The #1 Daily Habit That’s Helping My Clients Quit Porn
- Jake Kastleman
- Apr 23
- 20 min read
Updated: Apr 28
The Surprising Key to Porn Addiction Recovery
What if one of the most powerful tools for quitting porn isn’t discipline—but gratitude?
You might be thinking, “Gratitude? How could that possibly help?”
Over the last 10 years of my own sobriety, I’ve used gratitude as a daily anchor. I teach my clients the same—and one of them, who’s been sober for five months, credits his newfound "glass half full" mindset as one of the primary reasons he’s stayed clean.
So, now you know. Gratitude is the answer. You’re cured, right?
Not quite. This article isn’t just here to tell you to "be grateful." Instead, we’re going to break down the science behind gratitude and why it works, and I’ll give you specific, actionable ways to use it in your everyday recovery.
Let’s explore how gratitude works at a neurological level, what mindset shifts it produces, and how it practically reshapes your identity and daily life as a man committed to healing from porn.
Why Gratitude Works in Addiction Recovery
Your brain is not fixed. Your habits aren’t locked in place. Porn addiction is not a life sentence.
Through neuroplasticity, the brain rewires itself based on what you repeatedly focus on. And one of the most powerful rewiring tools is gratitude.
Gratitude trains your brain to notice abundance, to settle the nervous system, and to shift out of survival mode. That last part is key, because most porn use is a reactive behavior—you feel discomfort or stress, and your brain reaches for the easiest dopamine spike it knows.
Here’s what gratitude does neurologically:
Activates the prefrontal cortex, calming the limbic system (which drives cravings, impulsivity, and compulsive behavior)
Releases dopamine in healthy doses, satisfying your brain’s need for reward without relying on artificial highs like porn
Interrupts shame, self-pity, and negativity—the emotional states that drive the need to escape
When you intentionally practice gratitude, you’re literally retraining your brain to process the same painful moment through a new lens. That reduces the urgency to self-soothe—and strengthens your ability to stay sober.
How Gratitude Shifts Your Mindset
The addictive mindset is built on:
Scarcity (“I don’t have enough”)
Survival (“I’m just trying to get through the day”)
Victimhood (“This always happens to me”)
This is the emotional soil where porn addiction thrives.
But when you cultivate gratitude, you begin building a recovery mindset, one rooted in:
Abundance: “There is good in my life right now”
Stewardship: “I can make meaningful use of what I’ve been given”
Purpose: “This pain has a point, and I can grow through it”
Gratitude helps you stop focusing on what you don’t have (pleasure, validation, escape) and re-center on what you do have (connection, values, meaning).
You’re no longer chasing a feeling—you’re grounding yourself in a higher vision.
Spiritually, this aligns with Christian principles of contentment, humility, and trust in God’s timing. Gratitude becomes not just a mental exercise, but a sacred practice of presence.
How to Practice Gratitude in Porn Addiction Recovery
Let’s break this down into real, implementable actions.
Daily Practices
These are quick and repeatable. They’ll help you start each day from a place of strength:
Prayer or Meditation: Take just 5 minutes each morning to express thanks for your growth, the good people in your life, your blessings, etc. Don’t just list your thanks—pause and reflect on what they mean. Take time with each expression. Let it sink in.
Morning Journaling: Write 3 things you’re grateful for—people, qualities, victories, or even struggles that shaped you
Gratitude Breathwork: Take 60 seconds to slow your breath and think about one thing you’re deeply thankful for
In-the-Moment Reframes
These are for when you feel the pull of porn cravings:
When triggered: Ask, “What is this moment teaching me? What can I be grateful for right now?”
After a slip: Reflect, “What did I learn? What growth happened because of this? What grace did I experience in the aftermath?”
These reframes don’t erase failure—they help redeem it.
Long-Term Exercises
Build deeper gratitude through intentional reflection:
Gratitude Letters: Write to someone who’s supported your healing. Whether or not you send it, this cultivates humility and connection
Recovery Wins Journal: Track small victories—saying no to a craving, speaking up honestly, praying in a moment of temptation
Weekly Reflection: End your week by answering, “How has gratitude shaped my mindset and sobriety this week?”
