The Walk Family Podcast
The Walk Family Podcast is a show focused on biblical parenting (what the Bible says about parenting) and reaches all stages of life. Whether you are a new or experienced parent, we all make mistakes and wrestle through what being a godly mom or dad looks like in daily life. This podcast provides hope and encouragement through the Bible's teaching about being the parent God desires you to be.
The Walk Family Podcast
Breaking the Chains: Overcoming Porn Addiction Through Faith and Psychology with Jake Kastleman
Could an addiction that starts from curiosity lead to a profound spiritual transformation? Join us as Jake Kastleman, the founder of No More Desire, opens up about his journey overcoming pornography addiction, beginning as a teenager in a home already familiar with addiction’s shadows due to his father's work. Jake's story is one of struggle, revelation, and redemption, offering invaluable insights into the societal and personal impacts of pornography, including its ties to human trafficking and its emotional toll on men. His experience illustrates the stark realities of addiction and serves as a beacon of hope for those navigating similar paths.
Our conversation doesn't stop at personal stories; it extends to the healing power of integrating psychological tools and faith-based practices. Discover how Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and parts work, when combined with spiritual practices, can become powerful allies in the journey to recovery. By fostering self-awareness and compassion and seeking strength from a higher power, individuals can forge a resilient path towards healing. The key, we find, lies in open communication and the support of trusted relationships, providing a foundation for lasting change.
The episode crescendos with a deep dive into the intensive recovery programs that Jake champions, breaking down the illusions of quick fixes and highlighting the importance of a committed, holistic approach. Jake sheds light on how these programs address both the emotional roots and lifestyle changes necessary for overcoming addiction, emphasizing the importance of understanding one's motivations and emotional needs. We also reveal an exciting shift in our podcast format, promising more engaging content and opportunities for connection. Listen in for a compelling journey of understanding, empathy, and empowerment, as we explore these vital topics and invite you to take part in the conversation.
https://www.nomoredesire.com/
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Hey everybody, it's Tony and welcome back to the Walk Family Podcast. I am bringing you a series titled Seasons of Despair, which focuses on different experiences of life, such as marriage, raising kids and loss of loved ones, and how people navigate those hardships. Laura and I bring to the table conversations from our own home, as well as introduce some guests sharing their stories. Everybody goes through trials and tribulations in life. Sometimes it feels we can't ever escape the pain that that brings. James 1, 2, and 3 says Consider it pure joy. My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, this is easier said than done. Despair, by definition, is the loss or absence of hope. As a believer in Jesus, there is always that eternal hope we have, but sometimes we don't always feel like it exists. It's an incredibly challenging thing when we feel despair in this life, when we think there is no hope and all we experience is hurt and pain. My hope and my prayer is that this series will show that you are not alone in your moments of despair.
Speaker 2:I think what some people understand, but what many other people don't know, is that a vast majority of the porn that's online is from human and sex trafficking. Or, if they're not being trafficked, it's people who have been there. They're either on drugs, right, and so they're being told in order to get the drugs that you want, you need to do this for me. Or there are people who have been coerced or manipulated or told that they need to do this in order to be accepted by their boyfriend or what have you right, and then they're being used, right. And is that every bit of porn? No, right? Obviously, there are those who are choosing to participate in that without this coercion or being trapped in trafficking and things like that, but I would argue that the people who are doing that voluntarily a vast majority of them carry a history of abuse and sexual trauma which is driving them to do what they're doing, and that's that gets pretty complex from a psychological perspective.
Speaker 1:Hey everybody, that was Jake Castleman, and Jake is the owner of the company called no More Desire, and I tell you what. It was such a privilege talking with Jake about the true struggle of pornography in this country and around the world, as many of you guys know I'm sure that are listening how rampant that struggle is and how invasive pornography can be, especially nowadays when everybody has access to it iPads and cell phones just the technology just makes it super easy. And what Jake does in this conversation is just talks about his company and how he goes out of his way to help people, specifically men, who want to experience victory over porn addiction. And it all starts with his own journey, his own story and experiencing victory over it and the recovery process. And we know that the struggle is real.
