Sober Vibes Podcast

Healing Shame: One Man's Journey Through Porn Addiction w/ Jeremy Lipkowitz

• Courtney Andersen, Jeremy Lipkowitz • Season 6 • Episode 232

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Episode 232: Healing Shame: One Man's Journey Through Porn Addiction w/ Jeremy Lipkowitz

In episode 232 of the Sober Vibes podcast, Courtney Andersen welcomes Jeremy Lipkowitz to the show and they discuss porn addticiton and overcoming shame.

Jeremy opens up about his 15-year journey with porn addiction, beginning at age seven with a lingerie catalog and escalating to hours of daily online consumption by college. They unpack how porn rewires the brain, disrupts relationships, and becomes a hidden coping mechanism for emotional pain. Through his personal story and coaching expertise, Jeremy offers genuine, compassionate insight into how individuals can initiate the process of healing, recovery, and reconnection with themselves and others.

Whether you're personally affected, love someone who struggles, or are raising kids in this digital world, this conversation is a must-listen.

What you will learn:

  • The three “A’s” that make porn addiction uniquely powerful: affordable, accessible, and anonymous
  • How pornography addiction affects the brain, emotional health, and relationships
  • What betrayal trauma is and how it affects partners of porn addicts
  • Why recovery is about mindfulness, connection, and healing not willpower alone
  • How to raise kids in a world where explicit content is just a swipe away
  • Practical steps to start recovering from porn addiction or support a loved one who is

 Key Takeaways:

  • Addiction often begins with early exposure and escalates over time with tech access
  • Porn hijacks the brain’s dopamine system and creates a craving for novelty over intimacy
  • Most porn addicts live a double life rooted in shame, secrecy, and emotional numbing
  • Social media can act as a slippery slope toward pornography and compulsive behavior
  • Healing involves community, mindfulness, nervous system regulation, and inner child work

Connect with Jeremy Lipkowitz:

Resources Mentioned:

Courtney's Website

Anxious Generation 

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Courtney Andersen :

Hey, welcome back to the Sober Vibes podcast. I'm your host and sober coach, courtney Anderson. You are listening to episode 232. I'm also your guide to living a kick-ass life without alcohol. Today we got a great guest on. I love talking with him. I was on his podcast a few years ago and I just enjoyed our conversation so much and I know you're going to enjoy this conversation too.

Courtney Andersen :

So the topic's a little bit different, but my guest today is Jeremy Lipkowitz, and he is a meditation teacher, a men's coach and a digital habits expert who works with entrepreneurs, executives and leaders. He is also the founder of the Unhooked Academy and the host of the Unhooked podcast, where he helps men break free of destructive habits and build a life of purpose, discipline and fulfillment. So Jeremy talks today. We talk about porn addiction and we talk about overcoming shame in an addiction that is really taboo, because porn addiction is that. For me, this was very, very helpful. I had a guest on a couple of years back where we talked about porn addiction, so this is just the second time of talking about this, but I think it's great to have the awareness especially mothers and fathers right, because how easily accessible porn is. Pornography is on these cellular devices. Okay, so I learned a lot. So I learned a lot and Jeremy has a great story of overcoming this and his perspective on pornography and all that is good. He drops a couple ways on how you can overcome that addiction. So make sure you connect with him and go follow him over on Instagram or go listen to his podcast and, honestly, jeremy's got one of those voices you could just listen to forever. It's very soothing. It's very soothing, so I'm sure he's a great meditation teacher with this voice of his.

Courtney Andersen :

All right, I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you haven't yet, please rate, review and subscribe slash. Follow the show wherever you get your podcast, because those help, and feel free to reach out to me on Instagram, at Sober Vibes, and let me know how this episode helped you today. As always, keep on trucking and stay safe out there. Hey Jeremy, welcome to the Sober Vibes podcast. I'm very excited to have you on today. The last time we spoke was actually a couple of years ago, when I was on your podcast.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

Indeed and I'm happy to be on yours, happy to be here.

Courtney Andersen :

And since we spoke last, you moved to Thailand, so enjoying it there again?

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

Yes, Totally Good food, good weather, amazing people.

