Muse

Today's guest is a certified coach and a founder of Valor Recovery. It's a recovery program that focuses on porn addiction, pornography addiction, intimacy disorders, commitment disorders, a whole gamut of stuff in there. There's a lot of things when it comes to emotional connection. He and I have known each other for years. He's a dear friend of mine. He's been a mentor. He's been a guide. and at times he's been a hero I'll say that this episode isn't really for children if you have children maybe in the backseat or something I mean it's not graphic but it's just I don't know just you know I hope this episode reaches who it reaches I would like to say that I had a great chat today with my guest and friend Mr. Steve Walt

Thank you, brother. Thanks for coming. I love you.

Yeah, I love you too, bro. Been a long time in on you. I know. It has been a long time, man. For some of you guys who don't know, today's guest is my friend Steve Walt, who started a program called Valor Recovery, and it's a recovery program for men who have suffered with pornography addiction. Is that pretty much a safe way to say it, Steve? That's a good way to say it. Okay, cool. And thank you so much, dude. I love the work that you do. Thank you for like, you know, you've been a guy in my life and just a partner in crime and, you know, in positive crime. And yeah, I just want to like, we met in recovery rooms, right? Yeah, a long time ago. Yeah, we met above the bank over there. We're going to recovery rooms in the Palisades. Yeah. I didn't suffer from porn addiction, but I did. I have dealt with that, like parts of that. and i have like uh you know had like intimacy disorder like commitment issues that sort of thing you know um which those meetings cover all of that your recovery started with drugs and

alcohols it did i mean i was one of those kind of men that kind of struggled with a lot of stuff but you know as you look back i definitely think pornography was the culprit really yeah i do you You know, I think pornography was this kind of gateway drug that led me to a lot of dark places.

Yeah, I'd love to hear your experience, strength, and hope today. Just take us kind of on your journey. This is what people do in meetings a lot. They'll share their experience, strength, and hope in your journey with, like, intimacy, sex addiction, pornography, addiction, et cetera. Is that okay, Dave? Yeah, it's great.

And so, you know, I think it started for me in the late 90s. you know i was living in new york city working in financial services from all outward appearances like doing great in life you know i remember moving kind of my first nice apartment and uh 32nd floor of a building i'd worked so hard for this right like my goodness walk up no no wasn't a walk up 32 floors is the long way to walk oh yeah but what i do remember within a few weeks is getting the internet in my apartment for the first time. Pretty cool, right? People could do research. I could do a lot of things with the internet. Like, not this guy. I mean, I use the internet for porn. And so really for the first time in my life, I had like unlimited access to pornography. And I'll tell you what, when I watch porn, it lit me up like a Christmas tree. When I watch porn, that fog of depression that kind of hovered over me much of my life lifted. Really? Yeah, 100%.

I can kind of relate a little bit what you're talking about. Like there's something else with it that feels very addictive.

You know, there's a euphoria to it. That's what I'm saying. I mean, it worked just like a drug for me, right? That anxiety I felt, that kind of loneliness that was so profound vanished when I watched porn. So, you know, I watched porn to really numb difficult emotions.

and it worked. It worked really, really well. And were you using it like, I mean, were you just kind of like using it once a day or was like, I mean, was there an actual like heavy use of it or it was just like this outlet that you knew that was there? You know, it started off as an

outlet, but then things started to change. You know, this was long before we had cell phones that had pornography. So this was on a laptop in my home. And what I noticed was this progression i started watching porn for longer lengths of time with more frequency i kind of needed porn you know there were nights i'd be watching porn throughout most of the evening what 100 i'd go for hours wow and you know i'd wake up or like come to in the morning like disgusted with myself oh yeah disgusted i'm never doing this again I would actually have multiple times I would get the laptop and I would throw it down the garbage chute on the 32nd floor in absolute disgust. But, you know, a few days later, I'd be back in the computer store telling this poor guy that I have a growing business and we need more technology. Literally, I know I just throw my computer away because I couldn't stop watching porn on it.

Too bad they don't have an Olympic event for guys who are sick of watching porn on their laptops. that would be so much further than discus i think you know but dude that's crazy imagine like some guy is just like some little r2d2 human and there is like what another one another one steve's got a very successful business he's hiring he needs a lot he needs computers oh dude that's so crazy dude i do remember like when i was a kid is it okay if i interject yeah please yeah um and just to share man like i remember like uh when i was a kid they had one some fella had uh pornos at his house he had magazines and we'd had somebody had like chiseled some tits into the wood into a tree near our home and stuff like that and we had that when i was young and people would show up to that like it was some like kind of like a you know some mahogany chest mecca or something you know people would make the pilgrimage to see that in the woods you know yeah yeah it's hot but at one point i had a i found i had a buddy and his dad had some porno magazines and dude i remember once i'd seen those i would bike across town on the weekends to go and uh to go to their home and i would kind of loiter around the house until there was an opportunity to go see them and um one weekend i even broke into their like broke into a window i didn't break the glass that's crazy but i did that would have been too much yeah you would have crossed the line yeah but i snuck in to and i didn't realize it at the time it was just like i didn't even realize that i was doing it but when i later looked back at it was like oh it just like there was something there was a comforting thing or there was like this addiction that started um anyway go on man so you would you

would take these computers in yeah and you know it was just a sign that um i was really struggling with this i couldn't stop and you know there was such a progression to this you know even like taking more risk on where i'd watch porn i'd watch it in the office on my work computer which is kind of insane when you think about it yeah and you know i start watching different types of porn you know categories i didn't even know existed right you go down the left hand side of that porn category after category after category and for me you know i started gravitating towards like fetish porn, and then eventually porn outside of my sexual orientation. And, uh, I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know why this was so intoxicating and why I couldn't stop. And the problem was wrong with that type of porn, but for me, it brought up so much shame and that shame was so debilitating in my life. And so it was really a painful experience. You know, this was long time ago so there wasn't information around that there wasn't a place to go and talk about this stuff so you know i just had this kind of really horrible feeling i was engaging in a behavior that didn't feel like it was in alignment with my values and i was suffering

man i'm sorry to hear i'm sorry to hear that man i know that we've we've talked about this kind of a lot and and i've heard you share before and but anytime somebody says that they're that like they feel a lot of shame like it just really resonates with me man you know i felt a lot of that in my life is just shame for different things you know um it's so powerful and you can't stop and you said this sounds like a long time ago man i've had friends that i've talked to this week yeah that it's the same it's the same story um yeah man i can relate to like looking at pornography and the just the shade the horror you feel after but then you still need something that but then like Like it kind of wears off or you get out of that shame. And then you're again, or look over something that'll kind of give you a feeling. Something makes me feel good about myself or I'm not having, I'm not dating well, or I'm afraid of women, anything, whatever's going on. And then you find yourself back there.

Well, you know, it's interesting. The ease and accessibility of porn today anyway, make it so easy to regulate your emotions with it, right? You just think about how you're able to really avoid discomfort.

Like, what do you mean exactly? Like, avoid it.

Because here's the deal, right? If you're feeling anxious, you watch porn, you feel temporarily calm, right? You're feeling bored, you watch porn, you feel some stimulation. You're feeling lonely, you watch porn, you feel artificial connection. So porn, for me, can actually affect and change my mood. So why is that a bad thing, right? And so, because porn can work in the short term. Okay. But what happens, especially for me, is I weaken my ability. to regulate my own emotions so stopping watching porn wasn't just stopping a bad habit i had to learn how to regulate my own emotions i had to learn to deal with triggers and urges and so there was this kind of incredible process that kind of weaning myself off porn was just not easy

um thanks for sharing man um yeah let's go back into your journey a little bit yeah and so you

We're in this place right now where I'm using porn to deal with the pain of being Steve. You were in this place. Yeah. At that time, I was in a relationship as well. Great girl. And throughout that relationship, the more porn that I consumed, things started to change. Sex wasn't about connection, making love. It was about intercourse over time. it was about replicating what i'd seen in the movies you know i often like to say pornography abuse literally burns off the nerve endings of sensuality in relationships less kissing touching holding caressing and that certainly was the case for me and you know over time in that relationship you know i experienced a lot of sexual dysfunction i had difficulty getting and maintaining an erection during sex yeah yeah over time i actually didn't even want to have sex with her i've been so desensitized to sex with all the porn i was watching and masturbation i was engaging in and towards the very end i couldn't orgasm unless i was thinking about a porn scene i had seen earlier that day wow so pornography robbed me of my manhood and you know that pearl poor girl i mean i mean talk about affecting her self-esteem and self-worth like what's wrong with me why doesn't desire me anymore am i not attractive anymore and i had no ability to talk about this at this time i had so much shame over i had this incredible double life so you know porn helped to destroy that relationship and so and i'm not talking about the guy who's casually consuming porn i was abusing pornography and you know relying on it yeah yeah it was it was just uh um what you notice is that men who abuse pornography, you know, it comes with some consequences. And, you know, for me, pornography was this gateway drug, right? All those lines in the sand I had of behaviors that I would never cross over and engage in all got washed away. Really? Yeah. Pornography was a gateway drug that led to strip clubs, erotic massages, escorts, really dark, dark places. it was so painful you know that came a point in time in my life where i couldn't even make eye contact with the man in the mirror really because i knew the truth when i think about this journey i mean porn was like the culprit so it just didn't work for me did it get to a point

where it didn't work and then you kind of evolved onto other stuff or how did like you know in 2008

my life just kind of blew up i collapsed emotionally spiritually professionally everything kind of came to a head and i absolutely blew up my life uh unfortunately and um but that was the time i also had the courage to kind of ask for and get help and not an easy thing to do to kind of talk about these issues get help for these issues and uh it was hard coming out of the gates to get better from this stuff you know yeah how'd you know what

was the book was like kind of a breaking point if it's okay to ask yeah please i mean thank you bro for just being so open and like transparent about some of this man i think i was scared about even like talking about this not because i'm scared of like i don't know i don't know why i was i don't know i know you're such like a you know this is like your world you care so much about helping people with this situation, man. So I don't know why I was. But did there come a point for you where it was just like, this is it, you know?

You know, I think the, I knew I had to get help. I knew I was in a lot of trouble. I was getting the best help that was available and I was still struggling. And not because I had a desire to get better. the one thing I did really really well is I didn't give up I kept coming back the one thing I really did well was I had so many good people in my life that saw something in me I couldn't see in myself they refused to give up on me I had incredible family my mom my brothers my sister who loved me unconditionally and we

more like us, pillar of strength when I was so weak. So I was so lucky to have such good people in my life. And I had to fight for my recovery. It wasn't easy. It was not easy. I had to fight and fight and fight. But I'll tell you what, I never gave up. And I live a pretty incredible life today. Yeah. You know, I'm married to a woman. I absolutely adore my wife, Jennifer. best thing that's ever happened to me she's an incredible incredible human being amen and has made me such a healthier better man i am so blessed for her and we had our son theo almost a year ago we started a family and all byproducts of recovery and so i'm a huge believer in the power of recovery the benefits of men getting into recovery especially as it relates to sexual compulsivity and porn abuse you know when you think about my recovery journey right i think about it kind of in three stages healthy intimacy healthy sexuality and healthy masculinity healthy intimacy first person i had to have an intimate relationship with is myself i had to get more comfortable with steve i had to stop running and numbing i had to learn to sit with discomfort i had to learn to really identify the root causes that were driving these compulsions because porn was not my problem steve was my problem wow yeah man getting to know

yourself did you feel like yourself like your like self was like hidden kind of or that yourself had never developed does that make any sense yeah i think probably both all i know is i was so

uncomfortable in my own skin you know i suffered with anxiety i suffered with depression i didn't feel good about myself as a man you know i had such trouble being in relationships experiencing love and i was so disconnected not only from myself but from others and kind of made sense why i abuse pornography i was just really unhappy yeah you know and that's you know the thing that i've learned over the years is that recovery is not about stopping a behavior recovery is about building a life you don't need to escape from hmm were you able to notice some of the things

that you felt like you were escaping from that you felt like were kind of sending you in that

direction? Yeah. Right. And I was kind of emotionally unstable. Right. And so part of recovery is being able to regulate your own emotions. Right. Part of people think that like recovery looks like this. It doesn't. It looks like a chart of the Dow Jones. Yeah. Right. And so what I ended up doing recovery is just kind of softening the peaks and valleys so that I could exist in life and not have to numb the pain of the way I was living my life. And so part of that involved being able to have a relationship with my sexuality that's beautiful and empowering and made me feel good about myself as a man. That's so missed in recovery circles. Everything is about abstinence. And I get that. There's value in abstinence. But if you truly want to transcend this compulsion. You have to build the life that's more enjoyable, more purposeful than the life you were living, or else you're gonna be vulnerable to returning to it. So part of that means like, dude, Steve, you've got to learn how to be in a relationship. You gotta learn how to experience the joys of your sexuality. You have to learn how to experience meaningful connection in order to truly transcend this compulsion.

