WTF Do I Do Now?

16. The Impacts of Porn with Porn Addiction Recovery Coach, Jeremy Lipkowitz

• Mandy Pitera

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Curious about what it's like to overcome a porn addiction, and how porn can negatively impact lives and relationships? Check out this episode with Porn Addiction Recovery Coach, Jeremy Lipkowitz who has personally overcome his own porn addiction and now helps others recover. 

Connect with Jeremy Lipkowitz here:

Ready to transform your life after discovering his betrayal (cheating, p*rn use, etc.)?

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**Please subscribe and rate the show so the algorithm can help more girls find this resource and know they aren't alone in their healing journey from his cheating, p*rn use, etc.! <3

All right. Welcome back to another episode of what the fuck do I do now? I am so excited for this interview. I know I say this for. Every interview because I am genuinely so excited, but this one means so much to me. Jeremy was one of the key. One of the key players in my life that really gave me the courage to start speaking up against betrayal trauma, and the impact porn is having on relationships. And I'll get more into that into the episode, but so I'm so excited to welcome Jeremy on. For those of you who don't know Jeremy this is Jeremy Lipkowitz. He is a meditation teacher at leadership coach and porn addiction recovery expert on a mission to empower men, to reclaim their minds, thrive in relationships and live with integrity. He's been featured in places like men's health magazine and live strong and his impactful work includes helping men overcome porn addiction. And live with greater purpose. With over a decades of teaching and coaching experience. Jeremy created unhooked academy program, which offers a 90 day reboot for addiction. Whoop. I just added that in there. Sorry. I don't know why. I apologize. Anyways, having triumphed over addiction himself through mindfulness meditation. He shared techniques globally, including at universities, recovery centers and organizations such as Microsoft and the United States or, sorry. United nations, AKA. Jamie is a bad ass. Going back to it with genetics and genomics genomics. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. I'm so sorry if I'm buttering this genomics degree and progress towards a duke university. pH D damn. Jimmy transitioned fully to mindfulness training in 2015, he trained as a Buddhist monk, monk, and me and Mar Myanmar Myanmar. I'm actually sound so uncultured right now. Is that me and mark? Yup. That's how you would not say. Well, I'm, I'm really going at it today anyways. And he's an ICF credited executive coach. He blends science spirituality and self-compassion for mastery and high performance living. So yeah, Jeremy is a amazing, and I am so, so, so, so, so blessed to have him to here today. So, all right. Let's dive into it.

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

All right, welcome back to another episode of What the Fuck Do I Do Now? I'm super excited to invite our next guest, Jeremy. He, actually, I want to give a little backstory into how I know Jeremy, because I think this is a really cool, this is a very meaningful guest for me to have on here. So when I was in Bali, that's right around the time, a few months after the betrayal trauma, and I was getting interested in learning more about porn addiction, and I just started, praying, speaking to God, the universe, whoever you want to call it. And one day I was like, give me a sign if this is something I should start to speak up about. And the next day I start listening to a podcast about porn addiction. And at the end of the podcast episode, the man who is Jeremy goes with love from Bali. And I was like, what? He's in Bali. I'm in Bali right now. This is sweet. So I stalked his Instagram found out what area he was living in Bali And it was like an hour drive away from me so you know what i'm just gonna reach out to him see if he'll talk to me because I have so many questions as i'm trying to Understand porn addiction and I reach out to him and he was so kind. He's yeah, absolutely we can meet and so We met in Bali and I just asked him questions about porn addiction and looking back at the whole Healing journey. I do feel like that was a pivotal Moment in my healing journey just being able to talk to someone so openly about addiction And he coaches and helps other people recover from porn addiction and overcome porn addiction. So it was great having that insights so yeah, and then fast forward like a few months later, I He did a podcast with me on his podcast, an interview, podcast interview. And then after that, I was like, I want to start a podcast. And so then I started a podcast. So Jeremy is a huge reason why my podcast even exists today. So Jeremy, thank you so much. I just, yeah, you have made such an impactful, just like change in my life. So thank

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

very welcome. It was a joy to meet up in Bali and I've loved seeing what you're doing with the, what the fuck do I do now podcast. It's been cool to watch it grow and flourish.

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

Thank you. Yeah. I, don't know if I would have gotten here without your help. So thank you. And so we can go ahead and just set the stage. I think it'd be great just to give listeners a little background description of what got you into this journey, a little bit about your past. Struggle with pornography consumption and how it has led you to now create this amazing coaching business, helping others navigate it.

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

so my story of how it all began really starts with my own addiction to porn. It's something that started, I think I must have been, I don't know, six or seven years old when I started looking at things and engaging in self pleasure. It started with Victoria's Secrets catalogs that were coming in the mail and like the Macy's catalog and over time it developed into to porn when I got to college, and it was something around my college years when I noticed I had an issue with it. I noticed the ways it was starting to affect my life the ways it was impacting my relationships, my intimacy, my focus and concentration, my, just my mental health in so many ways. And we can talk about this later, but there's a thousand different small ways that it can impact your life. And I started to notice that in my life and realized I had an issue and had to find a way out. And so that led me on a long journey. It ended up sending me to India and getting me into Buddhist philosophy and meditation. And that really changed my life, like a full 180 degree change. And so that was, where I got out of porn and that was at this point, maybe 15 years ago. And I got so into meditation in the process and Buddhist philosophy that ended up becoming something I was very passionate about. I started teaching meditation and made a career out of that. And did that for about 10 years and then about 10 years into my journey of teaching meditation and Starting to work with people one on one I realized that there was this still this huge issue of so many other men struggling with porn addiction and silence And so I went back to my origins and started helping men with this problem and That was about five or six years ago. And ever since then, it's been my main thing. My main purpose in life is to shed light on this problem because it's a huge problem. It's not going away. It's just getting bigger. And that's what I do with my time.