Real-Life Application: My Personal Practice
I still experience urges for porn or masturbation, even after years of sobriety. But they’re less intense, less frequent, and far less persuasive than they used to be.
One of the key reasons is my gratitude practice. Every morning, I take about 5 minutes in prayer to reflect deeply on what I’m thankful for. Not just in passing—but with intention.
I let it sink in. I feel the gratitude in my body. And that shift in presence ripples through the rest of my day. It helps me feel grounded, positive, and less emotionally reactive.
Gratitude brings me back to Self—my true identity. And that’s the space from which I intend to lead each day.
The Link Between Gratitude, Humility, and Identity
Gratitude builds humility, which is one of the most underappreciated relapse prevention tools.
Why? Because humility lowers the major barriers to growth:
Defensiveness: Gratitude says, “I still have more to learn”
Pride: Gratitude says, “I’m not doing this alone”
Perfectionism: Gratitude says, “Progress matters more than image”
And most importantly, gratitude helps you anchor your identity in who you truly are.
When you let go of performance, ego, and false worth—you make space to rediscover your soul. You begin to experience yourself not as someone constantly trying to fix what’s wrong, but as someone grateful for what’s already been redeemed.
That’s the start of real healing.
Final Takeaways & Action Steps
Recovery isn’t just about avoiding porn—it’s about building a new mind.
Gratitude rewires your brain to find joy in discipline, peace in process, and meaning in the mess.
Your challenge: Pick one gratitude practice from this article and commit to it every day this week. Start small. Stay consistent. Make it an anchor.
You’ll be surprised how much it changes.
Ready to Build a Recovery Mindset That Lasts?
If you want to rewire your brain and rebuild your life from the inside out, don’t go it alone.
👉 Join my free porn addiction recovery workshop or apply for 1-on-1 coaching at NoMoreDesire.com
You were made for more. Let’s build it together.
Build the No More Porn Lifestyle
MORE ARTICLES
Episode 93 Transcription: The No. 1 Daily Habit That’s Helping My Clients Quit Porn for Good
Jake Kastleman (00:31.704)
What if one of the most powerful tools for quitting porn isn't discipline, but gratitude? And you might think, gratitude? Why would that be effective? Throughout the last 10 years of my own sobriety, I have used gratitude as an ongoing daily practice to help keep me sober. I also teach my clients specific ways to use gratitude in order to maintain the recovery mindset and keep their head above cravings.
One of my clients, who's been sober for five months, credits his newfound glass half full mindset as one of the primary means of his sobriety. So, now you know, gratitude is the answer. You're cured, right? Don't worry, I'm not just going to tell you to be grateful. Instead, I'm going to break down the science and practice of gratitude and how it rewires your brain for recovery. I'll give you practical methods.
to use gratitude in your everyday life and explain why it assists in porn addiction recovery. If you haven't subscribed to the show yet, do that now and hit the notification button. And be sure to give me a rating so that other men in need of help can find this podcast. Let's get started, my friend.
Jake Kastleman (02:12.024)
So to start today's episode off, I wanna talk about why gratitude works for addiction recovery. For a lot of people, we can make the mistake of thinking that sobriety and recovery are this very straightforward, very linear process. I have a behavior, I don't like it, it's causing me pain, it's hurting my loved ones. Now I'm going to simply stop that behavior, then I'm fixed, my loved ones feel better, life is great. That's not how it works.
We're gonna talk about neuroplasticity to start out. If you haven't heard of this term, maybe you have, but if you have not heard of neuroplasticity, it's something that's been studied widely probably over the last 30 years or so and has become a well-known fact within the psychology field. Your habits are not locked in place. Your addiction is not a life sentence. The brain changes. Okay, so we have neurons, we have...