Yeah, I mean, it's so funny you're saying this, I was thinking the other day, it's like, it's one thing to kind of like refrain from things, right? Like I'm refraining from drugs and alcohol and I'm, you know, like I'm, like I'm, uh, refraining from things that I'm addicted to, but it's another thing. Like, but if you don't have a life outside of that, then you're just sitting there playing defense all the time. I was just thinking about that the other day. It's somebody who's like, what do you like to do? And I'm like, you know, well, my, my hobbies became my jobs and I'm like, yeah, I got to find, I got to find some things to fall in love with. Yeah. I got to find, like, and there's so many things. How about a great woman? Yeah. I mean, yeah, that's. That would be awesome. Hey. Just saying. I'm down. But yeah, I see exactly what you're saying.

Like, I live a life today where I don't need pornography. I don't need alcohol. I don't need drugs. You know, this is like a journey around really healthy masculinity. You know, for so much of my life, my behaviors went out in alignment with my values. Yeah. And I suffered.

Thank you.

right? I needed porn to deal with the way I was living my life. So when I started to live my life in alignment with like honor, integrity, love, service, kindness, I felt good about myself as a man. Like I didn't need to numb the pain of Steve. Yeah. I could look in the mirror and like, that's a good guy. Most days. Yeah. That's good stuff. Yeah. So that's often what's missed in recovery this is not just about abstinence it's about becoming emotionally regulated kind of socially connected living with honesty and integrity so that you don't need some maladaptive coping mechanism to deal with life okay man yeah man i i think this has been like

i mean i have so many friends that that talk about this a lot and even women i was talking of this girl the other day and i said you know i have a guy coming in who started a recovery center for a porn addiction and she's like oh you know i struggle with that i was like it shocked me yeah it's i had never heard a woman just say that to my face and casually yeah you know um why do so many men struggle with this so here's the truth that no one tells anybody

this is really really difficult to overcome it's almost comical you go online and you see these ads we'll fix your porn problem in 14 days no you won't yeah not happening sorry you know there and there are a bunch of reasons why this is so hard the ease and accessibility of this make this like a phenomenon we've never seen before and it's not just porn it's sexualized social media And so I'm in long-term recovery from cocaine addiction. And could you imagine an early recovery having to walk around all day long with a pocket full of cocaine and not do it when you have some uncomfortable feeling come up? What do you think it's like for these guys that have their drug of choice in their hand on their phone? So the instant access makes this challenging. So that's one thing. But there's a lot more going on. And so when you think, this is the way I think about it, right? And so I think that pornography kind of hijacks the brain's reward system and so dysregulates your nervous system. Porn becomes this learned shortcut to avoid discomfort. So when you stop watching porn, you're not just stopping a bad habit, you are literally kind of throwing away your primary regulation tool. And when you stop watching porn, I don't know if you can relate to this, I certainly can, your nervous system can go haywire. You can feel irritable. You can feel anxious, flat mood, low energy, and cravings. And these cravings can feel primal. They're literally a function of multiple systems in your brain and body, like screaming out all at once that something's missing for your survival. That's why guys return to the behavior or quote-unquote relapse. This is not about willpower. This is not about moral failure. This is biology and neuroscience. your brain has been conditioned with all the porn that you've watched and your nervous system has yet to find another way to regulate itself so recovery is not just about stopping a behavior it's retraining your nervous system it's learning how to deal with urges and cravings so they weaken over time second challenge is that you've heard it in my story right men use porn as a way to numb avoid or suppress emotional pain. Anger, pressure, anxiety, depression, trauma that none of us want to feel. And so when you stop watching porn, these feelings come back with a vengeance. So unless you begin to identify and heal those root causes, you are going to routinely return to the one thing you know provides you temporary relief, and that's porn.

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This show is sponsored by Liquid IV. It's summer, baby. It's warmed up. You can feel it's warm. It's not even a joke. The other day, I was just standing in the driveway and just thinking, God, who cut the heat on? Cut it off. I was texting my neighbors, is y'all's heat on? just overwhelmed. It's hot. When you're on the go, staying hydrated is the key to enjoying all that extra sunshine. And liquid IV is clinically demonstrated to hydrate faster than water alone. I bring liquid IV with me. When I'm on the go, I bring it. After a show, I get me a little packet of one of them. That liquid IV packet, I pour it and I shake it. I like the sugar-free flavors. That's what I like. I think peach and peach and strawberry and watermelon. Just one stick and 16 ounces of water hydrates faster than water alone. Powered by LIV HydroScience, an optimized ratio of electrolytes, essential vitamins, and clinically tested nutrients to turn ordinary water into extraordinary hydration. Stay hydrated while you're on the go this summer with liquid IV. Tear poor, live more. Go to liquidiv.com and get 20% off your first purchase with code Theo at checkout. That's 20% off your first purchase with code Theo at liquidiv.com. But some men, it just shows up everywhere that you kind of get addicted to it like that. It's like a guy may not have a lot of problems. A guy may be healthy, but he accidentally picks up some cocaine off the street and now he's using it, right? as opposed to a guy who like is hurting and goes to look for cocaine or porn you know i'm just i'm using cocaine as i don't know why i use that but like you know there's some guys who accidentally just shows up on their phone maybe it's a pop-up or whatever or they just are they have some sexual energy and they take it there and they're not really maybe they're healthy when they get there and then there's guys who are unhealthy that go there um for a fix it feels like so it feels like there's kind of two different versions. 100%.

100%. There's casual porn use.

Okay, so not everybody is- Not at all. Not at all. Is trying to, has all these things that they need to repair. That's correct.

Okay, got it. There are guys out there that are continue to engage in the behavior despite consequences. And right, and so I think these statistics say 10 to 15% of men have an addiction or severe unhealthy relationship with pornography. So I'm talking about that category of men.

Yeah, because for me, I know I never had like the addiction to pornography. Like I had the use of it. Give it time. Don't sell yourself short. Please. No. Um, but I definitely had, uh, where it, it was an, it was a way instead of having to connect with the woman, I would, uh, this is an easier way. And that became like just an easier, safer way. I didn't have an, so I guess there isn't an addictive element there, but I didn't have like the the daily like you know like the that draw to it i had um more like like intimacy issues with talking with women and stuff like that and um and then i would just end up using doing masturbation a lot of times not even to pornography but uh but then once porn came more prevalent and stuff like that it was easier well i think you highlighted a really good point there's

another component to this porn abuse porn addiction sexual compulsivity whatever label you're throwing at it is often referred to as an intimacy disorder meaning for many men this is about more than just a sexual behavior this is about a pattern of avoiding emotional connection you just highlighted

that was my thing that's right emotional connection was tough for me i didn't have any experience of it and so when i finally got into like like dating or like where you're having attraction with girls and they're having an attraction for you and women um it was a lot it was like i it was scary i guess or it was alarming it was a lot of things and i didn't have like a safe outlet to talk about it um and i didn't have any groundwork of like healthy connection at all so that uh so

i think it yeah that just made it like kind of tough and then to avoid it i would be like okay well i have these sexual feelings i'll just go and uh use jerking off or whatever something like that as opposed to uh trying to figure out how to work them out because working them out in real time when you're a kid like when you're young you know when you're at adolescent or whatever it's kind of scary you know it's like a lot of that's scary you know yeah where do you go to talk about this stuff right and your peers like some of them are kind of helpful but some of them We're also, like, other kids can be assholes about this stuff. So, anyway, I'm trying to – some of it I can't remember exactly some of the ways. But, yeah, instead of, like, engaging, sometimes I'll be like, oh, I'm too nervous to even talk to that girl. I'll just masturbate later on or something.

Well, you know, it's interesting. Does that make sense at all? It makes perfect sense. Okay. I mean, men begin to prefer the safety of porn versus the unpredictability of relationships and real people.

Yeah.

So once again, recovery is not just about stopping a behavior. Recovery is learning how to relate, engage, and connect with others. Recovery is about learning how to experience real intimacy, which, sorry, has to include some vulnerability and taking some emotional risk. Recovery is about learning to experience the joys of connection and love. If you're not on that path, It's hard not to be in pain and suffering. And so it's so important in recovery. So when you think about why this is so hard, right? You just talked about it, right? If you don't understand the neuroscience and the nervous system regulation, guys just stay in this hamster wheel loop. If you don't identify some of the root causes that are driving this compulsion, you're vulnerable to returning to it. And if you don't do a deeper dive around intimacy and what's blocking you from connection, you stay in pain and lonely. So kind of all three of these need to be addressed in order for lasting recovery to occur.

Yeah.

But it's more than that. And I'll tell you a few other thoughts I have on why this is so hard. Early recovery can be very painful. And so when you so overstimulate your brain from pornography and from sexualized social media, when you stop engaging those behaviors, your mood can be flat. you can have low energy, and you can have intolerable boredom. And people think that boredom is the enemy. It's not. It's actually your body recalibrating. Everything you want in life is on the other side of you learning how to tolerate boredom. But for so many men, they quit too early because they can't sit with this discomfort. The other challenge we see constantly is that so many guys quit before the miracle happens. I mean, I struggled for many years before I was able to make real progress in my recovery. You know, oftentimes in recovery circles, we measure sobriety success by continuous days of sobriety, 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, six months, a year, all good stuff, right? All good stuff, right? However, however, that cannot be the sole measurement of progress. because for many guys, myself included, they're not gonna get it right away, right? It's going to be a journey. And if you keep kind of having to relapse and you go down this massive shame spiral that you're failing, that you're a failure, you give up. So recovery is about becoming emotionally regulated, socially connected, learning to live with honor and integrity so that you don't need porn anymore, that can take time. Recovery is about building a life you don't need to escape from. That can take time. And so for many guys, especially single guys, where there's not external leverage or consequences on you, a married guy, he's really in trouble with his relationship. He's got to get sober or the marriage is at risk. That's one dynamic. But now you've got a single guy right now. What is the motivation for him right now to continue on this work? You got to keep that person inspired and motivated to continue to do the work and guess what if the best that you can do is watch 80 to 90 percent less porn in any given month great job right great job as long as that is in conjunction with you developing new habits to take better care of yourself physically spiritually and emotionally amen right recovery is a the ability to sustain abstinence will be a byproduct of you taking better care of yourself physically emotionally and spiritually yeah it's a three-sided deal 100 so guys quit too early like where you going we just got started and so Why not also measure consistency of going to the gym,

consistency of making social plans, consistency of learning a new hobby? Keeping your word. Dude.

Taking care of yourself.

Let's measure that stuff in addition to your sober day count.

Yeah, there's a lot of other factors that start to gauge that you can use to self-gauge as well and that are super important. But also a lot of those factors are things that it's also just like, you know uh it's getting up it's getting up being active i want to take care of myself physically you know i want to meditate i want to have a relationship with a higher power i want to like nurture this gift this thing that i am right and there's this other it's such a pandora's box porn is because it's like here's this thing and it's just it's tricked it's tricked it's it's it's it's like a it's a just a finely calculated molecule of the devil really you know and it's it's and so when sometimes people are like man we're not at war there's not a lot going on but we're sitting here losing a battle a lot of times so i do think there's a there's a there is this inspirational element sometimes um where i'll feel like i can i like if i want a war there's one every single day for me against the dark arts, against the things that want to drag me down, you know, against the things that are literally are, uh, are finessed to take away the essence of me, right? The essence of me, man. And so it's like, there's a battle right now, I think for a lot of that. And a lot of us don't realize, um, well, and, and we can get kind of like a lullabite into the comfort of it you don't think it's a big deal you're looking at it once or twice right but then you you like i would notice for myself if i was doing jerking off or whatever something like that the next day i'd feel a little bit kind of bad about myself or i'd be shorter with people um if i looked at pornography it made me look at uh like uh dates and stuff it just made me like it carried i had a little bit of shame inside of me you don't even realize that sometimes it's like you don't think it's on the forefront of you or that it's it's affecting like the look in your eyes or anything but there's a little bit of that in there you know it kind of like colors your coffee a little bit it's like um but it's not the best color you know does any of this stuff

make sense that i'm saying you you i'm kind of rambling no no no there's i want to i want it's hard to explain yeah you did a good job with it a few things that come to mind number one you talked about the rig system and so i read this i shared this with you on the phone a few weeks ago I read this stat that said that the dopamine spike is from the anticipation of watching the next video and not the video you're actually watching. So the addiction is to the scroll. And dopamine, I may butcher this, but I think that's what it said. Dopamine is not the pleasure chemical. It's the motivation chemical. It's the chemical of pursuit. What's next? So social media is rigged this way. Pornography is rigged this way. You know, back in the day, you know, getting access to porn was going to some creepy video store.