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

Thank you so much. That was so insightful and cheers to you. I just love hearing that story. It's amazing. And I think you bring such a important topic or important point saying how porn impacts your lives in many ways. And I think there is such a misinformation out where people, whenever I post on social media, I'll get at least a few people think, oh, porn is just porn. Porn is harmless, like it's stop being insecure, stop being dramatic, but Could you talk more about how porn was impacting your life and, or how you see it how it's impacting your client's lives as well?

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

Yeah. And it's going to be different for everyone. So there's, there's a thousand different ways that it can impact your life and each person will have a different, Set up of those thousand different ways some of the ways for me personally that I was noticing and that was the real motivation for me to quit was the ways that lust was taking over, taking control of my life, it wasn't that I was, yeah, I wasn't sitting in some dark alleyway, shooting up heroin and, all this like really dark stuff, but it was just that my brain had become so hardwired for lust. And for seeking sexual pleasure that it really took control over my life. And it was hard for me to go places without, scanning the room and seeing who was attractive there. And one of the other ways that kind of seeped into my life was in terms of my intimate relationships with women. One of the things that engaging in heavy porn use does is it gets you addicted to novelty. Because every time you log on to. Pornhub or whatever it is that you're using to search and you're scanning through, hundreds of thumbnails or thousands of different videos and Every time you see a new video or a new face you get this little dopamine hit And so what that's training your brain to do is you're getting addicted to seeing something new to wanting something novel or something fresh something exciting. And you're training your brain that your sexual satisfaction comes from a fresh face, or a fresh video, or a new thing. And so I started to notice that in my relationships, the ways that I was constantly just searching for something new, wanting something different. So I would be with someone, And I might have really wanted to be with that person. Maybe, for weeks or months, I was, trying to get with some person and start a relationship. And then I would get with them. And maybe after a week or two weeks, I would get bored and I would make up some excuse. There's something not quite right, or they're not quite perfect. And then I would try to look for someone else. And the really painful thing is I could see where that was heading. If I didn't make a change, if I didn't do something about it, where that was leading me in the future, I didn't want to be some 50 or 60 year old man who is just constantly sleeping around and looking for new people to sleep with. And so that was one of the ways that it was impacting me. Um, there's also all the other little ways, the ways that affects your mental clarity, gives you brain fog, hard to focus, it's just such a dopaminergic substance that it screws with your dopamine system. And that I was definitely noticing, it was harder and harder to focus harder and harder to have a clear head. yeah, just the ways that It can contribute to objectification and over reliance on stimulation. There's a million different ways. So that was my journey. Personally, there's also for many men, things like erectile dysfunction and issues with intimacy and bed. It can also lead to escalation in terms of content. Many men notice that it will escalate what they're interested in because they need bigger and bigger. Okay. More, more exciting things to get aroused and so they'll escalate into things that are maybe outside of their values, outside of being an integrity. It can also escalate beyond porn into things like infidelity, to cheating, to, happy ending massages or prostitution. There's a lot of ways that it can escalate outside of porn as well.

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

Yeah. And I think, you made so many good points, but two that really stuck out for me that I'd love to talk about more as the novelty, just knowing that this podcast is mostly women who are listening and are betrayed partners and they think Oh, the addiction was because they weren't good enough. et cetera, et cetera, which isn't true, but also the escalation. I'll also I have a lot of girls message me on TikTok and Instagram being like, Oh, my boyfriend watches porn. Should I be worried? I don't like it. And that's not a situation I can give advice and like every person is different, but I do think it's really important to educate people more on the topic of escalation. And for example, with my ex, I know he was a porn addict, which escalated into a sex addiction and acting out in real life. And a big reason Previously, I never really had, never really second guessed porn because I was like, Oh, it's just a girl on the screen. What's the big deal? But now knowing and having met so many other betrayed partners where the man did eventually act out in real life, is that, would you say that's a common theme among either the people you work with or just conversations you have with people about porn?

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

it's a good question. I would say it's not necessarily I wouldn't want to give the impression that it's an inevitability And I should also say, I don't hold the view that everyone who watches porn is addicted to porn. I do think Are people out there who I think it's a smaller and smaller subset, but I think there are people out there who it's not really having a major impact on their life. Maybe they watch it once a month and their partner knows about it and it doesn't lead to escalation and it's. There are subsets of people where it's not going to have this crazy impact. I think we could talk about what those scenarios would be. And how do you know if it's healthy? I think 1 of the biggest ones is as long as you're not hiding it from your partner. But the escalation, it's. For some people, it'll escalate into things outside of porn. For some people, it will just escalate in terms of the content of the porn that they're watching. More and more extreme types of things that they're watching. And some people, it won't escalate. And if it doesn't escalate, that's a pretty good sign that you might have a semi healthy relationship with it. And I want to caveat that with semi healthy. I view porn In the similar way that I might view junk food, I think it's a different thing and it's, there are worse consequences. But junk food, for example, I don't think like eating a Krispy Kreme donut, I don't think is ever going to really benefit your life in terms of the health benefits. But I also don't think that if you have a Krispy Kreme donut once a month, that like your life is gonna Be over and it's going to ruin your life. And so I A similar way, like porn I think for some people, it might not ruin their life, but I think it's not necessarily something that I would ever call, Oh, this is a healthy thing for you to engage in.

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

Yeah. And how, out of general curiosity, I don't know, how would you know if you have a semi healthy relationship or healthy or unhealthy? What, as the consumer, how can you, keep track of that?

