June 23, 2025 • 40 mins
Do you find yourself more susceptible to sexual temptation while traveling? Jake Kastleman helps you prepare to for the challenges of trips, vacations, and other disruptions to your daily routine—especially during the summer. You'll get tips on setting healthy expectations, creating structure while letting go of perfectionism, and preventing relapse.
Jake Kastleman is a porn addiction recovery coach and the founder of No More Desire. He holds a degree in Psychology from Utah Valley University. Now over 10 years sober from porn, Jake coaches men one-on-one across the world using a multi-dimensional approach rooted in neuroscience, psychology, parts work, emotional mindfulness, and spiritual growth. His work helps men not just quit porn, but overcome the root causes of cravings and reclaim their purpose and connection to what matters most.
Learn more and connect with Jake:
- No More Desire (Intensive Porn Addiction Recovery)
- The 8 Keys to Lose Your Desire for Porn (Free Workshop)
- 10 Quick Mental Techniques to Stop Porn Cravings (Free eBook)
Take the Husband Material Journey...
- Step 1: Listen to this podcast or watch on YouTube
- Step 2: Join the private Husband Material Community
- Step 3: Take the free mini-course: How To Outgrow Porn
- Step 4: Try the all-in-one program: Husband Material Academy
Thanks for listening!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Husband Material podcast, where
we help Christian men outgrowporn.
Why?
So you can change your brain,heal your heart and save your
relationship.
My name is Drew Boa and I'mhere to show you how let's go.
Hey man, thank you forlistening to my interview with
(00:21):
Jake Castleman.
He tells his personal story offreedom from porn, as well as
giving some really essentialadvice for how to stop watching
porn while traveling.
Going on trips for work, forfamily or just for yourself can
be a huge trigger to watch porn,especially if you don't have a
safety plan and if you have alot of unmet expectations and
(00:43):
unmet needs that are coming up.
In this episode, you are goingto learn why preventing relapse
on vacations is so important.
You'll hear about some of themost common triggers and how to
create a strong structure whilealso giving yourself grace and
space to just be present.
Enjoy the episode.
Today, we get to hang out withJake Castleman, who is a porn
addiction recovery coach and thefounder of nomoredesirecom.
(01:05):
Welcome, jake.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Hey, thanks Drew.
It's awesome to be here, man.
Truly I've been inspired by thethings you're doing and just
excited.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Thanks.
I've really enjoyed getting toknow you so far and I'm excited
for everyone to hear more of whoyou are.
Jake, what is your story offreedom?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
from porn.
For me this is and this is thecase for a lot of people.
It's a very personal endeavorfor me, right?
I suffered with pornographyaddiction myself for about 10
years and, interestingly enough,I grew up in a family where my
father was going around theworld teaching about porn
addiction and the brain scienceof porn addiction.
(01:45):
Meanwhile his own son wasstruggling with it and I think
as a kid, you know, growing up Iwas hearing those messages
about, you know, porn.
Porn is bad, porn hurts yourbrain, porn leads to bad things.
I heard a lot about pornaddiction but as a kid I just
(02:06):
had no way of contextualizingthat or conceptually
understanding what addiction was, what it meant, what it would
lead to.
I think I thought, oh, I'llreally want it a lot.
That's how I processed it as akid.
Oh, I'll really want that thing.
That doesn't sound so bad.
I want food a lot.
I like cookies.
Like I want food a lot, youknow, I like cookies.
And when I started to experienceaddiction for myself and really
(02:29):
my addictions as a kid werefood and video games, that's
where it started at a reallyyoung age.
And then, when I was 13, Ideveloped a pornography
addiction when I had a sleepoverwith one of my buddies and, to
be transparent, right, we talkabout this stuff, we can be real
about it.
I, we watched porn together,right, and then that night,
(02:51):
after he went to sleep, I justhad this overwhelming urge to go
watch on my own and, you know,go masturbate right, finish
myself up.
And when I went and did that, Iwas just like man, like I can't
even go this one night withoutdoing this whole ritual, this
whole thing, and I couldn'tunderstand that.
At the time, again, I hadlearned about some of the brain
(03:13):
science, but it took me a fewyears, when I was 17, to start
to really feel like I want toget over this, I want to get out
of this.
Previous to that, it was kindof like that.
Just, my mind was darkened tothe whole thing.
It's like, yeah, I have thisproblem.
It's going on in the background, it's something I'm doing
regularly, but not tellinganybody about it, I'm not really
(03:34):
thinking about it, I'm justkind of letting it go on and on.
So when I was 17, I had aspiritual experience.
It was a special one for me.
I just I felt God in my lifeand that was thanks to my dad
who was having a conversationwith me that at the time I think
he made, he probably thought itmade no difference.
It made a big differencebecause it opened up my eyes and
(03:56):
I just felt good.
I was like, okay, whatever thisfeeling is right now which I
should have known what it was,because I grew up in the gospel,
but I was very, I was very,pretty pretty dark at that time.
I was like this feels good, soI want to feel more of this.
I just started praying, startedreading scripture and I started
feeling better and that startedto open up my mind and getting
(04:19):
some of that presence and thatlight and that peace that starts
to set up that dichotomybetween what I was doing I was
involved in a lot of substanceaddiction as well and hanging
out with friends that weren'tgood for me, we weren't good for
each other and I was like thisstuff isn't matching up with
these good feelings.
I'm having this good stuff thatI'm feeling.
It took me about five years ofconstant work and that's one of
(04:42):
the things I want people to know.
Like this stuff takes time,like I had the desire, I had the
motivation, I wanted to stop.
It took me five years tofinally come out of a lot of
those habits of partying andporn and all these struggles I
was having.
I had to understand my mind.
I had to understand theperfectionism I dealt with, the
(05:03):
anxiety and social anxiety I wascarrying.
I was feeling depressed all thetime, all my habits of watching
YouTube for hours a day andplaying video games for hours a
day and all the junk food I waseating all the time, and I was
realizing that all this stuffwas playing in together, this
self-judgment I felt and thisharshness on myself and
negativity I was carrying.
(05:23):
And so I had to start to workthrough those things, mentally
and psychologically andspiritually, and changes to my
diet and exercise, et cetera,all these different avenues, to
the point where, finally, I hadmade enough progress.
That kind of how I see it andhow I explain it is you lose the
need for the addiction I wastrying to fulfill, a need.
(05:45):
All this stuff I was carrying,all this sadness and pain and
hurt, fear, perfectionism I wascarrying.
So I was like, okay, I'mbeginning to lose this need and
we talk about my business, noMore Desire.
That's what that means for meis building a recovery mindset
and a recovery lifestyle, andthat's what that means for me is
(06:07):
building a recovery mindset anda recovery lifestyle, and
that's for people.
It's not about stopping justthe behavior, like you want to
be able to do that becausethat's going to change your life
, but all the things that arebacking that change your mindset
, change your lifestyle.
Work on these inner mechanismsthat are going on inside of your
brain and then eventually youcan.
You can lose the desire forporn, and I've seen that for
myself, I've seen it for otherpeople.
You truly can do that.
(06:27):
It's not, it's not impossible.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Can you say more about what that means to have no
more desire for porn in thesense of not needing it, versus
maybe what some people mightthink of, as I'm never going to
be tempted again or notattracted to it anymore?
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yes, I love that you ask that.
You know the right questions toask, drew, because there is a
massive distinction betweensexual arousal and desiring sex
and feeling physical attraction,which are all very normal, very
healthy things, that we shouldactually build A relationship of
those aspects of our mindthat's positive and see that as
(07:07):
a positive thing it's the way mymind's supposed to work Versus
porn, this desire for porn,which is a desire for an escape.
I want to get away from myproblems.
I want to get away from my hurt.
I'm using this as a mechanismto take care of, eventually,
what you start to understand,which is fear, shame, grief is
(07:28):
best, I've come to understand itthose that try out of emotions
that I'm carrying underneath thesurface.
I'm trying to get away from allthose feelings of I'm not enough
and I'm afraid of things thatare going to happen.
I'm afraid I'm alone.
Right, that's an escape.
Right, so I can actually buildother healthy mechanisms in my
life to be able to processthrough those emotions, deal
(07:50):
with those things in a healthyway and unburden a lot of that.
We were talking about IFS andparts work before this,
unburdening all the stuff thatI'm carrying over time.
I can peel back those layers.
That's what I mean by losingdesire.
Now I've taken away themechanisms or removed those root
causes of needing to escapeusing porn.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Yeah, so I can be present and feel what I'm
feeling, yes, and actuallyexperience the full range of
emotions instead of numbing anddeadening them Actually.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
I love that you say that.
So something that I've beenworking on in my life is
embodiment, emotional embodimentreally getting present with and
feeling emotions inside of you.
I think we're both taught toand we build habits of.