Yeah.

Going behind a curtain that said adult only or beads, those beads that would hang it. You obviously know. And all of a sudden to get this VHS in a brown paper bag, put it underneath your arm and do the walk of shame home. Yeah. Right. But you go watch that VHS for 15 minutes, do whatever, go about your day. That's not what modern-day porn abuse looks like. It's infinite novelty where you're constantly scrolling for sexual imagery hours at a time. This is a whole new beast.

Yeah, it says it right here. industry analytics and search engine studies estimate that pornographic content accounts for roughly 20% of all internet searches on mobile devices. That's astronomical. This is notably higher than desktop search rates, which generally clock in around 13%. The primary driver of this higher mobile percentage is the privacy, portability, and convenience that smartphones provide. Because of this, studies from major adult entertainment networks indicate the vast majority of adult content is accessed via a cell phone um yeah i read the other day that porn hub uh which is banned uh here in tennessee i do want to say that is that right you have to have an id that's correct and that's how that dude that that thing that they have i think it's the um tennessee miners act is that what it is the protect Tennessee miners act, uh, is a state law mandating that commercial websites and digital platforms containing a substantial portion of content harmful to minors, uh, implement reasonable age verification methods. So you have to, you have to enter your ID. So that's a huge thing. Cause it makes you take some accountability. Okay. Well, am I, is this something that I'm willing to say I do right? Is this something I'm willing to put my name, my height, my data? Am I really, you know what I'm saying? Am I willing to go that far with it? Um, I love that. I love that. Like there's been times where I've wanted to go look at stuff and that stopped me right there. Great. Yeah. So I do find that that is helpful because it like, um, yeah, I don't want to put myself in there really. Like I want to look at it as like this guy in the distance, right? Have they seen fake ID spiking right now? Cause people want, that's a great question. Good business perhaps. Yeah. Yeah. Around seven to 11% of men self-report experiencing problematic pornography use, um, or feeling addicted. I mean, that's unbelievable, man. And it's just not

porn, right? You look at the content that's on X, you look at the content that's on Instagram, Facebook reels, right? That sexualized content can have the same effect on the brain as watching pornography. And so it's an issue. And so we live in a really tricky time right now because it's

everywhere. It's unbelievable that it exists. And it's unbelievable that we allow it as well.

You know, that we allow it. Well, there's also a societal thing with guys. Like it's, that's what guys do, right? It's cool watching porn. And I'll tell you the truth. It ain't so cool.

Guys don't do it together. Guys watch a game together. I've never had a guy be like, Hey man, I'm having a couple of the guys over. To watch some porn? Yeah.

The thing that's really interesting to me is, here's the truth. So many men who abuse pornography, right? It affects their sexual performance. It affects how they show up in relationships. And it builds shame, right? So, so many men struggle with sexual performance. That's not a new thing. But what is new, and I think quite concerning, is how many of those men are under the age of 40. They turn to Cialis, Viagra, testosterone replacement therapy. thinking that something's wrong with them physically when the truth is and the reality is is their sexual dysfunction is probably caused by all the porn they're consuming. So heavy porn use can rewire the brain. And even my own story- Is that true? Heavy porn use can rewire the brain and cause all types of problems in the bedroom. Like even in my own story, right? I had difficulty getting and maintaining an erection during sex, especially with a partner. I had difficulty orgasming towards the end of my run with pornography. I had difficulty maintaining an erection, and I needed porn stimulation to stay aroused. And heavy porn use can absolutely lead to premature ejaculation. One of the things I didn't share in my story, which is important to talk about, right? Because there's probably a bunch of your listeners right now listening, waiting for someone to tell the damn truth. When I first started consuming porn early in my life, before that relationship, I struggled. with premature ejaculation. And I had so much shame and embarrassment around it. I got to a point where I'd rather not be with a woman than be with a woman and have that type of sexual performance.

You feel like you were just so nervous about sex? I mean, it makes sense. Sex is a nervous thing for a youngster. I didn't realize a few things. For the children. Sex is nervous for the children. You know, it's a nervous thing. Even for adults. Yeah.

And so what I didn't realize at that time was that all the porn that I was consuming and the way that I was actually masturbating to it kind of conditioned my brain to orgasm quickly, and that carried over to real-life scenarios. I didn't realize at that time that the intense porn that I was watching so overstimulated my brain, leading to early orgasm. So my porn use was tied to shame and secrecy, which fueled kind of anxiety around sex, making it kind of uncomfortable. and you know porn was the cause of this yeah so that's one area men not so manly when you think about hey you know is it really that cool right second challenge that guys tend to have it can

totally affect how guys show up in relationships oh yeah dude watching like like touching your body or whatever jerking off or whatever it was like um it was like it just made it easier than having to go and try with women and having to go and have a relationship, it made it all just easier. And if you came from like, and for me, I just, there was so much, it was so uncomfortable that I was like, I don't really, I mean, I guess.

i had a choice but it just was too much of a of a easy alternative it was like i don't i don't know like you know i'm so embarrassed i'm so like just have so low self-worth so many little things they're like man i can't i can't go ask this girl out or do you know so it became this little thing and then the this was the part that i was gonna get that you made me think about sorry every everything about sex felt like a secret right like i would like it was always like when i was growing up we would go in the woods and see the tits or whatever chiseled in the wood or whatever or you would sneak into is that still around you think i'm sure it's been no i think they had weevils or whatever got it i think it was that i can't remember exactly i have to look it up okay but or it could have been one of those new ticks that uh bill gates unleashed or whatever but whatever i'm sure it's gone these days or it's really yeah it's eroded to an a cup you know

for sure and what's the point to visit it then right come on at the time those things were all i'm making a road trip for an a cup dude that a woodpecker would land on one of them

that's big pretty nice so uh but dude the the biggest thing i think about like it was just like seek everything was set sex when i was young became like secretive it became like secretive Because, yeah, if you were looking at pornography, she was doing masturbation. She was sneaking off and doing it. So, everything became secret. So, then, like, everything, like, even when, like, dating, I never wanted anybody to know I was very secretive about stuff. So, it always had all this, like, a little bit of extra, like, kind of taboo around it, I think. I don't even know what that means. But it was just, like, you know, when things are in secret, it's, you know, things in secret can be kind of uncomfortable. Things you're always trying to hide can be kind of uncomfortable. That's right.

And I, you know, I think also that secrecy can lead to shame.

Yeah. Oh yeah. Well, you're always, if something's in secret, you're always worried. Somebody's going to find out about it. That's right. And I didn't have any positive, like a relationship with sex or no, like I didn't have any, not like I didn't, nobody taught me, it told me nothing about it. It was just like your body, you're going to change. And then you're like dealing with it.

And I'm still waiting to get the birds and beads conversation from dad. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah. yeah they should just have a decent man that travels around the country helping just have the birds and the bees conversation like a temporary rented dad to have the conversation with you when you're like 12 yeah just like some wiener santa or whatever who he travels around he pulls up you don't say do it outside wherever where it's in view of you know where the lord can see it but um anyway uh you were going into a second uh part about relationships how it affects relationships and dude i'll even remember like if you've been if i if i say if you but if i'd been like you know doing touching myself or whatever yurking off or whatever like that then i would uh it you're right when you said it's like it changed the amount of intimacy now it's like if my girl and i are going somewhere maybe i i i don't i would i wouldn't touch her touch her elbow or like you know what i'm saying or like give her a pinch or like you know i'm saying i wouldn't create that energy so a lot of that energy disappears and that's the thing i think that uh we don't realize a lot it's that little like that yin and yang that whole thing that keeps like nature and society and and really the future because of procreation which keeps it all in balance is this kind of tension right a romantic kind of like samba between like like her aura and mine and pornography like uh weakens that and then you're right people take into their head like a woman will take in her head like oh something's wrong with me or he thinks i'm not this way or i can't do these things which isn't that you know i'm saying so it's just it's a tough cycle and i think a lot of it does fall on us men because we got to be stronger you know i'm not saying that i'm great at it or anything but i do think that somebody's got to come to the rescue of us and i think it has to

be us well no one's coming to rescue us right you got to take accountability in your own life but i think you you really eloquently kind of laid out the dynamics that porn abuse can have in relationships did i really you really did that was really well said and uh you know

i just i feel bad about some of the i feel like dang i wasted a couple relations i wasted some and i wasted somebody's time and i wasted like and i didn't even know it but yeah some of that

now the only way you learn and grow yeah and you know what you often see when men abuse porn over time they can lose attraction for their partners because they can't compete with porn i mean how unfair is that right there could be less desire for romance i'll say it again pornography abuse burns off the nerve endings of sensuality and relationship Thank you.

relationships less touching holding kissing caressing so if i'm watching porn you know maybe i don't notice the waves in my wife's hair if i'm watching porn we hold hands less perhaps so pornography abuse can deaden the vibrancy of our partners our wives and our marriages i mean

that kind of sucks yeah well it dims the way you feel for me it dims the way i feel if i'm waking up that's right like oh i still the my first thought sometimes is if i'd looked at pornography for you the day before, it's like, oh man, I wish I hadn't done that. I think I can not do it. You know, it's like, but you're always in this war, you know, it puts you always in like this

battlefield. It's like being hooked up to an Ivy drip of shame. And for not every guy, right? We're not talking about the casual use. We're talking about the compulsive use. And the other thing you tend to see over time, the guys that end up abusing pornography, porn and masturbation just become the preferred sexual outlet and shame and secrecy and guilt become the norm and because of that shame so many guys especially our young guys are not dating they've given up on dating they're not actually having physical sex i read a stat not too long ago that one out of three men under the age of 30 have not had sex in the last year one out of three men one out of three men under the age of 30 have not had sex in the last year but some of those men could be 10 years old or whatever. I would imagine, I didn't look at the fine print of the thing. I would imagine it probably told me age 18 to 30. Oh, they should say that then. They should probably,

yeah, good point. Cause yeah, if it's like this five year residence, you're like, yeah, I hope

not. Yeah. We want to, we'll fact check this right now. Anyway, recent data from the general

social survey indicates that nearly one quarter of young adults aged 18 to 29 reported having no sex in the past year looking specifically at younger single men under 30 the rate of sexlessness can climb closer to one third and then bro you know what happens i think when when you start to when you start to like when you dim the men in a culture anything can come in there sure it's like when you dim the warriors who are standing at the gate anything can slip in there you know and then they come in and now they got the women on only fans because because they're not in a relationship and there's not like a provider and there's not like a leader and you're not part of like a we're doing this together. Right. And then like, everything's for sale. It's like, what's for sale now, you know? And I don't mean that it's not, none of that's negativity at anybody. It's just like, uh, uh, you know, it's just like, um, I don't know. Do I sound judgmental? I'm just kind of looking at it. I think it all makes me just like, I don't know. I feel like we're stronger than this, but we are in a war. Well, I think what you're highlighting and what I'm hearing you say

is so many of our young men in particular, they lack confidence in themselves. They're full of shame, right? They don't have the, they can't handle rejection, right? The world needs healthy, strong men and pornography abuse is emasculating our men today. That's what I'm saying. That was definitely the case for me, 100%. But here's the deal. And I need your listeners to hear this right now.

Yeah, amen. because I don't want to get stuck in the dour parts of it and that things are not healable

because that's not the truth. That's not the truth. The truth is it is time to reclaim your damn manhood. Type shit. You know, seriously. No, I feel you. Enough is enough. Right. Enough is enough right now. There's a cesspool out there that are killing our men today. So let me tell you, in my own journey, when I got the right type of help, I was able to work through these sexual dysfunction. When I got the right type of help, I was able to be in a healthy relationship where I felt good about myself as a partner, as a man. So it's not just like Steve stops watching porn and everything fixes Excel. Right. Don't work that way. Right. It's a process of retraining your brain, your body, and your relationship to intimacy. Amen.

