109: From Stuck to Free—The 2 Recovery Mindset Elements That Most People Overlook

Most men try to quit porn by relying on sheer willpower, white-knuckling it, or living in constant fear of relapse. I know, because I tried that too. The problem is, a fear-based recovery mindset only fuels more cravings and keeps you stuck in the shame cycle.

In this episode of No More Desire, I reveal the 2 recovery mindset elements that almost every man overlooks—but that can completely transform your journey to freedom from porn addiction. They’re simple, but don’t let that fool you. These two practices can rewire your brain, reduce cravings, and give you a life filled with meaning and purpose beyond just “not watching porn.”

We’ll dive deep into:

• Why fear-based recovery backfires and actually makes relapse more likely.
  
  
• The psychology of gratitude and how it interrupts rumination, rewires your attention, and helps you build a new identity.
  
  
• How focusing on good outcomes for others strengthens self-worth, connection, and significance in ways porn never can.
  
  
• The neuroscience behind gratitude and service, including how they restructure dopamine, reduce stress, and build long-term resilience.
  
  
• The spiritual truth that joy isn’t found in hoarding for self, but in living with gratitude and giving to others.
  
  

By the end of this episode, you’ll see why gratitude and focusing on the good of others are not just “feel-good extras” in recovery—they’re essential builders of a porn-free life.

If you’re ready to stop living in fear of relapse and start building a life worth living for, this episode is for you.

👉 Listen now and take the next step toward lasting freedom from porn addiction.

Link to Blog Article for this Episode

Free Resources:

Grab my Free eBook and Free Workshop for more strategies to overcome porn addiction, rewire your brain, and rebuild your life.

Recommended Episodes: 

Why Positive Thinking Isn't Enough to Beat Porn Addiction - And What Works Instead

How Negative Thinking Fuels Porn Addiction - Shame, the Brain and the Habit Loop

The Inner War that Keeps You Addicted to Porn

Transcript

Jake Kastleman (00:32.216)
We've spent the last two episodes breaking down how negative thinking fuels porn addiction and why just thinking positive won't set you free either. Today, we're going to put the final piece in place, two mindset elements that can take you from feeling stuck to living free. And here's the thing, my friend. Most people completely overlook these two things. In fact, when they hear them,

Many dismiss them as too simple, too soft, and not powerful enough to make a real difference. But in my experience, both personally and through coaching men around the world, consistently focusing on these two things can be crucial in building a mindset for long-term recovery. They can be crucial for you. By the end of this episode, you'll see why these two things rewire your brain, change how you respond to cravings,

and anchor you in a purpose that goes beyond just not watching porn. Before we start, make sure to follow this podcast, tap the notification bell, and leave a quick rating so others who need help can find it. And remember, if you want the exercises and reflection questions from this and other episodes, check out my blog. The article for this episode is linked in the show notes. With that,

We'll dive in, my friend.

With that, we'll dive in.

Jake Kastleman (02:26.734)
So before we dive into the episode today, I want to talk about something that's exciting. So I have an event coming up. It's going to be with the Porn Resilient Summit through the Good and the Free with Taylor Chambers, who's the host of that program, that organization. I'm going to be talking about the RAIL method at that event. And this is something that I've been working on for the last year and a half, drafting, studying,

researching, developing, I've gone through, I can't even explain how many drafts and iterations to develop the RAIL method, which is essentially a tool to transform every urge into an opportunity for growth and to actually fuel recovery. It is a mental and emotional approach, and I would even add a spiritual approach in that, but even if you're not spiritual, you can use it all the same, to

transform cravings into fuel for recovery to actually utilize a craving as a trailhead to develop deeper understanding and deep empowerment for your sobriety. So more about that probably about in the next month, I will begin talking about it. But I wanted to throw that your way I'm going to be putting up a course on my

website for this for the rail method. It's going to be at a very reasonable price for people and during this event at porn resilient I will actually be giving a 100 % discount code for that course which is again it's a cool a really excellent resource for people and so I look forward to being able to give that away for those who attend that event. So moving in here

I want to talk about these elements when it comes to what works for recovery. So most recovery mindsets are self-protection focused. They're about boundaries, they're about rules, and the elements that I'm about to share with you help you expand your focus and the joy in your life. And just to clarify, this is not about the RAIL method. These are two completely different tools.

Jake Kastleman (04:52.568)
that I teach people their mental and emotional tools that I teach people. And one of which I have spoken about in a different episode, but I'm going to give you some more details on that, expand it a bit. So even if some of this is review, I encourage you to listen, take it in. It always bears reminding and we always need reminders of the same information again and again, but I will expand on the concepts and ideas quite a bit here.

