How to Help Someone with a Porn Addiction in 3 Simple Steps
- Jake Kastleman
- May 15, 2024
- 28 min read
Updated: Sep 14, 2024
It can be so hard to know how to help someone with a porn addiction. The suffering of those of us with addicted spouses or children can be unbearable at times. We worry deeply for our loved ones. We try so, so hard to “knock some sense into them”; to tell them to get help, or to help them ourselves. We talk and talk and talk until we’re blue in the face, attempting to get through.
Sometimes, our spouse or child will have moments of clarity, knowing they need help. But, when we follow up to see if they’ve set up that therapy appointment, looked up that support group they talked about, or started that new daily spiritual or mindfulness practice, we are told that we’re being “crazy” or “controlling” by following up. Or they make up some new excuse as to why they “don't need to do that anymore”, why they “haven’t had time”, or why they’re “too overwhelmed” or have “too much going on.”
We want our loved one to succeed, to feel happy, and to get clean. But they don’t seem to want it as bad as we do. Or, perhaps they do want it, but they just can’t seem to gain any real traction.
We experience frequent challenges connecting with our loved one and knowing what to say to them. We just don’t know how to help.
Today, I’m going to teach you how to help someone with a porn addiction in 3 steps.
Need help? Learn more about my Intensive Porn Addiction Recovery Program where I teach men how to build a recovery mindset and lifestyle, so they can overcome cravings for porn.
Porn Addiction is the New Epidemic
Addictionhelp.com reports that 69% of men view online porn. But how many of them are addicted? I guess that depends on how many know that they’re addicted, or even consider their porn use a problem in the first place.
How many men only view porn once every couple of weeks and wouldn’t consider that an addiction? How many are unaware of how porn is affecting the way they view women or interact with others, or the damage it's doing to their brain?
How many men have a difficult time connecting with other people in part because porn has trained their brain to see others as objects and makes it more difficult to connect with their deep emotions and form long-lasting, healthy relationships? And I’m not just talking about romantic relationships - I mean all relationships.
Is that to say anyone who views porn is a bad person or can’t care for others? No, of course not. But how incredible could they be without the porn? And how many of those 69% of men could stop viewing porn today without craving or obsessing over it once they can’t have it? How many are more reliant on it than they know?
I speak as someone who used to be in this exact spot. I had no idea how much watching porn was ruining my mental health and relationships until I quit. I also had no idea how reliant I was on it as a mechanism for escaping stress and numbing mental/emotional pain.
Porn’s Impact on Mental Health & Motivation
Porn addiction - or just porn use in general - is having a very negative impact on the world. It’s causing men to lack drive and motivation. Not just drive to pursue relationships with women - which it certainly does - but drive and motivation in day-to-day life.
In my intensive porn addiction recovery program, I teach my clients to build new lifestyle habits using a concept known as Pleasure Conditioning. Pleasure Conditioning is all about what type of pleasure we are conditioning our mind to in our daily activities.
For instance, if I spend a total of a couple of hours a day playing video games, watching porn, watching TV, eating junk food, scrolling social media, etc. - then my brain becomes conditioned to pleasure that is easy to obtain and takes little effort. I call these base pleasures. And these types of activities numb the mind and don’t help us grow. In fact, they actually diminish our passion, joy, and capacity. They are mindless - not mindful.
Whereas, if I spend my days in activities like writing, reading, having conversations, serving people, working, learning, cooking, playing musical instruments, etc. then my brain becomes conditioned to pleasure that is harder to get and takes more effort, leading to growth and happiness. I call these noble pleasures. These activities are mindful - rather than mindless.
So, let’s revisit the question from earlier. Who do you know who struggles with a porn addiction? Well, who do you know who struggles with motivation issues? Anxiety? Depression? Anger? Trouble connecting with other people?
When we engage in low effort, mindless activities that yield an intense mental reward - like porn or video games or social media or junk food - these often contribute substantially to things like anxiety, depression, ADHD, social anxiety, etc.