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

And so it's a great question. The way that I approach it and the way that many of my clients approach it is that. It's just better to not even try that. It's such a hard thing to have a healthy relationship with that. If you have any signs of kind of problematic use if you're hiding it at all, if you are, Looking at stuff that you just don't feel quite right about it's out of integrity. It's better to not even try to have a quote unquote healthy relationship with it. I would say if you want to try to have a healthy relationship with it, some signs would be one is being fully transparent with your partner. And if you don't have a partner with any, potential partners that you have, but if there's any kind of hiding. Behavior where you are hiding your use of it, then it's a pretty big flag that there's some unhealthy stuff going on, that it's a, maybe more of a compulsive or addictive relationship with it. The other thing is how you watch, if you open up a tab and you find the first video and you watch it for 20 minutes and you're not like looking for more and more videos. That's another good sign. If it's just okay, I'll just watch this video and you watch it from start to finish and that's all you need. It's maybe 5 or 10 minutes, something like that, because what we see with people with addiction is often, you have 10 tabs open, you're scrolling through the video to find your favorite position or your favorite scene. And that's an indication of maybe an unhealthy relationship with it. So yeah, it's hard to have a healthy relationship with it But I won't argue with anyone if anyone says that's it's fine for me and my partner And it doesn't impact our life. I would challenge them to say okay Does your partner know because this is it's really funny I do get some guys who say yeah, it's not a big deal And I say does your partner know about it and then they'll pause and they'll say I think You know, it's like they've never had a conversation with their partner about it. And so I'm like, listen, dude, if your partner doesn't know about it, like maybe you think it's fine, but it might be that your partner really is not okay with you doing it. And so you can say it's healthy, but if you're lying about it and hiding it from your partner, you've got to really check in with yourself and say, is this really healthy?

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

Yeah, I think that's such a good point. And, oh my gosh, what was I going to say? It's so late here, I feel like my brain is not working anymore. Usually I'm in bed right now. Um, something about lying with the partner and the partner knowing, maybe, okay, I'll just switch topics a little bit. So I also receive a lot of messages from girls who say, Oh, I told my partner I don't want him watching porn and I caught him lying about it. And one, that sucks, of course, but do you have any advice on, I guess if there's differently a girl could do in the situation or if she's coming across like a repetitive issue of or I talked to my boyfriend about It he says he'll stop then I catch him lying. What would you recommend as a next step?

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

If a partner is repeatedly if you've gotten to, so the first stage, even before that is having the conversation, right? And that's a huge step that a lot of people haven't had yet. If you haven't sat down and had an honest conversation and saying, Hey let's talk about porn. Are you using it? And I want to know. And for that, I would really recommend as best as you can, if you can make it a safe conversation and to say, Hey, I'm not here to judge and I really just want to know the truth. I'm not going to get, or, I'll try to moderate my anger, to try to make it a safe place where your partner feels that they can be honest and truthful. That's the important first step because we haven't talked about this yet, but there's a huge amount of shame for men with this issue. Men get very defensive, they get very triggered, they get, because it's a, it's just a very shameful, sensitive topic for many men. And so as a partner, as best you can, like making it a safe space to have that conversation and say, I really just want to know, or is this something you do? How often do you do it? That's the first step. If it turns out they lie and say no, I don't watch porn. You But you're catching them watching porn, and if that's a repeated behavior, at some point you have to put down a boundary, you might have to leave, if it's something that's serious enough for you that you can't handle that lying then, I don't know how I could be in a relationship with someone who's lying to my face repeatedly. It's harder If you can't catch them, if you just have this feeling, but you're not really sure that's a harder situation, like if they say they're not watching porn and you don't have any. actual evidence, you just feel like something's up. It's hard to say because it could be that it's just a feeling you're having and it's not actually true. But if you know that they're watching porn and they're lying about it, you just gotta not here to give relationship advice and say you have to leave this But I would say that like, you're in within your right to say this is not okay. You're lying to my face about this thing. This keeps happening. You say you're going to quit. And this is the thing. If somebody, if a guy says he. He's quit and you keep catching him and he says he's trying you gotta ask him like what is he actually trying? Is he just trying harder or is he actually getting professional support? Is he actually getting help with this? Is he joining a men's group? Is he joining an online program? Is he doing shadow work and going to therapy like? Is he actually working on the issues of why he has this addiction, this unwanted porn use in the first place? Because if he just says, Oh, I'm trying, but he's not actually doing anything except for trying harder, it's not going to work. Yeah.

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

I completely agree and I never want to give Relationship advice saying oh like just leave because every relationship is different every man is different, but I do think it Would just be really validating for a woman to hear from a man, you. It's like you have every right to leave if someone is lying to you because I think porn has become so normalized in our society obviously and some women just don't They just feel oh if they're gonna care about porn that makes them insecure or jealous or high maintenance and that's something that they Don't have a right to care about so I think it's really powerful hearing from you say yeah you're allowed to leave if he's lying And again, knowing that you're not giving relationship advice, but it's just another tier of validation, which is nice when you're stuck in that situation because you have no idea what to do. I'm at wit's end. I don't know Every

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

who genuinely don't care if their partner watches porn. And if you and your partner have a really healthy, vibrant sex life, like if the intimacy is going and they're not lying about their porn use, they're yeah, I watched some porn last night. If and if you're okay with it then that's a totally different story. There's a million different reasons why you might not be okay with it and that's a hundred percent. Okay.

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

person's different. Everyone has their own preferences. And I want to tie back to what you were saying earlier about the novelty, because I think, that's something that really helped me overcome The self limiting belief after finding out about the porn addiction, where I very much so believe Oh, it was because my body wasn't good enough because I wasn't attractive enough because I wasn't a sexy enough because I wasn't doing enough in bed because maybe just like anything you could think of, I'm like, Oh, it's my fault. And could, for any women who are listening and are having those thoughts right now, is there anything you could share about going back to the novelty and how. That's not the case.

