How to Replace Porn Addiction | Gain Motivation, Reduce Symptoms of Anxiety & Depression, Build Focus & Attention, Beat the Addictive Mindset, and Be the Husband Your Wife Needs
- Jake Kastleman
- Apr 2
- 26 min read
How can you replace porn addiction? The answer is not a mystery. Essentially, it requires you to build the skills of a recovery mindset and lifestyle. It also requires consistency.
If recovery were a car, these recovery skills would be the engine, and consistency would be the fuel. You can rewire your brain and stop watching porn using these skills and this consistency.
You may have achieved a week or two of sobriety at some point. Or even a few months. But would you like to make it a year, 5 years, 10 years, and beyond?
How do you maintain focus and motivation to stay sober from porn when times get tough? When you don’t feel good enough as a husband or father, when work sucks, life gets overwhelming, you’re exhausted or burnt out, you lose something or someone you loved, your wife isn’t connecting with you, your kids are testing your patience, or your best intentions end in failure?
A car’s engine cannot function long-term without regular oil changes. Without these, the engine corrodes, breaks down, and eventually fails.
You may know the skills to stay sober. You may have a nice frame, engine, and all the bells and whistles. But if you don’t have adequate, clean oil in your engine, you’ll never achieve long-term sobriety and truly lose your desire for porn.
So, how do you stay sober in tough times? You need oil.
This oil is a “Recovery Belief System”, which consists of 8 beliefs to get you through challenging times and underpin everything you do. This system can be the meaning that keeps your sobriety running, and your motive for staying focused when the road gets bumpy. Without living the principles of this Recovery Belief System - no matter your skills or attempted consistency - the engine inside your car will eventually fail, leading to porn relapse.
I’m going to share this iron-clad Recovery Belief System with you, which is the oil in your car’s engine as you run down “Sobriety Road”. And while it’s not a perfect system, it contains universal beliefs that I’ve witnessed, in one form or another, in those who stay sober from porn for 10+ years.
Why this Recovery Belief System is Crucial for Porn Recovery
Porn is a unique drug. We cannot get away from it as we would a typical drug, by cutting out friends who are negative influences, deleting the phone number of our “source”, or throwing away our “stash”.
We live in a world where porn is at our constant access. We cannot get away from it, no matter how many filters we place on our devices, or how many password protections our wife instigates. If we want to be clean of it, it requires a complete overhaul of our mindset and lifestyle.
When we are addicted, we are constantly fixated on our drug of choice. It pops up in our mind everyday, many times a day. So, we must focus our mind on things that are more powerful than the drug.
Central to this mindset is our life’s purpose: our why for every choice we make. Because when it comes to something like porn addiction, any slip in focus can lead to a relapse. So, we establish a higher way of thinking and a higher motive for living. This makes its way into our unconscious mind over time, replacing our desire for porn.
When we establish a truly powerful Recovery Belief System, eventually there is no room left for porn in our lives. Our focus and what motivates us doesn’t match such things any longer.
How to Use this Porn Addiction Recovery Belief System
It takes practice to break free of porn, and it takes practice to establish this Recovery Belief System. I am going to provide you with 8 beliefs to help you replace your porn addiction with deep meaning and motivation for life. But, if you simply listen to or read these beliefs once, they won’t do you much good. Instead, you need to really use them. Here’s how to do that:
#1 REPETITION
Write these beliefs down. Put them on your wall or in a reminder on your phone. Review them a few times per week.
#2 INTENTION
When you read these 8 beliefs, center your intention beforehand on the good of other people. Read the beliefs with the intent that they will empower you to be a better man, husband, and father. You are making them a part of your life for the sake of your loved ones.
This can be very helpful, as an addictive mindset is one of self-centeredness, and a recovery mindset is one focused on the good of others.
If you are religious or spiritual, make this a prayer. Ask God that these motivations fill you up and become who you are, so that you can serve others and do more good in the world.
#3 PERSONALIZATION
Personalize these beliefs. Add further notes to them over time. Write down details or perspectives that mean something to you personally.
Belief #1: Purpose, Not Pleasure
During the many years I was addicted to porn, I had the unconscious belief that life was about enjoyment. It was about my own personal pleasure. Modern western society teaches many of us this. Everything - from school, to work, to my relationships, to what I spent my free time doing - was primarily about my own happiness.