I don't want to feel fear, Idon't want to feel sadness, I
don't want to feel anger, Idon't want to feel any of those
(08:50):
bad emotions.
It's very easy to think of themas bad emotions, and the more
that I do parts work, the morethat I engage with embodiment of
emotion, the more I actuallyrealize they're all important
emotions and they're actuallyall part of healing as well.
Amen, yeah, when fear comes up,that's a signal to me Ah,
(09:16):
here's something to payattention to.
What is this that I'mexperiencing?
And if I can, instead ofturning my attention away, turn
my attention toward it and focusin on it.
It's the exact opposite of whatpart of me says I should do.
It's like don't pay attentionto that.
That's where healing can occur.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Yeah, so good.
Which makes us most susceptibleto relapse and going back to
porn is when we get triggered byall of the feelings of
traveling on a trip on avacation, maybe for work, or
(09:59):
even on like a couple's trip.
Traveling triggers us and itbrings up a lot of those things
we don't want to feel.
Why is this topic of preventingrelapse on trips so important?
Speaker 2 (10:14):
When I relate back to my own experience, I had this
conception of trips or vacationsas a place where, you know, all
my problems go away.
I get relax.
Business trips not so much.
That's like more stress, thiswhole different thing.
Let's talk about vacations first, where I'm hanging out, I'm
chilling, everything's great, Iget to let go of all my routines
(10:37):
and, just, you know, let go ofall the structure in my life and
all the pressures.
That's the perfect place for meto be sober and and I did not
find that myself and I do notfind that with clients Often
it's the perfect place forrelapse.
Or, if not, on the trip itself,coming off of the trip is the
(10:59):
perfect time for relapse, unlesswe structure our lives and
build certain habits andboundaries that we can follow in
order to stay sober both duringthe trip and after the trip.
I think that there's amisconception, which I was
talking about, in that avacation or a trip is a time to
(11:22):
just let everything go and justgo crazy.
And I'm going to, you know, eatas much junk food as I possibly
want.
I deserve to just indulge.
I can watch, you know, fivehours of Netflix or play hours
of video games every day.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
That sounds like your life as a teenager, yeah.
And my life as a teenager inmany ways.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
That was my life as a teenager.
A hundred percent, yes, and Ithink it's funny you bring that
up because I believe that thereis a time that comes in your
life as men I'll put it in themasculine sense where you have
to decide to put away thosethings of being a child, right?
Yes, as a kid I could go out ona vacation and just have this
(12:07):
structure of this, like I'm justgoing to throw all caution to
the wind and go crazy, but Idon't know that that's
necessarily a great practice asa kid in general, just to go
insane.
I think there should be somestructure and boundaries and
things, but that's more on theparents to do that.
As we grow up, we need toimplement that structure for
(12:28):
ourselves and we need to havesome semblance of balance on
vacations or on trips.
Same thing with business trips,but business trips is more like
there is a lot of pressure orstress.
There certainly can be a lot ofconnections, networking,
presentations, all these thingsthat are on your plate.
So how to manage that stressand find times of, like you were
(12:50):
saying, presence, peace,getting in touch with my
emotions, journaling right, wecan talk about all sorts of
things we can practically do.
But we can't just go outwithout a plan and expect
everything to work out.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
So one of the biggest takeaways I want you guys to
get from this episode is theneed for a safety plan.
We're going to talk about theelements of a good safety plan.
When you're traveling, Jake.
What are some of the mostcommon triggers that come up
when we're traveling?
Speaker 2 (13:19):
I think that one of them is a poor sleeping schedule
.
On vacation, we can stay upuntil two in the morning and
wake up at 10 am, right?
Maybe if you have kids, it'snot quite the case, but it's not
going to look so good.
Maybe we do stay up really lateand then wake up really early
with our kids.
(13:39):
So when I'm not sleeping well,then my neurotransmitters and
hormones are all out of whack.
My immune system is hurting,I'm feeling imbalanced, I'm
feeling out of you know mymood's off, I'm impatient, I'm
more prone to anger and I'mcertainly more prone to cravings
(14:00):
in general.
Right, and in this case, if youstruggle with pornography
addiction, your brain is goingto point where To porn.
Right, this is how I escape,this is how I feel better, right
?
Speaker 1 (14:11):
And even if you don't intentionally stay up late, jet
lag will still mess up yoursleep.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Yes, totally yeah.
So it's important to keep aneye out for that and in some
ways, there isn't anything wecan do about the, you know,
lacking some sleep or thingslike that, different stuff that
happens out of necessity ways wegot to show up for our family
or ways we got to show up withinbusiness, or the jet lag, et
cetera.
This is going to happen and sothere are things we can do with
(14:40):
our mindset to watch for thestress, be present with the
stress, to give ourselves graceright, to give ourselves grace
right and also the messages wecan take on that are often
behind the anger of poor sleep,which is I don't feel capable, I
don't feel like I can be here,do all the things I've got to do
, I'm tired, this isn't going towork out.
How do I accomplish everythingI need to, or how do I be here
(15:01):
for my family, and then we'll befilled with feelings of
inadequacy and feelings of fear,and then that's pumping up all
the anger.
Right, I'm feeling just, I wantto control things and I want to
make the pain stop right.
So, being able to work with alot of that and be present with
that emotion, one of the biggestthings that I bring up is
having a schedule when you're onvacation.
Okay, vacation's veryunstructured, so a lot of people
(15:25):
think, well, I'll just bepresent in the moment, just do
whatever I want, both for myselfand, I think, for many of the
men that I work with.
We have these intense minds,they're we're very driven, we've
got this like passion and thisfire inside right, and so we
have to give that a direction.
I need to set up some structure, and so for me, the daily
(15:47):
routines are so powerful.
When you get out on vacation,have things that you're doing
for your spiritual well-being,for your mental well-being,
right.
Some journaling, right Prayer,studying of spiritual words or
scripture, inspirational words,whatever matches up with your
beliefs.
Taking some time for physicalexercise you can't just sit
there all day and watch TV andexpect to feel good.
(16:09):
You're going to feel like crapand then you're going to want to
escape more because you don'tfeel good.
Got to get some exercise in.
So, having those daily routinesfor my physical, spiritual,
mental well-being, and then, ofcourse, I'd add in relational
well-being, make sure you'reshowing up and having some
quality connections with family.
If you're on vacation, that'sprobably going to happen.
(16:29):
If you're with family,hopefully.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
And that can also be a trigger to have family
conflict or maybe even go backto the house where you first
encountered porn.
Yes, holidays are a minefieldfor many guys.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
I love that you brought that up, actually,
because it's true, that's awhole other end of the spectrum
and it depends on what it lookslike within your family.
But a lot of men have struggledwith pornography addiction.
They grew up in homes that werebroken or there's abuse or
there's neglect, etc.
It's a whole other topic.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
So even just being aware that some of these
challenges are going to come canhelp to change our expectations
and assumptions about how atrip is going to go.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Yeah, exactly, and that's one of the things I
reflect on is those expectations.
We can hold those unconsciously.
That's something very importantto work on.
It's just going with aknowledge and understanding you
may have a expectation of man.
This is going to be amazing.
It's just going with aknowledge and understanding you
may have a expectation of man.
This is going to be amazing.
It's going to be so much fun,it's going to be the best.
And then something starts to gowrong, breaks my perfect,
(17:38):
little, you know, view of howthings should go.
And then, all of a sudden, I'mpissed off.
People are fighting, we're inconflict, and then everything's
ruined.
Look, I've ruined all of it.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
I'm such a jerk it's like we go down the faster scale
, if you guys are familiar withthat tool forgetting priorities,
anxiety, speeding up, tickedoff, exhausted and relapse I
love that I haven't heard fasterbefore.
It's very good the faster scalewas developed by Michael Dye
and it's a huge part of PureDesire's Seven Pillars workbook
(18:14):
and it basically describes a lotof the precursors to the
overwhelming urge to watch pornor some other addictive behavior
and it follows a predictablepattern and a lot of those
things can easily happen ontrips.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Yes, a hundred percent.
Some of the other things thateasily happen on trips yes, 100%
.
Some of the other things thatwe want to watch out for, and
these are so pervasive in ourculture nowadays.
We want to watch for those whatI term as base pleasures.
Plato would have termed a lotof his writings as impure
pleasures.
Would have put it that way.
(18:49):
We can look at a lot ofdifferent.
You know John Stuart Mill, etcetera other people that have
written on this, aristotle butwe have these base pleasures,
such as TV, social media, videogames, that we used to view this
philosophically, but now we canbreak it down to neuroscience,
with an understanding ofdopamine, where there are these
(19:10):
behaviors, these activities thatwe'll get caught up in, that
are very low effort, highstimulation, instant
gratification activities.
In other words, I sit down toplay a video game, right, all I
got to do is sit and just movemy fingers and I've got the
screen.