Speaker 1:There are many different strategies and tactics that say, yep, you can experience victory, and people who struggle with addiction they relapse, they fall back into it over and over and over again. They relapse, they fall back into it over and over and over again, and stats say that about 99% of men have viewed pornography at least once in their lifetime, and so I hope this episode is a blessing to everybody who listens. Nonetheless, here we go, jake Castleman. Jake, I'm very glad that you got to join me and just have this conversation, and I really want to start off with just understanding the origin of no More Desire and how it all started.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So for me it starts from a personal standpoint. When I was in my teenage years, I was 13 years old. That's where porn addiction these days for so many men starts. And for the men that I work with as as clients in my program, you know, at 13. And I think this is the case for a lot of people I've worked with, I was very undereducated when it came to sex or anything to do with it. I was very ignorant to all of that and there's complex reasons for that. And I've gained a real understanding from my parents and kind of what they came from and they were doing their best. But we had the internet right. I grew up I'm a millennial and at 13, I gained access to that and started to get curious and explore and by about 14, so a year later, I was pretty well addicted looking, you know, watching porn every day.
Speaker 2:And the interesting thing, one of the interesting things about my story, is that my father has been in the porn addiction recovery industry, helping people with porn addiction, since before that ever happened with me. So logically, I knew this is something that can cause problems in my life, but I really didn't understand the depth of what that meant. I heard the word addiction and it's like, yeah, something that like you really want and like you feel like you can't go without it. But I didn't understand all of the things that would do to me from the standpoint of insecurities, I would experience a loss of focus and motivation that I would experience from the dopamine drain experienced from all addictions. But porn addiction is a really really hard one in that way, and I had an addiction to video games, an addiction to food. It's not all just one thing. I think that's something we can talk more about if we want to. But I had all these addictions going on, and when I was in my late teenage years this is a Christian podcast, so I'd love to express this I had a spiritual experience where my father was talking to me about God.
Speaker 2:He was talking about God's plan for me and I I felt the spirit and at the time I was so removed from the gospel of Christ, from the church, from all of it, that I didn't know what that good feeling was Like. You'd think I'd knew it because I grew up in the church and in the gospel, but I just knew it felt really good and I knew I wanted to feel more of it. And so I see, kind of by the power of angels, christ, the Holy Ghost, I was inspired to start praying every day and reading of holy words every day, right Of scripture, and that started to improve my life. And as that began happening, my mind started to expand, my perspective started to expand and I started to notice when I would engage with porn or with a lot of other things I was caught up in at that time. It went into drugs, it went into alcohol in my teenage years because it just compounds and compounds. Right. If you keep going down that road, you'll just gain more and more addictions. And that's where I was at and I saw how miserable all of it was making me and I saw what I could. I started to gain a vision of who I could become right. I started to gain a glimpse of it and I was like man. If only I could get rid of these addictions. And so over a five-year period I worked very hard, with a lot of immaturity and a lot of messiness and a lot of back and forth and wishy-washy, but really working over five years to get out of my addictions and bear in mind, for a lot of people that looks like a lot longer journey.
Speaker 2:I was blessed enough to grow up in a family with a father who was teaching about addiction recovery, and I had opened up to him around that same time in my late teenage years and said this is an issue I have, and so I had that background to serve me and to help me. And then I had that help from God, and so I learned, I learned, I grew, I built these skills over that five-year period, and the journey really doesn't end there. That's finally when I was about 22,. I viewed porn for my last time my whole life and I've been sober 10 years now almost. And what automatically happens to, I think, all people who go through recovery is you then want to carry that to other people.
Speaker 2:And so once I then said I'm going to do something about this, and so I started building a plan which started with the.
Speaker 2:I then said I'm going to do something about this, and so I, you know, started building a plan which started with the curriculum for me, because I love to create content and I love to create, you know, methods and formulas, and I love psychology I'm a nerd for it and so I built out a lot of different concepts that have that have really evolved over the last few years and then built this business and I. That's a massive story, but I did the podcast and got in 12 step groups and just started getting involved in some of the addiction community and helping people and getting help myself too in my recovery, then started taking on clients and started coaching people and I can't say how much of a blessing it is to me that the joy of being able to help other people overcome this and at the same time, it's such a blessing to me to do it right and to be in that position to do it. Uh, so it's doing this work every day. It's a privilege for me.