What were some of the first, like the initial moments? Was there kind of like a day or a time in a rehab? Because you went to some different, is it okay to say that you went to some different rehabs? Yeah, I went to all of them. You did?

My boy.

My boy. Dude, Steve was a animal out there in the park. His old partying stories are great, bro. That's right. You have some great ones, man. And I'm not talking just sex. I'm not talking sexual stuff. I'm talking like just your AA partying stories. And sometimes we tell those war stories because it keeps you out of the battle. 100%. And you got to laugh at them now. Oh, dude. If I go to an AA meeting and I laugh with my friends about times where we all used to do stupid stuff or something ridiculous. That's right. The feeling I get laughing with friends, I leave out of there. I don't want to drink. I don't want to use. I don't want to do anything harmful to myself because I've just felt connection and that gives me something that I'm supposed to have. So like you ever see like maybe Theo Vaughn or the Red Hot Chili Peppers go on?

on tour, they have t-shirts that list all the cities they visited. Yeah. I did that with rehabs.

Yeah. So I mean, come on, dude. And so what was your tour called? Do you have a tour name? I don't have a name for it. Maybe you could help me out with that. And so, you know, it's just the

journey's the journey, man. Yeah. And so once again, it's, it's, you know, it's about perseverance and not giving up. But I'll tell you some things that are interesting that, that when I was able to get the right type of help, as it relates to my porn addiction, I was able to stabilize my arousal. Stabilize your arousal? Arousal. Okay. Tell me what that means when you say that. You know, I was, pornography abuse so distorted my view of women. Pornography abuse had me in a constant place of euphoric recall and fantasy right and so i had to learn how to not rely on that kind of dopamine fueled kind of energy to deal with life i had to learn how to build sensation for sexual experiences to be present in sexual experiences so when i got into recovery dude my sex life was so enjoyable, right? I learned how to kind of make love and connection and kissing and sensuality, all kinds of beautiful stuff. When you get into recovery, oftentimes here, you have

better erections and more satisfying sex. That's what I want. I want that super erection.

That's it. And you hear all the time, the guys get into recovery and sustain recovery. It's so much more enjoyable. They're present for it. They're not full of shame. There's a confidence

that comes from it yeah that's what i'll yeah i want that wiener that's like plays the game like i feel like my wiener's like a designated hitter like it'll get up to the plate it's kind of like but it knows it's not going to be out in the feet it's just like showing up for the freaking

you know otani's a dh sometimes otani is yes so well what are you trying to say i got a small wiener i wanted to say that i'm not sure what i was saying with that although he gets a lot

of home runs so hey there we go that's what we're talking about yeah uh we might take that part out which is fine um so so you're saying like you know and you noticed that like do you remember do you remember like a first experience where you kind of noticed something small that you were like oh wow these things that I'm doing in recovery are working and then what were some of the things

that you were doing in recovery well I did a bunch in recovery right and so I did a lot of therapy I was really active in 12-step recovery I was you know had my own personal coaches that were really helpful. And I'll tell you, I believe that recovery is a team sport. I think men need other men to become better men. I think men need vulnerability role models. Men need love and support. Men need around other men that have similar life experiences around sex to transcend the shame that's keeping our lives small. I think that's really, really important. I think men heal best in community as it relates to sexual compulsivity and so it's so hard to heal and shame by yourself you can't i don't think you can i know man i don't think you can it's tough for people huh yeah so i think you know and in conjunction with that so many men today are so isolated and so lonely and so that's the driver of some of these behaviors so once again the roadmap to healing has to lay the the the groundwork for connection and community and so where you practice kind of being part of something bigger than yourself you practice honesty you practice vulnerability it gets modeled to you really important for men to see other men living this

way like in recovery circles and stuff 100 oh yeah man oh i'll sometimes man i'll be in a meeting and It's like some guy will say something. My friend James Beshera, he always tells me, he says, we are the keys to each other's locks. That's what he says. That's sweet. It's one of the best things, man. I think about it every single day. It's like something that gives me hope, I think, a lot of times. Yeah, because it's like somebody will say something, man, that something inside of me has been trying to say my whole life, and I just couldn't put the right few words together. It doesn't even have to be big, huge words or fancy words. sometimes it's just a simple thing but somebody will say it and a part of me will exhale that's been waiting to exhale for so long how sweet is that yeah oh it's amazing man so yeah i i can't iterate how much recovery and and the community right yeah and then the fact that like dude sometimes like i'll notice like uh especially these days you we get so caught up in our own worlds but uh it almost feels like a gift when i think about when somebody else comes into my mind or heart. Like there's times where I purposely sit down. I want to think about people and stuff, but

If I'm just like, oh, I'll be like, oh, I just saw them the other day and they mentioned this. Let me call and check in about it. Or just something that's like, if it's about somebody else, bro, that's like the, when that happens naturally in my head, it's the best thing that ever happened to me. And it's just because of community. But it only happens if I go to those meetings, if I'm interacting with guys, if I'm a part of community, right?

and you need guys in your life like okay theo enough with the show what's really going on

right you need guys like that oh dude to tell somebody that bro i'm fucking yeah like this i was in a meeting this morning man i'm trying to let me think about what i said if i'm really honest right i got into a meeting a lot of times i'll do a zoom in the mornings uh you and i go to one that's similar is that okay to say please um and i'll be in the gym i'll work out while i'm in there so i'll listen because it helps me get two things done it makes me feel pretty like i'm doing something and uh what i said today oh i'm trying to keep some negative things out of my head so i'm staying focused i'm staying on a path um like i'm i'm staying active because if i stay active i stand a better chance when those things come into my head uh and i was trying to be honest to guys like hey these are some of the things that i've been thinking about i know that these things grow if i don't share about them at this level at this level of being a seed i know it'll grow into a it'll grow into a cactus that i don't want inside of me so i have to share it at a seed right i had to learn a lot of times i freaking juggled a lot of cactuses because but learning to share something at a seed level um calling it out early calling it out early yes and then just said like uh yeah like i'm so sick of myself but i feel like i'm the only person that i have and that was like and i know it's not true but to share even if it's a feeling right because once i shared this feeling i know it's not true i have a ton i have a lot of friends i have people that love me but sometimes i have to share what a feeling is right so it doesn't because that feeling sometimes can grow if i don't share it it sits in there you know anyway

does that make any sense i make you know it's so interesting as a as you're as you're sharing i'm just thinking about this concept of like, like recovery is about this journey towards healthy masculinity. And, and when you think about like, like the word masculinity often gets conflated with toxicity today, which I think is kind of unfair. Oh, it's unfair. And I think it's by design. That's right. Masculinity to me is what you just talked about. Honesty, integrity, vulnerability courage being a protector being a provider being a great friend showing up for others and living a life that's bigger than just yours yeah and so when you think about like this journey of recovery this journey to becoming a healthy man what a beautiful journey it is right you think about like you know porn abuse teaches us and trains us to objectify and disrespect women I think healthy masculinity is about humanizing women.

Women are beautiful and amazing. Yeah, and we came from a woman. Like, I wonder what the effects are. See if you can find something about this. What are the effects of pornography on young men's relationship with their mothers, of watching pornography? You know what I'm saying? Because it's like, I do notice when I'm healthy and I'm taking care of myself, I'm able to view the women in my life differently, right? And I'm able to view them how they should be viewed. hey i'm telling you this right now that shopify shopify is hands down the best place to start and grow a business these days if you're trying to start your own thing you need to know them we use them they've helped us put a store together and and have it adjust as we adjust when things are busier we can up it when things are not as busy we can down it shopify is the platform where you really own everything, your store, your community, all of it. Plus Shopify gets your products in front of shoppers wherever they are. Google, YouTube, TikTok shop, the shop app, and even chat GPT, chat GPT. We use them for our merch store. Yep. I told you that Shopify. They made me realize, look, you can't do it alone. Thought about starting a business. This is your sign. Get started today at shopify.com slash Theo. That's shopify.com slash T-H-E-O. Today's episode is brought to you by Manscaped, the men's grooming brand trusted by over 13 million men worldwide. That's a lot of men. Now, let's be real. A lot of these grooming tools, they overcomplicate stuff and they and they don't perform that well some of them you got to whistle into the back end of it to even get them started or something or they run on diesel or it's too much so if you've got a beard or you're thinking about upgrading your your setup at the house to take care of your hair the new beard hedger plus from manscaped well it's just dagged the gum worth checking out i've used a lot of tremors and this and that's and you know just butter knife. I've used it all. I've sharpened a butter knife and tried to take care. Things get clunky. This one's simple. Yep, I've been using one. I've had it for two weeks now. If you want something simple that actually works and upgrades your routine, the Beard Hedger Plus is the way to go. Head to manscaped.com and use code Theo to get 15% off and free shipping. That's 15% off your entire order plus free shipping with code theo at manscaped.com or if you need it today you can just go find manscaped at a store near you you know i think a lot of guys are in hiding i think a lot

of us are afraid to say that uh we know that we're in a war and everybody's going and fighting behind closed doors and that's kind of crazy when you think about that that's kind of scary it's scary scary right and how can is there a way to win it that way i don't know um well you know i could

tell you from the life i live today i mean i don't feel like i'm in a war you know i have a life

that's kind of rooted in love bro you've changed so much since i met you man yeah i have you give me hope yeah for the life i could live man that's right and you know you really do i'm glad you do and you were always everybody's favorite you said earlier that people cared about you or like there was something there was always somebody like yeah your family's always you were like the guy in the meetings dude it was like because we went to meetings that had like some fancy people in them real fancy some tall people too oh yeah all guys all types of one tall guy anyway yeah a couple of real grade a perverts right the creme de la creme right that's right but bro and it was but bro we got in those rooms and we here's the thing we laughed in there we were people were honest we laughed uh but yeah you were always like dude i wish i could be friends with steve that's sweet it was the truth thank you and you just made it it's so important to laugh in recovery oh dude people you got to realize this shit it is people laugh so much it's not just this dour thing no

no because this stuff is dark it's heavy and uh dude laughing at each other i think laughter is so good for the soul man you read the news right now it's so heavy you listen to the news it's so heavy finding a place to be light-hearted to have fun and to laugh is so healing oh yeah man you know me guys i struggle with that that i talk to and work with that are struggling And if I can get them on the phone, I can get them to laugh.

Amen. Oh, dude.

Oh, yeah. It just takes it from a 9 out of a 10 to a 6 out of a 10. You know? And it's just so important to let the air out of the balloon with laughter.

What are the things? How do guys not realize? Okay, here. Trevin found something right here. I'm going to interject real quick here to go back. Because I've never thought about that before. Does it affect the way I look at my sister, my mother, women in my life and world could be your teacher, anyone, if you're consuming pornography, how porn-shaped beliefs affect views of mothers. This article explains that frequent exposure to pornography reinforces rigid gender norms and the objectification of women or where women are seen primarily as sexual objects rather than full complex people. Yeah. As these attitudes become part of a teenage boy's belief system, he may begin to see women, including his mother, through a more dehumanized, stereotyped lens, weakening genuine mutual respect.