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

yeah, it's there's this common thing for women of men who are struggling with porn addiction that there is this feeling of, oh, it must be me, maybe I'm not attractive enough, or I'm not doing enough. And it's just, it's so far from the truth. One component of that is the novelty thing, which is, again, you could be the most attractive, most beautiful person. You could be a 10 in your partner's eyes, and it's just not even about that. It's just that, his brain is hooked on. I need something novel. I need something new. I need something fresh. This, remember when Tiger Woods got caught cheating, like his wife at the time was a model, like an actual model, right? it's not like she wasn't attractive, it's like he was sleeping around because he had this addiction to, I need something else, I need something more, right? Like he was married to an actual model. And so it's if you ever sit and think oh, it must be me. It's I don't know. Even if I'm a model, like this will still happen because it's his brain that's messed up. It's not my body that's messed up. So the other thing to remember about this is unless you got with your partner when you guys were both six years old, Chances are his addiction predates you, right? Unless you guys, are in some weird cult and got married when you're six. Chances are he started having a relationship with self pleasure, and pleasing himself, and masturbation, and a compulsive relationship with masturbation and self pleasure way before he met you. And so just to remember that, that this predates you by a long shot. And it's something that has been in his life for most men, starts when you're, six to 12 years old, when you start noticing, Oh, I can touch myself. And that brings pleasure and you start, engaging, for me, it was like Macy's catalogs and Victoria secrets, like comic books where I was like, Oh, this, I see this picture and it lights up something within me that feels good. And I get this sense of power and control and all that. And so it's definitely not about you. It's like a way ages old habit for many men.

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

Yeah. And I'm glad you said that too, because I don't even know how I'm going to form this next question. So I'm just going to go with it and see where it goes. But the more I speak on mainly Tik Tok about my ex partner's porn addiction, the amount of comments I get from, to be fair, they're like troll fake accounts. but the amount of comments I get of men saying, oh, it's because you didn't put out enough. Oh, it's because you were denying him in bed. Oh, it's because you weren't good enough. And I'm just like, at what point does it stop becoming the partner's fault? Fault in air quotes, because it's not, but. Yeah, I don't know where I was going with this, but it's just nice to hear a man say no, it's actually not the partner's fault. And I think it totally does date back to, they've had the self pleasure practice routine habit, whatever you want, anything you want to call it way before the relationship even started. So how can all of, how is it all now all of a sudden the partner's fault?

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

Yeah. And it's very rarely is it even about sex? A lot of men's porn addiction doesn't even have to do with their sexuality. It's a coping mechanism. It's an escape mechanism. It's a way to deal with pain. It's a sedative in many regards. It's a numbing agent that might be about their work. It might be about their sense of insecurity. It might be about something in the relationship. It doesn't mean that it condones their behavior, gives them a right to, but it might be that there is something in the relationship that they're unsatisfied with and they're reaching out to this. So I don't want to say that it's like, That you have zero, there might be something in the relationship where it's okay, maybe we need to look at this, but it's also the thousand other things in their life that they're trying to. And it's not even about sex and, those comments, they're frustrating and hilarious at the same time. It just shows how much

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

I know

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

and masochism, not masochism. What's the word misogyny there is. Yeah, it's just cause I, I get these comments too, from these people I started doing ads recently on Facebook and Instagram and talking about porn recovery. And porn is actually causing a lot of problems for men. And the amount of just lunacy from some of these comments. People are just so have their head in the sand and it's wild to see what's out there.

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

Yeah. Yeah. It's shocking. Honestly. I remember the This was probably like a week ago. I had a TikTok video that did like well. And every time I was checking it, the amount of anxiety I got was insane. Like in my st I literally had to lay down on my bathroom ground. To like literally ground. Because it was so many men just like going at me. And I was like, what? I don't know. It just surprised me. And again, I'm not I know this isn't all men, I'm not saying that at all, this is just a percentage of men and like it's troll accounts, but yeah it's really eyeopening and also really heartbreaking to see that a lot of people aren't aware of how porn may be impacting them or it's not, but yeah, it's just heartbreaking to see that as a society. It makes me really worried for

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

Yeah, I feel the same. It's quite sad.

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

Yeah. But you also, sorry, switching gears a little bit. You mentioned shame earlier, and I think that's a really important thing we should talk about so could you dive in a little bit more on that, and just how the shame that men have associated with it, and how it's a little bit taboo

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

Yeah. Yeah. Shame is one of the biggest drivers of addiction. It's one of the things that keeps us locked in addiction when we're ashamed of our habits or our behaviors or who we are, we think that we're broken in some way. And that keeps us, one of the main ways that it contributes to addiction is it keeps us isolated. We, when we feel ashamed of something about ourselves, we don't want other people to see that. And so we hide, we run away, we isolate, and it's a downward spiral. It's really sad because the, one of the most powerful ways to get out of addiction is to let yourself be seen by other people, to be seen by other men. who know what this is and who aren't judging you or demonizing you. Because one of the other things that I noticed for myself and many men notices too, is you, in some ways you feel like a monster. The shame makes you feel Dirty or so broken. Oh my God, I'm so messed up. I'm such a pervert. And it really, it makes you want to act out even more because you want to escape that feeling. And this is, we haven't even gotten into this yet, but what addiction is it, and it. Attempt to escape pain. It's running away from pain. Any kind of unpleasant emotion, sadness, anxiety, stress. Insecurity, shame even physical pain. That's what addiction is when we're trying to escape pain and numb ourselves. And so shame is a huge source of pain. And so when we feel that, of course we want to escape it. So we reach to our addiction, which is often porn or junk food or video games or whatever it is for men. So shame is a huge component and it's one of the first things you have to do if you want to recover is to let go of shame.

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

And how does one let go of shame?