Courtney Andersen :

Yeah what I mean how. What is the weather like there? People, yeah what I mean how. What is the weather like there?

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

It's hot. So I mean, if if you can't handle hot weather, it's probably not good. If you don't like going out in shorts and and and a t-shirt and maybe some flip-flops, you can wear some more layers from time to time, but usually it's, it's pretty hot out.

Courtney Andersen :

When you say hot, are we talking hot plus muggy, or is it muggy like humid there? Okay, I just needed to know that I'm fine with that Not always.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

We're not right next to the equator. It's way worse in some other places that are closer to the equator, and in Bangkok I'm. In Bangkok it can have some nice days of cool weather and yeah, but it's blue skies a lot of the time. Sometimes it rains, but overall life here is just it's more the people. I'd say the weather isn't the reason you come here. The culture here is just so friendly and so safe. It's the safest country I've ever been to. I feel so safe walking around and people are just kind. You don't have to worry about getting mugged or anything stolen. You can leave your laptop in a cafe and go out for lunch and come back an hour later and your laptop's still there.

Courtney Andersen :

I mean, how does that happen?

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

It's just the culture here. That crime just doesn't happen. I don't know if it's because it's like a Buddhist culture or there's just a lot of safety, like those kinds of crimes. Don't know if it's because it's like a Buddhist culture or there's just a lot of safety, like those kind of crimes don't really happen.

Courtney Andersen :

Well, I like it. My sister and I want to visit there one day. My sister-in-law lives in Sweden and she was telling me how you can just leave the babies in the stroller before going into the store. And people just do that. I'm like, say what? I don't think I could just leave the little dictator sleeping in a stroller and just casually shop around. But when it's the culture, and that's all you know. That's all you know.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

Yeah.

Courtney Andersen :

So, jeremy, why don't you share your story today? Because I've only ever talked about this topic once before, years ago, about porn addiction, so I would love for you to share that and really how it started and then in your recovery process of it.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

Yeah, so for the past I guess seven years or so I've really been focused on working with men with porn addiction and helping them recover and break free and break free at the root source, because this addiction goes deep and it's not just about porn but all the ways we get addicted. So I've been doing that for the last seven years and it really stems from my own history with porn addiction which started. I started looking at pornographic content when I was seven, eight years old. First, I think the very first thing I remember was certain like comic book characters that were really attracted to me and kind of dressed in certain ways, but then it escalated into looking at the lingerie catalogs that would come in the mail. Eventually we got the internet and you could start downloading photos or videos and it just kept progressing. By the time I got to university there was high-speed internet, there were these tube sites that you could look and see thousands upon thousands of different videos on a given night, and so it progressed to the place where I was watching porn every night for one to two hours just on a daily, regular basis, and I thought it was normal. It's something I'd been doing since I was seven, eight years old and it's somewhat normalized in our society.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

People talk about it as if it's normal and so I never really noticed any issue, didn't realize I had a problem and I couldn't see the consequences.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

This is one of the other things we can talk about, but a lot of the consequences of porn addiction are very subtle and they're harder to spot unless you really know what to pay attention for, as opposed to some other types of addictions where the consequences are very obvious.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

If you're drinking heavily, you wake up with a hangover and you feel it. If you're abusing other kinds of drugs, you know the consequences. But with porn addiction, a lot of these consequences are in the ways that we relate to our romantic partners, our views on intimacy, our relationship with ourself, maybe self-judgment or self-criticism, body dysmorphia and then also the ways it just can really mess with your ability to focus and concentrate and your dopamine systems, mess with your ability to focus and concentrate and your dopamine systems. So I was experiencing this when I was a young man and had kind of a wake-up call where I realized, hey, this is an issue for me, this is causing a lot of the problems in my life that I didn't know were related to this, but now I see the connection and that's what cost me to walk down this path of recovery and break free.

Courtney Andersen :

Yeah, how old are you?

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

38.

Courtney Andersen :

Okay, so yes, and I just I'm 42. So we're in the same generation here, so that I'm just doing the timeline of, because, again, nowadays you don't get catalogs in the mail.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

I mean like those catalogs don't, I don't know these poor kids are living in such a poor life. A it was the most amazing thing to get the Victoria's Secret catalog in the mail. It was for a young boy, it was great.