Now, that may not be the case for you. Perhaps you grew up in a family that actively served each other, helped out, and you all dedicated yourself to higher causes. If so, that is a blessing!
What I didn’t realize was that being motivated by my own enjoyment and happiness was playing directly into my pornography addiction. Why? Addiction is a self-focused behavior. It’s about my enjoyment, my needs, my feelings, etc. The more I practice focusing on my own wants and needs the more prone I will be to seek out addictions.
I will also be unfulfilled, being void of a greater sense of purpose and meaning, which could replace my pursuit of cheap, base pleasures.
So, if we want to get sober, we need to practice moving away from a pleasure-oriented mindset to a purpose-oriented one. This means that everything I do - from work, to school, to relationships, what I do during my free time, what I eat, my exercise, everything - becomes about meaning, purpose, and impact.
How am I helping people today? How am I improving myself so that I can make a bigger difference in the world? When I go to a social event, who am I going to talk with, listen to, be present with, say something kind to? How does what I’m doing right now assist others or enable me to grow and become better?
The more I do this, the more it undoes the addictive mindset, and helps me build a recovery mindset: one that is centered on purpose, not pleasure.
Belief #2: What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger
If we want to recover, we need to see suffering, pain, and challenges as a normal and frequent part of life.
It is very automatic to want hard things to go away, to want as easy a life as possible. There is a prevalent belief in modern Western society that stress is bad and that what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker. This is fundamentally flawed, and sets us up for feel depressed and anxious, and to assume we are a victim to the world, and that its unfairness is an undue burden we should not need to deal with. This plays right into the addictive mindset.
We need to break out of this belief system, and recognize that we grow through challenges. We are supposed to experience pain and suffering. Hopefully it’s not constantly self-inflicted (as in the case of addiction), but even if it is then we can learn from it!
We can make hard experiences into a spiritual practice. How is this making me a better person? What am I supposed to learn from this? I am going through this so that I can deepen my understanding, compassion, resilience, etc.
This helps me see pain and suffering with a deeper sense of meaning, which enables me to be far more resilient, even welcoming a certain level of stress. Rather than wanting to escape at the first sign of tribulation, which leads to cravings and addictive behaviors.
Belief #3: Marriage is for Growth, Not Happiness
This goes right along with Belief #2. Life is not about pleasure or simply “being happy”. Life is about growth. Same goes for marriage.
Our focus in marriage cannot be our own happiness. It needs to be about how marriage is helping us be a better person, and how we can show up for our spouse everyday in significant ways.
If we approach marriage from a place of “marriage is supposed to make me happy”, we are going to be miserable a lot of the time, because we will be constantly disappointed.
Marriage stretches us. It’s meant to push our buttons, make us angry, try our patience, push us past our limits. Why? So that we can bust through those limits and create something truly beautiful with our spouse.
If we can push through those limits, we can have a truly happy marriage, but only once we’ve learned how to really show up, give of our whole selves, collaborate, help out, etc.
If we do all this, then we will have a truly happy marriage.
If we are constantly expecting marriage to be easy, and that our spouse should make us happy, our constant disappointment, victimization, blame, and fantasizing about the life we “should” have will contribute to the addictive mindset and the desire to escape reality.
And by the way, this doesn’t mean having no boundaries or letting your spouse walk all over you. Instead, we need to be wise and mature, let our spouse know our needs, establish plans together that work on both ends, etc.
Belief #4: Service is the Meaning of Life
There’s a reason that service is a universal focus in all religions, and now in psychology as well. It is the not-so-secret secret to a happy life, and it is also a crucial concept for recovery.
Why?
Well, if we are happy, feel fulfilled, and are connected with others, we are simply going to desire porn less.
Porn is a massive dopamine rush. We likely sought porn out at a time in our lives when we were not feeling connected with others, and we did not feel we were important, adequate, or contributing to a cause greater than ourselves. Or, perhaps, we felt we were not worthy of those connections and responsibilities.
Connecting with other people and making a difference in the world releases dopamine. Porn is one of the ways that our brain can try to seek this connection. The trouble is that when we engage with porn our brain is cheated. It doesn’t feel fulfilling as in the case of truly meaningful, real relationships.
When we feel we matter to others and we belong, we desire porn less.