Speaker 1:So you started the business side of. It really was about two, three years ago. You'd say yeah. So we kind of started about the same time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, that's kind of cool yeah.
Speaker 1:So I want to. So there's quite a lot there, so I want to kind of take it into chunks. So you struggled, you had this addiction that led to other addictions for about five years, right in the middle of your teenage years, and then 18.
Speaker 2:Do you mind if I go back a little bit further on that and clarify it? Yeah, and this is something a lot of people don't see I believe I was an addict from the time I was four years old and a lot of people feel surprised by that. But it started with video games and food. That's how I escaped and how I dealt with my hard emotions. I was a very intense child, loaded up with fiery emotions and anger and intensity and shame, feeling I'm not good enough. I didn't know what to do with all that, and so I went to video games and I went to food. That was how I that's where I found safety. It's where I found certainty and and peace quote unquote at least the best a little four-year-old kid can write using some of those things. And then eventually, you know, almost 10 years later, that led into the porn addiction and then other addictions after that.
Speaker 1:So I think a lot of people, especially in the church space or that are believers, are thinking, you know, I like, if I just I have a relationship with God, like he's going to take it away and it's just like snap of the fingers, that's that. But you and I both know, like that's that. But you and I both know, like that's not true. He's a huge piece, but he's not just, he's not a magical genie that's just going to take it away like this is right, I think.
Speaker 1:I think all of us would um, yeah, but the reality is, is you with the clients that you work with and the fact that you have your own experience with it? It's like it takes diligence and intentionality, with like steps, that kind of rewire your brain to overcome this. And you said you're experiencing, you know, a decade of soberness. Now that it's from the people that you've worked with, do you find that, yeah, it is just kind of like, yeah, snap of the fingers, you know cold turkey, and then they experience victory.
Speaker 2:Or do you find that you know they need to follow certain steps to overcome this over time? Yeah, I love that you bring this up, tony, because it's so true. I think in the Christian faith at least and you and I've studied other Eastern faiths and things and I don't know exactly what that looks like in other faiths, but I know in Christianity we can have this idea of well God, through the atonement of Christ and through God's power, he'll take your addiction from you and he'll take this desire from you. I've never had God take anything from me without a very substantial amount of work on my part to get there, and a lot of people will see that as well. Isn't God merciful, or doesn't he love me? He loves you so much that he's going to allow you to work through the steps, as you said right, to get to a place of progression where you've learned, you've grown, you've gone through a journey. How else would you appreciate sobriety if you didn't go through a journey? If someone just came up and said here I'll take that, now you're good, the level of growth and what I went through over the course of many years and what I still go through right, I'm still working my recovery every day. Now, you know, it's really rare for me to have a desire for porn or for anything like that to pop up, but you still have addictions that all us human beings have, like we have. So many of us have addictions in one form or another, to one degree or another, to work or productivity, or to anger, or to controlling people or, you know, judging people or gossip, or right media, tv video, whatever these things are. And so developing that recovery mindset and lifestyle For my clients, what I find most often so many men especially and I don't think that it's a coincidence that men are the ones who are who struggle with porn addiction the most and that are the most susceptible to this we are not taught how to process through our thoughts and emotions.
Speaker 2:So many of us are not taught that right, we're taught to stuff down difficult, right, we're taught to stuff down difficult, hard emotions, like you know sadness or anger, or loneliness, insecurity. Insecurity is a big one that can be like a swear word to a lot of men. It's like I don't feel insecure, I don't have insecurities, everybody has insecurities, everybody's got them. Charities, everybody's got them, and we all carry these burdens. And so I teach my clients.
Speaker 2:Well, two different frameworks for processing through and working through daily thoughts and emotions hard ones that we, that you experience and triggers, because they go right along together. I use the same two psychological frameworks to do that, which are based in CBT, and parts work to do that which are based in CBT and parts work. And so if you can work through your thoughts and emotions in a way that's effective, that will lead to success, and you practice that each day, then things like anger or loneliness or grief or sadness things we all experience as human beings won't overload you and overwhelm you behind the scenes without you being aware of it. We need to become deeply aware of what we're experiencing in our thoughts and our emotions psychologically and process through it, be aware of it, show acceptance and compassion to ourselves and that is so fundamental for people and compassion to ourselves, and that is so fundamental for people.
