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May 25, 2025 13 mins
What is “good recovery,” and how do you know if you’re doing it? It’s a question that most guys often ask themselves. Which is unfortunate, because I feel like this is something that should be very well-defined. Yes, recovery is specific to each person. However, there are well-established practices and treatment strategies that we know work for everyone. I’ve developed this checklist to help you determine if you are in “good recovery.” Use this link to get the checklist: https://successfuladdict.com/goodrecovery If you’re married, print it out and give it to your wife. She wants to build safety and trust. A good recovery plan will help you get there
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Episode Transcript

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(00:00):
Good recovery.
What is it and how do we get
there?
You are listening to the sex addiction podcast
for high achievers, business professionals, executives, and entrepreneurs.
This podcast is designed to apply sobriety and
recovery principles specifically to the mindset of the
high achiever.
I'm your host, Roland Cochran, founder of The
Successful Addict, a recovery group for high achieving

(00:22):
men struggling with sex and porn addiction. For
more information about joining our group or attending
our next retreat, visit successfuladdict.com.
And now, enjoy the rest of the episode.
Right. That's alright. Everybody's listening to this podcast.
That's why everybody's watching my YouTube videos.
We want to get into good recovery.
Yes. To be able to achieve long term

(00:42):
sobriety. Right? To be able to change our
brain processes so that we don't slip, so
that we don't relapse,
and
to save your marriage. I mean, you know,
when you have betrayed your wife sexually,
trust is gone. Right? So there's no safety
there. The safety in the relationship is good
recovery. That is that is all your wife
has to lean on. And so it's very

(01:04):
critical that we
build good recovery and you guys get it
in your life. But here's the thing, it
sounds really easy on paper.
Sounds really easy on paper. Right? When you
first get discovered and you and your wife
first get into recovery and you see your
certified sex addiction therapist, they're gonna tell you
what's needed for good recovery. But it sounds
really easy on paper and getting it implemented

(01:25):
is actually quite difficult. And I'm gonna spell
it out for you here in the next
few minutes. So the first thing that guys
need, number one, this is without question the
most important, your
therapist has already told you this, and it's
peer support.
It's peer support. You cannot overcome this addiction
alone.
And while therapy is great, therapists are not
your peers.

(01:45):
Right? Therapists are therapists. They use their professional
skill set to help change your
psychology. Right? Modify your behaviors. They are not
peer support.
And so while it's important, you need peers.
Right? You absolutely need peers. All the research
points to this. When you're overcoming addictive and
compulsive behavior, you need to be recovering with
other men who are recovering

(02:07):
from the same addiction that you have, which
brings up an interesting
question though. Because if it's peer support,
what if you can't find your peers in
12 step meetings? Right? And this happens to
a lot of successful guys, right, as successful
entrepreneurs
and, business owners, sales professionals,
lawyers, doctors, things like this.

(02:27):
They have a hard time finding their peers
in 12 step meetings because, you know, high
achievers, high achieving men, high performing men only
make up less than 5% of the population.
So the odds of them being in that
room are actually quite low.
Right? So, again, here you are going to
meetings or going to your therapist's, therapy group
or or or some other group. And, yeah,
sure. There's guys there, and, yes, technically, they're

(02:49):
labeled as sex addicts, but
their addictions are probably a lot different than
yours. Right? If you're a if you're a
high achieving male, a lot of the times,
you
are not really a porn addict or a
sex addict. A lot of times, you are
addicted to admiration. You know? You want to
be lusted after. You want attention. Right? You
want people to notice you. You want women
to look at you. You wanna feel like,

(03:10):
you know, the most superior,
best, you know, attractive guy in the room,
the guy that all the women want to
be with and the guy that all men
wish they could be. Right? That's what most
high achievers are addicted to. You know, all
of these sexual behaviors, you know, they just
kind of happen in the crossfire because women
have been roped into part of that recipe.
But I I bring this up because if

(03:31):
you're going to a support group, a peer
support group, and the other guys have a
different kind of addiction than you do. Right?
They're they're,
you know, watching porn for hours and hours
and hours and unable to maintain a job
or they're,
you know, they hate their wife and they
hate their career and they act out as
a coping mechanism. You know, a lot of
high achievers can't really resonate with, some of

