For a long time I struggled with a porn addiction.
But, I never gave up trying to overcome it. In 2021, I did not have much money, but knew I needed a different way of thinking to have a chance of getting out of the addiction. I couldn't afford getting much external help, but I did have some skills I thought I could trade for some knowledge. So, I messaged a porn addiction recovery coach called Craig Perra and asked if I could do his social media marketing. At first, I was willing to do it for free but over time we had a great deal going where in exchange for my social media posts, I'd receive a bit of money and access to his group coaching program (worth thousands of dollars). I did not overcome porn addiction using Craig's program for a variety of reasons. But, there were still some great insights from it and I remember one in particular. When Craig was in a porn addiction he was still working a 6-figure job, had a wife, and was generally very successful. I remember him saying that whilst in an addiction, he was still pretty good at doing things, but just terrible at "not doing things". And it was being awful at "not doing things" which led to his addiction and misery.
This hit me hard. Up until hearing this I'd been journaling a list of things "not to do" each day. So, my journal would often look something like this:
Do not go on Instagram
Do not watch porn
Do not masturbate
Do not go on Twitter
I would always leave a tick or cross in my journal and when I looked back at the results, I realised I was actually more likely to engage with the compulsive behaviour if I had told myself not to.
This led to me choosing to start only put actions in my journal which were focused on the doing, instead of the "not doing". My guess is that this strategy played a large role in me achieving longer "NoFap" streaks. But, I still hadn't built a very specific way of dealing with urges and so I inevitably relapsed.
Nowadays, I don't even want porn anymore. My brain has changed entirely through the repetition of reading my script. I know what the reality of engaging with porn, even once, results in. I've done the work to change my neural pathways. And alongside my mentor, Mari Paulus, we are working with guys from all over the world to build them very specific scripts they can use to deal with urges and change their brain. By doing this work, I get to talk with my clients and hear what is going on for them. And one of the main things I've heard recently is people talking about "not giving in to urges". Right away, this is a red flag. In our client calls, we shift this language to "what am I choosing to do and why?". You are always choosing to do something. It is impossible to "not watch porn." It is impossible to "not give in to urges." If a dead person can achieve your goal, you want to reframe the language you use around your goal.
So, instead of having all this resistance and deprivation, our clients now know they can attack their addicted neural pathways head on. They don't need to be passive or wait around, they can be proactive and change their brain whenever they want by using the tools we provide.
And just like Craig with his 6-figure job, it becomes a lot easier to achieve success in any area of life when you are choosing to do something, rather than when you are trying "not to do something." If you are in a position in life where you want to proactively change your addicted neural pathways and be done with porn for good, that is possible for you. We have a program designed exactly for this purpose.