And it’s hard to say that, right? Because things like video games and junk food can be really fun. They can feel like a break from life; they give us an out. But meanwhile, they are dampening the person we could be, the good we could do, the relationships we could build, the dreams we could pursue - the extent to which we could enjoy the present moment and spending time with the ones that we love.
If you know someone with these struggles, that person may have a porn addiction that contributes to these struggles. And notice I say contributes. It isn’t the whole picture, but it is a part of it.
The more we engage in porn or other addictive behaviors, the worse it makes things like anxiety, depression, and issues with focus and motivation. The worse these struggles become, the more we want to numb out using our addictions. I’ve been there! It is a difficult cycle to break, but it can be done!
How do you help someone with a porn addiction?
So, how do you help someone with a porn addiction? Is it a spouse? A child? A friend?
Helping each entails the same steps, with increasing involvement for spouses and children.
Step 1: Understanding and Empowerment
We need to broaden our perspective on addiction. It’s not ultimately the issue, but a symptom. It increases our struggles, but is ultimately not the source of our struggles.
Understanding
Addiction is a symptom of underlying mental and emotional pain. When we suffer, and that suffering has underlying self-judgment and self-worth issues (shame), a part of our brain will often influence us to seek out a way to numb and escape the overwhelming pain.
And any of us with serious issues with self-worth coupled with mental and emotional suffering will often seek out an addiction (or multiple addictions in whatever form) to cope with the pain.
When our sexual urges become obsessive, it is always because there is underlying mental and emotional pain that is fueling the addiction. To help someone overcome porn addiction, it is best that we do not see the addiction as the cause - but instead as the symptom.
Empowerment
Now, here’s what you need to understand - especially if you’re a spouse of someone who struggles with porn addiction - and that’s that the porn addiction has nothing to do with your spouse's sexual urges.
Let me say that one more time. A porn addiction has nothing to do with sexual urges, and everything to do with attempting to escape and avoid internal suffering.
When your husband has a porn addiction, it is not because you fall short as a spouse to fulfill his sexual desires. That is not why he is seeking out porn.
Sex is not a need. Though it may appear to be one - especially to the male mind - it is optional. It often appears to be a need because males can so easily succumb to using masturbation and porn as a way to cope with difficult emotions from the time we are a teen (or earlier). And for a majority of us, this happens very naturally.
Males and females have natural sexual urges. Men also have an internal biological meter that continuously fills after puberty (i.e. sperm builds up and eventually must be released, whether manually or through a wet dream). It’s just the way it works.
Just as women have an on-going cycle, men have an on-going cycle of build up and release of sperm. And before it releases, the physical urge to relieve that sperm can be quite overwhelming. This often comes along with an increased intensity of drive and heightened emotions.
As men, if we have not learned how to direct our mind and use our manly drive and testosterone for purposeful, meaningful, and productive means, then we will be unable to point our manly capacity in the right direction. In other words, we will default to things like masturbation, porn, or meaningless sex outside of a committed, loving relationship in order to relieve the physical and mental pressure of the buildup.
When used properly, these urges to do and succeed can be incredible! We can change the world and people’s lives using this drive. But, if we squander this potential, we can be left feeling unfulfilled, drained, and isolated.
In order to overcome porn addiction, we need to develop a recovery mindset and a recovery lifestyle. A way of living that replaces our desire for porn. And this requires us to choose a life of purpose, meaning, accomplishment, connection, and service. Especially as men, if we do not choose this kind of life, then we will be ruled by our sexual urges. Sexual outlets like porn and masturbation easily become the pacifier that robs us of our God-given abilities.
So, if we are trying to help a child quit porn, we must understand that their life is simply out of balance. They are dealing both with mental and emotional pain that is driving the porn addiction, as well as needing more purpose and meaning in their lives.
We can empower them by listening to them and helping them open up, as well as getting them involved in serving the community, sports, activities, church, etc. as much as we can.