(03:51):
those struggles. Right? And you're gonna see a
lot of that in your typical recovery,
recovery groups.
So if they don't feel like your peers,
is this really peer support? Alright. So that's
the big thing I would say is number
one is, you know, connection is not just
going to a meeting.
Connection is not just going to the therapy
group. Right?
Connection is having

(04:12):
like minded people who you enjoy being around.
Right? People who know what it's like to
be you. Right? People who who live a
similar lifestyle to you, have similar interests as
you. You guys can engage in intellectual and
stimulating conversations. Right? That's that's those are the
people that we hang around with. That's connection.
Right? So we know there's the saying, you
guys have probably heard it. Right? The opposite
of addiction is not

(04:33):
recovery. The opposite of addiction is connection.
But again, can you connect with people that
you don't have a ton in common with?
You know, maybe you can get there, but,
you know, when it comes to addiction, you
know, we need to connect and we need
to connect now. Right? So find that group.
You know? Join join a group full of
like minded guys. Right? If you are a
a successful, you know, entrepreneur,

(04:55):
business professional of some kind, sales professional,
checking out our groups. Right? My groups, all
of the men are driven,
intellectual,
fun guys. Right? So it's all a bunch
of high achievers and successful men recovering together.
And the reason that my program works is
for that exact reason. They are enjoying
their time with their peers. Right? They're getting

(05:16):
real connection and forming real friendships. Right? So
that's the that's the big thing is, you
know, they'll tell you when you get into
this, they'll say, hey. Here's 12 step meetings
and then, maybe they'll propose a couple other,
kind of local sex addiction groups.
And that's fine, but remember, the goal isn't
to be in a room full of people.
The goal is to connect. And so if
you're not connecting, keep searching for another group

(05:38):
until you can find that connection.
Number two,
you need to find out what your process
addiction is. Right? You know, therapy a lot
of people just go into therapy and expect
their therapist to fix them.
That will happen, but it's gonna take very,
very long.
The best way to kinda speed up your
recovery is to figure out what your process

(05:59):
addiction is
and then have your therapist and other people
in your in your recovery team help you
overcome that.
Again, I think this is where a lot
of men go wrong. They
assume that this is a sex and porn
addiction, which is what it's been called, but
it's actually classified as a process addiction. You're
addicted to thought processes, and it's gonna be
different than every other guy in the room.

(06:20):
Right? In my recovery groups, I do I
break the guys into small groups of 10,
and those are the 10 guys that you
recover with for as long as you're in
the group. And
every single one of those guys is gonna
have a different addiction than you. They're gonna
have a different brain processes that you're chasing.
Some are gonna be more after superiority.
Some are gonna be after
admiration and getting attention.

(06:42):
Some are gonna be after control. Right? Some
want to,
some want to defy and rebel. Some want
a secret sexual life. Some are really into
image management, right, and using women, as part
of that, you know, enhancing their status. Whatever
it is, you know, these these every single
person, every single guy is addicted to a
different brain process.

(07:02):
And so the the challenge is we can't
just walk into therapists and say, hey. Treat
me. I'm a sex addict. Because
you're you're not a sex addict. You actually
have a process addiction, and your process addiction
is unique to you. And you and your
therapist need to figure out what those brain
processes are so that you can fix them,
which leads me to number three, having a

(07:24):
recovery plan.
So having a recovery plan, this is this
one, I would say, is another huge pitfall.
You know, a lot of guys are in
recovery,
but they don't have a plan for their
specific
process addiction.
And this is not great. Right?
Your wife's not gonna feel safe. You know,
a lot of guys, you know, their wives
tell them, hey. I don't feel like you're
in good recovery.

(07:44):
And,
it's not that she's saying you're not doing
enough because you probably are. You're probably going
to meetings and reading books and listening to
podcasts.
But what she's probably picking up on, and
she's probably not wrong, is
are you actually working on your
process addiction?
Right? Or are you just kind of checking
off the boxes and going through the motions?

