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The 2 Root Causes of Porn Addiction & the 3 Solutions for Porn Recovery | Break Free of Porn
Updated: 20 hours ago
What are the 2 root causes of porn addiction? The 2 most fundamental emotions that underlie porn addiction?
To get to the root of porn addiction, it's necessary to talk about stress. Our mental state is like a pressure gauge. When it's in the green, we typically don't experience porn cravings. When it's in the red, however, we almost always begin experiencing cravings eventually.
This is why we need to know the root cause of porn addiction - the two emotions that drive negative feelings and trigger us to view porn. If we can understand these, then we can nip stress in the bud, or at least process it in a healthier way.
But it's not enough to simply know what causes addiction. If we want to stop watching porn, we also need to know the root cause of porn recovery. We need to know how people stay sober long-term. What is their secret?...
In this video, I share the 2 emotions that underlie porn cravings, as well as 3 things that keep us clean and sober long-term...
Learn the keys to quit porn with this simple 8-page download: The Roots of Porn Addiction and Porn Recovery: https://www.becomeagoodman.com/
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Transcription of this Video/Episode
My brother, what's going on? Welcome to the No More Desired podcast. My name's Jake Kastleman, founder Become A. Good Man. In today's episode, we are going to talk about the two roots of addiction and the three roots of long-term recovery. Okay? The two roots of porn addiction, more specifically in three. Roots of long-term recovery. So, um, today I want to talk to you guys about, um, really things that I've experienced, again, over 10 years of addiction, uh, in the last eight years of sobriety. Just last month, I hit eight years. So, um, excited about that, happy about that. Um, the journey goes on, right? It's, uh, you never stop learning. If you ever stop learning. You're gonna fail, right? So it, it goes on and on. It never ends. I face challenges even now. Uh, but with God as my good guide, I can make it through so you can too. And I want to help you today in doing that. So stick around to the end. Alright? Um, if you want to know the three routes of recovery, you've gotta watch through or listen through to the end of this episode to figure those out. And I'm going to give you something big to be able to help you in your recovery specifically. So stick around to the end, and again, to help this channel, help support this. Like subscribe if you're on YouTube. Follow and rate the podcast if you're listening. So let's dive in. Uh, when we struggle with addiction, Cravings. Where do they come from for, for you? Where do they come from? Right. Maybe they seem to come outta nowhere. I know for me, for so many years, and even currently in my life, I think this sometimes too, and I have to remind myself, um, of things that I'll, I'll be talking about in this episode, but cravings, we can feel like, man, why is this hitting me right now? Why am I craving porn? I don't know. It just seems to come up. Maybe it's just manly urges. Maybe it's just my testosterone levels. Maybe it's, uh, I'm just particularly stressed about something. May, you know, if, if you are able to correlate the stress to the. Porn addiction. Right? Um, but it depends on who you are. Maybe you're hit getting those cravings in the mornings, maybe in the afternoons, in the evenings. Maybe there's some kind of a trend there. And it depends on who you are. Right? For, for me, um, in my life, if I ever experience cravings, that's gonna be in the mornings typically. For me, but really it can hit, it can hit me anytime, but mornings can be especially hard. So what is it for you? Right. But we're gonna talk about where, what the root of those cravings are so that we can see that they don't just emerge out of nowhere. Right. So we can start to actually observe it. And addiction cravings, they can be incessant, right? For any addiction. But for porn addiction specifically, I think because the thing is porn addiction is especially challenging because it. Innate, right? It, it, it's built into our biology. I mean, you can't get much more difficult than that when it comes to an addiction. Just like food addiction, right? Food addiction is built into our biology, porn addiction, um, I shouldn't say addiction, food. The desire for food. The need for food is built into our biology. The need for sex is built into our biology, right? The addiction itself isn't, but if you want to talk about challenge, When it comes to addiction, uh, think about someone who is trying to recover from heroin, right? Or meth. And again, those are very, very, uh, extremely challenging. You can't even put into words how challenging those are, but. Imagine that a heroin