For our spouse, we can plan things to do with them, encourage them in their efforts to accomplish and do great things, give them to-do lists (yes, seriously), and create systems in the home and family that foster meaningful connections, hobbies, and interests.
Don’t Try to Control Them
All this said, for those of us who have a spouse or child with a porn addiction, we can’t control them. In fact, attempting to control them will actually fuel the addiction, because negative emotions like shame, judgment, and control are not the solution to addiction but its cause.
Addiction stems from a feeling of unworthiness. Therefore, to help someone overcome porn addiction, we need to go through the patience-testing process of loving them, understanding them, and having compassion for the pain they carry inside.
Does this mean we need to let them walk all over us? Certainly not! But it does mean we need to try our very best to show them understanding and care in order to help them heal the underlying feelings of insecurity and fear that drove them to addiction in the first place.
Step 2: Self-improvement & Self-care
If you want your spouse or child to get help and quit porn, do everything you can to work on yourself. Learn mindfulness techniques; practice daily physical, spiritual, mental, and relational routines that improve your well-being; serve your family in every way you can; plan fun activities together; make friends that help you feel belonging; go to therapy; begin your own addiction recovery…
Do everything you can to heal and feel happier, and this will likely motivate your spouse or child to do their own work to heal as well. Or, it may not. Either way, you will better be able to handle whatever comes and to help them if you work on yourself and turn your thoughts and actions towards serving and loving them and others around you.
Step 3: Boundaries & Intervention
When it comes to friends, spouses, or children who struggle with a porn addiction, we want to make it clear that we are not the source of their mental and emotional stability. We are not their savior. We are not responsible for their recovery, or the lack thereof.
Boundaries
This requires a very mature, firm, and respectful stance. We must tell these people that we will not be treated with disrespect, nor will we allow ourselves to be manipulated. We will not be held responsible for their relapses. We will also not stand for emotional abuse or neglect.
We must speak up for ourselves, without contempt or resentment (as much as we can), and without pandering to our loved one’s manipulation, coercion, or delusion.
In most cases, I’ve found that struggling addicts are unaware of their negative habits of fear tactics and manipulation. Our spouses were often taught these tactics when they were young by other people who were hurt and suffering. Now, it is our job to be a chain-breaker, and this often requires blunt, respectful declarations of self-respect and holding appropriate boundaries.
These are not boundaries about every little decision this person makes, but expectations about how we ourselves will be treated by them, and perhaps expectations about what our spouse must do if they are to remain married to us.
But remember, of course, that we always do our best to hold these boundaries and expectations in combination with understanding and empowerment as well as self-improvement and self-care.
Intervention
My hope is that what I’ve said so far will be enough to bring your spouse or child to sobriety. But, sometimes something more drastic is needed.
If you want your spouse or child to heal and get better, sometimes you need to be the one to tell them so. Sometimes, you need to lay down what you will and won’t accept, and that they need to get help. Period.
Hopefully, you can help them see the light, and they will go willingly. But, they may not, and then a decision must be made on your part, and that needs to be handled very delicately and personally.
If your spouse or child is open to getting help, the No More Desire Intensive Porn Addiction Recovery program could be the answer for them.
Each person’s journey is unique, and what works for one might not work for another. That’s why a personalized approach is so important. By regularly assessing challenges and breaking down thoughts and emotions, I develop tailored strategies that address the specific needs and triggers of each individual.
Most programs teach you how to face cravings. These might include CBT techniques, Internet filters, accountability buddies, talk therapy, church or religious programs. These often don’t address the roots of your addiction.
You don't need to use special techniques to deal with cravings. Recovery is not about "facing" or "fighting" cravings. Instead, you need to get to the root of why your brain craves porn, and remove that root. Don’t waste time trying to figure out your cravings. Instead, use daily mindset and lifestyle practices that retrain your brain over time so that you don’t crave porn in the first place.
If you want to take the next step to overcome your porn addiction for good, 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.