Belief #5: Self-Compassion Over Self-Criticism
Self-criticism is one of the root causes of susceptibility to porn addiction. When we are self-critical it breeds shame (the feeling of not being good enough). When we don’t feel good enough, our brain seeks out a way to release pressure, escape, or feel better.
Instead, we need to cultivate an awareness and presence with our negative emotions. We need to teach ourselves to be compassionate and understanding of our feelings of weakness, fear, insecurity, etc.
If we can successfully do this, we can get sober much easier.
When we can do this for ourselves, we are more able to do it for others. This then enhances our relationships, and that fuels our porn addiction recovery as well.
Belief #6: Triggers Are Opportunities for Progression
Feeling fear, self-judgment, or anger when porn triggers and cravings emerge is very common. When we fear them, judge ourselves, or feel we are a bad person for being triggered or craving porn or sex, this enhances the intensity of porn triggers and can make them overwhelming.
Instead, we practice seeing triggers as opportunities. We see them as a sign that there are things going on under the surface, needs we have that are not being met.
And I’m not talking about sexual needs. I’m talking about emotional ones. For all those men out there who are right now saying, “I’m fine. What are you talking about?” You’re not fine. If you were, you wouldn’t be craving porn.
Porn cravings are a sign that we are feeling stressed, lonely, afraid, overwhelmed, angry, anxious, depressed, etc. We’ve been feeling these things for a while - probably years - and now our brain is wanting to make us feel better.
A part of us is trying to distract from the discomfort we’re feeling, telling us we are craving porn, and that’s our real problem. This is a defense mechanism of the mind, as it is trying to keep us from seeing what’s really bothering us.
It can be nearly impossible to perceive this when you’re in the early stages of porn recovery. But, as you are mindful of thoughts and emotions, over time you can begin to perceive the truth, and eventually become an expert at successfully processing your root-cause emotional burdens and suffering, talking yourself through them without resorting to relapse with porn.
Belief #7: God Doesn’t Control Your Life
A common theme I see among religious men who are addicted to porn is the tendency to blame God for their addiction.
They blame God when they are not able to handle relapses. They blame God for not helping them when they pray. They ask, “Why doesn’t God take my porn addiction? I’ve asked Him so many times to have mercy.”
Listen, God is not going to take your porn addiction from you or come save you just because you asked. You need to put in the work. You need to use your agency and free will to build the necessary skills to get sober from porn.
You can ask for God’s help all along the way, but you have to search things out for yourself, get educated, and practice.
God is not in control of your life. YOU are. Take ownership, learn from failures, and ask what you can do to change while you rely on God as you make these necessary changes to quit porn.
Belief #8: God Values Growth, Not Ease
Many of us think that the more righteous we are, the easier our life will be. We think that God will reward us for good choices by making life a breeze. This is sometimes referred to as “Prosperity Gospel”, and it’s absolute poison for the mind.
Let’s get something straight. The greatest men and women who ever lived faced INSANE challenges. First and foremost, Jesus Christ himself.
You’d think if there were a man who deserved an easy life, it would be the one who lived a perfect one. But he didn’t. He suffered persecution, hatred, torture, and death.
God values growth, progression, and molding us into self-sacrificing, selfless individuals. Why? Because that is where the greatest joy is found. He wants us to feel peace and meaning in our lives, not ease and meaningless pleasure.
Peace, meaning, and service are the highest form of happiness. That’s what He wants for you.
So, remember this when you face challenges. This is the way of life. Of necessity, life includes hardship, because it is the only way to grow. In growth you find meaning, and in meaning you find long-term happiness.
That said, life can also be glorious, abundant, and so much fun. It doesn’t need to be miserable! But it will inevitably include pain, and if we meet that pain with a willing attitude, we can move through it without resorting to porn addiction and relapse to escape the pain.
Build the No More Porn Lifestyle
MORE ARTICLES
Episode 91 Transcription: How to Replace Porn Addiction | Gain Motivation, Reduce Symptoms of Anxiety & Depression, Build Focus & Attention, Beat the Addictive Mindset, and Be the Husband Your Wife Needs
Jake (00:05.494)
How can you replace porn addiction? The answer is not a mystery. Essentially, it requires you to build the skills of a recovery mindset and lifestyle, and it also requires consistency. If recovery were a car, these recovery skills would be the engine, and consistency would be the fuel. You can rewire your brain and stop watching porn using these skills and this consistency.