Courtney Andersen :

Right.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

These kids now are spoiled.

Courtney Andersen :

Right. I mean, the only catalog that comes to our house is the Costco, so okay, so the catalogs because I'm just doing for the listeners of the evolution, then of the internet. Plus, I want this conversation as well, because having a three-and-a-half-year-old and raising a boy who will be a man it is nowadays, it's going to be different raising boys, right, and so this is the kind of stuff that I want to learn, as a mom, of really what to watch out for.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

So when, would you say at what age, did it progress where you were watching porn one to two hours a day? I definitely remember when I was in college. As soon as I had that freedom when I was a freshman in college and lived in a dorm room it was me and another freshman I remember that's where it wasn't necessarily every night because I still had to I was in a dorm room sharing sharing a room with with another guy. I actually remember one time he walked in on me and it was the most embarrassing thing, but still to this day it kind of embarrasses me. But I guess it was the next year when I moved out and had my own room and high speed internet.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

The problem is kids are getting these devices younger and younger and every kid has a smartphone and access to the internet and it's just so much easier to access. It's one of the things that makes porn addiction so highly addictive. We call it the three A's of porn addiction it's affordable, it's accessible and it's anonymous. So the more of these three things that you have for any addiction, the more addictive it's going to be. And porn is incredibly affordable because it's free. It's incredibly accessible because it's literally in everyone's pockets and you can access it in seconds. And it's also anonymous you can do it without anyone knowing, and so because of these things, it really can seep in and young kids are going to get it worse now because they have it even more accessible and it's more addictive because there's more extreme content out there.

Courtney Andersen :

Yeah, so for you. How did that start with your addiction? How did that start impacting your life? What were these signs that are harder to spot with somebody with a porn addiction?

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

Yeah, one of the signs I started seeing was how porn was making me have unrealistic expectations about my romantic partners. I started to notice that I was comparing all my real life partners to porn and expecting because if you watch porn every day for two hours a day, on a subconscious level you're just expecting oh, this is what women should look like. They should all be porn stars and young and perfect and no blemishes. And so you'd start to develop just these unrealistic expectations. The other thing that I started to notice was the ways that it was impacting my craving for novelty in my romantic relationships. Because when you log onto a porn site, especially these high speed tube sites and this is the new evolution of porn makes it so much more damaging. When you have these tube sites where you're scrolling through hundreds of videos, hundreds of thumbnails, trying to find which one to watch, every time you see a new face or a new video, your brain gets a little dopamine hit, and every time you search for a new term or click a button or click a link, again that dopamine hit happens. And so what's happening is you are hardwiring your brain to expect its dopamine, to expect the reward, the feeling good, from novelty. Now what this does in terms of a relationship is you start dating someone, you start getting intimate with them, but then you're kind of, you start to get bored and you think, well, I need something new, I need something novel, I need something exciting. So this is one of the things I noticed was that I was constantly moving from relationship to relationship, and it wasn't because anything was wrong with the people I was dating. It was because my brain had gotten hooked on the novelty, thinking, oh, there must be someone slightly better. Because that's what you do when you're searching through these tube sites You're looking for a slightly better video, a slightly new genre. So that was another thing, the final kind of piece that the final straw that broke the camel's back was.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

I remember walking down the street one day. I was 23, 24 years old I forget exactly how old, but I remember it was a beautiful day, my life was good. I had good grades in school, I was captain of a sports team, I was well-liked by people. So my life was good. But I remember walking down the street and seeing these two young women walking in front of me and I remember being so consumed by lust in that moment.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

I was staring at their bodies and just consumed with this feeling of craving and sexual desire and lust, and in that moment it felt like this big black hole opened up inside of me. It was this big void, this emptiness, and what I realized is that the experience of lust itself is a state of suffering and that every time I was logging onto a porn site and watching porn, I was literally hardwiring the neural pathways of lust. I was hardwiring in the neural pathways of suffering because I was focused on trying to get what I couldn't, what I didn't have, kind of. The final wake-up straw was realizing that this lust, this experience of wanting something I don't have, that it was consuming my life and in large part it was because of habitually logging onto these porn sites. The thing that helped me realize this was understanding neuroplasticity. There was this quote that I read neurons that fire together, wire together, and it made me realize that I was hardwiring in those habitual patterns in my mind.