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Episode 52: How to Help Someone with a Porn Addiction in 3 Steps
Hey, my friend, this is Jake Kastleman with No More Desire. Welcome to the show. It can be so hard to know how to help someone with a porn addiction.
The suffering of those of us that have addicted spouses or children can be unbearable at times. And we worry deeply for our loved one. We try so hard to maybe knock some sense into them or to help them get a grip, to help them get help or to help them ourselves.
And we talk and talk and talk until we're blue in the face. We attempt to get through. Sometimes, you know, it feels like our loved one has moments of clarity, knowing that they need to get help.
But when we follow up to see if they've set up that therapy appointment or looked at that support group they talked about or started that new daily spiritual or mindfulness practice, we're told maybe that we're being crazy or controlling by following up with them, or they make up some new excuse as to why they don't need to do that anymore or why they haven't had time or why they're sober now and they're good to go or why they're too overwhelmed or they just have too much going on to do that right now. It's just not a priority. And we really want our husband, right, our spouse, you know, I'm speaking to women here and I think that's who I'll really center on because that's probably most of the people listening.
I'm speaking to parents too, but I'll just replace the word husband or spouse with a child, if it's your child that's struggling. You know, we want our spouse to feel happy, to get clean, to succeed. We don't want them to feel terrible, right? And sometimes we seem to want their sobriety more than they do.
Or perhaps they do want it, but they just can't seem to gain any real traction. All right, and we experience these frequent challenges connecting with our loved ones and knowing what to say to them. We just don't know how to help.
And today I'm going to teach you how to help someone with a porn addiction in three steps. And very first thing, you know, to kind of lead up to that, I want to share some things about porn addiction, some statistics and some other kind of insights that might help you. Addictionhelp.com reports that 69% of men view online porn and 69% view it, but how many of them are addicted? That's the big question, right? That's a question that I think I get a lot and that people ask.
And my answer to that is, I guess it depends. How many know that they're addicted or how many even consider that their porn use is a problem in the first place? How many men are in denial about this or how many men only view porn maybe once every couple of weeks and wouldn't consider that an addiction? How many are unaware though of how porn is affecting the way that they view women or interact with other people or the damage it's doing to their brain? And I speak from personal experience here. I know how it impacted me after a decade of addiction.
I've been sober almost as long and I can tell you that it has impacted my brain for good in many ways. I've healed from a lot of things within relationships and my mental health and so much anxiety and depression and, you know, a lot of frankly immaturity that I suffered with, right? That can be an effect of addiction, any addiction not just porn addiction, any addiction. And I've healed from a lot of other things just with reference to motivation and focus and concentration.
I had a very hard time in the past with those things. So I kind of ask, you know, how many men have a difficult time connecting with other people in part because porn has trained their brain to see others as objects and makes it more difficult to connect with their deep emotions, both of themselves and others and to form long lasting healthy relationships. And I'm not just talking about romantic relationships.
I mean all relationships because if we view anyone as an object we cannot form a deep relationship with them. And this is the kind of thing that porn does to the brain. And again, it doesn't make us a bad person.
It just means we need to form new recovery mindset and lifestyle habits to replace the addiction. And then our brain heals over time. We may always have scars of a certain type or to a certain degree but we can heal from so, so much and have a life beyond our wildest dreams.
And we can make the dreams of our spouses come true as well through that healing. And that's what I teach my clients to do. Is that to say anyone who views porn as a bad person they can't care for others? No, of course not.
But how incredible could that person be without porn? I witnessed this every day. How many of those 69% of men could stop viewing porn today without craving or obsessing over it once they can't have it? How many are more reliant on it than they know? And once they accept and understand that they have that reliance, coming out of that addiction by building the right mental, physical, spiritual relationship habits, they can overcome it. And then their mind expands, their life expands, their potential expands.
They experience a freedom that they've never known before by getting rid of porn addiction. Again, I speak as someone who used to be in this exact spot. I had no idea how much watching porn was ruining my mental health or my relationships until I quit porn.