(08:04):
And I think a lot of men think
they're in good recovery, and I don't blame
them. I I think they're only,
not in good recovery because they don't know
what their process addiction is, and so they're
not in good recovery because they haven't made
that plan. So that's the the third point
of being in good recovery is
formulating and spelled out step by step plan.
Hey. This is how

(08:26):
you overcome these brain processes. Right? This is
what we know about psychology,
biology, and science
around men changing brain processes like this. Right?
These are the steps that are involved in
that. And you need to show that plan
to your wife.
Right? She needs to see that. Right? She
she without that, you know, she might be
seeing you going to your appointments and different

(08:46):
things,
and that's good. It's better than nothing, but
she needs to see the plan. She needs
to see the plan and she needs to
see you
know your plan and she needs to see
you excited about your plan, which leads me
to number four and this one's super important.
And that is recovery needs to be fun.
I mean, it needs to be enjoyable. Guys,
you're going to be doing this for a

(09:07):
long time. This
is not something that just goes away. You
know, a lot of these men, you know,
there's been decades after decade after decade of
these thoughts being imprinted into your brain by
others and by yourself. And so, you know,
changing these and getting these out of your
life for good,
it's not a short process.
It's not short. And so you need to

(09:27):
enjoy recovery. It needs to be something that
you're motivated to do. You need to be
doing it with guys who you enjoy doing
it with. Right? Because, again, we we think
about all the things that you've ever done
in your life. If you don't enjoy them,
if you're not looking forward to them, how
much slower do you actually accomplish the thing?
How how much how much longer does it
take you to get to the goal? Yeah.
It takes it takes a lot longer when

(09:48):
we're not enjoying it. Right? So recovery does.
It needs to be fun. You know, part
of the the thing that we've done is
we have two four day retreats each year
in our groups. And, you know, obviously, the
main reason for that is it's way easier
to create deep connections and friendships in person
versus just virtually over Zoom. But the other
reason that I do it is,
we gotta have something to look forward to.

(10:09):
I mean, my guys, like, you know, I
do a really good job of making the
retreats, really enjoyable. The guys get to be
really, really close, super vulnerable. You know, it's
this perfect container to create deep connection. And,
again, the guys are counting down the days
until the next retreat. Seriously, like, when the
retreat's like a couple months out, like, the
guys are just getting excited. You can just
feel it. And, and I I think that's

(10:31):
important. You know? And for the ladies who
are listening to this, you know, sometimes the
ladies are like, hey. Why are these guys
having so much fun? Right? Recovery is not
supposed to be fun. You know, here I
am over here suffering, and then he's out,
you know, hanging out with his guys, having
a blast. I get that. I get that.
But at the same time, a boring recovery
and a monotonous recovery,

(10:51):
that's unsustainable.
Right? And so, you know, if your if
your husband looks bored and checked out and
is kind kind of getting burned out in
his recovery, you should be scared. I mean,
that's you know, that that to me, it's
it's a pretty big kind of, like, relapse
risk there. So,
I hope this was a good short description
of what good recovery is.
In the show notes for this episode, I'm

(11:13):
gonna put a link to the good recovery
checklist. I have the items that I all
mentioned. I have a I have another other
list of six additional items that you guys
can kind of read through and kinda check
yourself. Go through that checklist one by one
by one. Ask yourself, hey. Am I good
in good recovery? And more importantly, when you're
done kinda going through that checklist,
print it off and show it to your

(11:34):
wife or send her or or forward it
to her email. But, again, this should be
a discussion that the two of you should
be having. Right? Am I in good recovery?
Because if the answer is no, then you
need to get into good recovery. And if
you're doing a really good job and you
are in fact in good recovery, then great.
You know, you should still send your wife
that email so that you can both kind
of take comfort and have a lot of

(11:54):
safety and trust in, hey, you know what?
We're on the right track. We're doing everything
that we have to do.
For those of you who want additional questions,
I am actually a pretty accessible guy. If
you get on my site, if you think
that my group is something that you want
to join,
there is an application at the bottom. Fill
that out. You and I will jump on
a one on one, one hour interview, where

(12:15):
we can discuss, you know, hey, if is
this group the right fit for you? How
does the ins and outs of our process
work? And see if it's the thing that's
kind of missing from your recovery plan.
Thanks for listening to this episode. If you
are a high achiever with a sex addiction
and you're looking for a recovery group full
of like minded men, visit successfuladdict.com.

(12:35):
We provide men with a recovery mastermind group
using four day retreats,
weekly group calls, calls, and daily accountability
check ins. If you wanna achieve long term
sobriety and save your marriage, go to our
website, fill out our application. If you enjoyed
this episode, please pass it along to a
friend in recovery who would benefit from listening.
It is my mission to get this information
out to as many high achievers as possible,

(12:57):
and I can't do it without your help.
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