Courtney Andersen :

Yes, were you using, though at all? Were you using porn when you would watch it one to two hours a day? Was that you numbing out?

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

Yeah.

Courtney Andersen :

You know, like with alcohol, like it's a lot, like okay, this is numbing when we drank, it's to numb out. So that's I wondered what the porn addiction does? It become like that where it just becomes so habitual again with that dopamine hit that you're getting and then it's just eventually numbing out.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

Exactly, it's entirely. It's a numbing out thing. So many people who haven't experienced porn addiction or aren't familiar with it they think, oh, people who are addicted to porn are like sexual debians or they have really high sex drives or they're perverts. But for most men who struggle with porn addiction, porn isn't about being horny, it's not about them kind of having a high sex drive. It's a coping mechanism. It's a way to numb out, to self-medicate when they're feeling some emotional discomfort, loneliness, sadness, anger, and so it's entirely kind of a coping mechanism and it was. For me it was a, it had to be, I mean, a nightly thing on the dot, it was just a routine as a way to numb out and self-soothe.

Courtney Andersen :

But did it start like that? So it started.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

Yeah, this is a really good thing to bring in, because one thing that I really hope anyone listening to this takes away is sexuality is a beautiful part of being human.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

It's one of the most wonderful parts of being human is our sexuality, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with sexuality, and it's natural for young men in particular also young women, but for us to be curious about sex and to curious about self-pleasure, and when you see someone or something that makes you feel good in those parts of your body, it's oh, I feel this tingling sensation, it feels good, what is this? And so, of course, it's a natural exploration. So it didn't start out as, oh, I need to numb. It started out as a wow, this feels really good, and I can do this on command, like I know how to get this feeling. And I can do this on command Like I know how to get this feeling Right. And when I want to feel good, oh, I can go get that hit by grabbing one of these catalogs or dialing up on AOL. Now it's just much more accessible which again is it's like the way porn used to be.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

It wasn't that damaging.

Courtney Andersen :

No.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

The way it is now, it's a whole different beast.

Courtney Andersen :

Yeah, especially too. I mean you look at the bigger picture too, with sex trafficking and a lot of the women who get into that. It's because of trafficking, so it becomes a bit of a. There's many layers to that.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

Oh yeah, non-consensual videos, rape porn, I mean there's so many horrible things on there, not to mention now AI porn is a whole thing and it's actually it's really messed up because it can go very dark and very extreme and because it's AI, it's not real, for example, like child porn. Ai. It's not real, for example, like child porn. Ai can make child porn and the authorities, the cops, are having a hard time kind of tracking this and understanding what's real, what's AI, and so they're having a hard time tracking the real perpetrators of that kind of material because there's so much of an influx from this AI stuff. So there's so many kind of things with the new generation of technology AI girlfriends and VR headsets and your boys are in for a wild ride ahead of them.

Courtney Andersen :

Yeah, I just want yes. And that's where. And again, it's, it's, oh, it's with raising young men. Nowadays, there's just a lot of education. I'm going to have to help. Same thing with my husband. I've told him that I was like, so when we have the sex conversation, we have to keep this open and in the phone. My goal is not to get him a phone until he's like 60. So and I don't even want.

Courtney Andersen :

Yeah, it's funny because my best friend has a son and he's, I think he's 11. And he keeps being like Mom, what if something happens to me? She's like you, let me figure that out, you're not getting a phone. And she's like Courtney. This is harder and harder to do as these kids get older, because all of their friends have phones.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

And Instagram and Snapchat, and it's their social hierarchy.

Courtney Andersen :

Right, exactly so it's just. It's going to be very interesting as he gets older and older.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

But just on that note, just for anyone listening who kind of is interested in this, and for you as well, there's a phenomenal book called the Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt.

Courtney Andersen :

I will link that. I'm actually it's in my Amazon cart, so that one. But I will link that book in the show notes below. Hey, good people of the world, it's Courtney. And if you're in your first year or your fifth year of sobriety, let's be real.