addict had a needle placed next to them at all times, and they needed to gain the self-control, um, in order to become sober and overcome heroin addiction while having that needle next to them at all moments. Right. How hard would that be to overcome heroin? That's kind of like how it is when it comes to porn addiction. When we become addicted to porn, we have a heroin needle or that our phone, uh, computer, um, tv, video games, entertainment, all sorts of things that are around us all the time, they contain that drug of choice and that, um, because it's built into our biology, and then also because it's so readily accessible, it can be so hard, right? So to overcome porn a. , it's, it's not as simple as a, as avoiding it be because you can't, you can't avoid it these days, right? Filters, um, accountability buddies, these things are helpful, but they're not. They can only take you so far, right? Because sooner or later, at some point, you're gonna have access and you can't just shield yourself from it and not get down to the root core issues, which we're gonna talk about today. So, For me, I started to understand why I went to porn addiction, when I started to observe my mind. Okay. The insecurities, um, particularly that I went through mentally and emotionally, right? Maybe you have some of these, maybe it's anxiety, maybe it's depression, maybe it's perfectionism. I've dealt with all of those. Okay. Still would deal with them in my life now, just to a lesser extent, and I have tools to manage them. Okay. And. These were the things that were driving my addiction cravings, right? Anxiety, depression, perfectionism, O C D, right? These types of things were driving that porn addiction. I didn't know that at the time. I didn't understand that, but eventually I came to understand that. Okay? And, and I, I think for a lot of us, We think triggers, right? We think, well, what are your triggers? Uh, maybe being at the beach and seeing all sorts of women on the beach in bikinis. Maybe that's triggering, right? Maybe, uh, it's triggering to see something on the television and ad or something that's sexualized, right? Maybe that's triggering. Okay. And th these can be problematic, right? These can be, um, are, it can be helpful to avoid some of these things, but ultimately that is, Still not the root of the problem. It's our mental and emotional state that is, uh, a good chunk of the root of the problem. Um, but there are also spiritual aspects. There are physical aspects with our gut health, um, that impacts our brain health, right? These types of things are at the root. Um, but. Going further, deeper than that, there are two emotions that are driving, really, really driving two feelings that are driving the addiction from the ground level, um, that then spread out into, um, some of these other causes that I just mentioned, like gut health and things. Um, but really if we can take care of these two underlying feelings that I'm gonna talk. Then we can begin to recover long-term. So if we want to stop watching porn permanently, we gotta go deeper. Okay? We can't just look at the triggers on the surface. We can't just look at the porn cravings and say, I'm just gonna, will will power my way through it. All I gotta do is just avoid certain situations. It's not gonna get you there. You need to co overcome the desire, which is what I, that's what I train my students to do in my 20 week program. I train them to gain, um, self-worth. I train them to, uh, gain an understanding of where their desires for the addictions come from and get down to those core root issues. So, um, to understand this, And before we talk about these two specific feelings, which don't worry, I'm, I'm gonna get there, but I want you to think of your mental. Okay, because th this is what everything hinges upon when, when it comes to addiction, all addictions, but porn addiction, I think, uh, in a lot of ways, especially because it can be so temperamental, it's so easily accessible, it's right there in your face. So you have to learn how to manage your mental state. So think of your mental state, like a pressure gauge on a boiler, right? What does, what does a boiler, what does a boiler do? It it. Provides steam and liquid to an entire system within a building. Without that boiler functioning, everything else shuts down. Right? Think of that like your mental state. Um, so there's a pressure gauge, right on this boiler and or your mental state. There's a green section, there's a red section, right? Green, good, red, bad, right? The boiler needs to be maintained regularly and monitored to. that it's functioning properly. Right. And the gauge needs to stay in the green for everything to, um, really for everything to be supported and functioning throughout the building. Okay. And is it okay if the b if the boiler moves into red on occasion? Yeah, it's fine if it starts to edge into that zone, even