You may have achieved a week or two of sobriety at some point or even a few months, but would you like to make it a year, five years, ten years, and beyond? How do you maintain focus and motivation to stay sober when times get tough, when you don't feel good enough as a husband or father, when work sucks, life gets overwhelming, you're exhausted or burnt out, you lose something or someone you loved, your wife isn't connecting with you, your kids are testing your patience, or your best intentions end in failure?
A car's engine cannot function long-term without regular oil changes, and without these, the engine corrodes, breaks down, and eventually fails. You might know the skills to stay sober. You may have a nice frame, engine, and all the bells and whistles, but if you don't have adequate, clean oil in your engine, you'll never achieve long-term sobriety and truly lose your desire for porn. So, how do you stay sober in tough times?
You need oil. This oil is a recovery belief system, which consists of eight beliefs to get you through challenging times and underpin everything you do. This system can be the meaning that keeps your sobriety running and your motive for staying focused when the road gets bumpy.
Without living the principles of this recovery belief system, no matter your skills or attempted consistency, the engine inside your car will eventually fail, leading to porn relapse. I'm going to share this iron-clad recovery belief system with you, which is the oil in your car's engine as you run down sobriety road. And while it's not a perfect system, it contains universal beliefs that I've witnessed in one form or another in those who stay sober for 10.
Jake (02:29.71)
plus years.
Jake (02:37.998)
So let's get started.
Jake (02:51.116)
Welcome to No More Desire, my friend. I'm really excited for today's episode. We're going to talk about this recovery belief system. It's crucial for porn addiction recovery. Porn is a unique drug, right? We cannot get away from it as we would a typical drug by cutting out friends who are negative influences or deleting phone numbers of our source or throwing away our stash. That's not possible with something like porn addiction. We live in a world where porn is at our constant access. It's something that
For the history of mankind, as far as we know it, no one ever faced something like this. We cannot get away from it no matter how many filters we place on our devices or how many passwords, password protections our vice, our wife instigates. If we want to be clean of it, it requires a complete overhaul of our mindset and our lifestyle, right? When we are addicted, we are constantly fixated on our
drug of choice. This is, it's not just the time spent watching porn or masturbating to porn. This has to do with your ongoing mindset every day, the things that you're spending your time thinking, how much mental energy are you spending on this drug of choice. It pops into your mind many times a day and it's something that can really take you over. So
If we want to shift that mindset, we want to stop this ongoing cycle, we must focus our mind on things that are more powerful than the drug of pornography. More powerful, and it's a powerful drug, make no mistake. So we need to find something else that's more powerful. So central to this mindset I'm going to talk about is our life's purpose, our why for every choice that we make.
Because when it comes to something like porn addiction, any slip in focus can lead to a relapse. So it's not about perfection, but it is about practice. We establish a higher way of thinking and a higher motive for living. This makes its way into our unconscious mind over time as we practice, replacing our desire for porn. So when we establish a truly powerful recovery belief system, eventually there is no room left for
Jake (05:15.598)
porn in our lives. Our focus and what motivates us just doesn't match those things any longer. We just don't desire porn because it doesn't match up with the way we think, the way we are, who we've become. So before I dive into this belief system with you, I want to again just reiterate it takes practice to break free of porn, and it takes practice to establish this recovery belief system.
going to provide you with these eight beliefs to help you replace your porn addiction with deep meaning and motivation for life. But if you simply listen to or read these beliefs once, they're not going to do you much good. Instead, you need to really use them. And here are a few tips to do that before I dive into those beliefs. So the first tip that I have for you is repetition. Okay, so write these beliefs down.
either by going to the blog or by just listening to this podcast and know, pausing as we go through the beliefs, put them on your wall then as a reminder in your phone, review them a few times per week. The other tip that I have for you is intention. When you read these eight beliefs, center your intention beforehand on the good of other people. This is really powerful and it may be confusing at first, but let me explain.
You want to read the beliefs with the intent that they will empower you to be a better man, a better husband, a better father. You're making them a part of your life for the sake of your loved ones. This can be very helpful as an addictive mindset, and truth is one of self-centeredness. It doesn't mean you're a self-centered person. It's just when you're engaging in addiction or you're feeling prone towards addiction or you're craving, this is a self-centered space. And so we want to
build a...essentially build a lifestyle and build a mindset of one that is not self-centered, that's the opposite. And so a recovery mindset is one that's focused on the good of other people. So if you're religious or spiritual as well, make this a prayer. I highly recommend that. Ask God that these motivations will fill you up. These beliefs, this belief system will fill you up, become who you are, so that you can serve others and do more good in the world.