Courtney Andersen :

Summers can be tough, like a very, very, very challenging. It took me a couple summers to finally feel comfortable. There's something about warm weather, parties and poolside drinks that can make it feel like everybody's drinking but you. But just because drinking culture ramps up, especially during this time, doesn't mean your progress has to slow down. That's where a tool like Soberlink can help.

Courtney Andersen :

It's a high-tech breathalyzer that helps people in recovery stay accountable, not through shame, but through structure, scheduled daily tests. Let you share instant, verified results with the people who support you, so you don't have to do it alone, worried someone might question your results. They can't, because Soberlink uses facial recognition and tamper detection, so there's no way to cheat it. Whether you're rebuilding trust or you just want that extra layer of support this summer, sober Link is here to help you stay the course of your journey. I've witnessed people benefit from Sober Link and I want you to be the next. Visit wwwsoberlinkcom. Forward slash sober-vibes to sign up and receive 50% off your device today. You can also check the link in the show notes below. So for you then, what was your recovery process? How did this look for you when you probably came to your own quote, unquote rock bottom where you're like I can't function like this anymore?

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

Yeah, I mean, that was exactly it. It was a moment of waking up to my reality and saying I can't keep living like this. So I guess that's actually important to dive into a little bit is when I had that realization of all these ways porn was impacting me. I had this realization of if I keep living like this and I saw where it was leading me. Like this is the problem with any one act of watching porn it's not going to ruin your life. But when it becomes who you are, that's where it can lead to some dark places. And what I saw was I was heading down a dark pathway of being just kind of consumed by lust, totally driven by seeking out indulging in pleasure, and I realized I can't keep living like this. I need to figure out some other way of living. So that got me interested in just the topic of happiness. What is happiness? What does it mean? To be content, to be at peace?

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

And I started getting into these books on Buddhist philosophy and neuroplasticity and mindfulness and that ended up being really my pathway of recovery was through meditation and mindfulness and self-compassion and really learning how to train my mind, how to be aware of my habit patterns and intentionally choose better, to make better choices, more skillful choices. So a lot of meditation training ended up. Traveling to india started going on these silent meditation retreats. These were like 10-day retreats, where you're not talking or reading or writing or making eye contact with the other participants. You're really just being with yourself and observing your experience for 10 days, and those types of retreats formed a lot of the foundation of my recovery.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

It's not what I would necessarily recommend for people who are starting out today. I think a component of mindfulness and self-awareness is, which is why I teach it in my program. But more importantly, what I wish I had done earlier on is to get connected to a community, to go to a men's group to learn how to be vulnerable, to learn how to get support, and not try to do it on my own, because that's the big mistake a lot of people make is trying to do it on their own.

Courtney Andersen :

Yeah, a lot Same thing in the space with quitting drinking alcohol. When you try to do it alone, it's just there's a lot of shame. And so how? There's just a lot of shame that you don't, you can't sharing with somebody who gets it in that same space, by starting to talk about it and opening up and being around people who get it. That is the power of healing shame For you. How would you overcome shame in this taboo addiction? Because it is Because of going back where it's like you were looked upon as a pervert if you have a porn addiction, or you could be looked at because people like to throw the word a narcissist around, right, so then you're categorized as this person that you're absolutely not.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

Yeah, for whatever reason porn and sex addiction and just porn and sexuality in general has so much shame attached to it. For some reason, as a human species, we're just very much ashamed of our genitals, of sex, of talking about masturbation, talking about what we do with intimacy, and because of that, when someone is struggling with porn addiction or sex addiction, it feels like a very shameful thing. You know so many people who experience this just feel gross, they feel broken, they feel unlovable, and so letting go of that shame really is a key component, and one of the best ways to do it is to realize you're not alone. Realize because that's what shame tells us this lie that says you are the only person who's messed up in this way. Everyone else is normal. You're the weird one, you're the strange one, you're the defective one. That's what shame tells us.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

So to combat that, you have to start to recognize oh, I'm not the only one, I'm not alone in this. There are other people and there's reasons why I am this way, like it makes sense, and it's not my fault. I love this quote it's not your fault, but it is your responsibility. It's like to recognize it's not your fault, it is part of society's fault, the billion dollar porn industry's fault, all kinds of different things. It's not. You didn't want this to happen and it is your responsibility to do something about it.