if it gets there maybe to a critical zone temporarily and then goes back down, right. And things are fixed. That can happen. Okay. Same thing with your mental state. It's okay to go through extreme stress, but if that, that extreme stress becomes chronic. Now you are, you've, you've come into the territory where you're facing cravings, addiction, cravings, and so it's like a gauge. If your mental state is in that green zone, you're doing well in your life, maybe you've noticed this. You have a lot of meaning, you have a lot of purpose, you have a lot of positivity. You have gratitude in your life. You're feeling good, right? And, and you're like, man, I don't even feel any addiction to cravings at all. I'm doing. And then the instant you think that, then you start feeling them. Right. But that's a whole nother thing. Um, When you're doing really well, you're not experiencing those addiction cravings. Now, when you start to face stressful situations and your mental state starts to get out of whack, maybe you start to edge into that red zone, right? And then that's when you need tools to be able to handle that, and that's when you need to really. Get down deep and understand where are these addiction cravings coming from? Yes, I'm facing mental and emotional stress, but what are, what are the underlying forces even beneath that? Okay, so. . Let's talk about those. We're gonna talk about these two emotions. They, that they are the very most potent in driving us to addiction. And these are, these two root emotions are fear and shame. All right, so fear and shame. Let's first talk about. Fear and what that means, and I wanna make it very clear when I say fear and shame are at the root of addiction, I am not talking about fear and shame in, uh, just in relation to addiction. Okay? Because I think a lot of times we hear that, we hear shame and addiction and we think, oh yeah, well you, we engage in addiction. We engage in our addictive behavior, right? We watch porn. We go and, uh, scan at a, a mall or something like that and watch women as they walk by and we're, you know, pervy and all that stuff. Right. Which I'm not, um, I am not at all diminishing, uh, both the effect that has on those, um, who are being watched and that the, the person who is watching, okay. Uh, very. Very sad circumstances, Kate, but it's not about that shame, that shame plays a part in addiction, right? It does. And really, I wanna share momentarily here, the more shame that you actually feel about an addiction and about yourself, the more prone you will be to engage in that addiction. But that's a whole nother thing for another episode. But I wanna make it clear when I say fear and shame, I'm talking about all of the fear, all of the shame that you experience in every area of your life. Not just to do with addiction, but every area of your life. Addiction Recovery has to do with assessing fear and shame. Seeing fear and shame when we're in fear of time, right? We feel impatient. We feel like we won't be able to get the opportunity to do something we really want to do, and, and, and that pressure builds and builds and builds. I. , you know, I, I want to take time to read my book, or I want to take time to play my video game, or I want to take time to do this or that for myself. Or when am I gonna get to work out? Or when am I gonna, you know, we're in fear of time, right? Maybe fear of rejection, right? We're afraid that, uh, we didn't do something well and all day we're just, we're, we're thinking about, oh man, I was so stupid. I shouldn't have done that. Right? Or we're in fear of loss of losing someone or something. that we, that we, uh, desire or that we love even, right? These are our fears that we face on a daily basis. These fears, underly anxiety, they underlie depression, and then shame really is a fear, uh, all of itself. But shame has a, a, it has a distinct component, and that's the feeling that we are not. , right? That's shame, right? If any, if you've read Bene Brown, um, or listened to her work, you'll recognize this. Shame is that belief. I am not enough. Shame is that belief. Even in its most extreme circumstances, when we get into deep depression of the world would be better off without me. , right? That, that's shame at its deepest core, where we say the world would be better off without me, I'm no good. You know, I, I can't overcome this, um, or I deserve this. Not, not an addiction in particular, but whatever it is, uh, unhappiness or I don't deserve happiness. I deserve to be unhappy. I deserve to suffer. God's punishing me. Right? That is shame. Okay. God is, is, is doing these things to me in my life because I've been so bad, because I'm such a bad human being. These are the things of shame. These are the things that drive the negative emotions that put us in a state of susceptibility to addiction. Because the thing is addiction and shame and fear