Jake (07:39.02)
The third tip that I have for you is personalization. So personalize these beliefs, add further notes to them over time, write down details or perspectives that mean something to you personally, or write down beliefs that are deep for you as well that kind of branch off from these and help you build this recovery mindset.
So let's get started with belief number one. Belief number one is purpose not pleasure. Purpose not pleasure. During the many years that I was addicted, I had the automatic belief that my life was about enjoyment. It was about my own personal pleasure. I didn't know that I felt that way, but that was the way that I thought. Modern Western society taught me to be that way. Everything from school to work to my relationships to what I spent my free time doing,
primarily about my happiness, my own happiness. Now, that may not be the case for you. Maybe you have grown up in a family that really emphasizes responsibility, caring for each other, being there for one another. What I didn't realize was that this motive was playing directly into my addiction. Why? Why is that? Again, addiction is a self-focused behavior. It's about my enjoyment, my needs, my feelings.
So if I want to get sober, I need to practice moving away entirely from a pleasure oriented mindset. Entirely away from it. Okay, and then instead to a purpose oriented mindset. Doesn't mean I can't enjoy life. Doesn't mean I can't have a ton of fun. Of course I can. I can have a very enjoyable fun life. But it needs to be about something deeper than just my own pleasure. It needs to be about being present in the moment. Loving, you know, being with my loved ones.
growing as a person, right? And doing things that actually matter to me and to those around me. And this means that everything I do, again, from work to school to relationships to what I do during my free time, what I eat, my exercise, everything, it becomes about the meaning of it, the purpose, the impact, and it becomes about, as well with that, I'll say a spiritual way of living. Whether you talk about that from Western or Eastern perspective,
Jake (09:53.504)
It's this mindfulness. It's this presence with what you're doing. It's this really partaking in the moment and asking, what am I learning? Or how am I impacting the world? How am I impacting others? Or just, am I actually here? Am I actually experiencing what I'm doing fully? And again, none of us are going to be perfect at that. It's just a practice.
How am I improving myself so that I can make a bigger difference in the world? When I go to a social event, for instance, who am I going to talk with, listen to, who am going to be present with? You know, can I say something kind to someone to uplift them? The more that I do this, the more it undoes the addictive mindset, and it helps you build a recovery mindset, one that is centered on purpose, not pleasure. It's very, very powerful. So belief number two, let's dig into that.
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. There is a predominant belief in our society nowadays that what doesn't kill you makes you weaker, which is shocking. But if we want to recover, we need to see suffering, pain, and challenges differently. It is very automatic to want hard things to go away, right? This is very human. So to live as easy a life as possible, that's often what we're naturally prone to.
But here's the thing, we need to break out of this belief and recognize that we grow through challenges. We are supposed to experience pain. We are supposed to experience suffering. Hopefully it's not constantly self-inflicted like as is the case with addiction, but even if it is, we can learn from it. And that is, that's the powerful truth. When we go through something hard, we need to ask ourselves, what is this teaching me? What am I learning? How is this going to help me be a better person? We can make
experiences into a spiritual practice. How is this making me a better person? Am I going through this so that I can deepen my understanding, my compassion, my resilience? It's going to help me be better somehow. And I love the phrase that loss or challenge or pain or suffering can make us bitter or make us better. And so that's up to us. And we, again, it's just this practice of shifting our beliefs.
Jake (12:18.264)
Belief number three is marriage is for growth, not happiness. Okay, a vast majority, likely of those listening to this podcast are married. So this goes right along with belief number two, life is not about pleasure or simply being happy, life is about growth. And the same thing goes for marriage. So our focus in marriage cannot be our own happiness. It needs to be upon how marriage is helping us.
a better person, a better man. If we approach marriage from a place of, marriage is supposed to make me happy, which is predominantly taught in our current culture, it was not that way for a long, long history of mankind, but it is now in modern Western culture, we are going to be miserable if we believe that this is how marriage is supposed to be, that that's its purpose, because we will constantly be disappointed. Marriage stretches us, it's meant to
push our buttons, make us angry, try our patience, push us past our limits. Why? Why is it that way? I asked myself that for many years. So that we can bust through those limits and create something truly beautiful with our spouse. Marriage can be happy, it can be beautiful, it can be amazing. If we can push through those limits, then we can truly have a happy marriage. But
only once we have learned how to really show up, give of our whole selves, collaborate, help out, be there for our spouse, make their happiness central in our lives, not how are you making me happy? It's how am I showing up for you? How am I collaborating with you? If we do all this, then we truly will have a happy marriage. And again, it's not about perfection. It's a messy process. takes time.