That's just like feeding medopamine, which is like
overwhelming amounts of dopamine.
(19:31):
I'm advancing through levels,I'm having these intense
experiences Maybe there's abunch of violence, right, and
I'm just like, whoa, this isawesome.
I'm in fantasy land.
That is we now see, and then,from the neuroscience
perspective that that's spikingdopamine very, very high.
And then I'm experiencing adrop in dopamine afterwards.
(19:52):
And if I do that once for maybeI play video games for a half
an hour probably going to befine, but if I'm doing that for
two hours, three hours, evenonce, that's going to hurt.
If I'm doing that regularly nowI'm just in this chronic low
dopamine zone and my dopamine isnot just.
(20:15):
It's not just pleasure, right,we often think it's the pleasure
chemical.
It's my motivation, it's myfocus, it's my feeling of being
connected to other people, it'smy feeling of purpose.
Now I'm lacking all of that andnow my brain is just like it's
just reaching out, it's justcraving give me more dopamine.
I need more, and that's goingto set me up to go straight to
(20:38):
porn, because that's one of theways I can get the highest
dopamine hit.
So we want to balance thosethings.
If you're going to watch TV,sit down and do that.
For my personal preferencewould be like 20, 30 minutes.
Or maybe like watch one or twomovies while you're on vacation
for a week, right, not likeevery night, especially when
we're in this chronically lowdopamine state, and I know
(20:59):
that's a high standard I justset.
By the way, I'm not sayingthat's easy to do.
You also need to understandwhere you're at and what you can
reasonably do, but to to beaware of this right, when I'm in
this low dopamine state all thetime, anything that I'm doing
to imbalance that is going toprobably feel really extreme.
So if I can start to replacethese base pleasures that are
(21:22):
these it's low effort, it'sinstant gratification, it's high
stimulation with with noblepleasures, things that are more
a higher level of effort right,or a higher level of presence, I
need to be present in themoment with a moderate
dopaminergic release right.
Things like reading or writingor spending time with others,
(21:45):
having conversations, buildingor creating you creating.
I can do a little bit ofpassion, project stuff while I'm
out on vacation.
Those things are going toactually help build your
dopamine-nurgic system, heal andrepair your dopamine-nurgic
system, whereas the basepleasures damage it.
We just want to balance thatout as much as we can while
(22:06):
we're on vacation.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Totally, because we're thrown off balance.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yeah, we're dysregulated and I think that's
another aspect.
Drew, I love that you'rebringing that up.
We are out of our comfort zone.
This is a big one that I seeall the time Is we think that
we're going to go out onvacation and be like, great, I
get to shake things up.
But the trouble is often againwe can have these kind of
(22:32):
sensitive minds and I think thatcan change.
That's shifted for me right In10 years of sobriety your mind
can become less sensitive, lesslike stringent or
perfectionistic, less obsessive.
But I remember, especially inthe first few years of recovery,
it's like I had to keep like astrict schedule, my comfort zone
and things.
It was very hard to experiencetransitions or to do things that
(22:55):
were outside of my norm.
It just threw me way off.
So I had to really bring in asmuch routine as I could.
So you know, for me when I'm onvacation in the, in the
mornings I'll have my routines,so I get up earlier than pretty
much everybody else so I can dothose and that's hard.
But that means I go to bed alittle earlier than some people
do.
I don't stay up really late,get up a little bit earlier so I
(23:17):
can do these things.
And then I have a time where Ikind of go over the day right
what's going on today?
And typically there's hopefullysome kind of plans of a couple
of things we're going to do andI kind of order that in my mind
because there's a part of methat really wants kind of some
level of control or some levelof like certainty or where we're
going, some level of securityin that schedule.
(23:41):
So I go okay, here's somethings that are going on today.
Here's kind of what I cananticipate, kind of like a
father or a good mom would likedo for their kid.
You know like, hey, here's somethings we have going on today,
so you kind of know what toexpect to help level their kid
out.
I got to do that for myself.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
It's like we got to do that for our inner child.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Yes, that's exactly what it is.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
In case you guys didn't know, jake has a great
article about this topic on hiswebsite and I'll put a link to
that in the show notes.
One of the things that you sayin that article that I love the
most was an encouragement tolive in the moment.
Forget about your agenda andexpectations, get connected, be
present with each other andaccept the imperfect.
(24:25):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Yeah, and I do that perfectly myself.
Fortunately, I have it allfigured out.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
The more I learn about this and talk about this,
I feel like I want to become animperfectionist.
You know, the opposite of aperfectionist.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yeah, the opposite of a perfectionist.
Yeah, everything's something Istarted saying to myself a while
back, because I'm alwayscontinuously trying to learn and
progress and still have some ofthose perfectionistic
tendencies and obviously fearand shame and grief and all
those things that we all dealwith right.
It's always stuff every daythat I'm working on.
But one of the things I startedsaying a little while ago is
(25:11):
nothing is optimal.
Nothing is optimal ever Like.
What scenario do you have inlife where you're just like dude
, that was just perfect, thatwas everything I ever wanted,
ever dreamed of Exactly Like.
Maybe twice in your whole lifethat might happen.
So it's.
I think it's good to go in withthe expectation, not a
(25:34):
hopelessness like stuff's goingto go wrong, oh man, so bad, but
stuff is going to go wrong andstuff's going to be non-optimal,
and that's part of life.
That's how it's going to happen.
I think that opens you up thento be more creative, enjoy the
moment more, be more present andnot feel this pressure Totally.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
And within that posture of just living in the
moment and being present, itstill really helps to have a
plan.
So what would you recommend tosomebody who wants to make a
safety plan the next timethey're traveling?
Who wants to?
Speaker 2 (26:09):
make a safety plan the next time they're traveling.
So you want to sit downprevious to going out, because
if you're already on the tripyou're a bit late.
It's going to be hard to try towork that all out after you're
already out there.
Sit down and determine okay,what are my daily routines?
Okay so, mental, spiritual,physical, what can I set up for
(26:35):
myself each morning, or in theafternoon or in the evening,
whatever works best for you?
I love the mornings, but I knowsome people it's like I cannot
wake up that early.
But if you can start your daythat way, set up a few things
for me.
I I'm a little extreme withthis and I know this sounds,
this sounds intense, but it tookme years to get here.
I spend a half an hour in myspiritual time.
(26:56):
I spend 15 minutes journalingand then I exercise for about
another half hour.
Okay, so it takes time to doall that and I get a healthy
breakfast that I set my day upreally well with a good quality
breakfast.
Get some vegetables, get somefruit, get a good quality
breakfast, get some vegetables,get some fruit, get some good
quality carbohydrates, protein,good fats.
I start my day that way becausethat's the maximum amount of
(27:19):
fun, right, like I want to haveenergy, I want to feel good, I
want to feel happy.
That way I can actually have areally good time that day.
So determine what time do Ineed to kind of get up generally
and go to bed generally inorder to make those routines
work.
Plan activities right.
Your entire day doesn't have tobe loaded.
(27:40):
You don't have to have itloaded front to back, but plan
some things with your family ifyou're on vacation of here are
the things that we're going todo each day.
Right, we're going to go out tothis event or we're going to go
on this hike, or we're going togo each day.
Right, we're going to go out tothis event, or we're going to
go on this hike, or we're goingto go do this, that right.
Plan some stuff and then plansome things something as well
that you can do.
That is going to be especiallyif you're an introvert, but I
(28:03):
think this is for a lot ofpeople.
Plan something you can dothat's on your own, independent,
where you can take a break andtake time out right To write or
to read, to do something.
That kind of fulfills you, ithelps you recharge.
It helps you feel a littleaccomplished, it helps you feel
good, be more present, plan inthose things.
(28:24):
If it's a business trip, youneed to plan in all those same
things.
It's just going to look alittle bit different, right, and
that cause you're going to havemeetings, you're going to have
um, networking events,presentations, et cetera, things
that you're doing.
You still need to take care ofyourself while you're out there,
physically, mentally,spiritually, maybe even more.
(28:46):
It's more important Even You'refacing stress and expectations
in this whole environment.
So set up what structure youcan in those ways.
And if you're looking at thatbusiness trip and all, maybe
it's a conference you're goingto and you can see the whole
schedule plan in for yourself.
Maybe some people are going tobe out socializing for two hours
(29:07):
in between meetings.
Maybe that's not for you.
That's not unacceptable, that'sreally acceptable.
Just to know yourself and to berealistic, yeah, I'll chat with
people and hang out for a halfhour, 45 minutes an hour, and
then I've got to go kind of beby myself, chill, go on a walk,
pray for a while, right ormeditate.
(29:28):
Do something to get re-present.
Pray for a while right ormeditate.
Do something to get re-present,get rebalanced.
These are the things you wantin your safety plan.
Now, that's structure.