Speaker 2:And the interesting thing is much of it goes right along with Christ and his teachings. It goes right along with the gospel in a lot of ways, but so many people don't know how to integrate that into their own mindset and an inner dialogue that they're having inside, to treat themselves with that acceptance, that love, that compassion and how to truly forgive yourself. On a fundamental standpoint, the way I teach my clients to handle triggers and negative emotions is a process of forgiveness. It's my brand, it's my way to do it, based on psychological modalities, but to forgive yourself If you can forgive yourself, ongoing on a daily basis, and I recommend bringing God or your higher power or Christ into that to be your facilitator and your guide in doing that. Now you're doing the work of recovery from a mindset standpoint.
Speaker 1:So there's a huge faith element to, I mean essentially, like we call it a practice right To your practice, like there's a piece to that, would you say it is necessary to your journey to recovery, or is it just kind of like an extra?
Speaker 2:I think that nowadays and a lot of people aren happening in internal family systems that you can get in touch with in order to be a, be a leader to the different parts of you like the addict parts, right that can take over and take the lead and lead you down paths that are insane and crazy and delusional. If that light of God inside of you, or whatever you believe it to be right, but if that light of God inside of you can really take the lead over these parts of you and you can be a space of acceptance and compassion for yourself, then you can recover. Now what you asked is do you have to have a reliance on a higher power, or do you have to have a reliance on a higher power or do you have to have this reliance on God? I would say I've never seen someone this is me personally, I'm saying this I've never seen someone recover long-term without that.
Speaker 2:Now that can come in many forms, uh, and if it's more kind of like a spiritual thing for you, you you understand there's this essence, this peace, this light inside of you, or you understand it to be God or Christ, or you know Buddha nature right, or I believe you. You need to have a reliance on something greater than you that will inspire you and fill you with power to work through your personal problems we all have. There's similar themes for all of us in what drives us to addiction, with our internal psychological troubles that we experience. That essence, that light right, that light of Christ or that light of God can, can guide you in um understanding those things about what you go through personally, and I I see it as fundamental. Without that you're you're on your you're kind of on your own and you just have to have a greater power backing you.
Speaker 1:That's and that's. That's exactly what I was looking for, not not just one way or the other, but just like with somebody who has experienced victory over this that is leading other people to victory over this, and like it's a real. I mean essentially like this is a, this is a pandemic that's plaguing men everywhere. And if we're just, yeah, God is this magical genie that's just going to take it away, like that's just not true and but he's a, he's an essential piece to your practice is kind of what I was getting at. So, yeah, thank you. I'm going to go back to your own experience just for a minute. So you had mentioned that you confided with your dad around late teenage years. Yeah, how was that conversation? Because when you're talking about shame and addiction and men in general, like men are not typically like warm and fuzzy and want to have open conversations about something like this. Yet you took that step, talked to your dad about it. How did that go?
Speaker 2:I want to answer that in a kind of a broad way. So specific to my dad, it went well because he was in that space where he was already working with people who were struggling with addiction to porn specifically, which I came to him and I said I have this addiction to porn and I'll add in as well, this is something that many men like they don't want to talk specifically, which I came to and I said I have this addiction to porn and I'll add in as well, this is something that many men like they don't want to talk about. But I was struggling with an addiction to masturbation as well simultaneously and that word for so many guys there's don't say that word, it's a weird word and look like 99% of men are doing that. And there is a way to actually overcome the craving for it which we could go deep into. But that takes like an entire book to do that or joining my program to do that. But essentially, when I came to him and I told him that he was very open about it, he was very accepting, he was very supportive and understanding and that was good. I mean, that was a positive experience for me.
Speaker 2:He I think one of the biggest things we need to understand is that what drives us to the need for addiction in the first place is what we might term these little managers that we have inside of us, which are these judging and controlling parts of our minds that are really brutal and self-critical. And because they're so brutal and so self-critical, we then choose to go to escapes, right Like porn, and we may be completely unaware of that. I know I was when I was, you know, a kid and then in my early teens. But you don't need to approach someone who has just confessed to you that they have an addiction and say, well, you need to stop that. Like you, you shouldn't be doing that anymore. They are already fully aware. They don't want to be doing it. They have. They already have a manager quote unquote inside of them. That's really brutal and really self-critical.