I also had no idea how reliant I was on it as a mechanism for escaping stress and numbing mental and emotional pain. And porn addiction or just porn use in general is having a very negative impact on the world, especially for men, but obviously for their loved ones as well who may impact whether they know it or not through their porn addiction. It's causing men to lack drive and motivation.
We see this everywhere. It's not just a drive to pursue relationships with women, which it certainly does do that. It certainly does degrade our drive and motivation to pursue deep, real relationships and long lasting committed relationships with women.
But it's not just that, it's driving motivation in our day-to-day lives, in everything we do. In my intensive porn addiction recovery program, I teach my clients to build new lifestyle habits using a concept known as pleasure conditioning. And pleasure conditioning is all about what type of pleasure we are conditioning our mind to in our daily activities.
For instance, if I spend a total of a couple of hours a day playing video games or watching porn or watching TV or eating junk food or scrolling social media or all of the above or a combination, then my brain becomes conditioned to that type of pleasure that is easy to obtain and takes little effort. Again, pleasure that is easy to obtain and takes little effort. I talked about this in the last episode.
I call these base pleasures. These types of activities numb the mind. They're mindless and they don't help us grow.
In fact, they actually diminish our passion, joy and capacity. They are not building our mind. They are not building our lives.
They are diminishing our lives and our potential. And that's hard to accept, right? Because they can be so enjoyable, so fun in the moment. But this is something we really need to look at, guys.
If you have a hard time accepting this, I ask you, please, listen. If I spend my days in activities like writing, reading, having conversations, serving people, working, learning, cooking, playing musical instruments, whatever it is that I'm doing that's adding fulfillment to my life, then my brain becomes conditioned to that kind of pleasure that is harder to get and takes more effort. Pleasure that leads to growth and happiness.
And I call these noble pleasures. These activities are mindful rather than mindless, right? They expand our mind. So with that, let's revisit the question from earlier.
Who do you know that struggles with a porn addiction? Well, who do you know that struggles with motivation issues? Anxiety, depression, anger, trouble connecting with other people. When we engage in a lot of low effort, mindless activities that yield an intense mental reward, like things such as porn or video games, social media, junk food, these often contribute to things like anxiety, depression, ADHD, social anxiety, et cetera. And it's hard to say that because these things like video games and junk food can be really fun and enjoyable.
They can feel like a break from life. They can give us an out. But meanwhile, they are dampening the person we could be, the good that we could do, the relationships we could build, the dreams that we could pursue, the extent to which we could enjoy the person in the present moment and spending time with the ones that we love.
And so if you know someone with these struggles of anxiety, depression, ADHD, social anxiety, trouble connecting with people, low motivation, you may know someone with a porn addiction that contributes to those struggles. And notice that I say again, contributes, it isn't the whole picture, but it is, can be a part of it. The more that we engage in porn or other addictive behaviors the worse it makes things like anxiety, depression, and issues with focus and motivation.
And then the worst that those struggles become, the more we want to numb out using our addictions. And I've been there, I lived that for 10 years. Well, over 10 years, if you include addictions to things like video games and junk food when I was a kid, it's difficult to break that cycle, but it can be done.
It can be done. So how do you help someone with a porn addiction? Now, is that a spouse? Is it a child? Is it a friend? Helping all of these people really entail the same, it entails the same steps, just with increasing involvement for spouses and children. So I'm gonna lay these out for you.
These are three different steps. If you've been enjoying today's episode, please rate my podcast, my friend, helps it reach more people. Do that right now and go inside the app, Spotify, Apple podcasts, wherever you're at, just give me a rating on there and help it reach more people.
Hope you're enjoying the episode so far. Let's talk about step one. Step one is to understand and empower.
We need to broaden our perspective on addiction guys. The addiction is not ultimately the issue, but it's a symptom. It increases our struggles, but it is ultimately not the source of our struggles.