Axon axons and dendrites that connect with one another we have neurons firing together Neurons that fire together wire together Okay, so we can actually create new wiring in the brain of these dendrites these axons connecting to one another and sending signals to each other We can restructure how our brain functions It is not stuck even when we're in our older age our 30s 40s 50s 60s 70s
we can change habits. We can transform the way that our mind works. And that is neuroplasticity. Our brain is plastic, so it can change. Okay, so with repeated focus and intention, we can transform the way that our brain functions. So there's plenty of hope, and that's one of the reasons that gratitude works so well. One of the primary means of overcoming addiction is to learn
to move from the limbic part of your brain to the prefrontal cortex. Gratitude activates the prefrontal cortex and calms the limbic or what can be the craving driven part of the brain. Seek pleasure, avoid pain. That is the limbic system's kind of MO. So our limbic system where our emotions are processed and where we have a lot of these base functions as a human being. Our limbic system
Jake Kastleman (04:36.876)
is most interested that we feel okay, that we feel safe, we feel homeostasis. And it's going to seek that out at whatever cost necessary. That part of our brain doesn't know morality. It doesn't know what is good or bad for us long term. It's just interested in feeling good now. And so when I experience porn cravings, the limbic part of my brain is active, right? And it is...
Driving can be dry dry essentially if I relapse and I give into porn the limbic part of my brain is leading It's driving my actions. So my prefrontal cortex on the other hand. This is where my this is the decision-making center of my brain This is where morality is found This is where my goals and my purpose and my values as a human being This is where all these things are processed and that's in the front
part of my skull. The limbic system is down at the base of the brain and the prefrontal cortex is located at the front of the brain. It's the two frontal lobes. And so we need to practice transferring from limbic to prefrontal. And in order to do this, we need to make consistent decisions.
because addiction of any nature, whether that be to porn or to food or to sex or to alcohol, drugs, social media, technology, you name it, we can get addicted to it, right? These things are really driven by us continuously giving into the limbic part of the brain, right? And because that's happening, our prefrontal cortex, from a brain science standpoint, it has actually shrunk.
our ability to make critical decisions, to think critically and to make decisions based on our values has decreased. And that can, of course, based on neuroplasticity, regrow, which is amazing. So in the beginning, this is really painful. If I have years or decades of addiction that I've dealt with, maybe viewing porn every day, or maybe it's every other day, or even once a week, if I'm...
Jake Kastleman (06:54.4)
if I'm continuously giving into that and it's this pain in my life, I've essentially grown this habit of giving into the limbic system. And so I need to replace that consciously with digging into my prefrontal cortex, right? With having my prefrontal cortex lead. And so gratitude activates the prefrontal cortex. It's an active focus that I have, right?
on the good, on what is positive. Gratitude is rewiring default pathways, default pathways that we've gotten into of negativity, shame, right? The belief I'm not good enough. I'm a bad person, self-pity. All of these are major drivers of porn use because when I'm in this negative mindset, this mindset where I'm down and I'm low, that is going to make me, of course, seek out escape.
Because when I'm in that state of mind, it's painful. It does not feel good. And so my limbic system wants to get me back into homeostasis. So it says, hey, this is the way that we will do that. We're going to go ahead and seek out an escape. what's the escape that I know, that I built a habit of? Well, of course, it's porn. Let's seek that out. That made us feel good before. And we get into dopamine regulation. So dopamine, our primary
One of our primary neurotransmitters, it's extremely important. It's involved in goals. It's involved in decision-making. It's involved in connection with other human beings, motivation, focus. We need dopamine to be regulated and to be balanced in order to make good decisions in life. And addictions, especially something like porn that's so powerful and intense, it drains our dopamine. It damages our dopaminergic system. Gratitude.