Speaker 2:Whether they're aware of it or not, they don't need you to be that. What they need you to be is a is a witness and an open space of acceptance and support and compassion for them. Now don't mistake that with enablement, like, oh, that's fine that you have that, it's okay, like it's normal and like, if it happens sometimes, that's fine. It's important that we don't come from a standpoint of saying this is perfectly fine and you can keep doing it, or enable someone, but also not condemning them. There's this, what we might call that straight and narrow path right Of just really bearing witness to what they're experiencing and being that space of acceptance and compassion.
Speaker 2:And we so often think like we got to jump in as the ones who tell them you know, do this and do that and this is how you fix it and this, and tell them all the ways to fix it. They don't. They already have that voice inside their head. That's like telling them all the ways to fix it. Don't do that. Just open up the space and and be a witness for them and then allow them to take the action, to be, to step into again. That opens up a space for that self leadership, with the big S right For God to start to work inside of them, to start to bring them to answers and be open. If they have an open space, then they can be open to. You know, maybe I could actually do something about this. You know, maybe I could get better.
Speaker 1:Do you find? A lot of your clients or people that you've interacted with are married or single and moving into that realm, how does this, how does pornography addiction affect married men, or even men that are fathers and dads?
Speaker 2:I think one of the most fundamental things that we so to answer your first question married that's a vast majority of my clients. Now you might question why that is. That's because those are the ones who are the most motivated to actually get help, whereas single men, a lot of times there can be a vast array of excuses or I'm okay, I don't need help, or I don't want to pay for it, or this or that. But when you have another human being in the mix now who you deeply care for and you really want to make them happy, I think pretty much all men want to make their wives happy at a fundamental level inside them, right? All men want to make their wives happy at a fundamental level inside them, right. And if you're not doing that, we can genuinely feel like we are failing as a man at our deepest responsibility. I'm making my wife unhappy. That's what I see. The devastation it causes for the men, for husbands and fathers, is I am letting my wife down, I am destroying her, I am betraying her and I'm a bad person because of it and that's shame, right, and that just it cripples a man, his confidence and his ability to be there for his wife and his ability to show up selflessly and with love, because he's so overwhelmed with this feeling that I'm a bad person because I deal with this or I'm not good enough. If only I could get rid of this addiction, then I could finally be the man that I want to be.
Speaker 2:And what's a bit paradoxical is you need to make the changes as a man, in your lifestyle, in your mindset, in the ways that you approach yourself psychologically and in making steps, so that you eventually lose the need you have to escape using porn. That's your answer. It's not I'm going to just stop watching porn and then everything's going to be fixed. You got to start at the core, at the roots of why you're going to it and so that, yeah, that shame is very overwhelming for men. And then you tie that to how it impacts them as fathers and how much the addiction is draining your brain of dopamine, because it's really large spikes of dopamine, the neurotransmitter that occurs neurologically. You're spiking it really high when you watch porn because, frankly, what other way in history have men been able to look up hundreds of these perfect women in an instant that do whatever they want with no effort on their part? That's a lot of dopamine in a way that our brains aren't meant to handle.
Speaker 2:And when you spike it that high, then there's a drop. And this isn't just exclusive to porn, right? This is the same way with television or video games, or drugs or alcohol. These are all behaviors and substances that really spike our dopamine. I call them low effort, high intensity types of activities, in other words, a highly intense reward mentally, where it's going to drain you later. So your focus drops, your motivation drops, your ability to connect with people drops, and that's inhibiting men in the way they show up as fathers. They feel like they can't fully be there and it's hard enough to be a dad and a husband in and of itself. And you add in the addict the addiction component, and now it feels impossible to show up in the way that you want to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just with your experience too, like, how, like, truly, how evil is the porn industry, like, how bad is it?
Speaker 2:Well, so my father has had some connections with Operation Underground Railroad. For those who've heard of that, it's an industry that well. A lot more people have probably heard of it now because of the film Sound of Freedom. Yes, yes, incredible, incredible film, very hard to watch. I was crying, I swear.
Speaker 1:I was bawling my eyes out from beginning to end there was, I mean phenomenal, phenomenal movie, but also like it brought a ton of things to the attention of everybody, like anybody that's seen it? Or even heard about it and like it's just absolutely crazy yeah, and so what people?