If you are living a truly joyous life, you will be sober. What do I mean by that? If life is fulfilling, if it's meaningful, if it's going well, if you're pretty happy, not that you don't experience pain, because life always includes pain. That's just inevitable. It always includes hard work. It always includes pain. It always includes disappointments. And so we need to know how to meet those. But if overall you're pretty satisfied and life is good,

you're grateful for life, you're happy about life, then you will be sober, essentially. Now, again, it's not simply about being positive. It doesn't work that way. And I don't want this to sound too simplistic or myopic when it comes to recovery. Instead, you need to know what to focus on to drive that positive mindset. And this is just practiced in increments, line upon line, precept upon precept, over time.

over the course of months and years and eventually your entire lifetime, you're building a recovery mindset more and more and more. Positivity itself is a byproduct, not a center point of this. So when your recovery mindset is about avoiding failure, avoiding relapse, avoiding shame, your attention stays locked on yourself, which actually fuels the addiction mindset. It's fascinating that

We so much center in on counting days and my self-care and everything I need to do for me to feel just right in order to stay sober. And that is if you've been taught that in recovery programs, some people don't take care of themselves well at all. And ultimately good self-care is a major part of recovery. But when we stay locked in on ourselves, we're counting our days.

Jake Kastleman (07:13.59)
and we're so fixated on staying sober, this does not fuel recovery, it does the opposite. You're constantly scanning, am I okay? Am I slipping? Did I mess up? And the self-focus generates anxiety. And what happens when I'm generating constant anxiety in my life and I feel overwhelmed? I experience cravings. Why? Because the tension and pressure of anxiety, what I would say as a manager,

approach to life, a controlling or self-judgmental or judgment of others for that matter, but controlling and judgmental kind of perspective that generates the anxiety, that's a part of what generates anxiety. This is the opposing force that necessitates the addictive escapes or the self-soothing, self-comforting kinds of escapes or seeking out fantasy to escape reality.

because my life is too anxious, it's too pressured, there's too much tension in my life. You get caught in this loop then. There's a craving, you fear relapse, you experience more craving, you fear relapse, right? And once that progresses long enough through the anxiety and the pressure and the tension and then the craving, you know, I'm fearing relapse, eventually I relapse. I tried to approach

My recovery from a fear-based standpoint. I had fear-based recovery for Who a while I guess it must have been over a year or so a very much fear-based recovery and what ended up happening to me because I had such a tight grip on recovery is I ended up developing I already struggled with anxiety and social anxiety, but I really developed like a panic disorder

or surrounding sobriety. I was deathly afraid, and this can sound very odd to some people, but maybe those who are listening will understand this. I had a deathly fear that I would masturbate and that that would then domino, have a domino effect in my life. Or I had a deathly fear as well that I would watch porn. whether I did one or both of those,

Jake Kastleman (09:38.83)
that that would have a domino effect in my life, then I would feel shame. And if I felt shame, then I couldn't accomplish and achieve the things I wanted to in life because I'd feel bad about myself and I'd feel lower motivation and lower focus. I knew enough about dopamine and the neurological end of addiction that I knew that watching porn would actually create this drop in dopamine, right? And it would impact my life.

But I didn't realize how the fear of addiction, the fear of relapse, and also all the massive shame I had surrounding pornography and masturbation and sexuality as a whole is really a major drainer when it comes to emotions and positive good emotions. Sorry, have still, still am overcoming a cold this week. It's nearly gone, but it's not quite gone. So I apologize if I sniff and...

congestion that you can hear. So that's important to understand. Okay, a fear-based approach to recovery is not sustainable for long-term recovery. So the alternative is when your mindset focuses on these two elements, your attention then shifts outward and it shifts from fear-based to I would say faith-based or positivity-based or hope-based recovery.

Right? Are you ready for what these two elements are? Here they are, gratitude and the good of others.

That simple, gratitude and the good of others. Okay, and again, I've talked about gratitude in a previous episode. Instead of guarding against failure, guarding against relapse, being so afraid that I'm going to relapse, you're building something worth living for. That's deeply necessary. This naturally reduces anxiety and shame because you're engaged in meaningful action. Your life is meaningful. Meaning is one of the greatest...