Instead releases dopamine which helps satisfy the brain without the artificial highs of porn So it's really quite amazing that way and that it's this replacement albeit not as intense and and Really, you know this this this peak pleasure that I experienced with porn if I'm if I'm seeking a life of meaning and purpose it's going to be a life in which I do not hit those peaks of physical
Jake Kastleman (09:21.048)
kind of pleasure in the way that porn or other methods artificial highs can offer. That's just simply not part of the good life, right? One which is filled with meaning and purpose and service. Now, a life with meaning and purpose and service brings me peace. It's more sustained, it feels more stable. I feel more me, right? I feel fulfilled, I feel proud of who I am, right? And I feel connected with other people. That's my high.
but it's never the physical pleasure high that's the spike that I get in a life where I'm seeking pleasure. right, so gratitude is gonna bring that dopamine in a natural way and in a sustainable way that doesn't have a negative side effects, it actually has positive side effects. So let's now talk about how gratitude shifts mindset from addiction to recovery.
The addictive mindset, it's important to understand that when we're addicted to porn, we've developed an addictive mindset. This has come from our childhood, our teenage years. Often, that's where it stems from. We grew up in a family where we were disconnected. We grew up in a family that was highly negative. We grew up in a family that wasn't there for us. We felt alone. So we developed this mentality of scarcity. I don't have enough, I'll never be enough. Life...
to function on this perfectionistic mindset because there's only so much time, there's only so much bandwidth, there's only only so much ability that I have. So everything's scarce, right? Everything feels very limited and I'm inhibiting myself. So this scarcity mindset, this is part of the addictive mindset and it drives another part of my brain, another part of my psyche I should say, really wanting to escape and get away from this feeling of everything's scarce.
everything's small, I have to inhibit myself, I've got to do everything right. Then survival is another part of that addictive mindset. I'm not seeking to thrive in my life. I'm actually just seeking to survive. That's all I'm doing on a day-to-day basis. And so I'm making decisions based on that, not for the long term or for my overall goals, but just so I can feel good now. Because again, if I take this from my childhood, my teenage years, it often stems from
Jake Kastleman (11:44.642)
that those early experiences that I had where I decided there's not enough and I just need to take care of me now. And that disconnects me from other people. There's also a victim and victimhood mentality that comes with the addictive mindset. This victim mentality teaches me the world's out to get me. People aren't here for me. I am, I do not have choice. I do not have ownership.
I am powerless, I am hopeless. Okay, and so gratitude helps shift us out of this addictive mindset. It introduces us to the recovery mindset, which is instead of scarcity, it's abundance. Instead of survival, it's stewardship. Instead of victimhood, it's purpose. So that scarcity to abundance, right, there's enough in life. That doesn't have to mean excess, just means there's enough. I feel...
I feel good enough, I feel that my life is enough. Still challenges, still struggles, but I feel that things are enough. I have enough in life. And that can also mean true abundance, where there is just a plethora of blessings. There is so much good and far more and plenty than we could ever need. We can have that life. And that, it really drives the recovery mindset. What I should say is,
That is part of the recovery mindset. We need to train ourselves and practice this abundance mentality. And I will say fundamental to that is bringing good into the world and practicing gratitude. If we can focus on the good of others and on gratitude, this is abundance. Stewardship instead of survival, right? Gratitude is really the stewardship over my mind. Okay, when I'm actually, I'm taking ownership over my thoughts and where I am at in my mentality.
And then purpose instead of victimhood. I know why I'm here. I know what I'm about. I know what my values are and I'm going to take ownership over those and I'm going to live my life how I choose to live it. And I'm going to honor that others get that same exact same exact privilege that same exact. They need to approach life the same way right with autonomy and with with independence right which can then turn into interdependence between us.
Jake Kastleman (14:09.858)
That's a whole nother concept, but essentially this purpose instead of victimhood. So gratitude helps in all of these areas. It helps you develop this mindset of abundant stewardship and purpose. It helps you stop focusing on what you don't have, which leads to seeking pleasure and validation and escape. And it re-centers you on what you do have, which leads to seeking purpose and connection and peace.
So then how to practice gratitude, okay? So we understand some of these ways that it impacts the mind psychologically and how it impacts us as far as neurologically. So how do we practice gratitude in recovery? I'm gonna give you some practical advice here. So daily practices, you can write these down. I recommend grabbing a pad of paper and a pen or typing it into your phone. Morning journaling, very simple practice that's actually been studied.