Speaker 2:I think what some people understand, but what many other people don't know, is that a vast majority of the porn that's online is from human and sex trafficking. Or, if they're not being trafficked, it's people who have been there. They're either they're on drugs, right, and so they're being told in order to get the drugs that you want, you need to do this for me. Or there are people who have been coerced or manipulated or told that they need to do this in order to be accepted by their boyfriend or what have you, right, and then they're being used, right. And is that every bit of porn? No, right. Obviously, there are those who are choosing to participate in that without this coercion or being trapped in trafficking and things like that. But I would argue that the people who are doing that voluntarily a vast majority of them carry a history of abuse and sexual trauma which is driving them to do what they're doing, and that's that gets pretty complex from a psychological perspective, but that's why they're doing it. And then, even those who don't have that history of abuse, they're doing it so they can, they can find acceptance and value as a human being and they're seeking in a place. That's. That's, I believe, tearing them apart, and so how that uses and really defiles human beings.
Speaker 2:It is ultimately evil. I think evil is that harm to human beings that isn't resulting in anything good. Obviously, it's only resulting in a great deal of pain and suffering and people making exorbitant amounts of cash off of that amounts of cash off of that and I know that the men who struggle with the addiction it's not like understanding that it's going to break you out of it. That can be part of your motivation for stopping, but unfortunately for some men, they know that and they continue to engage in it and it and it, just it adds even more shame on top of it for that man. What's wrong with? Why am I such a horrible person that I'd continue engaging in this? And it's. It's an again, it's it's an escape mechanism that your brain is using in order to cope and handle stress and suffering you're experiencing, and you need to go to the stress and suffering you're experiencing and work through it going into, like the industry itself.
Speaker 1:Um, I went to a conference a couple years ago and, uh, josh mcdowell was there and he was speaking on it. Um, I'm not sure if you're familiar with him, um, but prominent speaker from you know 20 some years ago, but anyway, he did an extensive study on the porn industry and, uh, he had said that about 70 of new porn that is being created is actually geared towards women.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you've heard that stat or if that is even a factor, but there's a stigma that porn only affects men and obviously like no more desire that's geared towards men, and I think the vast majority of people are men that struggle with it. Desire that's geared towards men, and I think the vast majority of people are men that struggle with it, but what sorts of encouragement or value do you have to offer women, who also might be in the same boat?
Speaker 2:That's really important. You bring that up Because I think a lot of women I mean stories that I've read and they can feel like man, what is like, what is wrong with me? Yes, I get that men deal with this. That's bad enough, but why am I so screwed up inside that I would pursue this? And for women it often gets a bit more complex. Sex tends to be more emotional for them, whereas for men it can be more physically based. Now, I'll say without a caveat. I think for men it can be more physically based. Now, I'll say without a caveat. I think for men it should become much more emotionally and spiritually based and hopefully it becomes very whole and beautiful, um, for you with your wife, and in a context in which it's, it is, uh, it brings you guys together in a very special, powerful way, I think a sacred way, right. But for women, uh, naturally it tends to be much more emotional. So they'll seek it out, for for reasons that are often more complex than the men, right, for the men it's A lot of us men can't perceive this at first, but we start to.
Speaker 2:But we have stresses, we have suffering, we experience, you know, insecurities or other burdens we're carrying psychologically, we seek out porn as an escape and then it's something we become addicted to neurochemically, right. Novels or other, I mean, yeah, a lot of novels or romances and films, stuff with a story right where it plays out like a fantasy that they really, really want because they don't feel loved, they don't feel accepted, they don't feel worthy. And I think if you're a woman struggling with porn addiction, if you can understand that you're pursuing it for much deeper reasons than just you want to, you know, feel sexual pleasure. If you could understand that at the deepest level and why that is and why you go to it, I believe that you would lose your desire for porn because you would. You would be able to heal. It's not going to happen in an instant, but but if you could understand yourself fully and see, oh, wow, you know, these are the experience, things I experienced in childhood where I didn't feel loved and accepted or I didn't feel the connections I needed. And that's true for men too.