In addition, you want tooutline some things that you
know when you go out, there aregoing to be triggering times for
you.
So this would be like at night,right At 7 or 8 pm or whatever
(29:48):
it is.
If you're on a business trip,let's say you get back in your
hotel room, you're going to beby yourself.
That is grounds for seriousdanger, right?
So you want to set up a plan,as you're saying.
This is all part of a safetyplan.
What's going to enable you orincrease the likelihood that you
(30:09):
can stay sober?
What's going to set you up in asafe way to stay sober?
Well, I'm going to call my wife, right?
Let's say, check in with her.
How did the day go, how wasyour day, honey?
Let's chat for a while.
Let's talk about how things aregoing.
I'm going to check in on hey,here's kind of the things that I
have in place, what I'm doingtonight before I go to bed.
(30:30):
So, checking on those things,you can get a bit of that
accountability and communicatethat and then have your
nighttime routines of windingdown.
I would recommend again, ifyou're addicted to porn or
that's been a challenge for you,trying to recover from it.
That wind down time is notsocial media.
It's not you sitting watchingTV.
(30:50):
Then you're in virtual zone,right.
Your winding down time is goingto look very different.
It's going to be reading a book, or it's going to be going out
on a walk, it's going to bedoing some meditation.
It's going to be sitting andbreathing, right, writing out
your emotions, journaling,getting those emotions down in
(31:10):
case you can offload the stressof the day.
And then I will add if you'regoing on a trip where you are
able to bring your family, I'drecommend that, especially if
you're early on in recovery, ifyou're able to bring someone
with you or stay in the sameroom as a coworker or something,
or do something where you canbe with somebody so you don't
(31:34):
have to be by yourself.
Because part of you will saythat part of you that's so
determined and wants to beindependent but can be really
critical it'll say I can do this, it's not a big deal, I'll do
it all on my own, we can managethat.
Or maybe it's a little more uh,creative or deceptive side of
you that is saying you'll befine, don't worry about it like
(31:59):
everything's going to work out.
You won't watch porn whileyou're out there.
Acknowledge those parts of you,they're important parts of you,
and make a better decision ifyou're able to or get that
structure in the evenings, ifyou're going to be alone right
and try to connect with somebody.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
It's so wise, as much as there are parts of me that
don't like structure, it isliberating and sometimes we need
to adjust that structure andadapt it.
To be realistic, you know,especially if your trips are
like my trips, unexpected thingshappen, and so there's also a
(32:40):
beauty in being flexible, andeven if I can't do the entire
plan, settling for as much of itas makes sense is still great.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Yeah, and I think, kind of going back to what we're
saying about the mindset on thetrip, I love that you brought
up that part of the article.
I'm thinking back to a recentvacation that I went on with my
family to California and it wasreally good in a lot of ways,
but it was also hard, because Iam again this person with like a
drive, this like fiery passioninside.
(33:13):
I want to adventure, I want todo things that are meaningful, I
want to make a difference andif I don't give that a path, it
often will turn to destruction,like either I'm going to get
angry and start a fight, likejust because I want to feel
something and I don't evenrealize that's happening.
Right, I've become more awareof that and I try to, early on,
(33:35):
be like ah, what I call it isthe adventuring part of me which
is like courageous and bold.
Right, it's like let's juststart some stuff, let's just
fight.
That way I can feel thestimulation I'm needing, right.
So if I'm able to callattention to that part, I can
either redirect it to be likeyou know, I've got to go out and
do something exciting.
So when I was out there, I wasfeeling that tension and I was
(33:58):
like, hey, babe, I'm going totake our son out, we're going to
go on a daddy-son date.
We're going to go get some food.
We're going to walk around somestores and hang out.
Right, I got some goodone-on-one time with my son.
We chilled, we hung out.
That gives me some of thatmeaning.
It's not incredibly,overwhelmingly exciting, right,
but it's a time for me to go outand do something different,
right, and laugh with my son,hang out right, eat some good
(34:22):
food and get some of thatstimulation that I needed.
But even if not that, even ifthere's not an option, at least
I can step back and be aware ofthe part of my mind that might
be seeking out an escape, or theparts of my mind that are
highly driven right and can moveinto more of that.
So, one of those parts that canact as a manager.
It's like, dude, we got to getstuff done, we got to be
(34:43):
productive, like we got to be onpoint, and if we're not doing
that, we're worth nothing, right?
So, turning to that part andbeing like, hey, it's a driven
part of me, it wants to getstuff done, it wants to be
productive.
It's a super positive part ofme, love that part.
It's okay that right now it's alittle slower paced.
Chilling, I'm relaxing, youknow.
(35:05):
I got my toddler, I got my wifewho's sick, she's pregnant,
right.
It's more low key right now and, yes, that feels kind of tense
for me inside and I'm going tobe present without tension.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
It's all right, so good.
I love the way that you'reincorporating parts work into
this conversation and into thework you do.
It's one of the most valuableapproaches we found for
outgrowing porn.
Jake, what is your favoritething about freedom from porn?
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Oh boy, lots of things.
It's interesting, as you saythat, because there are so many
changes that take placeneurologically when you get out
of porn, and so dopamine becausethat's such a heavy contributor
there's many other factors inporn addiction and when you're
recovering, so many things thatimprove, but just dopamine alone
, because it's something that'sinvolved in motivation.
I remember it was such astruggle to find motivation.
(36:01):
I had these ambitions inside ofme of you know, I want to build
a business and I want to make adifference and I want to serve
people.
I want to have fun and I wantto do things that are exciting
and I want to make a differenceand I want to serve people.
I want to have fun and I wantto do things that are exciting
and I want to do all this stuff.
And it's just like, and I feelcapable of none of it.
It was hard, really hard, toget myself motivated, and
(36:21):
motivation comes so much morenaturally for me now.
It doesn't mean it's alwayseasy, by the way, but far more
frequently it's like it's justthere, like this pool of
motivation is just there, and Isimply didn't have that capacity
before.
Focus as well.
Right, I struggled with whatcould be termed ADD, adhd and,
(36:44):
by the way, as I say this, I'mnot saying that everyone who has
ADD or ADHD is an addict andthat's why you can't focus.
But for me it was very muchthis like addiction created, you
know, this imbalance in mydopaminergic system.
I had such trouble focusing.
It was all over the place.
It's like a roller coaster.
Sometimes I'd be really focusedand I'd be in it, and other
(37:06):
times it's like I've got nothing.
I hated that.
I could not stand that, becauseI had this deep desire inside
of me to live a meaningful life,and I think we all have that
desire, whatever form that comesin for us.
Right, I wanted to live ameaningful life, then dopamine
also plays this integral role inconnection.
I just felt detached from thepeople around me, like I
(37:29):
couldn't connect.
I didn't feel as much empathyas I felt like I should feel, or
as much emotion or sadness orcare.
I was like what am I?
A sociopath?
Like I must just be thisscrewed up, horrible person.
I felt like that inside and itwas like what was playing a big
part in that was the addiction,where it was just sapping me and
(37:50):
draining me of this emotionalenergy that I deeply needed and
should have as a human being.
I think, for those who are inthe struggle now, having that
compassion for yourself, forthat understanding of, yeah, I
can't feel this and this isplaying a big role in that.
It's not that I'm a bad person,it's that I've got this
challenge I'm dealing with andI'm working to overcome it and
(38:11):
this is actually going to getbetter, like I think it's
exciting.
It can give you hope I canovercome this one day and I can
actually have so much moreemotion, excitement.
I can feel more connected to mywife, to my kids, oh, and
that's a wonderful future tolook forward to.
Those are some of my favoritethings.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
That's why we do this , for ourselves and for others.
All those desires for meaningand adventure and purpose,
connection, focus, motivationare all affected by our
sexuality and our relationshipwith porn, or the lack of it our
sexuality and our relationshipwith porn or the lack of it.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
Yeah, and I'll also say this as well which is the
same part of you that acts outaddictively?
From what I understand fromparts work and what I've
experienced inside myself andthings I've studied, et cetera,
Same part of you that's addictedto porn is the same part of you
that is like bold, courageous,adventurous, risk-taking, fun,
spontaneous, probably funny.
When you start to move out ofaddiction, that part of you can
shift and change.
(39:18):
You don't got to sit on top ofthat part or demonize it or be
like.
This is a horrible part of meand I want it to die.
It's going to be adissatisfying, unhappy way to
live sobriety.
I've done it.
I did it for like five years.
It was horrible.
That part of you can convert.
It's actually a really goodpart of you and it can convert
into something that's reallypositive and amazing.
I will say that without it'sgoing to be so ironic without
(39:42):
that part of me that used tobehave as a porn addict, I
wouldn't have built the businessthat I have and be able to
coach men one-on-one, becausethat part of me has passion, has
adventure, it was willing totake the risk to build a
business and do somethingadventurous that other parts of
me thought was freaking crazy,Like that's impossible, You're
crazy, and it was like let's dothis.