And I'll tell you, the challenge today with what you just read is so many men today started watching porn when they're 10, 11, 12 years old, right? That was like the part of a generation where the iPhone just came out. And so they had access to porn at this very early stage of their life. and so by the time you get to work with them in treatment or therapy and you hear about like their childhood they've had pretty normal childhood normal right not a lot of trauma as we would understand trauma the trauma is the porn that they started watching at 10 years old and it's just kind of intense porn you know how many guys you hear like 10 11 12 years old watching rape porn oh i mean how painful is that when you think about that well yeah you have to know oh it's unbelievable it's unbelievable and you have to know that these companies, and I'm not setting myself apart from anybody. Like I've been down these roads, you know? Um, uh, but you have to know that these companies, it is, this is strategy by them. This is a, this is, I believe, I don't think that the people that work in porn or sex work or anything like that, I don't, I don't have any ill thoughts or any, any of that towards anybody like that, that's involved in it. I just think as a man in mass that they don't have the best, these, these companies don't have the best interest for us, right? Like the, a lot of the pornography now it's like, um, mother, son, grandmother, uh, son, you know, you can't, you can't unsee that. Right. Right. And it's also makes you think it's like, well, these are the most important relationships in the world. Boss secretary, you know, or just like whatever it is sisters you know it's like they're taking the most valuable relationships that have been given to us by uh our creator and by the world and even by science and they're trying to manipulate those that they don't have any value to us other than sexual some sexual uh perversion and if you're

12 13 14 years old consuming this stuff yeah how are you supposed to process that yeah and just

even seeing the words, while you're looking at pornography, you see the word mother, son, father, dog. It's all like, it's all a strategy. The devil is at work. Um, I believe that, you know, it's the dark arts. And, um, I'm not saying that I don't wade through the waters of them and, you know, but that's one thing that you said, it's like, we continue to fight. We don't give up, you know, and you learn so much along the way. Yeah. Um, yeah, before we keep moving, I want to, I want to ask you too, Steve, what are there things that could be happening that, uh, mothers or fathers might not see that how their use of pornography or like checking out like that, sexually checking out of like their environment, you know, their use of watching pornography, um, could be affecting things with their interactions with their children or their home life. Uh, yeah, totally. You know, it's so interesting as, as a, cause sometimes you don't correlate that no you don't you know i'm saying you just think man my marriage isn't working but

separately i'm watching porn that's right and so when you think about the idea of healthy masculinity being in recovery and being a father right and so i'm a new father right now and you know my son's young he's almost about a year right now but just the the responsibility i have in modeling to him how you treat a woman. Really important, right? The kindness that I show his wife, getting to see affection, touch, all that stuff is really important. I know your story from your childhood, you know my story from my childhood, that wasn't necessarily modeled to us. And so if you're watching pornography, right? And as a result of that, it's distorting your view of women can be challenging, right? You think maybe they don't know. Trust me, they know. They may not know you're watching porn, but that energy you have that you can't hide that.

Yeah, it's a little bit of shame. It's a little bit of I'm keeping something secret. That's right. It's a little bit of something's wrong. And it's a little bit of I'm scared somebody's gonna figure this out and I don't even know what it is.

Well, you know what happens too also, guys that abuse porn, right? They're just not present for their lives. yeah they're not showing up for uh for their kids right they're they're on their phones they're consumed in fantasy they're not present they're missing life yeah you're missing life and so when you guys get into recovery dude you see this all the time they start coaching flag football teams and loving it they're able to show up in their lives and be present they're better fathers they're better husbands they're emotionally regulated yeah they're not involved it's almost

like porn is like your p it's like your wiener playing video games that's it's not real if you walked into a room every day and your wiener's playing a video game at some point you'd be like turn it off and get the fuck up and go outside you know what i'm saying like you would tell you want your mate depends on what video game that's a good point actually if it's castlevania or something yeah but i'm just saying like anyway i don't know what i'm saying um that's one thing i noticed in uh in meetings when i've been in when people share um and people start to get better they start to say man like today i had the desire to spend time with my kids to engage to go outside and do this with my daughter to like uh flirt with my wife in the kitchen like i walk in the house and there's a look on my face that i'm excited to see this person that loves me just little things like that that i've heard guys share in meetings that are like that just let me know that um that recovery is real you know and the joy of living yeah what have you seen recovery look like for people, like what are some testimonials that you've experienced?

experienced in the rooms. Yeah. Um, and even through valor. Yeah. And so, uh, lots of good

stuff. Uh, let me think of a few good ones that might be, well, I'll share a story. One, one of our first clients, um, 62 year old man, been, uh, abusing porn for about 40 years and long time, you know, and, uh, by the time he got to valor, he was six years sober in Alcoholics Anonymous. um but he was in so much pain he had not been divorced for 10 years had not had sex in 10 years and was so full of shame and when i first met with him you know i would try to like get some goals like what do you want to try to accomplish here and i said i want to stop watching porn i said awesome we're gonna help you do that what else tell me what to play and he just couldn't get there just make something up tell me a long-term goal if you had like a genie in a bottle you had a wish give me something i'll never forget what he said he said you know something steve for as long as i can remember now uh on sundays i go grocery shopping by myself for the week and i see families shopping and couples shopping and it's so lonely he goes one day hey, I'd like to go shopping with a girl I'm dating. I said, okay. You know, about eight months later, that guy sent me a shot of him and his girlfriend grocery shopping. And it broke me. And I remember telling my wife this story and just crying. And she's like, what's coming up for you? And she can't really understand because two things. I know that pain of loneliness, and I know how good it feels to be free of it.

Wow.

Great story. Love that story on what's on offer here.

That's what's on offer here, huh?

Yeah, the joys of living, finding love. Another great story. You hear this with consistency, you know? I get a phone call with a guy that's maybe sober six, nine months, this one guy in particular, and he says, Steve, you know, last night I was on the couch staring at my wife and it's like I'm seeing her for the first time and I can't believe how pretty she is. Wow. Like to me, hearing that brings me so much joy when you kind of, that fog lifts, that porn-induced shame-based fog lifts and you can actually see life in color versus black and white. What a gift, you know? Yeah, man. And then you see guys that get time. This is what drives me wild. They get time. They get six months, nine months, a year away from pornography, and wild stuff starts happening. They go back to grad school. They launch a new business. They get a big raise. Like, what the hell has I got to do with you not watching porn? Yeah. The answer's everything. Because what's happening now is you're transcending the shame that's keeping your life small. You always hear like a guy all of a sudden, guy lacks confidence in himself. He's so full of shame, lives a double life. He walks into a restaurant, can never actually make eye contact with that woman at the bar. He maybe looks over, puts his head down and walks to his table. He's now nine months sober, right? He makes eye contact, walks over and introduces himself. Yeah. And they're now engaged. Let's go. These are the stories of recovery. didn't mention anything about not watching porn not watching porn is just the point of entry learning how to live a life that you don't need to escape from is what recovery is all about recovery is about learning how to experience the joys of love and connection so one simple question i tell guys all the time it's real simple it's real simple is your porn use bringing you closer to or further away from the man you want to be. And if you don't like the answer to that question, what do you want to do about it?

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, uh, I've been in a lot of the meetings where I've seen guys share about stuff and you've seen a guy have a new experience, you know, it's the best. When does a lot of this, is there a time that you notice how and when a lot of this starts for a lot of guys steve have you been able to put together any theories about that younger and younger you know because you've

talked a lot about valor on your podcast we we have seen a lot of younger men in their 20s when i first started valor i thought i would work with guys like me older professional men that are dealing with a porn addiction, sexual compulsivity, and need to get help. And we've worked with a fair amount of that. But because of your fan base, there are a lot of single men in their 20s. And challenging dynamic because they're not married. They're not in a relationship. There's no external consequences. And they've been doing this for like 10, 15 years. right and so it's like you know they've been in full-blown addiction for over a decade and

they're 22 years old i don't even realize it i don't realize it that's the craziest part wild wild it's just like a regular habit it's like taking a melatonin 100 it's just part of their

life yeah it has rewired and conditioned their brain and they're full of so much shame and they lack such confidence in themselves. So breaking them free of porn, it's interesting. How do you motivate and inspire a guy like that to stay on this journey? How do you create motivation in their life to continue on this path, even though their path can be choppy at times? How do you get that guy to continue to show up and not be in shame if he watches a little bit of porn, right? That guy can be getting better watching 80 to 90% less porn over any given month. Great job. Keep coming back. If you return to the behavior and you relapse or return to use, own it quickly, talk about it, learn from it and keep growing. And so motivating younger men is been a little different and to create inspiration because here's the truth. They're so isolated and so disconnected. They have significantly less friends than decades before. Everything is kind of online. Everything is virtual. And so the loneliness is profound. Well, as part of existence, it's not

like, I think some people, you don't even notice that you're lonely anymore. That's one of the wildest things. You'll spend all day by yourself, but you won't really notice that you're lonely Cause you have some interactions, you see people, you see them. So there's all this hijacking of things that are real that would normally make you feel like you are not alone. You see people, you hear voices, you know, I mean, you're, you know, you can even engage. I don't know if hearing voices is perhaps the best. It's like, you can see people on your phone or on your computer. You can, you can do FaceTime. Like you can, so there's all these like, like these secondary little pieces, but the connection, the true, the reality.

And remote work certainly doesn't help. I mean, there are guys that just don't leave their home.

Well, yeah, it's like you could basically go to work online. You could get off work, get some, order some food online. Then you could look at pornography or something, go to bed and that's your day and that's your existence. and you're just sort of this thing, but there's so much, we're supposed to be so much more than that. I think some of it has become almost this, this habit that we don't even know that we're in. Yeah. I could see that. And I mean, I've, yeah. And I'm not preaching at anybody. I think it's just like, I don't know, just the, like the awareness that you could be in something and

not realize it is something kind of wild, you know? Yeah. I think that's, that's, that's absolutely

true. And, um, what are some, what are, I want to ask you outside of valor because you run valor recovery. That's your program. And, um, and thank you so much. I know there was a lot of guys like who kind of came in through, through the podcast who you were like, we're trying to help and offer, um, uh, recovery too. So thank you so much for having conversations with those guys over the

years. Um, and by the way, so many of those guys are killing it right now. Are they? Yes, they are. And I'm going to say this to you because it needs to be heard. There are so many men that because of your vulnerability on this podcast, talking about your challenges around that, gave them the courage to reach out and ask for help. So your vulnerability is a gift to this world.

Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, sometimes it's scary to be vulnerable. I don't know. It's not scary. It's like, I don't know. I don't know any other way to live, really. You know? I don't think I know any other way to live. I don't know. I don't know. Sometimes I think I share too much probably, but.

Well, I can tell you as it relates to this topic, I can't tell you how many conversations we've had in the thousands now where the conversation starts. Theo said it was okay to talk about this. I've shared those stories with you over the years. Yeah, I know you have. I appreciate it. That's important, man.

yeah it's important stuff what a gift

yeah it's i uh yeah i mean it makes it it's it's tough to know that a lot of people are hurting you know it's tough to know that i that we've all hurt you know it's tough to know most of the people that i love the most have have have hurt a lot of us you know me included um and we didn't And just end up, you know, yeah, I'm just glad. I've met a lot of good guys through recovery, you know. There wouldn't be a program, you know, if you didn't do it. That's right.

And the great thing about recovery is you can live a life that's superior to the life you were living. Yeah, that's the truth. That's the beauty of it. And so not easy sometimes to get there, but if you stay the course, you don't give up, you keep leaning into this, you're going to build a life that brings you joy where you don't need to engage in behaviors to numb the pain that you're in. That's a process.

Yeah. What are some of the triggers that you see, that you notice? Is that okay to ask you?

Yeah. You know, there's just patterns, right? So many men struggle with profound loneliness and boredom. They're disconnected. They're alone. And so when you look at these urges, right? There's tends to be a predictability to when you're vulnerable to them, right? So late at night, scrolling on your phone, dude, leave the phone. Don't bring the phone to the bedroom. Yeah. Shut it down. Simple fix. Well, Steve, I work all week long Friday nights. I'm by myself. And there's just this period of time right now of unstructured time where I'm really vulnerable. Okay. Let's make a plan around that. Why don't you, why don't you book dinner? Why don't you bookend the evening with a friend of yours? So you're not alone right now. Make some, a dinner date with a friend right now, get out of the house. Right. And so there's just these patterns that men experience as it relates to stress, boredom and loneliness. And so when you pull up and kind of look at this stuff, right. And learn from this stuff, you can, men don't plan to fail. They fail to plan. And so working with people that understand this can go a long way to putting you on the path to being successful amen man yeah the other thing that's really tricky

today is so going for a walk with a friend just go for a walk dude my best time maybe we'll go for a walk after this me and yeah i'll go for a walk with you yeah you got a little time no i'll make time i'd love it dude yeah bro thank you bro dude there's nothing better than going for a walk with one of your friends it might seem like and even if y'all are straight y'all can do it if you're not straight you could do it but some of that stuff got hijacked by the gay community i think like just going for a walk with you, buddy. I'm not saying it did, but it got slightly hijacked.

Just a hint.