Speaker 2:But women really will pursue deeper emotional needs through the porn as a fantasy to either try to. It's kind of a how would I say a fabrication of what they want at a deeper level, but it's just, it's stuffing something in that hole temporarily and then it empties again and it's just this endless black hole they're trying to stuff with the porn. So it's not about you being a bad person or being you're not like some sex monster, because these are the things that our minds can tell us like some sex monster, because these are the things that our minds can tell us. You have deeper emotional needs and desires that aren't being met and you need to go on a journey to explore those with God, with other people, with support and through resources to help you and programs. You know and you can find those answers and once you understand them and you actually feel a compassion for yourself and an understanding for yourself, you can start to heal.
Speaker 1:How is it that people get down to a low point so they experience shame, they experience guilt, maybe even other emotions like frustration and anger, because they have a desire to overcome it, but they keep going back to it, going back to it, going back to it. So when they hit a truly like a low point and they seek out help and they say you know, they happen to stumble upon no more desire, they happen to stumble upon your company. What does no More Desire do in a practical way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have four anchors to my program. So we meet, I meet with my clients once a week for an hour. I think a fair number of programs or therapy or things like that out there will just offer that one-on-one once per week and a lot of good can happen there. That's great, but I want to take things much deeper and I do with with my clients and so, in addition, right, so that first anchor would be those weekly meetings, right, with someone who has professional experience helping people and personal experience overcoming the addiction. The second anchor, and the one that really feeds straight into those weekly sessions, are the daily assessments and I alluded to.
Speaker 2:I have two different, specific, step-by-step processes that my clients use to process through thoughts and emotions and triggers they're based in CBT and parts work. Emotions and triggers they're based in CBT and parts work, these psychological modalities. And so essentially, by doing these daily assessments about 15 minutes long, people start to practice how to work through hard thoughts and emotions and triggers for pornography or for whatever other addictions they experience as well, and, in addition, they're recording their thoughts, their feelings, the stuff that they're experiencing, their weaknesses, their strengths, the things that they're experiencing on a daily basis, and so, by journaling all that out and following these specific processes, they submit all that over to me so they've actually practiced right. They're practicing recovery through those daily assessments. And then I get all the information from those assessments and I review them before we meet each week. So I don't just come together and say how's your recovery going, tell me about it. I already know exactly how things are going. I know whether you've relapsed or how many times during the week. I know the types of challenges you're experiencing and I center in on and hone in on what people may either perceive to be loaded topics for them psychologically, or what they often may not perceive to be something that they really struggle with. And we center in on those, discuss them.
Speaker 2:I bring solutions to the table from a mindset and lifestyle standpoint for their recovery. Now, in addition, we have a recovery plan that we build out and that has all these skills and really fundamental factors of recovery, and then I have a structured recovery program. So they're doing both written and applied exercises for recovery. So those four different anchors all build together to be what I call an intensive porn addiction recovery program. It's pretty involved. This is not just something that you show up once a week for an hour to chat. It's on a deeper level and I think that that's necessary, especially for something like porn addiction, where you have access to it 24 seven devices are all around you. You've got to build a completely new mindset and lifestyle, and that's what I help people do.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, the uh, the fact that you have a level of intentionality, in depth intentionality with these people, I think that's. I think that for me personally, like that's a huge piece, because you're not just saying, hey, you know, do this and best of luck, We'll check in later. It's intense and it's intentional and I think that really can show people that not only do you care, but like these steps work. Sign up for your program how long does it typically take to get through your program?
Speaker 2:But also how long does it take for them to experience victory over porn addiction?
Speaker 1:It's an amazing question, tony, and I'm going to give you a very loaded answer to that question. I figured.
Speaker 2:I figured that's okay. So I think that there's a number of programs out there that will quote, you know, 30 days to freedom, or 90 days to freedom, or six months an addiction. I can say, after 90 days of sobriety for me I was still deeply in the zone of danger. I'll say of not understanding, like, yeah, I've got three months, that feels good, but I'm still so susceptible and there are so many things I need to be doing each and every day ongoing. It doesn't. The recovery mindset and lifestyle doesn't stop it never. I think that's one of the one of the things that we can we can often get wrong or that we're taught is like, yeah, you'll get over the addiction, you'll leave it behind you and then you're good and you can just move on with your life. I wish I could say it works that way. It doesn't. You keep living that with that recovery mindset and lifestyle, forever, forever. And that's not a bad thing. It's what, what I teach people to do so much of it. It's when you look at it, you know I can ask people like, what out of this system is something that someone who is living a, you know, a highly meaningful, joyful life would not do? None of it. All of this is something that someone who is living a healthy, meaningful life would do, right? Well, that's okay.
