77: Addiction in the Digital Age

The hardest addictions to spot are often the ones in our pockets. We discuss how phones, social media, pornography, gaming, and gambling all tap into the same dopamine loop—offering quick relief but often leading to emptiness and loss of control.

Steven shares how Restore Detox Centers handles tech in treatment: a supervised break, then intentional reintroduction with support. We cover practical tools like filters, app limits, accountability, and healthier daily rhythms, along with pornography’s impact on the brain and relationships. Recovery is both practical and spiritual—design your environment, build connection, and replace empty habits with real purpose.

Helpful Links:
Learn more about Restore Detox Centers
Filling the Void book by Steven T. Ginsburg
Overcoming the Fear and Lies of Addiction e-book
How to Love and Set Boundaries Without Enabling Addiction e-book
Call Us for Addiction Recovery:  1-800-982-5530

DISCLAIMER:
Welcome to the Addiction Recovery podcast, brought to you by Restore Detox Centers. We are dedicated to providing valuable and insightful information on addiction recovery. However, it is essential to understand that the content shared in this podcast is intended for educational purposes only. While we strive to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information presented, we cannot guarantee its completeness or suitability for individual circumstances. The topics discussed in this podcast are based on general knowledge and should not be considered a substitute for professional advice or treatment.

It is important to note that the views and opinions expressed by the podcast hosts, guests, or contributors are their own and may not necessarily reflect the views of Restore Detox Centers. We strongly advise listeners to consult with qualified professionals, such as addiction counselors, therapists, or medical practitioners, before making any decisions or taking any actions based on the information provided in this podcast. Please be aware that listening to this podcast does not establish a client-provider relationship with Restore Detox Centers.

Transcript

Defining Addiction And Powerlessness

Steven Ginsburg 0:00

It's the ism, the I self me. It's the compulsion. It's the inability to have any manageability. It's the powerlessness.

Broadening Beyond Drugs And Alcohol

Steve Coughran 0:08

This is the Addiction Recovery Podcast with Steven T. Ginsburg, founder of Restore Detox Centers in Sunny, California. Enjoy your experience. Most of our podcast episodes, Steven, are centered around drugs and alcohol abuse. But really, addiction can involve a variety of things, especially in this digital age. And that's what I want to unpack with you today. You know, you could be addicted to your phone, you could be addicted to social media, pornography, gambling. There are a variety of things. And let's go ahead and jump in.

Steven Ginsburg 0:42

Steve, thank you. It's just, again, I love the fact that we can go beyond the realm of the baseline of what we focus on. There's so many things and there's so much transference. People will get into recovery for addiction and alcoholism and suddenly an issue with food, with gambling, with sex comes up. And this world is tailor-made for those elements. Uh, with this digital age, with everything on the internet, with the way we are with our devices, uh, it's all a ready-made environment. And it's a cautionary tale because we've got to continue to assess, you know, are there elements of compulsion? Are there elements of obsessive compulsive disorder? Are there elements of powerless unmanageability that are being reared through other mechanisms that are available in the outside world that are not necessarily drugs and alcohol, but they are drug and alcohol related.

Phones In Recovery Settings

Steve Coughran 1:37

Yeah, because it's all this dopamine loop, right? It's dopamine not demand. That's the world that we live in. It's you're feeling down, you need a little dopamine hit, pull your phone out of your pocket, start scrolling, whatever it may be. Doesn't mean it makes feel better. I mean, it probably makes you feel terrible, right? But it's right there in our pocket on demand anytime we want to touch it on it. So let's go ahead and dive into each of these topics in a little bit more detail. I want to start with phones. Yes, because I don't know, like at our store, do people have access to phones when they're going through recovery?

Steven Ginsburg 2:11

They do, but there's a sidebar to the they do. When they're in acute or subacute medical detox, which is phase one many times of how people will come to us, we give them a quote unquote break from their phone. When they meaning we can they can use it on a supervised basis with us, or they will be just actually not having it entirely, depending on how severe their circumstances are. But when they come out of that, I this is my own thing, and this is what I stand by, and I believe in it. I believe they should have their technology, and I'm glad they have their technology. And I very quickly want to explain the why behind the how. They are going to go to the outside world, they will be with us in discharge in a flash. It's so fast. I don't want all those emails and text messages coming in all of a sudden when they they hit the power button on their phone or their tablet without us being there. To me, that is a sure hook or a percentage razor right back to a fast track relapse.