(40:03):
I wouldn't have built thisbusiness without that part.
But it was only able to actthat way because it wasn't
constantly channeled into thisrole of being addictive and
destructive.
Now it behaves a lot of thetime in a really positive way in
my life.
Man, I absolutely love that.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
Pray.
Scott.
Jake thanks so much for beingwith us.
And guys, if you want toconnect with Jake or learn more
about his program, go tonomoredesirecom or check out the
other links in the show notesand remember you are God's
beloved son.
In you he is well-pleased.
Welcome to the Husband Material podcast, where
we help Christian men outgrowporn.
Why?
So you can change your brain,heal your heart and save your
relationship.
My name is Drew Boa and I'mhere to show you how let's go.
Hey man, thank you forlistening to my interview with
(00:21):
Jake Castleman.
He tells his personal story offreedom from porn, as well as
giving some really essentialadvice for how to stop watching
porn while traveling.
Going on trips for work, forfamily or just for yourself can
be a huge trigger to watch porn,especially if you don't have a
safety plan and if you have alot of unmet expectations and
(00:43):
unmet needs that are coming up.
In this episode, you are goingto learn why preventing relapse
on vacations is so important.
You'll hear about some of themost common triggers and how to
create a strong structure whilealso giving yourself grace and
space to just be present.
Enjoy the episode.
Today, we get to hang out withJake Castleman, who is a porn
addiction recovery coach and thefounder of nomoredesirecom.
(01:05):
Welcome, jake.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Hey, thanks Drew.
It's awesome to be here, man.
Truly I've been inspired by thethings you're doing and just
excited.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Thanks.
I've really enjoyed getting toknow you so far and I'm excited
for everyone to hear more of whoyou are.
Jake, what is your story offreedom?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
from porn.
For me this is and this is thecase for a lot of people.
It's a very personal endeavorfor me, right?
I suffered with pornographyaddiction myself for about 10
years and, interestingly enough,I grew up in a family where my
father was going around theworld teaching about porn
addiction and the brain scienceof porn addiction.
(01:45):
Meanwhile his own son wasstruggling with it and I think
as a kid, you know, growing up Iwas hearing those messages
about, you know, porn.
Porn is bad, porn hurts yourbrain, porn leads to bad things.
I heard a lot about pornaddiction but as a kid I just
(02:06):
had no way of contextualizingthat or conceptually
understanding what addiction was, what it meant, what it would
lead to.
I think I thought, oh, I'llreally want it a lot.
That's how I processed it as akid.
Oh, I'll really want that thing.
That doesn't sound so bad.
I want food a lot.
I like cookies.
Like I want food a lot, youknow, I like cookies.
And when I started to experienceaddiction for myself and really
(02:29):
my addictions as a kid werefood and video games, that's
where it started at a reallyyoung age.
And then, when I was 13, Ideveloped a pornography
addiction when I had a sleepoverwith one of my buddies and, to
be transparent, right, we talkabout this stuff, we can be real
about it.
I, we watched porn together,right, and then that night,
(02:51):
after he went to sleep, I justhad this overwhelming urge to go
watch on my own and, you know,go masturbate right, finish
myself up.
And when I went and did that, Iwas just like man, like I can't
even go this one night withoutdoing this whole ritual, this
whole thing, and I couldn'tunderstand that.
At the time, again, I hadlearned about some of the brain
(03:13):
science, but it took me a fewyears, when I was 17, to start
to really feel like I want toget over this, I want to get out
of this.
Previous to that, it was kindof like that.
Just, my mind was darkened tothe whole thing.
It's like, yeah, I have thisproblem.
It's going on in the background, it's something I'm doing
regularly, but not tellinganybody about it, I'm not really
(03:34):
thinking about it, I'm justkind of letting it go on and on.
So when I was 17, I had aspiritual experience.
It was a special one for me.
I just I felt God in my lifeand that was thanks to my dad
who was having a conversationwith me that at the time I think
he made, he probably thought itmade no difference.
It made a big differencebecause it opened up my eyes and
(03:56):
I just felt good.
I was like, okay, whatever thisfeeling is right now which I
should have known what it was,because I grew up in the gospel,
but I was very, I was very,pretty pretty dark at that time.
I was like this feels good, soI want to feel more of this.
I just started praying, startedreading scripture and I started
feeling better and that startedto open up my mind and getting
(04:19):
some of that presence and thatlight and that peace that starts
to set up that dichotomybetween what I was doing I was
involved in a lot of substanceaddiction as well and hanging
out with friends that weren'tgood for me, we weren't good for
each other and I was like thisstuff isn't matching up with
these good feelings.
I'm having this good stuff thatI'm feeling.
It took me about five years ofconstant work and that's one of
(04:42):
the things I want people to know.
Like this stuff takes time,like I had the desire, I had the
motivation, I wanted to stop.
It took me five years tofinally come out of a lot of
those habits of partying andporn and all these struggles I
was having.
I had to understand my mind.
I had to understand theperfectionism I dealt with, the
(05:03):
anxiety and social anxiety I wascarrying.
I was feeling depressed all thetime, all my habits of watching
YouTube for hours a day andplaying video games for hours a
day and all the junk food I waseating all the time, and I was
realizing that all this stuffwas playing in together, this
self-judgment I felt and thisharshness on myself and
negativity I was carrying.
(05:23):
And so I had to start to workthrough those things, mentally
and psychologically andspiritually, and changes to my
diet and exercise, et cetera,all these different avenues, to
the point where, finally, I hadmade enough progress.
That kind of how I see it andhow I explain it is you lose the
need for the addiction I wastrying to fulfill, a need.
(05:45):
All this stuff I was carrying,all this sadness and pain and
hurt, fear, perfectionism I wascarrying.
So I was like, okay, I'mbeginning to lose this need and
we talk about my business, noMore Desire.
That's what that means for meis building a recovery mindset
and a recovery lifestyle, andthat's what that means for me is
(06:07):
building a recovery mindset anda recovery lifestyle, and
that's for people.
It's not about stopping justthe behavior, like you want to
be able to do that becausethat's going to change your life
, but all the things that arebacking that change your mindset
, change your lifestyle.
Work on these inner mechanismsthat are going on inside of your
brain and then eventually youcan.
You can lose the desire forporn, and I've seen that for
myself, I've seen it for otherpeople.
You truly can do that.
(06:27):
It's not, it's not impossible.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Can you say more about what that means to have no
more desire for porn in thesense of not needing it, versus
maybe what some people mightthink of, as I'm never going to
be tempted again or notattracted to it anymore?
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yes, I love that you ask that.
You know the right questions toask, drew, because there is a
massive distinction betweensexual arousal and desiring sex
and feeling physical attraction,which are all very normal, very
healthy things, that we shouldactually build A relationship of
those aspects of our mindthat's positive and see that as
(07:07):
a positive thing it's the way mymind's supposed to work Versus
porn, this desire for porn,which is a desire for an escape.
I want to get away from myproblems.
I want to get away from my hurt.
I'm using this as a mechanismto take care of, eventually,
what you start to understand,which is fear, shame, grief is
(07:28):
best, I've come to understand itthose that try out of emotions
that I'm carrying underneath thesurface.
I'm trying to get away from allthose feelings of I'm not enough
and I'm afraid of things thatare going to happen.
I'm afraid I'm alone.
Right, that's an escape.
Right, so I can actually buildother healthy mechanisms in my
life to be able to processthrough those emotions, deal
(07:50):
with those things in a healthyway and unburden a lot of that.
We were talking about IFS andparts work before this,
unburdening all the stuff thatI'm carrying over time.
I can peel back those layers.
That's what I mean by losingdesire.
Now I've taken away themechanisms or removed those root
causes of needing to escapeusing porn.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Yeah, so I can be present and feel what I'm
feeling, yes, and actuallyexperience the full range of
emotions instead of numbing anddeadening them Actually.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
I love that you say that.
So something that I've beenworking on in my life is
embodiment, emotional embodimentreally getting present with and
feeling emotions inside of you.
I think we're both taught toand we build habits of.
I don't want to feel fear, Idon't want to feel sadness, I
don't want to feel anger, Idon't want to feel any of those
(08:50):
bad emotions.
It's very easy to think of themas bad emotions, and the more
that I do parts work, the morethat I engage with embodiment of
emotion, the more I actuallyrealize they're all important
emotions and they're actuallyall part of healing as well.
Amen, yeah, when fear comes up,that's a signal to me Ah,
(09:16):
here's something to payattention to.
What is this that I'mexperiencing?
And if I can, instead ofturning my attention away, turn
my attention toward it and focusin on it.
It's the exact opposite of whatpart of me says I should do.
It's like don't pay attentionto that.