are all in the same wavelength. They're all in the same zone. When we are feeling so much fear and shame in our lives on a daily basis, we are then driven into a. So it's very important to understand this. When we can start to see this, we can start to observe our mind, observe the fear, observe the shame, and then we can start to say, okay, this fear, this shame is not who I am. This is part of the mind, part of the brain. These are negative emotions that I'm experiencing right now, but they aren't. they aren't who I am. And we can start to observe them. We can start to pray to God to say, Hey, how do I work through these? How can I see things differently in a more positive light? How can I see things with more faith, with more love, with more peace, that then starts to help us? Recover and overcome. Okay? So we need the proper mental, spiritual, physical, and relational tools that we can use to work through fear and shame, and I'll share where you can get those at the end of this episode. So again, to help me reach more people with this podcast, with this YouTube channel, remember to like s. Or follow and rate. Um, I would really appreciate your guys' support both for this work that I'm doing, um, and for those who, uh, can listen to this and be helped. Cause I wanna reach as many people as possible. So let's go on talking about this. All of this brings me to the three routes of long-term addiction recovery that I said we'd talk about. Okay? If, if fear and shame are on one end, right? what's on the other, what's, what's the opposite end? What? What cultivates our long-term recovery? And again, there are three things. Okay? Number one is faith, and we'll talk about more what that means in a minute. Number one is faith. Number two is worth. Number three is love, faith, worth and love. Okay? And again, this may sound cliche to some of us, like, oh, great, faith worth love. That's what recovery is. I have to be real with you. After eight years of sobriety, after watching other people go through their own addictions, their own recovery, I can tell you faith worth and love are the true roots of recovery. These are the things that we need in our lives in order to experience not just recovery for a few months or even a couple of years, but recovery forever. For your whole life, you have to cultivate faith worth and love in your life. So faith, what do I mean by that? Faith is faith in God. Right? But it's also faith that good things can come about in your life. Okay? I will say that I have never talked to, and I, and I don't say this as a blanket statement, I'm just saying this is my personal. I have never spoken to someone who has been sober for longer than 3, 4, 5 years who does not have a deep relationship with God or with a higher power. So sincere relationship with a higher power. If that's the Dao, if that's the no self, if that's the Buddha, if that's Satan, Nam, if. Krishna Rama. Okay. If it's genuine and it is sincere, and you are sincerely relying upon that higher power, fantastic. Okay. But I've never met anyone who has recovered long term without a sincere and deep relationship with God or with higher power. It is fundamental to. Experiencing long-term recovery. So that's faith, right? It's it's faith in God. And it is faith that good things can come about in your life. We have to have this, um, and to overcome something as pervasive and powerful as porn addiction can be, you really need to have this power and support with you in every moment. And just on a personal level, I have to say that. The only way I've maintained my eight years of recovery from porn addiction, and in saying that, I ha it hasn't been an easy eight years. Okay. There have been many, many times where I've been on the brink, um, of, of, of relapsing can any, any addict, any anyone who has been through years of recovery will tell you that where they, they have. Crises in that time. The only way I've held on is through that faith in God. The only way I've held on is to have that support, that strength, that guidance on a daily basis. And when I'm doing my very best, and I'm learning more and more all the time, but when I'm doing my very best, it's when I am consistently relying on that. Support that peace, that goodness within. Okay? God is within all of us. God's love, God's peace, God's goodness, is within every single one of us. And when we're relying on that peace, when we're relying on God, instead of looking to our own selfish desires, our own will, and we're relying on God's. Or as Marcus Aurelius would've put it in the meditations, the will of the whole right, of the good, of all mankind, if you want to phrase it that way. But it's this, it's this, um, this thing that can't be explained in physical or in the things of, of the five senses. It's something we feel within. We know it's there. It's this, this strength and support. And the way I cultivate that in