Parenting Through Screen Obsession

Steve Coughran 3:09

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And let's talk about phones in in the context of teenagers, because my daughter, you know, she's 13 years old and she has a phone, and I think she manages it pretty well. Sometimes she'll get into doom scrolling. Uh, my son doesn't have a phone. He, I mean, I worry about him because he gets so hyper-focused on technology, whether it's YouTube videos, he used to watch YouTube videos of people playing video games. So he'd watch people playing video games, which is crazy to me. But nonetheless, he would he would do that, or he has his VR, he has like the little meta VR, you know, game sets and other things. But he, I mean, he will obsess about it, and literally I can see like his his mind working, and he's just thinking, when can I get to that next? When can I play VR next? When can I watch that YouTube? Can I, you know, like can I sneak a thing on the phone or let me get in your Tesla and and you know, play with the digital controls or the videos, or and it's just like this digital addiction, and I'm like so understand. I'm like, yeah, this is crazy, right? I mean, this could be a real problem and it could lead to other things. I don't know, maybe you have a different take on it.

Steven Ginsburg 4:23

I think my take is is much like yours, and I think it is a real thing, and I think it can be a problem, and I think it is a problem, and I think it's problematic, and I think it's the reality of the world we live in and have these children in. Our kids have phones. Um, they also have lives outside of their phones, and they have lives in church, and they have lives in sports, and they have lives with their friends. And listen, right now I'm doing this podcast with an earbud in on my phone. My wife, I'm looking at my wife inside the house. She's working on our Bible study, but she's on her tablet with a pad on her device. I mean, this is just very much a condition of the world we live in. But just like everything else, I think there's got to be balance. There's got to be activity and movement and fresh air and variety. I believe it's impossible to eliminate it and limit it completely, but I believe it's possible to offer, profess, and hope for a proper and appropriate balance where it's all concerned.

Dopamine Loops And Digital Design

Pornography’s Impact And Boundaries

Steve Coughran 5:21

Absolutely. Okay, let's dive into something that's accessible through phones, which is far greater of a concern, which is pornography. Yeah. So there is there's research out there about how pornography literally rewires a person's brain, brain, and the way that they see people or the the way that they deal with intimate relationships, which is really sad. And the thing is, like with our kids, my wife and I will talk, it's like it's not a matter of have they ever viewed pornography? It's when's the last time you came across pornography, right? And maybe it's they're not seeking it out, but they could be scrolling somewhere and there's pornography everywhere. And you could define pornography in so many different realms. Yes, you know, pornography could be a girl in a swimsuit, or pornography could be somebody completely nude. But what are your thoughts on that as far as it relates to like pornography?

Steven Ginsburg 6:16

So it's a topic I take very seriously because and I'm grateful and blessed that that hasn't been something I've fallen victim to. But that is it is truly luck of the draw. Like the Lord had different pitfalls for me. But men I love and respect have had their struggles with that. And I've seen it's been very destructive for marriages, it's been very destructive for households, it's been very destructive to your point for the way people have an outlook of people of the opposite sex. And it doesn't have to be that way, but it exists and it's out there, so we can't pretend it's not. It's gonna again fall in alignment with making sure there's appropriate, really transparent conversations, making sure we're erring on the side of caution and being bold and not being afraid to have those conversations with our young adults and our children who are heading to that phase of their life. So they understand what that's about, where it's devised from, what it's for, as far as meaning it's there to like, they don't care who they victimize, and they're there to to to adjudicate wild profit. So this isn't some sort of a realm of something that's positive or holy. It's really got a lot of darkness to it, it's ruined a lot of lives. It'll continue to ruin a lot of lives, and it's all part of the sum total. It's about like altering people, alter their state through pornography. People try to fill up that emptiness through pornography. So that's where it becomes a real issue of today's concern.

Tech Safeguards And Cultural Shifts

Steve Coughran 7:47

Yeah, and I agree. Well, and what's interesting is I just got a notice from Apple that my when my daughter upgraded her phone, like the newest software. I'm sure it the same thing's true on your end, and it's I mean it's worldwide being pushed out, but there's a new feature, more controls for parents with uh teens with phones. And one of the features is now Apple will block or blur any nude images that it detects coming into your kid's phone via text message, email, et cetera, or nude photos that they may potentially send to other people, right? And so it's interesting that they're putting these controls in place and these blocks in place, which I think is great because all it takes is you know, some kid at school thinking it's funny to send some pornography to one of their friends or one of the girls through a text message. Now it'll come through blurred and it'll block that image from being viewed on the phone and other sites as well, which will be blocked, which I think is great. But also, I think for adults, maybe when we were growing up, because pornography was limited to you know a VHS, right? Or maybe you came across in a magazine, like a Playboy magazine, but now I mean it's all over the place, and then on top of that, you have these websites and stuff where kids actually they're the ones being viewed, right? They're the ones, you know, being nude and having these accounts and part of the pornography, and they're they're being paid well, and that can create this misconception among young people where they're like, I'll just be a porn star and I'll make a million dollars a year, but they don't understand like the harmful effects of viewing it and per perpetuating it.