That's where healing can occur.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Yeah, so good.
Which makes us most susceptibleto relapse and going back to
porn is when we get triggered byall of the feelings of
traveling on a trip on avacation, maybe for work, or
(09:59):
even on like a couple's trip.
Traveling triggers us and itbrings up a lot of those things
we don't want to feel.
Why is this topic of preventingrelapse on trips so important?
Speaker 2 (10:14):
When I relate back to my own experience, I had this
conception of trips or vacationsas a place where, you know, all
my problems go away.
I get relax.
Business trips not so much.
That's like more stress, thiswhole different thing.
Let's talk about vacations first, where I'm hanging out, I'm
chilling, everything's great, Iget to let go of all my routines
(10:37):
and, just, you know, let go ofall the structure in my life and
all the pressures.
That's the perfect place for meto be sober and and I did not
find that myself and I do notfind that with clients Often
it's the perfect place forrelapse.
Or, if not, on the trip itself,coming off of the trip is the
(10:59):
perfect time for relapse, unlesswe structure our lives and
build certain habits andboundaries that we can follow in
order to stay sober both duringthe trip and after the trip.
I think that there's amisconception, which I was
talking about, in that avacation or a trip is a time to
(11:22):
just let everything go and justgo crazy.
And I'm going to, you know, eatas much junk food as I possibly
want.
I deserve to just indulge.
I can watch, you know, fivehours of Netflix or play hours
of video games every day.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
That sounds like your life as a teenager, yeah.
And my life as a teenager inmany ways.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
That was my life as a teenager.
A hundred percent, yes, and Ithink it's funny you bring that
up because I believe that thereis a time that comes in your
life as men I'll put it in themasculine sense where you have
to decide to put away thosethings of being a child, right?
Yes, as a kid I could go out ona vacation and just have this
(12:07):
structure of this, like I'm justgoing to throw all caution to
the wind and go crazy, but Idon't know that that's
necessarily a great practice asa kid in general, just to go
insane.
I think there should be somestructure and boundaries and
things, but that's more on theparents to do that.
As we grow up, we need toimplement that structure for
(12:28):
ourselves and we need to havesome semblance of balance on
vacations or on trips.
Same thing with business trips,but business trips is more like
there is a lot of pressure orstress.
There certainly can be a lot ofconnections, networking,
presentations, all these thingsthat are on your plate.
So how to manage that stressand find times of, like you were
(12:50):
saying, presence, peace,getting in touch with my
emotions, journaling right, wecan talk about all sorts of
things we can practically do.
But we can't just go outwithout a plan and expect
everything to work out.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
So one of the biggest takeaways I want you guys to
get from this episode is theneed for a safety plan.
We're going to talk about theelements of a good safety plan.
When you're traveling, Jake.
What are some of the mostcommon triggers that come up
when we're traveling?
Speaker 2 (13:19):
I think that one of them is a poor sleeping schedule
.
On vacation, we can stay upuntil two in the morning and
wake up at 10 am, right?
Maybe if you have kids, it'snot quite the case, but it's not
going to look so good.
Maybe we do stay up really lateand then wake up really early
with our kids.
(13:39):
So when I'm not sleeping well,then my neurotransmitters and
hormones are all out of whack.
My immune system is hurting,I'm feeling imbalanced, I'm
feeling out of you know mymood's off, I'm impatient, I'm
more prone to anger and I'mcertainly more prone to cravings
(14:00):
in general.
Right, and in this case, if youstruggle with pornography
addiction, your brain is goingto point where To porn.
Right, this is how I escape,this is how I feel better, right
?
Speaker 1 (14:11):
And even if you don't intentionally stay up late, jet
lag will still mess up yoursleep.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Yes, totally yeah.
So it's important to keep aneye out for that and in some
ways, there isn't anything wecan do about the, you know,
lacking some sleep or thingslike that, different stuff that
happens out of necessity ways wegot to show up for our family
or ways we got to show up withinbusiness, or the jet lag, et
cetera.
This is going to happen and sothere are things we can do with
(14:40):
our mindset to watch for thestress, be present with the
stress, to give ourselves graceright, to give ourselves grace
right and also the messages wecan take on that are often
behind the anger of poor sleep,which is I don't feel capable, I
don't feel like I can be here,do all the things I've got to do
, I'm tired, this isn't going towork out.
How do I accomplish everythingI need to, or how do I be here
(15:01):
for my family, and then we'll befilled with feelings of
inadequacy and feelings of fear,and then that's pumping up all
the anger.
Right, I'm feeling just, I wantto control things and I want to
make the pain stop right.
So, being able to work with alot of that and be present with
that emotion, one of the biggestthings that I bring up is
having a schedule when you're onvacation.
Okay, vacation's veryunstructured, so a lot of people
(15:25):
think, well, I'll just bepresent in the moment, just do
whatever I want, both for myselfand, I think, for many of the
men that I work with.
We have these intense minds,they're we're very driven, we've
got this like passion and thisfire inside right, and so we
have to give that a direction.
I need to set up some structure, and so for me, the daily
(15:47):
routines are so powerful.
When you get out on vacation,have things that you're doing
for your spiritual well-being,for your mental well-being,
right.
Some journaling, right Prayer,studying of spiritual words or
scripture, inspirational words,whatever matches up with your
beliefs.
Taking some time for physicalexercise you can't just sit
there all day and watch TV andexpect to feel good.
(16:09):
You're going to feel like crapand then you're going to want to
escape more because you don'tfeel good.
Got to get some exercise in.
So, having those daily routinesfor my physical, spiritual,
mental well-being, and then, ofcourse, I'd add in relational
well-being, make sure you'reshowing up and having some
quality connections with family.
If you're on vacation, that'sprobably going to happen.
(16:29):
If you're with family,hopefully.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
And that can also be a trigger to have family
conflict or maybe even go backto the house where you first
encountered porn.
Yes, holidays are a minefieldfor many guys.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
I love that you brought that up, actually,
because it's true, that's awhole other end of the spectrum
and it depends on what it lookslike within your family.
But a lot of men have struggledwith pornography addiction.
They grew up in homes that werebroken or there's abuse or
there's neglect, etc.
It's a whole other topic.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
So even just being aware that some of these
challenges are going to come canhelp to change our expectations
and assumptions about how atrip is going to go.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Yeah, exactly, and that's one of the things I
reflect on is those expectations.
We can hold those unconsciously.
That's something very importantto work on.
It's just going with aknowledge and understanding you
may have a expectation of man.
This is going to be amazing.
It's just going with aknowledge and understanding you
may have a expectation of man.
This is going to be amazing.
It's going to be so much fun,it's going to be the best.
And then something starts to gowrong, breaks my perfect,
(17:38):
little, you know, view of howthings should go.
And then, all of a sudden, I'mpissed off.
People are fighting, we're inconflict, and then everything's
ruined.
Look, I've ruined all of it.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
I'm such a jerk it's like we go down the faster scale
, if you guys are familiar withthat tool forgetting priorities,
anxiety, speeding up, tickedoff, exhausted and relapse I
love that I haven't heard fasterbefore.
It's very good the faster scalewas developed by Michael Dye
and it's a huge part of PureDesire's Seven Pillars workbook
(18:14):
and it basically describes a lotof the precursors to the
overwhelming urge to watch pornor some other addictive behavior
and it follows a predictablepattern and a lot of those
things can easily happen ontrips.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Yes, a hundred percent.
Some of the other things thateasily happen on trips yes, 100%
.
Some of the other things thatwe want to watch out for, and
these are so pervasive in ourculture nowadays.
We want to watch for those whatI term as base pleasures.
Plato would have termed a lotof his writings as impure
pleasures.
Would have put it that way.
(18:49):
We can look at a lot ofdifferent.
You know John Stuart Mill, etcetera other people that have
written on this, aristotle butwe have these base pleasures,
such as TV, social media, videogames, that we used to view this
philosophically, but now we canbreak it down to neuroscience,
with an understanding ofdopamine, where there are these
(19:10):
behaviors, these activities thatwe'll get caught up in, that
are very low effort, highstimulation, instant
gratification activities.
In other words, I sit down toplay a video game, right, all I
got to do is sit and just movemy fingers and I've got the
screen.
That's just like feeding medopamine, which is like
overwhelming amounts of dopamine.
(19:31):
I'm advancing through levels,I'm having these intense
experiences Maybe there's abunch of violence, right, and
I'm just like, whoa, this isawesome.
I'm in fantasy land.
That is we now see, and then,from the neuroscience
perspective that that's spikingdopamine very, very high.
And then I'm experiencing adrop in dopamine afterwards.
(19:52):
And if I do that once for maybeI play video games for a half
an hour probably going to befine, but if I'm doing that for
two hours, three hours, evenonce, that's going to hurt.