Hey, we got to take our pedestrian rights back. But anyway, what were we saying? We were talking about triggers. Oh, yeah. So that's one for me. I noticed things that would lead me to do masturbation or be touching my body sometimes like that, looking at pornography. Stress, right? I'm up later than I need to be. A lot of times I'll have a deal with myself. I'll have a plan to go to bed. Shit will happen. Shit will happen with work. Next thing I'm up 45 minutes later, i can't handle it right so now it's like i gotta go to sleep i'll think that masturbation will help me go to sleep right um what else uh social media yeah social media just i know i know that that keeps me up late so i don't i do a pretty good job of that of stuff like i know now when i when i open up there's not even super good in there you know i'll maybe say all right i'm gonna go for 30 seconds you find one thing that's kind of engaging and i'm shutting it down i'm starting

to realize that what a pandora's box it is it really is and you know the science will support that like these dopamine spikes from this endless scrolling on social media yeah and you you look at the sexual content on social media it may not be full porn but it can be pretty explicit yeah and and so it's a real problem because it's this funnel and oftentimes guys in early recovery get tripped up because they're on instagram right now there's this kind of image which is a link to an only fans account and all of a sudden they're back in the dance. And so that's really important. That's kind of, you know, endless scrolling, endless seeking novelty can be really challenging

because in the alternative, the alternative is though, you have to think about what that is and you have to plan for that in your head. I noticed for myself, right? So if I'm not going to be scrolling, I might just be laying there in my bed. Right. And what's wrong with that? There's nothing wrong with it, but at first it can feel a bit uncomfortable. Oh, I should be doing something those are the feelings i go through i should be doing something right and you know you're like what would that be so at first it's a little tough now sometimes my mind will start to just imagine or think of things which is kind of nice right like if it's not negative stuff it's like my mind It's like daydreaming or something. It used to be something people did a lot, daydreaming. But so that can happen or I can read or I can just go to sleep. But there is a little bit of like an uncomfortable moment sometimes where it's like, ah, I should be doing something. But I'm not really playing. I don't really mean I should be doing something. I usually mean I should just be looking at something on my phone.

Can you tolerate the boredom in that moment or do you need to go get a quick fix?

I'm doing meditation pretty regularly now. Good. So I'm having a little bit more toleration with it.

It's important. Yeah, a little more toleration with it. I think like the short-form videos, these kind of quick fixes on all these social media is such a distraction. Yeah. Right? And so getting time away from your phone. Oh, yeah. That's key. Long-form reading, hobbies, creativity, working on projects, I think are so healthy for you.

Yeah, I think, yeah, doing things, building a little birdhouse, doing something like that. getting excited about leap year just doing regular shit when is you know huh when is next leap year we'll never know bro because before you know it is gone that's right that's how it is i missed a lot of leap years over the years who hasn't twin um let's look at some of those stats what did you have trevin i want to get a little bit of information here um i want to say this just so people to give a little bit more context to pornography overall uh porn hub was the fifth most visited website in the world by December, 2020. Just if people don't think that we are at war, right? Some people think like, oh, America, we're safe. We're not, we're, we're at war. Pornhub had about 170 million visits per day and 62 billion visits per year. And that was 2020. The amount of content uploaded to Pornhub in a single year would take about 169 years to watch if you played the videos back to back. Um, and, and this was, this was some information because there's sometimes you're watching stuff on there where the people in it have not consented to it being put online. Uh, some are, or that it was even recorded. And sometimes that it's not, um, that they haven't consented even, uh, to the sex in the video, right? The Broward County, Florida case, this was a case, a 15-year-old girl missing for a year was found only after a Pornhub user recognized her and tipped off her mother. Police eventually found her in 58 monetized videos on the site. So just to know how Pornhub is okay with operating. Lila Micklewaite, who came on here, and she has done a great job with exposing in the porn industry, um, for the negative aspects of it. Uh, the London Sunday Times investigation, uh, reporters were able to find dozens of illegal videos on the site within minutes, including videos of children as young as three that were on, uh, on Pornhub. Um, so just to let you know, like the kind of stuff that can be happening on there. Uh, oh, nice. So Lila tested that. Uh, oh, at the time Lila tested the upload flow to just see how easy it was to just put something up. All it took to upload a video was an email address. There was no ID or age verification, no consent verification required for people in the videos. Huh? Anyone with a smartphone could upload a video in under 10 minutes from anywhere in the world. So anyway, it just gives a little more context to what we're even watching. Cause sometimes you're looking at something and you don't even really know what it is or where it came from or where it came from. Right. And if you can add some context to it, it makes it a little bit

different. You know, so many of those people are been either physically or sexually abused in their childhood, right. Have been trafficked. This is not, sometimes this is non-consent

and, uh, there's just a gross element to a lot of it. There is. And you get, you kind of get tricked in a little, I think in a way you don't maybe realize it. I don't know, especially if you're, if you're kind of susceptible. Um, oh yeah, this right here. I remember this Visa and MasterCard suspend payments for ad purchases on Pornhub and MindGeek amid controversy. Visa and MasterCard said Thursday card payments for advertising on Pornhub and its parent company MindGeek would be suspended after a lawsuit stoke controversy or whether the payment giants could be facilitating child pornography. Visa condemns sex trafficking, sexual exploitation, and child sexual abuse. It is illegal and Visa does not permit the use of our network for illegal activity because visa was, was being accepted on these websites. So it's kind of crazy. It's like, okay, so you're saying that if this is happening on these websites, then you're okay with your kind of complicit, right? You're kind of complicit. Give me an update on that if you can. And who owns mind geek changed to a low. I remember that a Y L O who owns that company ethical capital.

partners. Of course they do. Of course they do. Unbelievable. Parent organization is ethical capital partners. Key ECP leadership is Fadi Mansoor, a managing partner, Rocco Miliambro, and Solomon Friedman. Through its parent company, ECP owns some of those highly trafficked digital networks in the adult entertainment industry, including Pornhub, RedTube, YouPorn, Brazzers, and men.com find photos of those guys if you can just so we can put the faces with uh just who they are and that's all according to what site wikipedia okay that's all google and wikipedia so um yeah give me pictures of those three guys let's put them up just so people know who is who feels like it's okay you know and i do want to say most recently i saw there was a there was an article, there was a story I saw where one of the financial companies failed to stop a payment for, was it OnlyFans? It was something that was, MasterCard Visa failed to stop payments on OnlyFans for child sex abuse content, says a whistleblower. Let me see. MasterCard and Visa failed to stop their payment networks from laundering proceeds from child sex abuse material and sex trafficking on the popular website. OnlyFans, according to allegations in a previously undisclosed whistleblower complaint filled with the U.S. Treasury's Financial Crimes Unit. The complaint was filed in January 2023. The complaint said the whistleblower and other anti-trafficking experts, including U.S. federal agents, alerted Visa and MasterCard to unlawful content on OnlyFans in a series of calls in 2021 and 2022. The federal agents corroborated the presence of child sexual abuse material on OnlyFans. The complaint said it also drew heavily on a 2022 study by an anti-trafficking group that said it had found a high volume of OnlyFans accounts with common indicators of child sexual abuse material or sex trafficking. The whistleblower said he helped with the study, which was shared with the card companies. In the interview, the whistleblower said the agencies never contacted him to discuss his complaint. The card companies had the power to turn off the switch to stop illicit material from being monetized. so there's just you know it goes to the place i guess there's like a there's a business element to it a visa spokesperson said financial institutions and merchants that don't comply with visa's robust compliance requirements will be terminated from its network the company uses best-in-class controls to deter detect and remediate illegal activity if there's anything else i should in there let me know um since the whistleblower complaint was filed rooters uncovered more allegations of child sexual abuse and sex trafficking on only fans a porn driven site that generates money through subscriptions and pay-per-view content huh i mean those companies are also so big i bet it's so hard to police everything sure and that was just a complaint

trevin that's right not a ruling um but it was officially filed it's on the record okay got it

Okay. Thank you so much. Tell me a little bit about Valor Recovery. And this episode was not intended at all to be an ad for your company or anything like that. But this is just such a thing and you're the guy that I know and we've been friends for so long. But tell me about Valor

and thank you for starting it. Yeah. Thank you. Valor Recovery is a company I founded many years ago now that helps men that are struggling with pornography abuse and sexual compulsivity. It's a virtual program. You know, what we have found over the years is so many men struggle getting help for this, finding the right type of help. Using community-based resources are challenging because of shame and stigma. Like, what do you mean by that? Like, going to a meeting locally? Going to a meeting locally, going to a program locally. People are just, they're so concerned given the nature of this. and they don't take advantage of those resources. So creating a virtual program that can be accessible with a click of a button, right, is amazing, right? And offering something that's more discreet just helps guys feel more comfortable getting help. And so virtual program, it's a coaching program. And the thing that's really unique about that, what we have found is so many men benefit from coaching on this topic, different than therapy. therapy is very valuable as well but coaching is around accountability setting goals learning new skills and practicing those skills so you think and feel differently about yourself over time got

it yeah you have to put something on the other side of the scale that's one thing i've learned in recovery i'm not saying i do it all the time but you you can't just you have you have to put something on the other side of the scale that has valuable weight to it i think that's right and so you know the program is you

One of the unique aspects around it, everyone that works at Valor Recovery is in long-term sexual recovery. So these are men that have 10 years, 20 years, in several cases, 30 years of sexual sobriety. Why is that important? It's just the shared life experience puts us in a very unique position to help people, to understand people, because we've been there. We are you. So collectively, this team has helped thousands of people over their lifetimes deal with these challenges. So that's really important. It's a program that really is set up with small, intimate groups so that men learn to be part of a community. Men learn how to connect with each other. The opposite of addiction is often not recovery. It's often said to be connection. And so we're a program that offers small group settings, process groups. There's curriculum around how to deal with urges and triggers, identify root causes that are driving compulsions, curriculum around healthy intimacy, healthy sexuality, and healthy masculinity. Amen. And so we've had a lot of men come to this program and get better. It's something we take a lot of pride in. Now, it's not easy work. I can promise you that. It's not easy work. But we take a lot of pride in helping men become the men God intended them to be. And whatever that word God means to higher self, whatever that is, we help men put them in alignment with their higher self so they can go on and do good things in their lives.

Are there guys or women out there who may not have a problem specifically with porn, but is there other things they could be having a problem with?

Yeah. I think what you're asking me is if the, can people be suffering from other behaviors other than pornography? That could be having the same outcome for them. That's correct. Yeah. That's what I'm asking you. Is it relationship compulsivity, infidelity in relationships, prostitution? I mean, there's just a host of behaviors that can manifest itself that are just really unhealthy for people. And so men or women, doesn't necessarily have to be pornography. And so the answer is yes. And there are just a lot of great resources out there for both men and women to deal with these issues, whether it's working with a therapist that may be trained in sexual compulsivity or sex addiction. There are great 12-step programs out there, different fellowships for men and women, Sex Addicts Anonymous, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, Sexaholics Anonymous, that men and women that are community-based, 12-step-based programs that could be really valuable.

Adult children of alcoholics. Sorry to interrupt you. I just want to forget. There's a lot of important—yeah, people don't realize that there's things out there that it's like you might be like well i'm not this i don't have this but maybe my parent did and you lived in the shadows of it or you lived as a recipient of the byproducts of it um there's recovery stuff for that and we're not saying everybody needs recovery but we're saying that this some of this stuff is a big issue that's facing people and we both struggle with it so

shit other people might and that's right and i think the one thing you can listen to this is not a life sentence not death sentence man you can get better for sure you can absolutely get better and you can live that life that you've dreamed of. It's going to take work, but there are great people out there to help you. Yes. And so if you're struggling, I mean, have the courage to reach out and get some help.

Yeah. And we'll put links to like Valor. We'll put links to Sex and Love Addiction, Intimacy Disorder, Anonymous. We'll put a link to some of those things in this so people can check it out. There's like some online like Zoom sex addiction meetings that you can go to. Can I share that? Sure. yeah there's those meetings you can go to you can just sit with your camera off and just listen and and see what it's like see how people are sharing and see what's going on um yeah i just want to know that that stuff's out there i think sometimes people don't even know that it's out there i didn't know it existed you know until you get into certain places and you're like you know i was realizing i was just having such a tough time in relationships and a relationship with myself. It was like, uh, it was so hard for me to get to know myself without like, um, I always felt like I had to just prove who I was even to me. Like almost every day it was like, yeah, it was like, if I didn't, I had to do something to show you who I was, I couldn't just be right. Um, I've had like that love, what's it called? Love attraction, love avoidance what is love avoiding but what is it when you it's like come here go away or whatever that thing not sure it's like come here go away i would have whatever that shit was bro sounds awful yeah oh but it was it was a lot of my relationships yeah it was like hey i need you over here i want to be with you but then the second somebody got close i could i was right that's right and if a lot of guys there's sexual anorexia what is that i mean just a

complete avoidance of all sex oh i thought you're starving so you have sex or whatever a good hamburger you know no that's how that american pie scene came to be sexual anorexia is a term coined in 1975 by psychologist nathan hare to describe a fear or deep aversion to sexual activity it is considered a loss of appetite for sexual conduct and may result in a fear of intimacy. May result in a fear of intimacy or an aversion to

any type of sexual interaction. And the compulsive non-sex is an addiction of it itself, right? And so you just think about like, you know, what we are striving for, right? Is a version of healthy sexuality that works for you. Yeah. You know, so many guys get into recovery and then that's it. I've stopped these behaviors. And they can go for a while, but they're kind of unhappy and miserable. So unless you kind of lean in and challenge yourself to date, companionship, connection, healthy sex, that's what recovery is about. That's how you put these behaviors in the rearview mirror and never look back. You have to replace it with something that brings you more joy and purpose. Amen.