And by the way, I will say as well, you've heard me say this on other episodes. If you've listened to them, this does not mean having no boundaries or letting your spouse walk all over you or thinking, I just need to be kind and nice and being kind and nice means being passive and never asking for anything. That is not the way to live a happy marriage. And that is not about growth. That's actually about, in a lot of ways, it's about an emotional immaturity, just to be frank. Instead, we need to be wise. We need to be mature.
Jake (14:40.386)
We need to let our spouse know our needs, establish plans together that work on both ends. We need to realize that we are human, we have needs too, and we need to honor the needs of both sides equally when we can. Okay, and then also be willing to sacrifice of ourselves appropriately. Belief number four is service is the meaning of life.
So there's a reason that service is a universal focus in all faiths and religions, Eastern and Western. And now in psychology, it's also a major focus as well. This is becoming predominant in the culture, which is beautiful. I'm really, really happy to see it. It is the not so secret secret way to a happy life. And it is also a crucial concept for recovery. Why? Again, well, if we are happy and feeling
fulfilled and connected with others, if we're serving others, if we're making a difference in the world, we are simply not going to desire porn so much. It's just the more that we move into that space of serving others and making the meaning of our life, service, making an impact, doing good in the world, watching porn just doesn't match up with that. Porn is a massive dopamine rush. This is the other thing that I'll say. So if we go to the neuroscientific perspective,
Porn is a massive dopamine rush. Dopamine is that pleasure chemical, but it also helps us feel purpose, connection with others, motivation, focus. It's involved in all these processes. this brain chemical, we crave it when we are not getting it naturally, when we're not getting an appropriate balance. If we're not connecting with other people and making a difference in the world, then we're not releasing enough dopamine. Dopamine is released from these activities.
Porn is one of the ways that our brain can try to seek connection. That is the other thing that needs to be understood. So, if we're not getting enough dopamine in real life, porn can be a way that as a young child or as a teen, we sought connection. And it was a mistake, it was misguided, but we sought connection through porn because we weren't getting it through relationships in life, and we weren't feeling that deep connection with others.
Jake (16:57.666)
But the trouble is that when we engage with porn, our brain is cheated. We feel an emptiness. It doesn't feel fulfilling like the truly meaningful real relationships in life do. And maybe many of us didn't know any of those relationships or have any of them, or maybe we've never had them. And so porn is the best that our brain could find in order to try to seek that out. And that, you know, we could talk a lot about how the brain was trying to cope, why that made sense for you at the time.
And yes, it is misguided. It is tragic, but it was the best you had at the time to cope with what you were experiencing in life. So when we feel we matter to others and we belong, we desire porn less. Belief number five is self-compassion over self-criticism. Self-criticism is one of the root causes of susceptibility to addiction in general. When we are self-critical, it breeds
shame, the feeling of not being good enough, I'm a bad person, I don't do enough, I'm not enough, I'm inadequate. When we don't feel good enough, our brain seeks out a way to release the pressure, escape, feel better, out of necessity to try to balance out what's going on in our mind, because it's an immense amount of pressure, we're trying to relieve it. Instead, we need to cultivate an awareness and presence of our negative emotions.
We need to teach ourselves to be compassionate and understanding of our feelings of weakness, fear, and insecurity. If we can successfully do this, we can get sober much easier. When we can do this for ourselves, we are much more prone to do it for others as well. And this then enhances our relationships and this fuels our recovery in addition. So the more self-compassionate we become, the more compassionate towards others we become, the better relationships we build.
the less pressure we feel on ourselves for perfection and lack of mistakes and doing everything just right. Now we can start to release the pressure that has pushed us towards addiction and we can gain relationships that are truly meaningful and connected, which is going to replace the porn addiction.