If I'm doing that regularly nowI'm just in this chronic low
dopamine zone and my dopamine isnot just.
(20:15):
It's not just pleasure, right,we often think it's the pleasure
chemical.
It's my motivation, it's myfocus, it's my feeling of being
connected to other people, it'smy feeling of purpose.
Now I'm lacking all of that andnow my brain is just like it's
just reaching out, it's justcraving give me more dopamine.
I need more, and that's goingto set me up to go straight to
(20:38):
porn, because that's one of theways I can get the highest
dopamine hit.
So we want to balance thosethings.
If you're going to watch TV,sit down and do that.
For my personal preferencewould be like 20, 30 minutes.
Or maybe like watch one or twomovies while you're on vacation
for a week, right, not likeevery night, especially when
we're in this chronically lowdopamine state, and I know
(20:59):
that's a high standard I justset.
By the way, I'm not sayingthat's easy to do.
You also need to understandwhere you're at and what you can
reasonably do, but to to beaware of this right, when I'm in
this low dopamine state all thetime, anything that I'm doing
to imbalance that is going toprobably feel really extreme.
So if I can start to replacethese base pleasures that are
(21:22):
these it's low effort, it'sinstant gratification, it's high
stimulation with with noblepleasures, things that are more
a higher level of effort right,or a higher level of presence, I
need to be present in themoment with a moderate
dopaminergic release right.
Things like reading or writingor spending time with others,
(21:45):
having conversations, buildingor creating you creating.
I can do a little bit ofpassion, project stuff while I'm
out on vacation.
Those things are going toactually help build your
dopamine-nurgic system, heal andrepair your dopamine-nurgic
system, whereas the basepleasures damage it.
We just want to balance thatout as much as we can while
(22:06):
we're on vacation.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Totally, because we're thrown off balance.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yeah, we're dysregulated and I think that's
another aspect.
Drew, I love that you'rebringing that up.
We are out of our comfort zone.
This is a big one that I seeall the time Is we think that
we're going to go out onvacation and be like, great, I
get to shake things up.
But the trouble is often againwe can have these kind of
(22:32):
sensitive minds and I think thatcan change.
That's shifted for me right In10 years of sobriety your mind
can become less sensitive, lesslike stringent or
perfectionistic, less obsessive.
But I remember, especially inthe first few years of recovery,
it's like I had to keep like astrict schedule, my comfort zone
and things.
It was very hard to experiencetransitions or to do things that
(22:55):
were outside of my norm.
It just threw me way off.
So I had to really bring in asmuch routine as I could.
So you know, for me when I'm onvacation in the, in the
mornings I'll have my routines,so I get up earlier than pretty
much everybody else so I can dothose and that's hard.
But that means I go to bed alittle earlier than some people
do.
I don't stay up really late,get up a little bit earlier so I
(23:17):
can do these things.
And then I have a time where Ikind of go over the day right
what's going on today?
And typically there's hopefullysome kind of plans of a couple
of things we're going to do andI kind of order that in my mind
because there's a part of methat really wants kind of some
level of control or some levelof like certainty or where we're
going, some level of securityin that schedule.
(23:41):
So I go okay, here's somethings that are going on today.
Here's kind of what I cananticipate, kind of like a
father or a good mom would likedo for their kid.
You know like, hey, here's somethings we have going on today,
so you kind of know what toexpect to help level their kid
out.
I got to do that for myself.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
It's like we got to do that for our inner child.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Yes, that's exactly what it is.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
In case you guys didn't know, jake has a great
article about this topic on hiswebsite and I'll put a link to
that in the show notes.
One of the things that you sayin that article that I love the
most was an encouragement tolive in the moment.
Forget about your agenda andexpectations, get connected, be
present with each other andaccept the imperfect.
(24:25):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Yeah, and I do that perfectly myself.
Fortunately, I have it allfigured out.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
The more I learn about this and talk about this,
I feel like I want to become animperfectionist.
You know, the opposite of aperfectionist.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yeah, the opposite of a perfectionist.
Yeah, everything's something Istarted saying to myself a while
back, because I'm alwayscontinuously trying to learn and
progress and still have some ofthose perfectionistic
tendencies and obviously fearand shame and grief and all
those things that we all dealwith right.
It's always stuff every daythat I'm working on.
But one of the things I startedsaying a little while ago is
(25:11):
nothing is optimal.
Nothing is optimal ever Like.
What scenario do you have inlife where you're just like dude
, that was just perfect, thatwas everything I ever wanted,
ever dreamed of Exactly Like.
Maybe twice in your whole lifethat might happen.
So it's.
I think it's good to go in withthe expectation, not a
(25:34):
hopelessness like stuff's goingto go wrong, oh man, so bad, but
stuff is going to go wrong andstuff's going to be non-optimal,
and that's part of life.
That's how it's going to happen.
I think that opens you up thento be more creative, enjoy the
moment more, be more present andnot feel this pressure Totally.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
And within that posture of just living in the
moment and being present, itstill really helps to have a
plan.
So what would you recommend tosomebody who wants to make a
safety plan the next timethey're traveling?
Who wants to?
Speaker 2 (26:09):
make a safety plan the next time they're traveling.
So you want to sit downprevious to going out, because
if you're already on the tripyou're a bit late.
It's going to be hard to try towork that all out after you're
already out there.
Sit down and determine okay,what are my daily routines?
Okay so, mental, spiritual,physical, what can I set up for
(26:35):
myself each morning, or in theafternoon or in the evening,
whatever works best for you?
I love the mornings, but I knowsome people it's like I cannot
wake up that early.
But if you can start your daythat way, set up a few things
for me.
I I'm a little extreme withthis and I know this sounds,
this sounds intense, but it tookme years to get here.
I spend a half an hour in myspiritual time.
(26:56):
I spend 15 minutes journalingand then I exercise for about
another half hour.
Okay, so it takes time to doall that and I get a healthy
breakfast that I set my day upreally well with a good quality
breakfast.
Get some vegetables, get somefruit, get a good quality
breakfast, get some vegetables,get some fruit, get some good
quality carbohydrates, protein,good fats.
I start my day that way becausethat's the maximum amount of
(27:19):
fun, right, like I want to haveenergy, I want to feel good, I
want to feel happy.
That way I can actually have areally good time that day.
So determine what time do Ineed to kind of get up generally
and go to bed generally inorder to make those routines
work.
Plan activities right.
Your entire day doesn't have tobe loaded.
(27:40):
You don't have to have itloaded front to back, but plan
some things with your family ifyou're on vacation of here are
the things that we're going todo each day.
Right, we're going to go out tothis event or we're going to go
on this hike, or we're going togo each day.
Right, we're going to go out tothis event, or we're going to
go on this hike, or we're goingto go do this, that right.
Plan some stuff and then plansome things something as well
that you can do.
That is going to be especiallyif you're an introvert, but I
(28:03):
think this is for a lot ofpeople.
Plan something you can dothat's on your own, independent,
where you can take a break andtake time out right To write or
to read, to do something.
That kind of fulfills you, ithelps you recharge.
It helps you feel a littleaccomplished, it helps you feel
good, be more present, plan inthose things.
(28:24):
If it's a business trip, youneed to plan in all those same
things.
It's just going to look alittle bit different, right, and
that cause you're going to havemeetings, you're going to have
um, networking events,presentations, et cetera, things
that you're doing.
You still need to take care ofyourself while you're out there,
physically, mentally,spiritually, maybe even more.
(28:46):
It's more important Even You'refacing stress and expectations
in this whole environment.
So set up what structure youcan in those ways.
And if you're looking at thatbusiness trip and all, maybe
it's a conference you're goingto and you can see the whole
schedule plan in for yourself.
Maybe some people are going tobe out socializing for two hours
(29:07):
in between meetings.
Maybe that's not for you.
That's not unacceptable, that'sreally acceptable.
Just to know yourself and to berealistic, yeah, I'll chat with
people and hang out for a halfhour, 45 minutes an hour, and
then I've got to go kind of beby myself, chill, go on a walk,
pray for a while, right ormeditate.
(29:28):
Do something to get re-present.
Pray for a while right ormeditate.
Do something to get re-present,get rebalanced.
These are the things you wantin your safety plan.
Now, that's structure.
In addition, you want tooutline some things that you
know when you go out, there aregoing to be triggering times for
you.
So this would be like at night,right At 7 or 8 pm or whatever
(29:48):
it is.
If you're on a business trip,let's say you get back in your
hotel room, you're going to beby yourself.
That is grounds for seriousdanger, right?
So you want to set up a plan,as you're saying.
This is all part of a safetyplan.
What's going to enable you orincrease the likelihood that you
(30:09):
can stay sober?
What's going to set you up in asafe way to stay sober?
Well, I'm going to call my wife, right?
Let's say, check in with her.
How did the day go, how wasyour day, honey?
Let's chat for a while.