my life is I'm praying, I'm meditating on a daily basis. I'm reading of. Scripture or spiritual words. I'm Christian, love the Bible. Um, love to read of other Christian writings. Um, but I also really enjoy the Doo de Chun. Um, I love a lot of Buddhist teachings. Um, I'm highly inspired by the book of course and Miracles or Love Without Conditions by Paul Fer. Um, I'm also very much inspired by the Bagga gida. Okay. That's one of the main texts of the Hindu faith. Um, all powerful books. If we can get, if we can cultivate that spirit in our lives. This can help us. Now, it's not the end all be all. It's not everything. I will say if, if we knew of God's love for us, God's limitless love and compassion for us, we felt that piece. It would be the end all be all if we knew of our limitless worth and potential. Um, and we could feel that really and truly and feel God's unconditional love. It would be the end all, be all. That would be all we'd need, um, to recover. But I also. That I've faced times in my life where I'm really trying hard to cultivate that. And maybe you can relate to this. I'm trying hard to cultivate that in my life and I'm just not feeling it. Okay. And that's why there are other tools to use as well, other, other things that we can do, but that that faith and that reliance on God is always at the core, even when we're not feeling it. We gotta make that daily effort, um, to reach out to God or to hire. Keep that going. So the second root of recovery is worth, and what does that mean? Right? What does this look like? You know, it's, it's not the same thing as self-esteem, okay? Self-worth feeling that you are worthy. Is not the same thing as self-esteem. Okay? In fact, self-esteem can be correlated with narcissism and with unhappiness, to an extent case self-worth. On the other hand, it's knowing that. You're accepted that you're valuable. Um, it's knowing that you're imperfect, um, as far as the physical mind, uh, the physical body, that it's imperfect, that you make imperfect choices that you're always learning. It's knowing that you're ignorant of most things, most knowledge in the universe, um, that you know far less than 1% of those things and that you're at peace with that. Um, and it's, it's knowing that you're a net positive in the world, right? That feelings of, of deep depression, right? When we, when we think that, man, my family or the world would be better off without me. That's that shame at its at it. It's some of, some of its most toxic levels and anyone can get there, right? It has nothing to do with being a bad person. It has nothing to do with, uh, weakness. Anyone can get there. Um, but we just need to be able to make small steps to get out. And I, and I bear witness that you can, um, through the love and peace of God, you can be guided out of that. Um, and through help from others. Um, and through knowing the right tools, knowing the right things to do, you can come out of that. Um, but worth is the opposite end, right? It isn't thinking, I'm great, I'm awesome. Look at me. It's thinking I'm enough. Right? That's worth. And then third is, Okay, love. Right? That's, again, it's, it's so much a fundamental answer that we hear all the time, but that's because it is fundamental. It cannot be overlooked. Okay? And it is core of, uh, of really healing in all things, okay? It's to, to experience a joyful life, to experience long-term porn addiction recovery, we gotta feel that love. We need to know two things. We need to know that we are worthy of love. and we need to know that we are capable of loving. If we feel those two things to whatever varying extent it is, right? It can be lesser or more. The more it is, the more joy you'll feel. The more it is, the more, uh, stable in your recovery you will feel. But if you can feel those two things on a daily basis, then you are going to experience long-term recovery and truly powerful recovery is. It's when we're able to dedicate ourselves. And I'm not saying you're, uh, I'm not saying I'm perfect at this by any means. And I'm not saying that you need to be perfect at this to recover, but, but striving for it, it's dedicating our lives to doing good for the people around us. Um, it's dedicating our lives to a higher purpose. Um, it's dedicating our lives to God really in, in, in so many ways. And, and again, if, if you want to take it to, uh, like a secular level, you can look at the meditations of Mark Marcus Aurelius, which. Really aren't secular actually entirely. He talks about God and God's, um, but Marcus Aurelius, right use, uh, in ancient Greece. Um, he, the meditations that he wrote, beautiful, beautiful book, amazing teachings, but he talks about, um, really being present for the, the will of the whole, right. If we can dedicate ourselves to the good of humanity as he, as he would put it, um, then we can, we can experience true peace, true addiction recovery. And