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

Yeah, it's a great question for me and for many of the men that I work with being in community where you can talk about. For me, it took me a million years to be able to talk about porn. Now it's crazy, like the fact that I, oh Yeah. oh my gosh, the fact that I talk about it like publicly on all my social media and this is like my thing that I do now, it's wild to me because I was so ashamed of it for decades, like I didn't want anybody to even know that I looked at porn. When I was in college and looking at porn, every night. I was terrified that somebody would even know that I watched porn. There, there's two kinds of guys that are addicted. Half the guys that are addicted are really ashamed of it and very secretive about it. The other half that are addicted are like the misogynistic troll bunch Hey, I saw this, hot video, gangbang, whatever. It's there's two types of guys, like ones that have zero shame. I wouldn't even say zero shame, but it's this is like zero filter, and they just, complete misogynistic kind of culture. And then there's the other ones who are just like, They might even joke about it, but in private they feel bad about it, but there's that shame associated. And for me, I was so ashamed of it. I couldn't talk about it. If anybody knew, I would feel, just horrible. And then even when I broke free from porn, so I broke free when I was like 20, 24, 25. And even after I broke free from it, it took me like another five or six years before I could really even talk about it with a single person. Like

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

Wow.

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

Hey, actually. Because this was a big part of my journey, what got me into meditation and mindfulness and Buddhism, so much so that I ended up leaving my academic career. I was a PhD student in genetics at Duke. I left my whole academic career and started teaching meditation. And what got me into meditation was. My porn addiction was realizing that it was the source of a lot of my suffering, but it took me five years before I could even open up to a single person. And I remember the moment it was another graduate student at Duke, and we were like having coffee and he was another Buddhist practitioner and meditator. And I forget how it came up, but, at some point I, I had the courage and say yeah, what got me into this was, realizing that I was addicted to porn and creating a lot of my own suffering. And I remember it was so healing. He, just turned to me and he said yeah, I struggle with that too. And that moment was like a huge weight off my shoulders. To realize that I could share something that I was ashamed of and it would be held in a safe way, like in a non judgmental way, that is one of the biggest things you can do to heal shame.

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

Wow. That is I'm so glad you had such a healing experience sharing about that the first time and really got it Like didn't go sideways because I would be quite literally like living hell And I'm curious. I'm curious because I feel like the general Understanding or belief of society is that all men watch porn like that's just what men do It's guys would be guys that type of thing But then when it comes like talking about it with others Or the shame like, where's the disconnect there,

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

tell me more about the question though, I'm not sure if I really understand.

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

I'm trying to think of how to reword this.

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

Is it like, there's this almost paradox that some men openly talk about it in this kind of joking, bro y culture way, but it's hard to actually have real conversations about it?

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

Yes.

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

It's like you said, it's very normalized in our society. And it's part of that kind of, what we might call toxic masculinity culture, which, jokes about it and that locker room talk. I think a lot of men use it as a defense mechanism or a bonding mechanism to, to talk about it in that way. And it is very hard to have, genuine vulnerable conversations about, Hey, I think this is actually impacting me or, Hey, I don't actually feel so great about the things I'm watching or, It's hard to have those spaces and this is why it's so important to have things like men's groups or support groups. It's one of the things we do in my program, many other support groups or men's groups provide that space where you can actually say, this actually does, it feels like it's impacting me and I'm not sure if this is healthy for me. And also where you can have men who are older or wiser or whatever, who can call you out. And say, hey, I see you're joking about this, but, what's behind that joke? Like, why are you joking about this? This actually isn't something that's funny. To be called out in that way is actually really helpful also.

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

Yeah, I feel like that would catch me so off guard if someone just saw right through my bullshit oh gosh, okay, let's get real for a moment.

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

because we all do it. It's not just a men's thing. It's a human thing. And I'm sure women have like their own version of things that might be like, that they joke about in an unhealthy or kind of toxic way. And really there's some deeper pain underneath it.

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

Yeah. Yeah, right when you said that, the first thing that came up to me was like eating disorders or body image issues where. You want to look a certain way, but you also don't tell people that, Oh I haven't eaten at all today. Or like I was binge eating last night or just weird relationships with food. So that was the first thing that came to mind when you said that. So that, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And then I would love to talk about what the road to recovery looks like. I, of course it's going to vary by person, but I think. I think there's a big misconception that, oh, you're addicted to porn, just stop watching it. Or oh, you're addicted to porn, just put up blockers and filters on your internet, you're fine. So could you talk more about like the obstacles of actually overcoming a porn addiction and why it's not just easier said than

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

Yeah this brings me back to something you and I talked about in Bali which I know like really you found insightful which is, it's like thinking about someone who's struggling with porn addiction is very similar to thinking about somebody who is struggling with cocaine addiction and just imagine if they always have a bag of cocaine in their pocket and they are not allowed to take that bag of cocaine out of their pocket. It's like wherever they go, they have to travel with cocaine. And that's in some ways how it is for men with porn addiction. It's like their phone, which is a immediate source of of acting out is always on them and with them. And so they're always like a, A hand movement away from being able to access it. So it's a very, it's a very hard thing to beat because it's just so accessible. And this relates to one of the things that's called the three A's of porn addiction. There are these three things that make porn very addictive. And so it's affordability, accessibility, and anonymity. So the affordability part is, and these are three things that like, it can be anything. It could be video games, whatever. You look at these three components and you say, okay, the more that we have these things, the more addictive the substance is going to be. So for example, affordability, if you have a drug, That costs 10, 000 every time you want to take a hit. It's not going to be super addictive, right? Unless you're a billionaire. But for most people, it's it's just not an affordable mechanism of addiction, right? Versus if you have something that's Let's say, it's 1 every time you want to take a hit, the more you can get it to free, the more addictive it's going to be because there's no barrier to actually using it when you want to medicate your pain away, right? So that's the affordability. The accessibility is just like, how easily can you get it? If you, let's say you have a drug that's free, but, takes 4 weeks to get delivered to your house. And you can only, order it like one at a time, and it's it's not very accessible. And so it's not likely going to develop into a strong addiction. But again, if you have something that's immediately accessible, you can get it on your browser, on your phone, whenever you want, and you can get unlimited variety, that's going to make it more addictive. And then the last one, anonymity. It's if you can use it anonymously, it also contributes to addictiveness. Thanks. If it's something that you have to be public about, if you're an alcoholic, you have to go to a store and buy it, you have to go to a bar and order it. There are ways you can make it more anonymous. You can order your alcohol online and have it delivered to your door, but the more anonymous you can be, the more that you can hide away and isolate into that addiction. The other thing that helps something become addictive is the the variability and the ways that it can be novel. And I talked about this also with junk food. If you're addicted to sugar, like if you have a mountain of candy bars sitting in front of you, at some point you're going to just get physically sick, right? You just, you can't really eat more candy bars. You can eat a lot of candy bars, but at some point, like you just, You can't put more in your mouth, right? But with porn, because there's an infinite amount of variety and novelty, every time you find a new video or find a new, whatever, it hits that dopamine button. And so this is why guys can go for eight hours or 10 hours watching porn is, Oh yeah, it can get bad. You could just sit there all day. It's same with video games. Video games can keep people hooked. Like when there's a world of Warcraft. Thinking about people would sit there for 24 hours because they were just so engaged because there was a constant feedback loop of more novelty, a new quest, a new, whatever. Same with porn. It's like a new hunt for another video, right? For most guys, it's not eight hours. I don't want to give that impression that's like