Correlation Across Addictions

Steven Ginsburg 9:39

Yeah, it's just there, there's the stakes are so high, and again, it it starts at home and it starts with us, and we've got to be you know good stewards to the blessings of our children and with each other, and and we've got to make sure that a day at a time that our actions and words what match. Yeah, and this is all part of it, and we've got to make sure we are able to really define listen, like this is what adultery is. It doesn't have to be a physical act, it can be those acts of lust, and it can be the unmanageability that that type of content brings, which will pull marriages apart and pull households down, and that way these children, I mean, my gosh, God bless our kids. I mean, they didn't ask to be in this world, but we brought them here and the Lord saw fit for us to have them. We've got to do the best we can to protect these young men and these young women.

Steve Coughran 10:30

Yeah, exactly. And I know your wife, she she's so sweet and has such a tender heart. And if you were to say, Hey, I went and saw a naked girl today, she would be devastated, right?

Steven Ginsburg 10:43

About a trillion percent.

Steve Coughran 10:44

Yeah, and the same thing is true with with you. She's like, Yeah, I went and you know, I ran into this guy, and, you know, had him show me his his stuff. You'd be like, Oh my gosh, be like, I can't even go there. That's that's exactly what people are doing with pornography. I'm like, how is it any different? If my wife's viewing it or if I'm viewing it, it's the same thing. But I think like it's the same thing with drugs and alcohol. It's this whole attitude of it's not a big deal. Smoking weed is not a big deal. Viewing pornography, what's the harm? It's not like it's hurting anybody. I'm just looking at pictures, you know, and whatever it may be. But I think it's it's all this stuff. Oh, it's my phone, it's just gambling and it's all these excuses. Do you see a correlation between any of this and people that that are coming to the house for help?

Community, Resources, And Next Steps

Steven Ginsburg 11:33

A trillion percent. It it all correlates, it's all part of the sum total. It's the ism, the I self me, it's the compulsion, it's the inability to have any manageability, it's the powerlessness behind that. And it's it's it's what it does and the way it's so destructive and the destruction it reaps and sows uh as people fall into these abysses. And that's where there's so much hope in the solution. And that's where a a solution-based life in recovery, where you have that spiritual malady filled up, starts to take you out of harm's way and brings you into that fellowship of the spirit.

Steve Coughran 12:10

Yeah. And then look, if if you're listening to this and you're thinking, wow, that's me, because I'm viewing pornography or I have a gambling problem, or I smoke weed, or whatever your issue is, like we all have struggles. So it's no shame. We're not Steven and I aren't here to shame you or make you feel bad. We just don't want you to stay stuck where you're at. And trust me, I'm not perfect. I'm not, I'm I make mistakes every single day of my life. Steven's not perfect either, he never professes to be. But I think the key here is the reason why we do this podcast is because it's all about the community, the community of people that tune in that are struggling in life, and we can create this community of people where we struggle together. And so we just we know that we're not alone. We're not weirdos, right? We're just normal people trying to live the best lives that we can. We have resources on our website, restoredcenters.com. You can always email us at hello at restore detoxcenters.com. Steven, take us home.

Steven Ginsburg 13:10

Steve, thank you so much for this. Like, really, I'm sitting here thinking, never let Stephen Mind's halo blind you. We are fallen, broken men and grateful to be. And I will tell you, we are in this together. And it's about the similarities, not the differences. We love you, we are for you, we want to hear from you. You know, Steve, I had this random like thought from a place of discernment, and that's what it is. So I'm gonna share it because I believe in that. Maybe someday, seriously, I don't know how we could do this, but you will, because you're the brains of this deal. Maybe someday somehow we could have like some kind of a session, be like, hey, like if you listen to our podcast or you like our podcast or or things we've spoken to you, and get on like a giant, like sort of group Zoom call someday and just have a conversation. I would just, I don't know if that could even happen, but if it ever could, it just hit me like a ton of bricks. And we could all start to get to know each other somewhat and continue to build this community out because I so believe that it's divinely appointed what you're pursuing and allowing me to pursue with you here. So I just wanted to put that out there as we wrap up today.

Steve Coughran 14:06

And that'd be incredible. And it goes back to what you just said. Everybody can see that we're all the same. Yeah, absolutely. Right.

Steven Ginsburg 14:16

It'd be awesome.

Steve Coughran 14:17

So, anyways, yeah. Thanks, guys. Love it.