Yeah. And a lot of times that will happen And because you're, the way the program's set up, it's like you interact with more people, you say yes to more things. It's like, you know, so it's like-

And it's easier to say yes when you're not full of shame. Oh, for sure. When you're feeling better about yourself because you're not putting that junk in your system with consistency, you know, it just gives you your ability to show up as the best version of yourself kind of happens over time.

Yeah. Yeah, it's a learning process, man. Yeah. And the thing is, the program's always there. So if something happens or something, you know what I'm saying? If you have a setback or whatever's going on, it's always there. It's there. It's like unconditional. That's pretty cool. It is great. That's like that. Oh, here's a summary of Hal Shorrie's, come here, go away, the dynamics of fearful attachment. Wow. I think this is what I had. Past tense? Fearful attachment. Yeah, I don't think I have this anymore. Nice. Which is, it's kind of crazy. It's like now I feel like I used to never think I would do that. It's so funny. When I was a kid, this is true. And when I was even a teen and young adult, I didn't understand how people could be married. It didn't even make sense to me at a level of like human affection. Like I don't even understand. I remember I'd go watch people's families eat dinner and shit. I'd go sit and like watch Peep and Tom and or whatever, right? Because it was, it was like a full, I didn't even understand it. well what was modeled to you in your child at home now you understand it nothing there it is i mean nothing in fact the opposite so like opposite nothing yes less than nothing less than nothing dude some weird integer but dudes i can't but and at the time i didn't even know what i was i didn't even know what i was doing but i was just so like it was like it was like watching somebody find something i don't know see something foreign and then uh and then slowly over time it made sense to me and then there was like times where i was like i remember the first time that i thought i wanted to have a family bro it blew my mind i'd never felt that in my life you know i cannot wait till you get married

didn't have a kid yeah we got to get it out there boy i cannot wait you're gonna just hey you're gonna be you have a heart as big as any person i know thanks bro and the more that you get comfortable showing that side of you to a woman and build a life right now with that person my

goodness gonna be incredible to be part of yeah we have to get a camper dude we have to hit the road that's it yeah take that love on the road brother but no i feel you man thank you bro yeah like yeah my first instinct is kind of joke sometimes when things get serious or something and i used to be that way all the time now i'm not that way you know there's times where i can be in some of those spaces but dude i remember the first time i thought man i would like that yeah it blew my mind but it's all because of just things i've learned in meetings over time you know things that there's oh that there's a different way right um yeah what would you say somebody out there who's thinking i think this is me right we're talking about porn addiction or some of this intimacy stuff yeah what what can they do to start getting some help yeah there

are lots of great resources out there and we'll put valor too valor recovery is a great resource out there uh happy to talk to anybody listening here to see if there's a way we can help you uh happy to refer you to other programs as well

if you need a higher level of care, right? There are great therapists out there. There's great 12-step communities out there. I think anybody that's listening to this, the one thing I hope is that you have the courage to reach out and ask for help.

Amen, bro. That's it. Dude, and I want to say this. I want to say thank you. There was like, I have received messages from so many guys that said, I called and I talked to Steve. I, like, he, like, you know, a lot of places, that's not the thing.

No, I promise you early on, I promise you, I made a promise to you that I was going to handle your people that call me a podcast myself personally.

Yeah.

And I did.

I appreciate that. I did.

It was important. And I, you know, it was, it was rewarding. I learned so much about how these men are hurting and struggling. And I also learned so much on how important your voice is in these men's lives. And so keep doing what you're doing, brother.

well thanks man yeah yeah we're just learning as we go you know and we don't have to do it alone so i haven't had to do it alone with this show this show helped me not be alone this show gave me something to do like you know there were times i probably would have been using or doing things that i you know like there's times it hasn't saved me from that but there's been so many times where has you know where it gave me like some sense of like value or uh purpose yeah even your voice matters man and sometimes not even my voice just listening just being somebody like i learn that sometimes sometimes i still make mistakes on it but let me just listen so other people can listen yeah beautiful you know and i don't mean that in any egotistical i just feel like it's just been And like, yeah, I think when I was little, I just wanted to have a voice. Like I just, like I wanted, like, yeah, I was just, I think when I was really young, I was in so much pain and just nobody could hear me, you know? And I didn't even know what was wrong. I just knew that it hurt. And then, yeah, you get to like, and that's all I wanted. And God helped me have that, you know?

and so it's been like it's not by accident you're here yeah we all have this belief like some reason like going it should have looked differently it should be different than it than it was and the truth is it all happened exactly the way it had to happen to be here right now right i look back at my history and be like oh my god like that should have looked all the money that i wasted on drugs or crazy behaviors well if i had one dollar more maybe i would have bought that line of coke that had fentanyl if i had one dollar more perhaps i don't meet my wife have my son or start valor recovery so who am i to go back and say that should have looked differently everything i went through i had to go through to be here right now the only way to put purpose to your pain is to have lived through that pain i think that's what you just shared thanks man yeah

amen i'm glad you did bro i'm glad you stayed the course yeah me too yeah i really am man i super am mike tyson said that same thing man when i talked to him he just said man i wouldn't trade

any of it as painful as parts of it were as disgraceful as parts of it were you know i had

to go through all of it to be the man i am today yeah it's kind of crazy i mean it's yeah i mean it's unbelievable, really. It's kind of crazy. Yes. It's kind of crazy. You had to go through

everything you, I know a lot about your child. I know a lot about your life, right? It, it prepared you for this moment. So it's crazy to go back and think, oh, it should have looked

differently. That's a good point, huh? Wow. I think sometimes it's tough to, yeah, you're so right. And sometimes I still will think that. I don't know if I still will think that, but I still will suffer some of like there's still like some old pain that flares up me too me too and people sometimes will be like you have to get over you have to get rid of that and it's like you can but sometimes it's it's still a real thing it's like just because you forgive and you move on doesn't mean that there's sometimes still not some shit that hurts that's right and both things can be

true you could be living a good life and still be hurting at times from your past yeah it's not either or it's yes and yeah i agree with you there's this idea in recovery that you know everything is rainbows and unicorns. That's not life. That's not life. Yeah. Right? Part of life is discomfort. Part of life is being uncomfortable. Yeah, and I wish they kind of would have told us that.

Would you have joined if that was the Celtic? That's a good point, though. If they would have told us, it's such a... Here's the dude, you're not really going to feel that much better about yourself,

but come on in, try this. I'm not sure that's a... good selling point yeah dude they just show you your future and it's just you like you're just crying behind a Winn-Dixie in your truck gee you gotta do a better way of selling me on this recovery thing than that dude it's so true bro um we had some calls man these are calls we have a hotline here on 985-664-9503 that's a hotline we're coming up on 10 years I think we've had this podcast when did this podcast start december of 2016 wow incredible that's crazy incredible in your place in la yeah incredible in my kitchen over there in westwood we put those curtains up shout out to my ex-girlfriend megan who would put up with me and when i would you know it'd be like our one night of the week to spend together and i would you know i would spend it doing this yeah and then like get in a bed let you know just you know she was such a nice person i know she's the best yeah she's the best um let's play a couple calls that have come in on the hotline and uh this this may sound weird because it's like we're like one of those call-in shows where we're like experts we're not experts we don't know anything we're just two guys who are surviving and doing our best steve's doing better than me um but let's play some of those calls if we can please steve if you'll sit here Sure. Thanks, man.

Hey, Theo, this is Siege from New Mexico. And I just want to tell you, man, you've been a great help. And I'm not going to lie, I'm kind of drunk right now. It's like 12, you know, it's afternoon, about 1.10 or whatever. But I just want to seek your advice on some shit. uh you know i've been uh addicted to porn and masturbation my entire life and that led me to being addicted to alcohol and a way to cope maybe i don't know but uh you know i was texting these filipino ladies on some bullshit app and uh it turned into me sending them money and they sent me nudes and then it turns out it was all scam obviously i should have known that and i did know it before i even went into it but uh i don't even know if i'm addicted i've been on a seven month seven month bender i think i've only missed four days of uh drinking alcohol within the last seven

months hey siege thanks for the call man um yeah i just appreciate you sharing so honestly um steve what do you think is like can addictions jump from one to the next what have you noticed about that that's kind of the thing that i'm taking away from just listening to this and thank you siege bro and just thanks for being honest and um i think i'm gonna let steve kind of share some of

his insights here i i you see that with frequency just the relationship between alcohol and drugs and compulsive porn use and so making recovery difficult you know that was the case for me but i had history of porn abuse but also challenges with cocaine and alcohol and um hard really hard yeah because it'll be one you one can cause the other chicken or the egg yeah chicken or the egg How many guys kind of, because they're hungover, turn to porn to try to feel better? How many guys kind of make a bad decision like he did, reaching out, giving money to this scam because he's under the influence of alcohol or drugs? It's just really hard. And one of the things he highlighted, these scams, how often we hear guys kind of being blackmailed because they got caught up reaching out to people. There's photos. There's information. It's dark stuff. It's really dark stuff. So it sounds like this person can really benefit from getting help. And here's the truth, you know, sometimes it's hard to address all this at once, right? And so maybe you pick one and maybe you start with alcohol and say, okay, I'm having some issues with alcohol. What can I do to get help? I mean, I'm a huge fan, as are you, Alcoholics Anonymous. Great resource right there. Oftentimes you see guys kind of pouring you spike in early recovery coming off alcohol because it's just a way to numb?

Oh, yeah, I've had issues where it's like I don't want to engage in certain behaviors so I'll even masturbate to keep myself away from those behaviors. It's like sometimes you're cutting off a chicken to save the horse or whatever it's called.

I like to think of it as harm reduction. Yeah, harm reduction, that's what I'm saying. Nothing wrong with that. Yeah. Nothing wrong with that, especially, oftentimes, even with sexual recovery, sometimes you get sober off more detrimental behaviors first. You know, if a guy has issues with a married guy and you're dealing with things that might end the marriage, infidelity, strip clubs, or a host of those behaviors, you know, getting sober off those first can be critically important. And then over time, exploring your relationship with porn and masturbation. Oftentimes, porn and masturbation can be a harm reduction tool not to engage in more harmful behaviors. Yeah. Yeah.

and it's all a process and the good thing is even if you just go to aa bro you go to a 12 step you start learning about this you start getting into the world of it you know or if you go to like a sla zoom or if you call and talk to someone that works over at valor it's like you know you just start to get into the world of realizing that there's some hope for whatever's going on well there's you're not alone yeah that's you're not alone man you're not alone I mean, looking at two guys right here, you're not alone. You're not. I know, man. You're not alone. And anything is possible. That's right. You know, anything is still possible.

But I'm going to quote one line that I hear you say all the time, nothing changes. If nothing changes. Nothing changes. Yeah.

And guess what? I learned that in the rooms.

That's right. So whatever, do something. Don't do nothing. Yeah. I can guarantee the one way nothing will improve is doing nothing. Yeah, that's for sure. I mean, this ain't rocket science.