So this is the understanding piece from step one. Okay, we need to live with understanding and empowerment, give understanding and empowerment to the person who struggles with porn addiction. Again, I'm gonna speak from the standpoint of people with spouses with porn addiction, because they're probably the most common person listening.
But shout out to all those parents struggling too, it's just as hard. So addiction, you know, when it comes to understanding, addiction is a symptom of underlying mental and emotional pain. Okay, understand that addiction is a symptom of underlying mental and emotional pain.
So do not see the addiction as the problem, because it's not, it's just a symptom. When we suffer, and that suffering has underlying, so when we suffer with mental and emotional pain, and that is coupled with self-judgment and self-worth issues, or in other words, shame, I'm not good enough, a part of our brain will often influence us to seek out a way to numb and escape the overwhelming pain. Okay, that's because of the self-judgment and the self-worth issues.
We can suffer with mental and emotional pain, but when it's coupled with that self-judgment and the self-worth issues, we will almost always seek out an addiction. And whatever that drug of choice is, I say drug, quote unquote, it could be anything, it could be food, it could be gossip, it could be codependence, it could be things like sports, watching sports, it could be food, did I already say food? I think I already said food. It could be drugs or alcohol, obviously, it could be video games, it could be social media, whatever that thing is, right? We can make an addiction out of almost anything, and I could go deeper into that, but that's a whole nother episode.
Any of us with serious issues with self-worth coupled with mental and emotional suffering will often seek out an addiction or multiple addictions to cope with the pain. And here's the thing, is when our sexual urges become obsessive, it is always because there is an underlying mental and emotional pain that is fueling the addiction. So to help someone overcome porn addiction, it is best that we do not see the addiction as the cause, but instead as the symptom.
We may have sexual urges, okay, but when they become obsessive, that is not a natural thing. It's not a natural thing. Again, I really wanna drive that home.
Here's what you need to understand. And this comes, this is the empowerment part, okay? I'm empowering you and I'm going to help you understand how to empower your spouse. This will help empower both of you.
The porn addiction has nothing to do with your spouse's sexual urges. I know that might sound so strange. It has nothing to do with your spouse's sexual urges.
Let me say that one more time. A porn addiction has nothing to do with sexual urges and it has everything to do with attempting to escape and avoid internal suffering. When your husband has a porn addiction, and again, I know this might sound strange, but just listen.
When your husband has a porn addiction, I think this will make sense. It is not because you fall short as a spouse to fulfill his sexual desires. That is not why he is seeking out porn.
And I think that this can free you. And I know it's not enough to just say it once or to hear this in the moment because that is an immense pain that goes deep, but maybe it can help free you a bit to understand that or at least start to practice understanding it. Sex is not a need.
And a lot of guys out there are gonna hate me for saying that. Sex is not a need. Though it may appear to be one, okay, especially to the male mind, it is optional though.
It often appears to be a need because we as males can so easily succumb to using masturbation and porn as a way to cope with difficult emotions from the time that we are a teen or earlier. And for a majority of us, this happens very naturally. I know there are females out there with porn addictions.
I don't mean to cut you guys out. It's just much more common for males. So I'm speaking from that perspective.
Okay, both males and females have natural sexual urges. I wanna kind of dive into this a little bit to help you understand a few things. Understand that sex is not a need, it's optional.
Okay, and when sexual urges become obsessive, it is to deal with an internal pain and to avoid that suffering. And it can be really hard to see, especially with something like masturbation that can be so innately built in to the male mind from the time they're in puberty. But those are some really powerful connections for a lot of men.
And it can be very hard to see through the mind's automatic response to stress and to suffering, mental and emotional suffering that then leads us to masturbation and to craving masturbation. And it can feel automatic. It like, we were like, what? Like, I need to get my, I'm a man.
You know, I need to relieve this. Let me explain a few things. Okay, I'm gonna speak to the biological component because that's important.