Jake (19:05.336)
Belief number six is triggers are opportunities for progression. Triggers are often thought of as a essentially a bad, horrible, unfair thing that has happened to us. It's very easy to see them that way. Fearing addiction triggers is very common. When we fear them, we judge ourselves. We feel that we're a bad person for being triggered or craving porn or sex.
This then enhances the intensity of the trigger and it can make it overwhelming. So instead we practice seeing triggers as opportunities. We see them as a sign that there are things going on under the surface, needs that we have that are not being met. And I'm not talking about sexual needs here, okay? Don't misunderstand. I'm talking about emotional needs. For all those men, or I will also say biological or physical needs, right? Relational needs.
We have needs as human beings, spiritual needs. For all those men out there who are right now saying, I'm fine. Like what are you talking about? I don't have any emotional needs. I'm not meeting. You're not fine. If you were fine, you wouldn't be craving porn. All right? And porn cravings are a sign that we are feeling stressed. We're feeling lonely. We're feeling afraid, overwhelmed, angry, anxious, depressed, etc. And likely we've been feeling these things for a while and now our brain is reacting.
by wanting to make us feel better. We could have been feeling these things since childhood and we've carried them with us. Or this could be something going on today or in the moment or over the last few weeks or what have you. Our brain is trying to distract us from the discomfort that we're feeling, telling us that we are craving porn. That's our real problem, right? It's a sexual need. That's what our real problem is. And this is a defense mechanism of our mind as it is trying to keep us from seeing what's really bothering us.
There are very specific psychological reasons for that and how your mind's trying to cope with your life. It can be almost impossible to perceive this when you're in the early stages of recovery, but as you are mindful of thoughts and emotions over time, you can begin perceiving the real needs that are underneath the surface.
Jake (21:17.73)
Belief number seven is God does not control your life. God does not control your life. A common theme that I see among religious men who are addicted to porn is the tendency to blame God for their addiction. It's understandable, okay, but this is not the way it works. They blame God for the fact that they can't handle relapses. They're like, why would God let this happen to me?
They blame God for not helping them when they pray or they ask, why doesn't God take my porn addiction? I've asked him so many times to have mercy. Listen, God is not going to take something from you or come save you just because you asked. You need to put in the work. That is that is true pretty much without exception. It's there's there's never been an exception in my life. You need to put in the work.
You need to learn. You need to use your agency and your free will to build the necessary skills to get sober. You can ask for God's help all along the way and you should, but you have to search things out for yourself, get educated, practice, build the skills. God is not in control of your life. You are in control of your life. You need to take ownership and learn from failures and ask what you can do to change while you rely.
on God the entire way. He's going to be your companion, he's your mentor, he's your coach, he's your guide, but he can't make the choices for you and he can't just take away your weaknesses entirely without you going through the process and going through the work. And then one day he can take those burdens from you when you have learned how to live in a different way. Belief number eight, God values growth.
not ease. So many of us think that the more righteous that we are, the easier our life will be. This is prosperity culture. Okay, we think that God will reward us for our good choices by making life easier. Let's get something straight. The greatest men and women who ever lived faced insane challenges. They suffered so much. First and foremost, Jesus Christ Himself. If you're Christian,
Jake (23:39.296)
Christ suffered more than anyone. You'd think if there were a man who deserved an easy life, it would be the one who lived a perfect one. He didn't live a life free of suffering. He suffered persecution, hatred, torture, death. God values growth, progression, molding us into self-sacrificing, selfless individuals. Why?
Because that is where the greatest joy is found. He wants us to feel peace and meaning in our lives, not ease and pleasures, simple base pleasures. He wants peace for us, meaning, service. These are all the highest forms of happiness. It builds purpose in our lives, right? We then feel a reason for living. We're impacting the world and those around us. That's what he wants for you. least that's what I believe he wants.
So remember this when you're facing challenges. This is a way of life, a way of hardship. And that said, life can also be glorious, abundant, so much fun. It can be a really good life. It does not need to be miserable. So please don't misunderstand. But it will inevitably include pain, right? Whether that be voluntary or involuntary, we can choose pain that is meaningful, that challenges us. We can choose growth.
if we meet that pain with a willing attitude, it can help us not to resort to addiction and to relapse and to trying to escape that pain that we will inevitably experience in life. God bless and much love, my friend.
Commentaires