Oh, dude. I've walked into some meeting rooms and then 10 years later, walked in again. That's right. Walked in and said, man, I think I need this, but I'm not sure. 10 years later, I'm back. Five years later, I'm back. You hear that all the time of guys like, I knew 15 years ago there was something wrong, but I didn't step all the way in. That's okay. Yeah, it's okay. Here now. It takes what it takes. That's what they say too. That's right. It takes what it takes. um let's take another call thank you siege bro hey theo this is ashley um

i just wanted to call again and get some advice about my relationship my boyfriend of almost two years now um struggles a lot with lust and not lost being able to control himself when it comes to looking at porn or only fans and things like that and i love him so much and i just wanted to get your advice on if you think men can change that's a nice that's

thoughtful of her to call what came up for you when you heard that uh just i thought it was nice how much she cares that she chose to call up first of all i believe her sometimes you get a lot of calls you say you know i don't know this person's realistic or not but i just for for to me i felt like she was genuine about it um and it was kind of and can people change she didn't really make it about her you know and she said about lust like she understands the bigger picture of it so it's obvious that she's put some attention towards it to maybe even look go search and look online see see some ideas or read up on it or something because it's not just like hey this guy's watching porn it's like he has a problem with lust and it's fascinating to think about lust what do you think like when she says that like what do you kind of think steve

like what is that about like well first thing i felt was she was sharing i felt the first thing

i felt was a little sadness oh yeah i did feel some sadness for her i know she's going through a tough time tough and thank you ashley for calling sorry i should i should have said that

thinking about her boyfriend uh the behaviors that she actually knows that he's engaging in um are leading him down just a a dark path and and so first thing i was thinking about is wow i hope she has the ability to take care of herself you know oftentimes uh you know we we focus so much on trying to get the significant other some help which is important directing him to really good resources out there. If he wants to get better, does he recognize this as a problem? And if he does, you know, get him some help there because guys can get better and your relationship can thrive at some point in time in the future as he does the work. And hopefully you guys get to do the work together and grow closer together. It doesn't always work that way, but there are some countless amazing stories where couples kind of do the work and their relationship gets better than it ever was before. That's the truth. That's the truth. That's the truth. Sometimes it doesn't work out that way, but as she was sharing, I just hope she's got a place to go, a person to talk to, perhaps a therapist that she can just share, find ways to take care of herself in the process right now.

Yeah.

And she stays on this journey.

Yeah, and you know what? Sometimes it's like the first time you have a real intimate conversation with somebody. You know, I was at a meeting the other day and my friends and I were talking and... they were saying after, like, dude, we never even really talk like this, you know? And I was like, fuck, hey, hey, hey, like, recovery gave me the, I've been waiting my whole life to talk about something that meant something.

And it gave me, like, the language, too. Like, think about growing up where, like, the kind of man rules. right men don't cry men are tough right if you're sensitive you are a fill in the blank

yeah and and so all of a sudden you see a ford festiva you got to yell down the street like that

yeah and so not a mustang and so it's not a mustang and so you know so there's so many men right you know where do we learn how to be vulnerable where is it a safe place to be vulnerable, to be sensitive. The truth of the matter is I'm a very sensitive guy. A lot of men in recovery or dealing with addiction are very sensitive men. And for so much of my life, I tried to hide that part of me, thinking it was a weakness. And I used drugs. I acted out in certain ways to numb the pain of that sensitivity. I can tell you right now, my sensitivity today is a superpower amen because that allows me to have empathy and to feel your experiences and pain given where i've been with this facts dude yeah man facts bro and you have the best stories too

dude we didn't really tell any of them today thank god because you'd probably have to filter them out yeah the best stories dude yeah yeah and we can even we can take this out but you have one story i remember about partying so hard in miami that you and a friend went instead of like you guys bought more drugs and more diapers out on the dance floor so you didn't have to yeah well we

bought dope it was obviously laced with a laxative and we had a choice we had a choice to either throw the drugs out or make these kind of makeshift diapers and keep the party going needless to say you know how that the rest of the story goes

yeah brother just so you gotta know steve is a real one the steve is and that's just that is the tip of the iwo jima dude that's the tip of the iceberg steve's a real one um oh and what else she was she was asking about something else though she was asking oh do you does she think it's possible for him to get better right did you did we answer all that i i am such a believer and the power of recovery yeah for sure yeah no doubt this this whole episode i think could help maybe be beneficial to him if you want to share with him you can tell him like it's a just say hey man theo i want you to listen to this um if you want i don't know if i know him or not or if i've ever met him you know you meet a lot of people but um uh so yeah just say hey man hey this is something your girlfriend wanted you to listen to i've had issues with it so if you feel okay listening to it then check it out so you can send him that little clip right there and that can go along with this episode if you want um and then oh lust she talked about lust lust kind of gets hijacked or something doesn't it we don't talk about lust too much do we yeah you know does it

matter is it a word it's just a word but i'll tell you what's what it's interesting how many guys come to me like, Steve, you don't understand. I think I'm just so horny. Maybe, but what's probably closer to the truth is you're actually just really uncomfortable and you've sexualized

that discomfort. Oh yeah. If every time you get uncomfortable, you end up jerking off looking at pornography. Then when you get uncomfortable, you're like, oh, I'm horny.

It's like, no, you're not. You connect the two in your brain. And so, you know, and what happens when guys get into recovery and get some time you know they stabilize and they realize they're not as horny as they think yeah because you're no longer using as a tool to deal with

your emotions right dude they hijacked us bro the devil hijacked a lot of us bro you got to give props to the devil in a weird way because check on this one they you know yeah they win this round

They won this round. They won this round. They won this round.

Hey, what's going on, Theo? My name is Donald. So I have a situation. I have a girlfriend. She's a long-distance type shit.

We've been together for three years. But for the first year and a half, I would just, you know, lay that semen around type shit. Yeah, I wasn't a big infidel. Just cheat on her. I told her a couple times you know that made me feel a bit proud of myself but but yeah lately you know it's been a while and I've just been jerking off to be honest just been jerking off a couple times a day honestly so not really sure what your thoughts are on that I mean it's better than cheating but you know I'm struggling out here.

yeah I've been watching mom porn

that thing yeah

okay yeah dude I think we've kind of we've talked about some of this thanks for calling bro Donovan or Jonathan Donald okay thanks for calling Donald I didn't know people saw the name Donald but I'm glad they do I'm glad they do bro and bring it back BYOD bro what I'm saying is this dude is yeah sorry this whole this this whole segment to me just it feels like it's very foreign And it feels like here's the energy I don't like, and this isn't the real energy of it, that we know something you don't, right? Like, we're just two guys who are fucking trying our best here. But we have shown up a lot to places to try our best. So I'll give us a lot of credit with that. And Steve has done a great job of, like, transforming his whole life. Yeah, dude, I just know if you do that, it just weakens the spirit. So something's uncomfortable in you. Something's uncomfortable in your spirit. right and you're only going to get clues from it probably if you stop masturbating and stuff you'll start to get some clues but the tough part is and this has been tough for me the clues get scary and sometimes it's it's hard to handle you don't know something's ah you know sometimes you just want to scream and sometimes it's like primal stuff you don't know what's going on and so you just you sedate yourself with like pornography or masturbations to keep yourself at bay

but um but it can be different right steve yeah what i took from the call was uh this kind of idea like you can't really do this alone uh yeah because this dude sounds like he's pretty capable of getting stuff done that's right and he's insightful he's honest but he's running the show right and so you know i i would strongly suggest to get some help you know willpower will only get just so far. Yeah. Right. Getting some time to understand what's driving these behaviors, get to the root cause of some of these challenges, get some professional help, great resources, get involved in the community, a men's group where you can kind of have some, a band of brothers where you can kind of run stuff by and talk through these things. Tough to do this by yourself. Yeah. What happens is it'll be 10 years from now and you'll still

be struggling with this stuff and you'll just lose time that's bro that is the truest thing if you relate to some of this stuff if you relate to it at a pretty strong level where you like i think i had it it does not just go away no i cannot there's nothing that's been that's the most honest thing i could ever tell you in my whole life it does not just go when i started

this process i had a head of hair like you and i look at this thing right now yeah you just lose

time you lose hair i mean you look great man and bro you've done a great job today too dude yeah thank you it's been a pleasure being here thank you bro thank you so much just for being here for talking about this man some stuff it's like i don't know i just has been so much more comfortable than i thought it would be and i don't even know why i didn't think it would be you know um all right let's see let's have one more call that came in please

hey theo this is uh cody from florida and uh i i think you're really big on porn addictions and that's kind of a weird topic to get personal about if you know what i mean very awkward topic but i feel like i feel like i just lost the love of my life because of it I can't control myself I can't I feel like this is my generation I'm 19 man I just I feel like it's so normalized it's so routine it's so normal for me to feel normalized about doing this shit and I just lost The best thing that's ever happened to me She broke up with me man

This is a fucking This is a Gooner National Anthem right here

She left me I can't believe it bro Can't stop thinking about it I can't stop dreaming about it I can't I can't get past the memories that we had Because of my actions My actions My actions made me lose it bro And I just I just wanted to See if I could get some advice from you

Yeah dude Thanks for commenting about it bro and uh yeah sorry i was kind of joking around dude but it's real and it's and if you really have this porn addiction if you related to it enough you were you kind of call you heard it and thought about it and called then it must have some relative there must be something inside of you that's connecting with it right if you've even just heard me talk about it before because today's the most we ever even talked about it ever so if you're picking up Thank you.

something from the from before uh it it won't get better you have to you have you got to help it get better right so you got to show up for it and help it get better and it will get better and as far as yeah you might have lost your girl this situation for now but you i i believe you get second chances and i believe that you won't miss out on the next good one and you will be so grateful down the line that, uh, you started to solve the, solve some of the issues, uh, now then waited. That's what I think, man, from my own experience. Steve, what do you, what do you

think? I think, um, everywhere I go, there I am. Meaning that, um, you know, that's just the reality. If I could date that woman without me, probably be a great experience, but I bring me that relationship. So I think pain is the cornerstone of spiritual growth. And what happened, happened. Sounds like awful, tragic, horrible. But I'll tell you what, what would be really tragic if you didn't use this moment in time to get the help you need. Leverage the pain you're in right now to get the help you need. Really important, right? The gift of desperation. Don't let this go by and pass and be like, oh, maybe it wasn't that bad. Use the pain you're in as leverage to get help.

Amen. That's the truth, bro. That's, dude, that's cool, dude. Yeah. Yeah, bro. The gift of desperation.

We both lived it.

But yeah, thanks Cody for calling in. Did we get those three guys, guys, by chance? If we have an accurate shot of them. Here we go right here. These are the ethical capital partners. this couple of guys right here there's the managing partner Fadi Mansour Rocco Meliambro and he's definitely been gooning and Solomon Friedman had a feeling he was involved there he is right now he's the partner VP compliance I love how compliance is part of it

what do you do working at a porn company for compliance

I'm curious I don't know dude i do not know so they're that's them right there ethical capital partners so we want to thank those guys for um being basically they are uh those are your porn sackler family right there that's what i allege that's what i call them that's just my thoughts those are the sacklers of pornography right there. There's good people. Fadi Mansour, Rocco Meliambro, and Solomon Friedman. Thank you guys for your service. Steve Waltman, thank you for your service, dude. Today is a service call. That's what they say in recovery rooms. If you make a service call on people, you do something to be helpful to the group or to someone. What a treat to be here. Thank you. Dude, what a long journey, huh? Yeah. It's only just started. wow that's the craziest part bro and that's the best attitude to have congratulations man on starting a family on making something real out of something that was just like do you look back

sometimes and you're like I cannot even believe it I really do I just talked to my wife last night in anticipation of this and I was like I can't believe I'm here really unfathomable and how'd get here just one day at a time one step at a time taking better making better decisions yeah

anybody can do it huh 100 you believe that i really do yeah doesn't matter if you have money or don't money if you're in a wheelchair if you can't see far it doesn't matter no anybody can

do it as long as you don't quit before the miracle happens amen steve holt bro i love you bro thank

you for being a part of my life bro thank you for letting me be a part of your life um you shut up for my comedy show when I came out to Bend, Oregon. We had so much fun. That was awesome. That was cool, dude. That was awesome. And you've just been such a light over the years, dude. We know so many friends. Most of like the most important people in my life, you know them. That's right.

Best friends in the world that have friends in recovery. Oh, dude, nothing, nothing better. No, amazing human beings, crazy as can be. They could be decades sober, off their rockers, incredible and beautiful.

Yeah. Oh, the good times do not end, bro. No, they don't. You finally, you always want to know who's got the best story in the room, dude. You finally get to meet all of those people. That's right.

That's right. It's good stuff.

Steve, Valor Recovery. You guys can check out his program. If anything, you feel like you can relate to. Steve, I love you, bro. Thank you, bro. Thank you. Now I'm just floating on the breeze, and I feel I'm falling like these leaves I must

Thank you.

be cornerstone Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this peace of mind I found I can feel it in my bones But it's gonna take

a little