And it's important that we have empathy for that. Males and females both have natural sexual urges, but men also have an internal biological meter that continuously fills after puberty, i.e. sperm builds up and eventually must be released, whether manually or through a wet dream, right? It's just the way it works. Okay, I know it might feel awkward for some of us, but that's just the way that this works.
Sperm builds up and it eventually must be released, whether manually or through a wet dream. I'm gonna say it one more time just to really drive the awkwardness in for those of us feeling that, but we gotta normalize these things. That's a big part of the problem and what leads us to sexual addictions is we feel so much shame about this stuff.
We need to normalize it. It's okay. It's normal.
It's part of being a male. Just as women have an ongoing cycle, men have an ongoing cycle of buildup and release of sperm. And I'm telling you this to help you gain understanding for your spouse.
If you have a spouse struggling with porn addiction, so understand this piece, this is good to know. Okay, before that release of sperm, the physical urge to relieve it can be quite overwhelming and it may build up over a week or two weeks or three weeks, depending on the male, it may build up to a month, probably not usually beyond that. If it does, I pray for you, brother, that's a great deal of suffering, but it doesn't have to be.
And I'll get into that in a minute, but this often comes with an increased intensity of drive and heightened emotions. Okay, that buildup that can happen over the course of a few weeks or so comes with an increased intensity of drive and heightened emotions. This can be a lot of anger, for instance.
It doesn't have to be anger. The anger is coupled with shame and fear and insecurities and other things that we just deal with as human beings. And so, as men, if we have not learned how to direct our mind and use our manly drive and testosterone for purposeful, meaningful and productive means, then we will be unable to point our manly capacity in the right direction.
Okay, one more time. As men, if we have not learned how to direct our mind and use this drive and testosterone for purposeful, meaningful and productive means, and I'm not talking about sex productive, I'm talking about life productive, relationships, work, hobbies, interests, passions, building things, creating things, pursuing things. Okay, men used to fight in battles and wars and they used to work on the farm for 10 hours a day.
Why do you think they did all these things? One of the reasons is because they have this massive, manly drive that builds up in their body that it drives them to accomplish and do, both mentally and physically. And a lot of us are at desk jobs now, which I think does a disservice to many of us. But if we are, then we have to be caught up in some really intense work to get that drive out, to use it for something productive.
Okay, so in other words, if we don't do this, if we don't learn how to direct it and practice directing it, which I teach my clients to do, we will default to things like masturbation, porn or meaningless sex, especially meaningless sex outside of a committed, loving relationship, right? Just pursuing the opposite gender for our own pleasure. We will default to that in order to relieve the physical and mental pressure of the buildup. Okay, when used properly, these urges to do and succeed can be incredible.
We can change the world. We can change people's lives using this drive as men. Men, so often these days, we are demonized in a lot of ways.
Okay, and we're built up in a lot of ways too. But I'm just saying some of these manly feelings of aggression and anger and drive and all those things can really, they're really talked down to in a lot of ways in our Western culture, I think especially. And anger and aggression, not good things, but that same drive for anger and aggression is the same thing that can drive us to be powerful husbands and fathers.
It can drive us to build a business. It can drive us to serve in our community. It can drive us to create efficient systems and corporations.
It can drive us to become a CEO or to promote through the ranks, to make something of ourselves in our careers. We need to be taught how to direct it. So when used properly, these things can be powerful.
But if we squander this potential, then we can be left feeling unfulfilled, drained and isolated. So I hope this is helpful. In order to overcome porn addiction, we need to develop a recovery mindset and a lifestyle, a way of living that replaces our desire for porn.
That's why my program is called No More Desire. We are replacing our desire for porn with a recovery mindset and lifestyle. And this requires us in part to choose a life of purpose, meaning, accomplishment, connection, service, especially as men.
If we do not choose this kind of life, then we will be ruled by our sexual urges. It is so easy for that to happen. It's been easy since the dawn of man for that to happen.
And that was before things like porn were available. Now it's even harder. We have to be so much more conscious with what we do with our time and our efforts.