Courtney Andersen :

Yeah, yeah. What helped you with overcoming your shame of it.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

It took me a long time. It took me six years even after I had I had stopped watching porn. It took me another six years before I could talk about it with anyone. And it was kind of just a moment of serendipity where I had. I was having a conversation with another friend of mine. We were in grad school together. He was another graduate student. We were both interested in meditation, we were both in the Buddhist meditation community and we were just having coffee one day and talking, I think, about what had gotten us into meditation and I told him that part of what got me into meditation was recognizing I had a porn addiction. And I remember that moment so distinctly because I remember it was a huge weight coming off my shoulders to be able to talk about it and to have the person I was telling just kind of nod in agreement as if they understood.

Courtney Andersen :

Yeah Right, do you look at the porn industry now like looking back? Do you look at it with anger or cause? At a point in my recovery with sobriety I looked at it a couple of years in cause. It's like a grieving process with the drinking, because then it's like yourself in that too. But I did look back and was angry at the alcohol industry. Let's sure it's lawyers five o'clock somewhere, right. And then nowadays too, even with especially in the States currently there's a lot of banning artificial food dyes and taking down big food, which I think is great. There was a big thing about big pharma, but there's really nothing about big alcohol, right. So it still makes me angry with that. But how do you now view that the porn industry?

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

Yeah, it's a great question. It's so funny, as you mentioned, with the alcohol industry, like it gets this big green hall pass where everyone else gets the scrutiny. But for some, the alcohol industry it's just, it's the drug that we've normalized and said well, it's just part of our society and we celebrate these addictions in these ways the t-shirts and the memes and everything. In these ways the t-shirts and the memes and everything. And porn is similar in some regards because of how sexualized our media is. I mean, sexualized media is everywhere Instagram, tiktok, movies.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

I don't have a lot of anger towards it. It's not really my nature. Anyways, I'm not a very angry person. It makes me sad that there is so much harm being caused by it and so many people unaware of the harms of it, and so I would say that's more my response, because I wouldn't know who to get angry at. I mean, I could get angry at the CEOs of Porn Hub, but and rightfully so, I think there have been some reporting to show that those organizations are pretty awful in terms of what they allow.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

But yeah, people in my industry, in my field, who are porn is evil and porn is a sin, and that's not my philosophy. I'm sex positive. I'm kink positive. If you have two consenting adults who know how to communicate and you want to do something interesting, go for it, and I have nothing against the idea, in principle, of watching people have sex on on a screen, on a piece of paper. It's the addiction that I really have the issue with, and modern, high-speed internet porn just is such a highly addictive substance, particularly when you combine it with the anonymity, the high degree of accessibility and variability. It's just such. And then you charge that into our innate primal sexual drive of young 12-year-old boys and 12-year-old girls. It's a recipe for addiction.

Courtney Andersen :

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The person I interviewed a couple of years back that he went that bar, he went to that where it was like this is evil, because again, I will never say going. But just compare it with this with alcohol, I'm never. There are some people who can drink and they don't have an issue, right, it's just okay. And same thing there are people who watch porn that it doesn't become an issue to. But yes, so I'm glad that you said that. When someone starts working on their porn addiction, what does that look like? Is that where they have? Because you have to start in any addiction, you really have to start rewiring your brain and working more on healing getting a dopamine hit elsewhere. So what does that? Does that even look like, that first month of not watching porn, where you're maybe have increased anxiety, maybe you're a little depressed, tired? I'm just trying to go through, especially with the listeners understanding that, like how this would look the withdrawal of it.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

Yeah, I mean, that's it. There is a withdrawal period. When you're used to getting a high dose of dopamine on a regular basis For some guys it's multiple times a day, it can be multiple hours. So when you're used to getting this high amount of dopamine because it really does press very effectively on the dopamine button when you're used to that and then you cut it off, you do go through withdrawal and it is very challenging because everything feels dull and gray. You lose your energy and motivation.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