Jake Kastleman (11:46.478)
I've talked about it in many episodes in varying ways if I have a meaningful life, I'm Contributing to my community. I'm doing something. I feel meaning in my work whether that be you know that I'm teaching others to overcome addiction or I'm a CEO of a big company or I'm a CFO or I'm a manager over a team or I'm a janitor that works in a school Whatever it is

right, or I'm doing some other kind of job, you know, in the trades, as an electrician, et cetera. All of these are equally valuable, but it matters what meaning I glean from them. And when I can focus in on gratitude and the good of others in the work that I do, or at home in my family, I can generate meaning in my life. That's a conscious effort, and it's about focusing on those two elements in my daily life.

And some listening to this may think, really, gratitude and service? What kind of cliche stuff is that? Believe me, I get that. But listen, this is something I didn't really start to grasp until years into my recovery. And I'm hoping I can give you some practical ways to implement it today in ways that will be meaningful for you. So gratitude interrupts rumination.

the mental replaying of fears, mistakes, and worst case scenarios, right? Or we might call that anxiety. Rumination is a key component of anxiety. And gratitude instead rewires your attention toward what's present and what's good, reducing the brain's negativity bias. When I have a negativity bias and I constantly am pessimistic and seeing all the painful or the bad or the negative in life,

I am very prone towards relapse and towards addiction because that is a lot of dark emotion. I feel a great dissatisfaction. My dopamine is plunging. My neurotransmitters are out of whack. The parts of me are longing to feel meaning and joy. And so parts will show up to try to bring me that. By default, through addictive substances or behaviors,

Jake Kastleman (14:07.326)
or I have to choose it voluntarily. So this shift helps your identity move from I'm a man fighting porn to I'm a man building something worthwhile when I focus on gratitude and the good of others. Helping others meets a deep psychological need for connection, for significance. We must have these things. Those who don't seek out addictions. Look, I think this is pretty plain and simple.

People who aren't addicted to things, they cultivate gratitude and joy in their lives and they are contributing to higher meaning. They're connected to something bigger than them. And if you have an addiction, that doesn't mean you don't have some of that in your life, but you can always generate more of that. And so I'll give you some practical exercises for that at the end of this to implement that in your life. This altruism reinforces self-worth and I actually feel the need

to say this and just pause. Please understand that I'm talking about two elements here. There are many elements that I talk about in the podcast. So if I say, if what you're hearing is, I must not be grateful enough or I must not be doing enough good for others, that's why I'm addicted to porn. Please understand that is not what I am saying in the least. These are two elements that can help you in your recovery.

Okay, that's my intention is to bring you something that helps. So altruism reinforces self-worth. What is addiction about? It's really a vying for worth. I feel unworthy. I feel I'm not enough. I'm filled with this feeling of inadequacy underneath it. And I'm filled with feelings of fear of rejection and that others don't accept me. This is why people seek out drugs. This is why people seek out alcohol.

When you look at the psychology of addiction, this is constantly the case. It's the theme all the time. The men that I work with, it was in my life. I sought out drugs when I was 16 because I wanted to be accepted by my buddies. I wanted to be cool. I wanted people to like me. That's why I did it. And then it generated an addiction in my life and I started seeking it out in its own right for something to escape through. A fantasy to...

Jake Kastleman (16:31.448)
to go into and to find belonging in that group. I could have found belonging in sports. I could have been on the track team. You know, I could have done other things that brought me joy and brought me belonging, but I defaulted because I wasn't involved in anything that really brought me that belonging and that feeling of meaning. Something I was good at and competent at. Something where I was contributing to others.

So when I see I'm having a positive impact, this builds my self-worth, it helps me feel bigger than myself. And I truly believe as we serve others and go about doing good for others, it expands our internal world. When we focus on just on ourselves and our culture really teaches us to do this in modern Western society, there's a lot of voices out there that implicitly teach us to just focus on self, unfortunately.

we get smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller and life feels more and more isolated. What happens when we feel isolated and small? We seek out addiction because addiction is all about isolation, right? When I expand out and I get bigger, my life gets larger and more meaningful. Addiction becomes less and less something I desire because it doesn't match up with that larger life. It creates an identity that porn simply doesn't fit into. And so,

From a parts work application, when protective parts like managers or firefighters, and if you haven't listened to other episodes, I apologize if you don't recognize those terms, but essentially managers are parts of our mind that can show up protectively to try to control things. And then firefighters are things that show up protectively to try to help us escape pain, right? So either control things and try to do everything perfectly or escape pain and utilize addictive behaviors or substances often to do that.

These protective parts, if they see me engaged in gratitude and service, they relax. They actually get to be implemented, integrated into my life in ways that are healthy. And so I channel them and utilize my agency to bring them into my life in healthy ways. Parts that were addictive and acting out with addiction and get channeled into doing things that are in the service of others and bringing gratitude into my life and joy into my life. This can actually happen. I've seen it happen for me. I've watched it happen for others. I've trained them to do it.

