview of a lot of the things that I teach is in that book and I believe it will help you with tons so go to no more desire.com so reason number four I have reason number one two and three perfectionism suffering and intensity and then reason number four is focus get what we focus on this is another big reason that we will go back again and again to the negative thing that we hate so kind of as I was talking about before the the concept of we get what we focus on if I say I'm going to do this or I'm not going to do this whatever that thing is be it negative or positive or I want this or I don't want this right I'm going to do this I'm not going to do this I want this I don't want this that positive and negative form to our conscious mind makes sense but to our unconscious mind is the same thing and being 100% real here this is this has been studied within psychology this is how our mind works if we think about the thing right whatever this is that could be fighting with my spouse I don't want to fight with my spouse I'm not going to fight with my spouse it could be our addiction I'm not going to watch porn today I'm not going to watch porn today it could be our homework right I'm I'm not going to procrastinate I'm not going to procrastinate my homework or whatever it might be right I'm not going to procrastinate what we're focusing on in those situations is I'm going to fight with my spouse I'm going to look at porn I'm going to procrastinate we're focusing on that negative thing that we do not want and that is how our brain functions if I focus on something I don't want I am more likely to get that thing Very important to understand that that's how this works so the the last thing that we'll talk about here the fifth reason is self punishment and I kind of touched on this earlier but self punishment is this belief I deserve to be punished right and feeling horrible about ourselves because of our addictions may cause us to unconsciously feel a drive to harm or destroy ourselves we may engage in addictive behaviors because our unconscious mind the leaves that we should be punished for our mistakes after all if I'm a bad person because of my addiction or because of any reason because of my anger because of anxiety or depression because of weaknesses or insecurities if I'm a bad person because of those things if I'm unworthy of love Don't I deserve to live a life of suffering right we often think that way about bad people quote unquote right and bad people really are just people who suffered a lot of pain and security and all of that pain and that suffering and insecurity has been turned to hurting other people and that is very unfortunate kind of thing when we choose to do things like that or when we kind of become that person it is a miserable place to be but we can think this way about quote unquote bad people and I believe we all have the Light of Christ or the goodness of God depending on what your beliefs are and within each one of us that light that love and it can that that love can heal us it can turn us to to the good but we might believe that a bad person would deserve to suffer and so we may think of ourselves that way that we deserve to suffer so intense emotions of shame because I'm watching porn or not help me stop it will often cause me to seek it out more often and with greater intensity because I'm punishing myself for my bad Act so it's very heavy stuff but hopefully it's giving you some insights into your own mind and maybe some things that you struggle with or for a loved one who struggles with addiction so what are the solutions what do we do instead of this solutions to shame and pornography addiction there are few things that we can do and there are many things that I teach my clients within the program of a vast array of structured program that takes them through Hands-On exercises for months on end but as far as just here on the episode what I can tell you about is just a few things that we can do for things to be exact so the first thing is focus on what you do want okay again kind of touched on this earlier but instead of thinking I'm never going to watch porn again don't do that don't think about your commitment for the rest of your life of how you're never going to do something that's not what we need to focus on we need to focus on building a recovery mindset and a recovery lifestyle so start focusing on what you will do with your time what new hobbies interests purposes service can you get busy with and maybe difficult may feel difficult to motivate yourself to do these things at first but if you stick with it and practice eventually you will enjoy other interests more and more as they take the place of your porn addiction so focus on what you do want what you are going to do what you will spend your time and your focus on what is that thing or those things who are those people you're going to serve to get focused on that and then use relapses as learning experiences that's number two use relapses as learning experiences instead of allowing yourself to become overwhelmed by shame and regret because of a relapse ask yourself what you can learn from the experience what negative thoughts emotions or situations LED you to the relapse in the first place what can you do differently next time to avoid these factors and transform your situation take a look at that what thoughts led me here what happened in the days or the weeks before this I train Simply because he was mad and he had sexual urges and so those sexual urges were kind of overwhelm him and obviously he'd come to depend on this thing chemically and so then he would the Cravings would become too much and then he would give into porn and masturbation right that was his only conception cravings and the chemical components to the addiction that is so little of the story my friends that is a very basic basic level of our understanding of addiction we have to go so much deeper what insecurities stresses life circumstances what things are we trying to avoid Escape self soothe what is leading us to the addiction and this is again what I take people through exercises and doing and take them step by step and understanding and really going through a process together and in the program that they work to begin to practice habits of really observing thoughts observing actions observing their life and determining change it changes that need to be made then the third thing is to reduce harm now this is harm reduction this advice is a bit unorthodox but it is extremely helpful and it's already helped people that I worked with I think it's significant because we can often think that when it comes to addiction we need to either be all in or all out okay and let me explain instead of expecting yourself to quit porn cold turkey reduce the harm of relapses that's harm reduction in other words if you would typically spend let's say an hour watching porn and masturbating see if you can decrease it to a half hour or see if you can reduce the intensity of the material that you're watching I have something less intense less explicit and I'm not telling you to seek it out I'm not saying use this as an excuse I'm telling you if you come to the point where you are completely overwhelmed and the and the Temptations become too much and you make a conscious decision you say okay I know I'm way too far and I know I'm about to do this I'm going to reduce harm as much as I can so you reduce the intensity of the material you reduce the time that you spend or you see if to be completely Frank you can only masturbate in and not watch porn depending on the person that that may not be a thing for you but you reduce the time and intensity of the experience as much as possible reduce the harm I've never had a client who could quit cold turkey I didn't quit cold turkey once I started taking real strides in developing a recovery mindset in lifestyle a decade ago it's still took me months to wean off of porn and then it took me years to wean off of masturbation it doesn't all happen at once and it's so rare for someone to quit cold turkey all at once for most people it doesn't happen that way so show yourself some compassion as you learn to reduce the frequency and intensity of your addictive behavior then the fourth thing I'll tell you is to celebrate progress get focused on your victories celebrate the days that you're sober I have my clients do a daily check-in daily journaling or inventory of their day their weaknesses and strengths and other things very specific questions and part of that is celebrating progress is of being sober and days of of being clean we need to really get focused on the days that we're clean when we relapse or slip up we determine what we can learn from mistake and then move on right we don't need to give any more intense emotion to that experience we can celebrate any ounce of progress if if you used to watch porn five times a week right let's say and now you watch it four times celebrate that that's progress focus on your successes and let that Focus motivate you to do even better next time and push for eventual long-lasting sobriety from porn so if these solutions they can help you immensely my friend if you want to take things to the next level join my program go to no more desire.com/program And I'm going to teach you the exact reasons that you personally go to addiction and that you the exact things you need to do personally to overcome it will work on those things together using multiple resources and an excellent structure of Hands-On exercises and Hands-On ways of and practical ways of dealing with addiction and stepping into long-term recovery so check that out if no more desire.com/program or go to the description below the link is there for you another thing of course grab the ebook it is free there for you if you're not ready to take that big of a step into the program the ebook is a great place to start to go to no more desire.com to get that and then if you'll do something to help me out my friend I want this podcast to reach as many people as possible we need to support each other and we need to help each other recover from porn addiction and other addictions and if you can rate this podcast that's going to help people out a lot because that's going to guide more and more people to my podcast so they can get help too and it's going to help me out by enabling me to reach a broader audience and do more with this with this thing that I consider calling to help people so rate this podcast right now if you enjoy it give me a rating I really appreciate it my friend and I hope you have a blessed and amazing day God bless and much love.
Comments