There's been research studies on this and how effective it is for mindset and happiness, which is then translating into recovery for us in this context. Same thing, if I feel happy, I feel well, I feel joy, I feel well-being. That's what mean, what else is recovery than feeling all of those things, right? Good self-care, feeling happy, feeling positive, feeling connected to others, feeling purpose. So morning journaling.
three things you're grateful for today. Just journaling about those three things. And I recommend taking some time with it. Okay. Another is gratitude breath work. So first one is gratitude journaling. Next is gratitude breath work. Okay. 60 seconds, nothing super long, just 60 seconds of deep breathing while thinking about something meaningful in your life, something that you're grateful for or a couple of things. And again, take time with it.
And then prayer or meditation of thanks centered on people, people who you're grateful for, people who are doing things in your life that you're grateful for, even people that you may not like that much, or maybe you're having conflict with your spouse, things are challenging in your relationship. I promise you, and I've experienced this firsthand, if you can practice each day just focusing on one thing, one significant thing,
Jake Kastleman (16:34.03)
over the last 24 hours that you're grateful for about your spouse, something specific that she's done or that he's done, center your gratitude focus on her and a quality or a characteristic that she shows and why it's meaningful to you. That is powerful. So you can center your gratitude on people in your prayer or your meditation, and then on growth, ways that you're growing, ways that things are expanding in your life.
things that are getting better, or on accomplishments, positive accomplishments, you can be thankful for the gifts of accomplishment. This is often something I think we overlook or don't know about, is this is a way to really counteract pride that can come out of accomplishments or seeking for self-worth through accomplishments. Instead, we can be grateful for the gifts of accomplishment. So if you're religious or you're spiritual, you believe in higher power, reach out to God and say, thank you.
Thank you for granting me these abilities. Thank you for this accomplishment I've had today. I got to do something good today for somebody else. What a blessing, right? That's something you'd be grateful for. Then, so those are some daily practices. And then in the moment, reframes. Okay, so when you're triggered, you can think, what is this moment teaching me? That's an element of gratitude, right? It's this holistic kind of view of
This is a spiritual practice. This challenge right here is here to teach me something I can actually feel grateful for what's happening and that this challenge is helping me grow. What can I be grateful for within it? And then after a slip or a relapse, what did I learn? How did I grow? What am I thankful for despite the fall? This is very powerful because it can bring you out of the shame oriented mindset that easily comes up.
or the self-judgment, the self-flogging, being self-critical. None of these things help you recover. A part of your mind, a manager part, as would be referred to in parts, Worker IFS, is going to tell you that essentially it's going to try to fill you with fear and fill you with shame. And that part of your mind believes that that fear, that shame, essentially beating you down, judging you, criticizing you, trying to control you, is going to help motivate you.
Jake Kastleman (19:01.176)
to do better when in fact, it's actually that part of your mind is causing the very pain it is trying to fix, which is it's exactly similar to it's a reflection of what we can do in our relationships as well. When we're trying to control others or judge them or criticize them thinking we're gonna help them change and we're actually causing the very pain that we're trying to fix. So those are some daily and in the moment practices then some long-term exercises.
Write a letter of thanks to someone who supported you in your recovery You don't even have to send it But just writing that letter of thanks or a letter of thanks to someone else in your life Who's done something good for you or to your spouse who you're looking to develop a greater relationship with just a letter of thanks. That's all
And then another is to start a recovery wins journal, track all the little victories. This really helps center your mind on the gratitude for sobriety and that helps you believe more and more. It's an act of faith to actually go about centering your mind and your intentions upon this is what I'm thankful for in my life, the good that's happening, I want more of that. If you want more of that good, practice.
gratitude. It's one the most powerful things that you can do. I want to give you some real life applications here when it comes to gratitude. I face desires or urges to be completely transparent. I myself face desires and urges for masturbation pretty much every day. They're a lot less intense and frequent than they once were. That's a blessing that I have, but they're still there. So one of the things that I've refocused on lately is
gratitude. That's one of the reasons I'm doing this episode today. In my prayers in the morning, I take time to be mindful, to be present with the things I'm thanking God for. I don't just say, thank you for this, thank you for that. Instead, I take time with it, savoring the gratitude and letting the meaning of it sink in. That's been very powerful for me. This helps calm my mind, helps me get present, helps me feel more positive.