There are so many things to distract us like video games. Video games are an incredible way to distract us, to help make us feel like we're accomplishing something without actually accomplishing anything. And it drains us out of our manly potential to accomplish and do.
Hard to hear in a lot of ways, but that's just the way of it. Sexual outlets like porn and masturbation can easily become the pacifier that robs us of our God-given abilities. And so can video games.
So if we're trying to help somebody quit porn, we must understand that their life is simply out of balance. They are dealing with both the mental and emotional pain that we talked about. Okay, that can be trauma, that can be anxiety and fear, that can be shame, right? A lot of shame.
I'm not good enough. This feeling, I'm not good enough. I don't do enough.
These drive porn addiction and also needing more purpose and meaning in our lives drive porn addiction. Again, especially as males, we need to have these pursuits. So to empower, if you have a spouse or a husband with a porn addiction, you can empower them both by listening to them and helping them open up as well as getting them involved in doing great things.
If you have a child, right? Hopefully you can get them involved in serving the community, in sports and activities, in church, all these types of things, getting them involved as much as you can. You can't control them, right? But getting them involved as much as you can. And if you have a spouse, you can plan things to do with them, encourage them in their efforts to accomplish and do great things.
Give them to-do lists. Yeah, seriously. Some of the men out there are gonna be like, dude, are you serious? But seriously, give them to-do lists and discuss that and be respectful.
But let's talk about things that you can do to get busy and feel good, feel fulfilled. Even though you may not feel like doing it, once you start doing it, you'll feel better. Or the more you do it, the more you'll build a habit of doing these types of things that are productive or that help you feel fulfilled instead of the meaningless entertainment that drives you into addiction.
Okay, and also you can create systems in your home and in your family that foster meaningful connections and hobbies and interests and things you guys do together. Rather than just sitting down and watching Netflix, don't do that. I know that you might rely on that yourself.
That's okay. All right, but stop doing that. Stop sitting down and watching Netflix every single night after work's over.
It isn't doing either of you a favor. It is making your life smaller. It is making their susceptibility to addiction greater.
You need to choose other things to do. Read together, okay? Build things together. Cook together.
Go out in nature and on a hike together. Do sports together. Do stuff together that helps you feel happy.
And of course, taking care of the kids and spending time with kids. If you have kids, that's big. Do stuff together as a family.
Now, all that said, for those of us who have a spouse or a child with porn addiction, like I said, we can't control them. In fact, attempting to control them will actually fuel the addiction because negative emotions like shame and judgment and control are not and never will be the solution for addiction. They are its cause.
It's part of what I teach in my program. Things like control and judgment are the cause of addiction. So addiction stems from a feeling of unworthiness, right? Judgment and control are a big part of that, both how we're treated by others and how we treat ourselves.
Therefore, to help someone overcome porn addiction, we need to go through the patient's testing process of loving them, understanding them, and having compassion for the pain that they carry inside. Okay, we need to do that while empowering them to hopefully lead better lives as much as we can. Now, as we have compassion for them and understanding for them, and we give them as much space to grow as we can, this doesn't mean that we allow them to walk all over us.
It does not mean that. It does not mean that we need to try our very best to show them understanding and care in order to help them. We need to show them understanding and care in order to help them heal the underlying feelings of insecurity and fear that drove them to addiction.
Drove them there in the first place, right? But it does not mean that we need to let them walk all over us. And we'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute. Let's move on to step two.
Okay, step one was a big one. That's to understand and empower. Step two is self-improvement and self-care.
If you want your spouse or your child to get help and to quit porn, do everything you can to work on yourself. Okay, you're not responsible for their sobriety and their recovery, nor should you make yourself. Okay, but you can improve yourself.
None of us are perfect. Okay, if we have a spouse that struggles with addiction, we may struggle with addictions ourselves and those can come in many different forms. Or we may struggle with negative bad habits, right? Or we try to judge or we try to condemn.