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

Yeah.

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

But it's something that you can just, because of the variety that exists. Back in the day when it was just. It was again, much harder, if you had a single magazine, it was much harder to develop a really strong addiction because you couldn't sit there for eight hours. With a single magazine, because at some point you get bored of the same photo, but now with modern, and this is one of the things I like to get across is that modern pornography, modern high speed internet, hardcore pornography is uniquely addictive in a way that it has never been before. In our history as a civilization, like a porn magazine is a very different thing because it's you see a few photos and then it's okay, you get bored. It's not going to really suck you into this pit. That lasts for, years and hours each time you do it. But with high speed internet porn, something like Pornhub, you can spend hours and hours on there because there's I remember this one statistic, something like this, more porn websites on the internet than non porn websites.

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

What?

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

checked that.

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

Oh my god.

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

once and I believe it. But it's it's shocking that there is just so much porn on the internet. That there's an infinite variety and so it is one of these things that makes it so addictive. It's accessible, it's affordable, it's anonymous, there's an infinite variety. Right, and it taps directly also into something that's very primal for many men, our sexual energy, which is so powerful and beautiful. It taps directly into that need that most men have of feeling, feeling their sexuality is such an important thing. This is also one of the paths to recovery is learning how to cultivate healthy sexuality. Not to, because there's two extremes. One is you indulge completely in an unhealthy way. The other extreme is you completely repress it and shove it down and suppress and deny it, right? Which is also very unhealthy. And so learning how to actually embrace a healthy sexuality is an important part of recovery. Because it is a part of being human. It's a beautiful part of being human. So those are some of the reasons why it's very hard to break free from.

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

Yeah, that was, I'm honestly still shocked about the 8 hour thing. I, but I, so this might be TMI, but are they finishing every time? Or are you just watching it how you'd watch a TV show,

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

Called edging.

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

are you pleasuring that entire

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

So you might, you might pleasure for, you might you might finish a couple of times that you might like, go for one or two hours and then like finish and then have another few hours. But so edging is this process where you are like on the edge of. Orgasming, but you don't finish yet. This is something I experienced when I was in the heat of my addiction is, I was, searching around trying to find the perfect video to finish on. And I would be, keeping my erection, just at the point of being right there edging, but not actually finishing until I found the quote unquote perfect video. And it was that hunt. It's and this, relates to why it was causing so much suffering and why it was impacting the relationships, my relationships, the way it was is like, every video was just not quite perfect. I always wanted something a little bit better. And so I would, this is how you can start to see if you have an addiction is if you have this kind of mentality of, I want something a little bit better, as opposed to you click on the 1st video this is good enough. I'll watch this for 10 minutes and then finish, and that's okay, right? That, again, is like a little bit of a healthier way to approach it. But, yeah, for some, it's just the hunt that's so addictive. Searching for that next video, that next thing.

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

Yeah that's really interesting. And then something that came to mind when you're talking about that cause I've had, a good amount of girls reach out to me just confused about why erectile dysfunction. They're like, Oh, I've, and this happened to me in my past relationship where it was fine. There was performance wasn't an issue, but then all of a sudden it did become an issue and then it became a repetitive issue. And I've heard a lot of girls think that it was a result because of them. Of course Oh, I can't, he's not attracted to me. I can't turn him on so could you talk more about how. A porn addiction, or porn consumption, can lead to erectile dysfunction. Yeah.

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

a hyper stimulus.

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

Yeah.

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

And so what's going on is men are getting

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

Yeah.