Jake Kastleman (18:56.054)
So the hurting parts of you as well, these exiles, if you will, these emotions of fear, shame, or grief, these parts of me start to feel more secure. They start to actually rise up instead of being exiled or buried inside of me. These feelings and these parts of me begin to feel more integrated, more whole, more joyous because they sense that I'm living from a place of meaning and of value rather than fear.

That can be a little abstract or a little esoteric. I hope that I've explained that in a way that makes sense. So the neuroscience of all of this, let's talk a bit about network activation. Gratitude activates what would be called the salience network. And this salience network helps my brain focus on what's most meaningful instead of getting focused in on this fear. So I integrate that network well.

And then it can assist me in focusing. And we actually see this. There's studies about this, how expressing gratitude in my life helps me be more focused and more motivated. And then service engages the central executive network, the CEN, which improves focus, impulse control, and long-term decision making. So very similar. These are parts of the brain, I believe, that are integrated inside of the prefrontal cortex. I could be slightly wrong on that. They may be connected.

to but I believe they're part of that, of the frontal lobes, from what I recall in my research of this. I apologize if I'm quoting that wrong. So porn trains, when it comes to dopamine, we always got to talk about that, porn trains your dopamine system to chase instant, self-focused pleasure, and gratitude in helping others creates slower, steadier dopamine release, rewarding you for relational.

and value based actions. That is an amazing thing. Over time, this rewires your brain to find satisfaction and noble pleasures. I use the terms base and noble pleasures. Those are my terms. I don't see anybody else who uses them. Base pleasures. If you go to, there's an amazing podcast episode called the dopamine expert on the diary of a CEO, where they outline how pain and pleasure work in the brain. Pain and pleasure are

Jake Kastleman (21:22.162)
are they are processed and generated in the same part of the brain in the limbic system. Okay, and so how this works is base pleasures is anything that I do where pain and pleasure are out of balance with each other or effort and pleasure. In other words, because effort is painful, right? They're out of balance with each other. So something like watching TV or

watching porn or masturbation or video games, fast food, social media, things like this that we all have very quick access to and we're surrounded by all the time. These are base pleasures. In other words, my level of effort or level of pain is far outweighed by the level of pleasure and mental emotional reward I'm gaining from the activity.

When I do this, I then experience pain on the back end because it's the scales of my brain trying to realign. Because when it comes to noble pleasures, to kind of give this context, noble pleasures are just normal human activities that bring me pleasure and joy in a reasonable degree, but they also require effort. So like exercise, for instance. Exercise is painful, it hurts. The harder I work,

the greater the reward I gain emotionally. In other words, I get a surge of dopamine, I feel good, I feel satisfied, I get endorphins. I'm like, ah, my body feels good, I did something that fulfills me, I feel stronger, I feel more able, right? And this has long-term benefits as well, but in the short term, it feels satisfying, right? Maybe not in the beginning, when I'm trying to...

to get better and get more fit, but that's the pain that I experienced in the beginning. It's more painful. Then these start to even out. And so the level of pain or effort I put in is about equal to the level of reward I get, and the reward is moderate. But we have such intense reward activities, these base pleasures, that far outweigh the pain. There's no effort on my part when it comes to something like porn. I click a button, boom, I'm with naked.

Jake Kastleman (23:41.004)
women in an instant, there's no effort on my part, then I experience a great deal of pain afterwards because my neurological system is rebalancing. So gratitude and the good of others, these require effort on my part. They are difficult to consciously focus on gratitude and the good of other people. It is painful in a way. And that pain or that effort is

About matched by the reward that I get from it. It's a pretty moderate reward. It's more subtle And the more I pursue these things the more I actually desire those rather than the base pleasures that are easy to get But empty They're empty right? They're void of much meaning of any kind so I hope that makes sense in addition When it comes to stress

Gratitude lowers cortisol and it reduces limbic reactivity. It makes you less vulnerable to emotional hijacks that lead to relapse and In kind of taking this from a spiritual perspective Every major spiritual tradition teaches that joy is found not in hoarding for self but in giving and loving others, right? This has been taught since pretty much the dawn of time as far as we know with writing is

when we cultivate a life where we give to others and we serve, religion and spiritual teachings have taught this for a long, long time. Now we're doing research on it and we have tools to measure what happens in the brain when we serve others or we express gratitude and we're seeing neurological evidence that this is the case. But we've known this, this is an obvious thing.