It's very hard to feel good, but if you can get through those few weeks into that first month, you start to notice things shifting and you get your energy back. You feel more excited and motivated for the day ahead and things start to feel more. You feel more present for your life. Little, simple joys actually start to feel good again, like just drinking a cup of tea or going for a walk and feeling the sun, laughing with a friend. These simple joys actually become a part of your life again. But there is a withdrawal period and it's challenging, especially with porn, because analogy I like to give if you were a cocaine addict and you were trying to recover from cocaine but you were forced to have a little sachet of cocaine in your pocket at all times and take it with it with you wherever you go. That's what it's like to be a porn addict in recovery, because you have access to it on your phone everywhere you go. It's literally right there, and so it can be very challenging in those moments to break away, because it's just so accessible.

Courtney Andersen :

What do you recommend for somebody to break away in that moment of time? Because it is, it's in your pocket. It's in your pocket.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

Yeah, so using things like web blockers can be helpful. There's a caveat there, which is that they're helpful. They give you some breathing room. They put a little more friction in between you and acting out. So oftentimes people are smart enough, they know okay what are the loopholes, how can I get around this, but at least it puts some friction between you and acting out, so it makes it a little bit less accessible. So that's a good step. But the caveat there is that if you rely entirely on blockers, that's not going to work long term.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

The blockers are there to give you the breathing room to then do the inner work of building up your willpower, your restraint, connecting with your values and what a life of integrity looks like, not putting yourself in bad situations. So this is another big thing. It's understanding the impact of your environment and understanding what are your danger zones. So for a lot of guys, one of the most common things is a huge danger zone is when a guy is traveling for work and is staying in a hotel room is a huge trigger point for a lot of guys to act out with porn because they feel like it's a different environment. I can get away with it, Nobody's going to know and so just being really mindful about the environments you put yourself in.

Courtney Andersen :

Do you work with a lot of men who feel like they have double lives with the porn addiction?

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

Oh yeah, and that's one of the big things is because, again, it's this very shameful thing that they feel that they need to hide from their partner, from their coworkers, their friends. This imposter syndrome, this living a double life, is very common for people with porn and sex addiction. Because it feels like they're one person to the whole world, they're a successful man who, you know, has a career and is a father and whatever it is, but on the inside they feel like they have this dark secret that if people knew what they were watching, if people knew how perverted they were, they would be horrified. So that double life, it really is present there. It really is present there.

Courtney Andersen :

Is there any advice that you would give to a partner, a spouse of somebody who maybe they found out about a porn addiction or they have one. What would that look like for a spouse or a partner to support that person? Because I think the original reaction is that what am I not providing you? Why do you need to go in the depths of the black hole on the internet and watch this rage porn, whatever it might be, I think, especially with women, I think that's their first reaction. I am not. Why am I not enough for you? So what is that advice? What's that look like for somebody?

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

Yeah, well, first I would just kind of give some words to that experience. If a woman finds her partner has been watching stuff and has this feeling of am I not good enough? It's rarely about you. Almost always this addiction for the guy started when he was seven or eight or nine years old, long before he ever met you, let alone developed a romantic connection with you. This is not about you, it's not even about your sex life. It's about that guy and his coping mechanisms and that's his way of numbing out and kind of avoiding things and so just to kind of recognize, even though it's going to feel like it's about you oh, am I not good enough? Why does he need other women? It's not likely about you.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

It's not to say that it's not about you at all. I mean, there might be problems in the relationship and one of his ways of coping with the problems in the relationship is to go to porn. In terms of what to do, as best you can, having a safe, open, honest conversation, of just getting curious and saying, hey, is this something? Do you watch porn? How often? Not, as best you can, not from an attacking or judgmental perspective, but if you can drop into an understanding. Okay, I understand this might have started when you were young and how do you feel about it, and that can be really helpful. It really depends on each partner, though, because some women will have the stance that if a man is watching porn, it's the same thing as cheating. Yeah, and it really feels like that on a visceral level to them. Yeah, and it really feels like that on a visceral level to them. Yeah.

Courtney Andersen :

And other women will have the stance that, okay, he watches porn, but that's okay as long as he doesn't lie to me about it. Is there support groups for partners porn addicts? What is that called?