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

to this high level of stimulation and they're hardwiring their brain, their neural circuitry to associate super high levels of eroticism and stimulation with arousal. And so then when some, Like a normal, healthy like interaction with your partner, it's like, Oh my God, there's no choking and gangbang and, crazy kind of stuff going on. This isn't doing it for me because it's not crazy enough. It's not stimulating enough because they're used to just such a high. It's if you if you get accustomed to eating like Doritos, Potato chips like super, some crazy flavor like nacho supreme, cool ranch blast. It's like you put that on your tongue and it's this explosion of flavor, right? And if you eat that every day and you start getting accustomed to, that's what food needs to taste like. Then if you go have chicken breast and broccoli with like maybe a little bit of salt. It's like my this isn't I need a Doritos And bacon cheeseburger and a vanilla milkshake. It's like you're over amplifying and getting these unrealistic expectations of what sex is supposed to look like and feel like and again It's not even like that, like you should As the female you say, Oh I'm just a boiled potato and like plain chicken breast. It's an it's just an unrealistic, it's imagine if there was this magical bag of Doritos that every chip you pulled out was a new flavor and it was constantly morphing into a new variety, right? And men are accustomed to this kind of like hyper stimulus that's always evolving and always changing, always wanting something new. If you're a guy and you watch the exact same porn video every time, that's a great sign. If you have one porn video and you're just satisfied with that one porn video, good on you, man. You're just like, okay, I'm just horny and I want, But if you're, again, looking for something new every time, you're telling your brain that what's gonna get you aroused is something novel, something fresh. And that's, again, it's not about you. It's not about your body. It's just like men's brains are hijacked by porn to think that what's going to turn them on is something fresh and new. So that leads to erectile dysfunction because as soon as they don't have that hyper stimulus. Their, junk doesn't recognize it. It's I'm not aroused by this, right? This isn't stimulating enough. And so then they can't get it up or they can't keep it up. And so this, it happens to a lot of men where they have to close their eyes and picture a porn scene that they recently saw while they're having sex in order to get aroused.

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

Yeah. I remember, I'm pretty sure it was when I was talking with you about Just how the porn effect addiction was affecting my relationship and like when we're talking about intimacy and I was like, yeah It always felt like he was in a different room Like when we're having sex it felt like he just wasn't there wasn't pressing present and always closed in his eyes Then you made the connection. I guess probably visualizing porn scenes and I was like, oh I had just never thought of that before it was such an eye opener and then it also makes me Feel bad for the porn addict because now you can't even enjoy real life sex, which I would say is so much better than having to watch it behind a screen. So it hurts everyone involved.

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

Yeah, men become very disconnected from their bodies with porn sex, when they're engaged in porn. It's a Completely in their head. They're not actually in their body and this you know There's an experience that many women of men with porn addiction can relate to it's like it doesn't even feel like he's there, right? He's just lost in space in his head somewhere And it's very different from having an embodied experience of sex and intimacy, where you're really present with your partner, you're in your body, you're feeling all your sensations, as opposed to just in your imagination, thinking of something.

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

Yeah. Yeah, that's just sucks. I hate porn so much. It's impacted so many relations, just people as a whole, and I just hate how Normalized it has become in society and that's not too much shaming people who watch it like not at all But just I hate that we even have to be having this conversation that this That porn was created to be the way that it is where it's so intense and extreme and so addictive where it's like I wish I could just go back in time to just having intimacy with your partner

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

Yeah, and, this is something that we talked about also, when we had our conversation in Bali, is that I think many men who are struggling with porn addiction feel the same. It's like they wish porn wasn't a thing also, it's like

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

Wow,

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

this is when you know, it's an addiction. It's like when you can't help yourself and you wish it didn't even exist, but it's just this thing you feel almost compelled or almost powerless against that you just I just wish this wasn't even a thing. I wish I wasn't doing this. I wish I wasn't addicted. And you can tell yourself that all day. And then nighttime comes and you find yourself there again, like just drawn to it. And I think it does bring a lot of compassion, it's not a shaming thing. It's a, these poor guys that, are getting sucked into this trap, which it is. It's a trap, it's a, there's a huge industry behind it. There's a lot of money in the porn industry and it makes money for a lot of people and it, there's a reason why it's so addictive. So to have compassion for the people who are getting sucked into that,

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

isn't, doesn't the porn industry make more money than like The NFL, NBA, and what's the other one? Sport. I'm not

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

think all the major sports leagues

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

the other,

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

apparently.

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

Yeah, that is it's so interesting when you think of it as an industry, because yeah, they're making so much money and just the amount of like traffic they even get to their sites, isn't it more than like Amazon, Netflix and all the big sites combined. It's just

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

Yeah,

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

yeah it's a monster, an absolute monster. But not shaming the ones, people who watch it. Just the industry in and of itself. But I do want to be cautious of time. Is there anything before we hop off that you'd like to say or anything that we didn't get to?

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

I think one of the things we briefly touched on this, but just understanding what addiction really is and that it's really, it's an attempt to numb a sense of pain. It's a, it's an escape. And that if men want to break free from the thing, they really have to understand the underlying dynamics of the addiction. I see a lot of men trying to just quit and use willpower and, try harder, but they're not actually addressing the underlying reason of why they have this addiction, of the constant running away from pain and chasing pleasure. If you don't address that underlying issue, then it's not, You're not really going to make any meaningful changes. You might be able to stop for a few weeks or even a couple months using willpower, but inevitably something's going to come back. Because if you don't develop the tools and the resources, the emotional intelligence to actually be with difficult emotions. Then, as soon as a strong, difficult emotion comes back, you're going to reach out to some addiction. It might be porn, it might be something else. And so a lot of the work that we need to do is learning how to be with unpleasant emotions. Learning how to be with anxiety. Learning how to be with loneliness. Learning how to be with insecurity, whatever it is, like you have to learn how to actually work with those things. So that I think it's just such an important thing for people to understand.

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

Yeah. And that's where one of the meditation tools can come in. So helpful just to get you to be aware of your emotions and thoughts and to let you know that you are not your emotions and thoughts. But yeah, I think it's so cool how Meditation was one of the things that helped you move, work through your addiction that it just speaks volumes of how powerful meditation really is.