It's been known for a long time. It's interesting to me how we need a scientific study to validate Something that we've we just inherently know and we've practiced for so long anyway But science certainly I certainly study it and I value it It gives us another perspective to give some explanation behind some things which is very valuable So porn addiction is inherently self-focused

Jake Kastleman (26:01.474)
It isolates you and turns relationships into transactions, right? Gratitude grounds it. Gratitude and the good of others expands you outward. It's not so focused. It's the antithesis of addiction. all gratitude also grounds you in humility. It reminds you that every good thing is a gift. When I'm focused in on a life where I think I have to earn everything and I think that when I accomplish something, I'm like, look at me. I'm awesome.

This isolates and isolates, it's self-focused. Whereas gratitude expands outward so that I feel happiness and joy, whatever happens, whether I fail or I succeed, I feel gratitude for the learning or I feel gratitude for, wow, look at how blessed I am with all the advantages or the skills I've built, the things I've practiced, the mentors that I've had, the people who've taught me, the resources I've access to. And then that enables me to do more good in my life and expand and become greater and greater.

And as I do that and I gain more meaning in my life through focusing on gratitude and the good of other people, now I need addiction less, less, and less. Focusing on good outcomes for others puts you in alignment with purpose greater than yourself. And this isn't about perfection. It's not about being a hero. It's about living as the truest, most connected version of yourself, just in small steps, becoming more and more that way over time. So I want to wrap up.

with a few messages here and some applied practices for you to build gratitude and cultivate this giving mindset. Again, you can find this all in the blog. Morning practice, write down three things you're genuinely grateful for, name one person you can positively impact today and what you'll do for them. And then in the moment when you're craving, here are some practices. Pause and acknowledge the craving, get present with what's behind it. It's probably an inclination to seek comfort, excitement, or fantasy, okay?

Ask yourself, what's one good thing that I can create today? What's one good way that I can bring comfort, excitement, or fantasy to someone else? That doesn't have to be anything extreme. could be simple. Take a small action in that direction to serve a loved one, to serve my wife, to serve my children. One on one, doing something that is small or big for somebody else. And by the way, you want to do this early on. When it comes to a craving, if you wait until a craving,

Jake Kastleman (28:28.142)
has grown, it will be more difficult to choose to do this. The longer that you wait, the less chance there is of you feeling motivated to take a different route because you're now you're in the funnel. Now you're getting stuck. So you want to do it early on the moment you notice craving. That's that's practiced. Not going to be perfect at that, especially early on, but you cultivate cultivate that in your life.

And then an evening reflection you want to take, you write one way you saw growth in yourself today, and you write one way you helped or encouraged someone else. So I challenge you to do those things this upcoming week. Here are some reflection questions, and I'll round us out with a couple of messages. Five reflection questions that I have for you. I encourage you to do these and to really take time with them. Just hearing them doesn't make a difference. You may think, yeah, yeah, I get that. But when you actually take the time to sit down, think, and write, it makes a difference.

Number one, when you think about your daily recovery mindset, would you say it's mostly centered on self-protection, avoiding relapse, avoiding shame, or is it centered on building something meaningful? And how has that mindset shaped your results? Number two, what's one specific area of your life where rumination, replaying fears, mistakes, or worst case scenarios keeps you stuck? How could you practice gratitude to interrupt that cycle and shift your focus?

Number three, who in your life right now could benefit from you showing up with encouragement, presence or service? How might focusing on their good strength, on their good strength in your own recovery? Number four, looking back at your last major craving, what were you seeking? Comfort, excitement, escape, fantasy. How could you redirect that energy into?

creating something good for yourself or for someone else instead. And number five, if you began each day with gratitude and ended each day reflecting on how you impacted others, how do you think your identity would change over time? So over the last three episodes, we've seen how negative thinking fuels porn addiction, why forced positive thinking can make it worse, and how gratitude and focusing on good outcomes for others can take you from stuck to free.

Jake Kastleman (30:49.742)
This isn't just a nice idea. It's a mindset shift that rewires your brain, it reshapes your identity, and it gives you a reason to live far bigger than just not watching porn. If you haven't already, go back to listen to episodes 107 and 108. They lay the foundation for this shift and what I talk about in this episode. And also visit the blog linked in the show notes for exercises and reflection questions all in one place. Remember to follow and this podcast.

And remember that recovery isn't just about removing what's hurting you, it's about building what's worth living for. And gratitude and focusing on the good of others are some of the most reliable builders that I know. God bless and much love.