Let's talk about how things aregoing.
I'm going to check in on hey,here's kind of the things that I
have in place, what I'm doingtonight before I go to bed.
(30:30):
So, checking on those things,you can get a bit of that
accountability and communicatethat and then have your
nighttime routines of windingdown.
I would recommend again, ifyou're addicted to porn or
that's been a challenge for you,trying to recover from it.
That wind down time is notsocial media.
It's not you sitting watchingTV.
(30:50):
Then you're in virtual zone,right.
Your winding down time is goingto look very different.
It's going to be reading a book, or it's going to be going out
on a walk, it's going to bedoing some meditation.
It's going to be sitting andbreathing, right, writing out
your emotions, journaling,getting those emotions down in
(31:10):
case you can offload the stressof the day.
And then I will add if you'regoing on a trip where you are
able to bring your family, I'drecommend that, especially if
you're early on in recovery, ifyou're able to bring someone
with you or stay in the sameroom as a coworker or something,
or do something where you canbe with somebody so you don't
(31:34):
have to be by yourself.
Because part of you will saythat part of you that's so
determined and wants to beindependent but can be really
critical it'll say I can do this, it's not a big deal, I'll do
it all on my own, we can managethat.
Or maybe it's a little more uh,creative or deceptive side of
you that is saying you'll befine, don't worry about it like
(31:59):
everything's going to work out.
You won't watch porn whileyou're out there.
Acknowledge those parts of you,they're important parts of you,
and make a better decision ifyou're able to or get that
structure in the evenings, ifyou're going to be alone right
and try to connect with somebody.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
It's so wise, as much as there are parts of me that
don't like structure, it isliberating and sometimes we need
to adjust that structure andadapt it.
To be realistic, you know,especially if your trips are
like my trips, unexpected thingshappen, and so there's also a
(32:40):
beauty in being flexible, andeven if I can't do the entire
plan, settling for as much of itas makes sense is still great.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Yeah, and I think, kind of going back to what we're
saying about the mindset on thetrip, I love that you brought
up that part of the article.
I'm thinking back to a recentvacation that I went on with my
family to California and it wasreally good in a lot of ways,
but it was also hard, because Iam again this person with like a
drive, this like fiery passioninside.
(33:13):
I want to adventure, I want todo things that are meaningful, I
want to make a difference andif I don't give that a path, it
often will turn to destruction,like either I'm going to get
angry and start a fight, likejust because I want to feel
something and I don't evenrealize that's happening.
Right, I've become more awareof that and I try to, early on,
(33:35):
be like ah, what I call it isthe adventuring part of me which
is like courageous and bold.
Right, it's like let's juststart some stuff, let's just
fight.
That way I can feel thestimulation I'm needing, right.
So if I'm able to callattention to that part, I can
either redirect it to be likeyou know, I've got to go out and
do something exciting.
So when I was out there, I wasfeeling that tension and I was
(33:58):
like, hey, babe, I'm going totake our son out, we're going to
go on a daddy-son date.
We're going to go get some food.
We're going to walk around somestores and hang out.
Right, I got some goodone-on-one time with my son.
We chilled, we hung out.
That gives me some of thatmeaning.
It's not incredibly,overwhelmingly exciting, right,
but it's a time for me to go outand do something different,
right, and laugh with my son,hang out right, eat some good
(34:22):
food and get some of thatstimulation that I needed.
But even if not that, even ifthere's not an option, at least
I can step back and be aware ofthe part of my mind that might
be seeking out an escape, or theparts of my mind that are
highly driven right and can moveinto more of that.
So, one of those parts that canact as a manager.
It's like, dude, we got to getstuff done, we got to be
(34:43):
productive, like we got to be onpoint, and if we're not doing
that, we're worth nothing, right?
So, turning to that part andbeing like, hey, it's a driven
part of me, it wants to getstuff done, it wants to be
productive.
It's a super positive part ofme, love that part.
It's okay that right now it's alittle slower paced.
Chilling, I'm relaxing, youknow.
(35:05):
I got my toddler, I got my wifewho's sick, she's pregnant,
right.
It's more low key right now and, yes, that feels kind of tense
for me inside and I'm going tobe present without tension.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
It's all right, so good.
I love the way that you'reincorporating parts work into
this conversation and into thework you do.
It's one of the most valuableapproaches we found for
outgrowing porn.
Jake, what is your favoritething about freedom from porn?
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Oh boy, lots of things.
It's interesting, as you saythat, because there are so many
changes that take placeneurologically when you get out
of porn, and so dopamine becausethat's such a heavy contributor
there's many other factors inporn addiction and when you're
recovering, so many things thatimprove, but just dopamine alone
, because it's something that'sinvolved in motivation.
I remember it was such astruggle to find motivation.
(36:01):
I had these ambitions inside ofme of you know, I want to build
a business and I want to make adifference and I want to serve
people.
I want to have fun and I wantto do things that are exciting
and I want to make a differenceand I want to serve people.
I want to have fun and I wantto do things that are exciting
and I want to do all this stuff.
And it's just like, and I feelcapable of none of it.
It was hard, really hard, toget myself motivated, and
(36:21):
motivation comes so much morenaturally for me now.
It doesn't mean it's alwayseasy, by the way, but far more
frequently it's like it's justthere, like this pool of
motivation is just there, and Isimply didn't have that capacity
before.
Focus as well.
Right, I struggled with whatcould be termed ADD, adhd and,
(36:44):
by the way, as I say this, I'mnot saying that everyone who has
ADD or ADHD is an addict andthat's why you can't focus.
But for me it was very muchthis like addiction created, you
know, this imbalance in mydopaminergic system.
I had such trouble focusing.
It was all over the place.
It's like a roller coaster.
Sometimes I'd be really focusedand I'd be in it, and other
(37:06):
times it's like I've got nothing.
I hated that.
I could not stand that, becauseI had this deep desire inside
of me to live a meaningful life,and I think we all have that
desire, whatever form that comesin for us.
Right, I wanted to live ameaningful life, then dopamine
also plays this integral role inconnection.
I just felt detached from thepeople around me, like I
(37:29):
couldn't connect.
I didn't feel as much empathyas I felt like I should feel, or
as much emotion or sadness orcare.
I was like what am I?
A sociopath?
Like I must just be thisscrewed up, horrible person.
I felt like that inside and itwas like what was playing a big
part in that was the addiction,where it was just sapping me and
(37:50):
draining me of this emotionalenergy that I deeply needed and
should have as a human being.
I think, for those who are inthe struggle now, having that
compassion for yourself, forthat understanding of, yeah, I
can't feel this and this isplaying a big role in that.
It's not that I'm a bad person,it's that I've got this
challenge I'm dealing with andI'm working to overcome it and
(38:11):
this is actually going to getbetter, like I think it's
exciting.
It can give you hope I canovercome this one day and I can
actually have so much moreemotion, excitement.
I can feel more connected to mywife, to my kids, oh, and
that's a wonderful future tolook forward to.
Those are some of my favoritethings.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
That's why we do this , for ourselves and for others.
All those desires for meaningand adventure and purpose,
connection, focus, motivationare all affected by our
sexuality and our relationshipwith porn, or the lack of it our
sexuality and our relationshipwith porn or the lack of it.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
Yeah, and I'll also say this as well which is the
same part of you that acts outaddictively?
From what I understand fromparts work and what I've
experienced inside myself andthings I've studied, et cetera,
Same part of you that's addictedto porn is the same part of you
that is like bold, courageous,adventurous, risk-taking, fun,
spontaneous, probably funny.
When you start to move out ofaddiction, that part of you can
shift and change.
(39:18):
You don't got to sit on top ofthat part or demonize it or be
like.
This is a horrible part of meand I want it to die.
It's going to be adissatisfying, unhappy way to
live sobriety.
I've done it.
I did it for like five years.
It was horrible.
That part of you can convert.
It's actually a really goodpart of you and it can convert
into something that's reallypositive and amazing.
I will say that without it'sgoing to be so ironic without
(39:42):
that part of me that used tobehave as a porn addict, I
wouldn't have built the businessthat I have and be able to
coach men one-on-one, becausethat part of me has passion, has
adventure, it was willing totake the risk to build a
business and do somethingadventurous that other parts of
me thought was freaking crazy,Like that's impossible, You're
crazy, and it was like let's dothis.
(40:03):
I wouldn't have built thisbusiness without that part.
But it was only able to actthat way because it wasn't
constantly channeled into thisrole of being addictive and
destructive.
Now it behaves a lot of thetime in a really positive way in
my life.
Man, I absolutely love that.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
Pray.
Scott.
Jake thanks so much for beingwith us.
And guys, if you want toconnect with Jake or learn more
about his program, go tonomoredesirecom or check out the
other links in the show notesand remember you are God's
beloved son.
In you he is well-pleased.
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Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com