Jake Kastleman (21:14.914)
And this impacts my entire day and how susceptible I am to cravings or desires for escape in general, right? Because I may face urges or desires for masturbation that, and as convincing as the mind can be sometimes, that's a sexual need. So much more of it, what I found personally and what I found with clientele and in the recovery work, right? And studying these things, it is...
so much an emotional need. We use things like masturbation, especially for men, we use that as a coping mechanism, a self-soothing type of mechanism, right? This is extremely common and it's been shown in research and in clinical work, okay? So this is something that men can get in the habit of. It's certainly something that I got in the habit of. And so if I can calm my mind, if I can get present, if I can feel more positive,
then this is what my mind needs in so many ways that things like masturbation or porn or social media or TV or video games, all this stuff would seek to satisfy. So this all plays into porn addiction recovery. The next thing that I wanna talk about is the link between gratitude, humility and identity. Okay, so we're just wrapping up here, but gratitude builds humility, which lowers key...
relapse factors. Gratitude builds humility. Why? Because it's free of expectation. Pride, or perfectionism is very much built upon expectations. If I have expectations, I should hit this bar, I should be exactly this good, and then when I don't, I feel shame, I feel bad about who I am. Gratitude, essentially,
avoids that path altogether. It chooses a new way, a different way, a better way, which is the way of humility, one in which I realize I'm a human being, I'm a person, I make mistakes, I'm learning, I'm growing, and I'm grateful for who I am and what I have. I'm happy about who I am. Gratitude really helps me cultivate that because factors like defensiveness, if I'm in a defensive state, that is a very negative, very tight up, very
Jake Kastleman (23:37.71)
pressure-oriented state and that's going to essentially all that pressure that being tied up that feeling perfectionistic or like I can't make mistakes or people are against me they're rejecting me that is going to necessitate another part of my psyche responding to all that criticism that I feel and all that pressure I feel it's going to have another part of my brain responding and saying I need a way out I need to feel something different I need to feel pleasure I need to feel good
Okay, so we want to move out of the defensiveness and the perfectionism. And then something like pride, which is really just a coping mechanism. It's a superiority complex over the top of an inferiority complex. It's just covering over feelings of fear, feelings of shame, feelings of distrust for other people, feelings of grief and sadness. And so if I can instead get into gratitude, I can calm my mind.
Along with that hopefully I can get in touch with some of those real feelings that I'm having instead of sticking around in the pride and defensiveness and perfectionism so Humility helps us see recovery as a process not a performance Gratitude anchors you in who you truly are. It's removing the barriers between that true self the soul, right?
There's between you feeling that and actually like feeling who you are so you can forget about all the things you've based yourself worth upon and just be who you are. Gratitude empowers you to just be. That's going to lead to the humility. It's going to lead to identity and knowing who you are, feeling who you are instead of constantly on this, you you're you feel like you're up on stage performing all the time trying to impress everyone and trying to make it make sure everyone likes you.
And that is torture. It's one of the primary driving factors of addiction. Again, there's many of them. So some final takeaways for you. Recovery is not just about what you avoid. It's about what you build. We're building a recovery mindset. We're building a recovery lifestyle. Gratitude is a very powerful part of this. It rewires your brain to find joy in discipline, peace in the process.
Jake Kastleman (25:56.938)
and meaning in the mess of life. And so a challenge for you this upcoming week, practice one gratitude habit. I gave you those multiple in the moment and daily practices, long-term exercises of gratitude. Practice one gratitude habit every day this week. Set a reminder in your phone and your calendar app and your tasks app. Make it your anchor. With that, God bless and much love, my friend.
Comments