so, excuse me, whether we dedicate ourselves, um, to that or to God is up to us, in my view, in my personal. We have to dedicate ourselves to God because it is the one infallible, um, source of strength that we can go to. So those are the three routes of recovery. The two routes of of addiction are fear and shame in all areas of life. It is, those are the, the underlying feelings and emotions that drive eventual addiction cravings, which then drives our addiction as a whole. And then the three routes of recovery are, Worth and love feeling those on a regular basis in our lives. So, as promised, um, at the beginning of this episode, I'm going to give you, um, answers for how to really experience this in your life. So what I want you to do, Right now, before you do anything else today, what I want you to do right now is to go to Become A Good Man dot com. I've made a simple eight page PDF that you can download that's going to spell out addiction and recovery for you. There's a diagram in there. I call them the Addiction and Recovery Trinity's. It's going to explain those trinity's to you. It's going to show you bit by bit, um, all of the different. Of addiction and of recovery and how to cultivate recovery in your life. So it's very important. It's completely free. Go there. It could completely change the game for your recovery. It's taken me years to figure this stuff out. So go to Become A Good Man dot com. You're gonna see it right there. Almost at the top of the page. It'll say, simple eight page download. Get it. Boom. Put your first name in your email. I'll send it straight to your inbox. Uh, again, I think it's gonna change the game for you and help you so much to gain some insights, um, really from a 3000 foot view that you may have never understood about addiction, where it comes from and about recovery and how to experience it in your daily life. It is an excellent resource. Head there now my friend. Again, help support this channel, like, subscribe, follow, rate. This podcast, it's been awesome to have you here today. I hope you've learned a ton. Shoot me an email or message me from my side. Go to my contact page. I wanna know your questions. I wanna know how I can help. Um, I wanna know what's resonated with you today, uh, common below, and tell me, you know, what kinds of things in your life are challenging as far as triggers that you. What is something that you do that helps you so that you can comment below and let others know what you do about your addiction, uh, in order to empower your recovery on a daily basis so they can get ideas too. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about challenges. Let's talk about what we faced on a daily basis. Um, comment below, shoot those comments out. That'll get more people watching this video so more people can get help. And so we can. this channel. So if you want to quit porn, another thing I have to say is check out my 20 week program. Okay? No more desire. You can head straight to Become A Good Man dot com. Go to courses. I have a, I have a 20 week program. No more desire. It's going to teach you how to cultivate true deep self-worth. It's gonna teach you how to cultivate love. It's gonna teach you how to cultivate faith, how to become more deeply connected to God. It's gonna teach you how to transform your thoughts. Redefine your beliefs and it's all done in 15 to 30 minutes per day. It's very easy to fit into your schedule. It's everything that I've learned over these past several years of recovery. Um, that's both through 10 years of addiction, eight years of recovery, and also experiencing and seeing what other people have been through, what's worked for them. Um, so I would love to have you in the program. Along with that, I do have a private community. If you go to Facebook and you look up Become, A, Good Man, it's completely free to join the private Facebook group. Um, I'd love to have you there as well. So anyway, all of this do not forget. Number one most important thing beyond anything else is go to Become A Good Man dot com right now and hit that, uh, well scroll right down to where it says eight page download. Put in your first name, your email, send it to your inbox. It's totally free. It's going to reveal to you and help you understand the roots of addiction, the roots of recovery, how everything works, how addiction works, so that you can have the game change for you when it comes to recovery. So I know it's gonna gonna do a ton of good for you. Gotta Become A Good Man dot com right now and check it out my friend. Thank you so much for joining me in today's episode. Um, I hope it's been extremely informative and helped. Um, you know, I've been through this. I've been through my own recovery journey. I want to help you and yours continuously. So follow and subscribe. Keep coming back, keep walking your path. God is with you, my friend. God bless and much love.