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

Yeah. And that, just one other thing to mention is when we were talking earlier about some of the problems that I was noticing, like what porn was causing in my life, in some ways, the biggest thing, the overarching theme of porn, The problems it was causing in my life was just how much suffering it was causing for my life, that I started to realize that when there's something that you want that you don't have, that is suffering. When you're craving something that you don't have. And you want this thing, you don't have it. That is what suffering is. And similarly, when there's something you do have some emotion, some experience and you don't want it, and you're trying to push it away, that's also suffering. And I realized that porn was directly leading to both of those things. Just this. immense suffering in my life of constantly wanting what I don't have and not wanting what I do have. And this is what meditation, particularly mindfulness meditation, helps us deal with, is it helps us learn how to stop just chasing things that we don't have, how to be actually content and grateful and appreciative of what we have in the moment, and also how to stop running away from unpleasant things. When there's some pain in your body, you just say, Oh, This is unpleasant, but I don't need to suffer. I don't need to run away from it. Similarly, like a painful emotion, sadness, anxiety, loneliness, whatever you can just, you can actually be with it instead of this constant running away from it. And that is the power of meditation. That's why meditation for me is one of the most important things you can do in your recovery. Letting go of shame, being in a safe community, but also learning how to work with your mind. It is such an important thing.

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

Yeah, that is so important. And I'd even say meditation is one of the most important things for me like healing during the betrayal trauma too because you I mean it's just an overwhelm and just such strong emotions and your mind just becomes such an inner critic and you were just You were like emotionally abusing yourself with all the bad thoughts you have about yourself and I did a five day silent retreat in Bali Which was Probably four months after the betrayal and that was a dark time, just like sitting in silence with my thoughts. But I, I also think that was also one of the most healing moments of looking back at my whole healing journey because to just sit down with your thoughts and to know that You don't have to act out on them. You can just sit with them. And it's not, you aren't your thoughts, you're not your emotions. And yeah, it's just so powerful. So yeah I could go on and on about meditation. It's changed like every aspect of my life. I can't go a day without it. Like I can literally notice a day if I don't meditate in the morning, like I just feel so much more like antsy or irritated throughout the day or like my, I'm so in my head instead of just being in my body. It's wild. Yeah. Thank you so much. If anyone's listening and they want to get in contact with you, what would be the best way for them to reach out for you? Reach out to

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

So you could go to unhooked academy.com if you wanna learn more about the men's group, the support group, and the Unhooked Academy program. So that's unhooked academy.com. You can also just go to my website, jeremy lipitz.com. And then you could sign up for a free discovery call on either of those sites if you're interested in coaching or in the group program.

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

Amazing. I will link all that in the show notes. Yeah, thank you so much, Jeremy. I really appreciate it. This was amazing. It's, yeah, I'm so happy you Went on your healing journey and overcame this and now get to help others because you're making such a Impact in the world. So thank you.

jeremy_1_07-30-2024_090549:

Yeah, my pleasure

mandy_2_07-29-2024_210543:

All right. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you found that impactful. And I have some really exciting news. I'm obviously very excited to share. I'm accepting more one-on-one coaching clients. So if you're a woman trying to heal from your partners, porn use, whether you are still in the relationship and you were just kind of feeling emotionally drained, you're feeling like you hit a rock and like, you don't know what to do. I remember when I was my relationship, I. I felt so alone. I felt like I'd known to talk to you about it. No one truly understand the pain that I was going through. And I kept deciding like, do I stay, do I leave? Do I say, do I leave? I was just, it was so hard to make decisions and I just felt so frozen, so stuck, but I knew if I kept going out, the radio is going to go. I was going to lose myself. My self esteem was already being destroyed. My self confidence was so low. Like I was, oh man. I just felt like a shell of a human being. So if that's you and you can relate, I have a coaching program where I helped just empower girls. So this isn't a magic pill to fix your relationship. It's more of an empowerment where we focus on you. Not him. I can't get your partner to stop doing what he's doing, but we can help empower you so that whether you stay or leave in the relationship, you can feel safe, secure, and confident. With whatever direction that you take. So if that's something you can relate to reach out to me, or if you already left the relationship and you're trying to do create your new identity of being single and just figuring out like what you want in life, but you're still dealing with a lot of the trauma and the shock of everything that you just found out and you just don't know how to move forward. And you're just feeling stuck. Again, reach out. I can help you with that. These are all things I can relate to so much and going through this journey alone while I was in the relationship and after it was, it was fucking hard. It was so hard. Like I'm not even gonna sugar coat it. And I just, the whole time I was like, I wish I had someone who had been through this and who could guide. Me. There was no one out at the time that was really speaking about what to do after you leave or what to do when you're in it. And you don't know if you should stay or leave. I get, there was just not many resources available. It was all on how to maintain the relationship and save the relationship with your person. But I wanted to focus on empowering me because I saw the place that I was heading. I saw how much my self esteem, my self confidence. Like who I was as a person was just declining month over month. And I knew the direction I was going in and I knew it wasn't a good place. So I wanted to focus on empowering myself while I was in the relationship. And that's ultimately what gave me the clarity to decide on how to move forward. So that's something you can relate to let me know. Reach out. I do a free 60 minute discovery, empowerment transformation. Call speaking, talk more about what your specific pain points are, what your goals are like. And we custom make the program specifically for every program is different. Every way that I work with girls are different. It's really just depends on who you are, what you want. And we tailor that to you so we can do a free 60 minute call. I'll explain the services. We'll go through what you're looking for. And then I'll let you know how my services would or wouldn't be helpful for what you're going through. I want to be super transparent and make sure this is something that is beneficial for both of us and empowering you. so yeah, that's all. And. What else do I have to say? If you're going through this, I'm so sorry, know that it is not your fault. That is the number one. Most difficult thing I had to work through was realizing it doesn't have to do with my body, my face, who I am as a person, how I was in bed, anything, it has nothing, nothing, nothing to do with you. It is everything to do with how men's brains are literally be being rewired from watching. Porn has nothing to do with you. Trust your guts. It's not your fault. Listen to your intuition. Your intuition is always right. You got this. And if you need someone to help cheer you on and. Support you and guide you through this. Don't hesitate to reach out. All right. I love you. Have a great day. Bye.