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

So one of the common terms. There's something called betrayal trauma. Oh, okay terms. There's something called betrayal trauma.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

Betrayal trauma is when, for example, let's say you're a woman and you have a male partner and you find out that he's been hiding this porn addiction secret from you for years and the moment you find out might be this experience of betrayal where you lose trust in the person. You realize that they're not who they say they are, and that can vary to the extent of how severe his addiction might be. If he's been sleeping with escorts and all kinds of it's escalated into affairs, or if he's spending money on OnlyFans, obviously there would be some betrayal there. But even for women who just find out their partner has a hidden porn addiction where it's just watching porn, that can also cause this betrayal trauma and that trauma can manifest in the same way that like real PTSD from things like sexual assault can manifest. It can be a real physiological trauma response.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

So there are support groups for women who are experiencing betrayal trauma, but that's a specific subset of people who have that kind of betrayal. There are women who don't necessarily have that experience of betrayal, but it's more man. I want to support my partner in getting through this. How can I do that?

Courtney Andersen :

Yeah, because I mean, I'm just now thinking about all and this is where this goes even into more layers of even to going back to social media and then sliding into women and men's DMs, and then that that builds a slippery slope.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

Yeah, and that's the thing. Slippery slope is a great term for it. I tell my guys all the time is really be careful with slippery slopes. So like on Instagram thirst traps. It's a spectrum of basically that's just the gateway for OnlyFans content producers to get people into their OnlyFans as they create these Instagram thirst trap channels, these Instagram thirst trap channels where a guy thinks, oh, this isn't porn, this is just a really hot girl who you know is posting her bikini photos and oh, there's nothing wrong with that, and can kind of go down the rabbit hole where she says, hey, check out my I have more photos if you go to my OnlyFans site. And that can be a slippery slope and it doesn't even have to be a thirst trap. Instagram and social media, the algorithms they prioritize sending these things that they know will hook people's attention and they know that sex hooks people's attention.

Courtney Andersen :

Yeah, I mean again layers, but yeah, some of the stuff too, on Instagram and TikTok. I'm like how is this allowed? Where I'm just like I can't, this isn't censored. But then again there's people who love that. These people have millions of followers, but yeah.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

Well, yeah, twitter is completely uncensored. I mean, a lot of people just use X or Twitter as their source of porn because it's a free-for-all.

Courtney Andersen :

It is the Wild West. It really is. All of these are the Wild West, and so then it just and that's what I'm saying it goes back to then of the porn industry, of then it starts getting into sex trafficking and all of that, and it's just, it's sad. So, yeah, it's a lot different from the porn industry from like the 70s.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

Right, yeah, yeah, the Penthouse magazines or whatever.

Courtney Andersen :

Right the 70s and 80s. And then it took a turn. When the internet came out and that Pamela Anderson, tommy Lee video that's sex tape. I mean that kind of started a whole new thing with that going on the internet came out and that Pamela Anderson, tommy Lee video that's X-Safe I mean that kind of started a whole new thing with that going on the internet.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

Yeah, yeah, I mean there were a few kind of moments that that was. One of them there was this two girls, one cup thing that kind of went viral and that kind of started a trend of more shocking things that started to spread.

Courtney Andersen :

I refuse to watch that. Two girls, one cup. I'm like no, thank you.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

Yeah.

Courtney Andersen :

But I remember that I haven't thought about that, but you just brought that up In how many years?

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

30 years or 20, 25 years? Yes, yeah.

Courtney Andersen :

Well, thank you so much for this conversation and for sharing your story. Where can people find you if they want to learn more about you and what you do, and educating on porn addiction and recovery?

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

Yeah, I would say that the two best places would be either my podcast If you search Unhooked, it should be the first one to pop up, so Unhooked Breaking Porn Addiction Podcast or the YouTube channel, which I'm starting to post more on there as well. If you're interested more about the programs that I run, you can just check out my website, jeremylipkowitzcom. But the podcast and YouTube channel are, I would say, the best places to go for free content.

Courtney Andersen :

Okay, perfect. Well, I will list everything in the show notes below and thank you again for being here today.

Jeremy Lipkowitz:

Happy to be here.

People on this episode

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Courtney Andersen

Host
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Kimberly Elledge

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