Speaker 2:So, people who don't struggle with addiction they're doing a lot of these things. That's how they're, that's how they're sober. They grew up doing a lot of these things. That's how they're, that's how they're sober. They grew up doing a lot of these things, right? And their relationships, their mental state, their spiritual life, all that. So, essentially for my clients, it depends on the individual. For some of my clients, I've, you know, worked with them six months. They make some really substantial progress and they're like, you know, I think that, uh, I think I'm doing pretty good and I think that I'd I'd like to finish out here.
Speaker 2:Um, my program itself where it stands, it's about a year and that can sound so long to people. They're like a year that's forever. And what I encourage people to, and kind of how I challenge them, is I say how many years have you been addicted to porn? You know, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. Well, if it took 10 years to overcome a 30 year porn addiction, wouldn't that be pretty reasonable? Oh, yeah, okay, well, it's not going to. I don't think it's going to take that long, you know, but about a year is the length of the program and I tell people, just expect one to three years like come in expecting that, and that way you'll have, hopefully, a mindset of patience with yourself and understanding for yourself that this takes time. It's okay, you're not.
Speaker 2:I think often when people relapse they'll we're taught to say you failed, you're on day zero. You don't lose your progress when you relapse Eventually. Yes, you need to get to that point of long-term sobriety, long lasting. You're not going back to the addiction, you'll get there. But you're practicing the skills of recovery and so during the course of a year or longer or you know whether it's six months or a year, whatever it is you're practicing all those skills of recovery. And once you can get to a point where you're implementing all the skills that I teach you a lot of them in the program once you can implement, implement those in your mindset and your lifestyle each day. It's ongoing, they become habits for you and you keep that going long-term.
Speaker 2:Now you're in a space to be able to stay sober and ultimately, my goal with my clients is to get them to a place where they no longer desire porn, and for a lot of people. They can be a bit confused by that. They're like well, it's just like, yeah, I get sexually aroused, like what I'm a human being Desiring porn is something very different than just normal Well, I say normal than sexual arousal that we all experience. And for someone who is very sexually healthy, first off, there's things with their mental state and with their life that are going really well and their relationships that are going really well. That's why they're not. That's a big part of the reason why they're not drawn to escape using porn or to use it as a fantasy or you know something that helps them escape life.
Speaker 2:But you can get to a place where you understand and feel a really great level of peace with sexual arousal and desire and things like that, and it's very manageable for you as a human being. Right, perfectly fine. You'll still have all those things. You just won't have the obsession and the fixation. That's where I want to get my clients to, and there's a lot. There's a lot. Obsession and the fixation that's where I want to get my clients to, and there's a lot. There's a lot psychologically underneath that fixation and that obsession.
Speaker 1:Where can people go to connect with you, to get access to no More? Desire to learn more about this program, about the potential of recovery and experiencing victory over porn addiction.
Speaker 2:Of recovery and experiencing victory over porn addiction. Yes, so the main two things that I would recommend where people should start is to go to nomoredesirecom, and on my homepage I have a free workshop. It is an hour and a half of extremely, extremely helpful, very meaty content to help with recovery. It gives you eight keys to lose your desire for porn. That's where I would recommend starting is get that free workshop, totally free, like there's no strings attached. Grab that, or my free ebook, the 10 tools to conquer cravings both excellent free resources that are right there on my homepage you can grab right now. That's where I'd start. And then, of course, my podcast, which is free as well. So all excellent places to go. And if you want to take it to the next level, you want to join my program. You just apply for a free consultation and we can go from there. So it's all nomoredesirecom.
Speaker 1:Jake, thank you so much for being on our show and best of luck to you. This was really special. This was a really good conversation, so thank you well, good, well, thanks, tony.
Speaker 2:It was fantastic for me too, and I really appreciate the time to be here. It's a huge privilege for me, so thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for tuning in to the Walk Family Podcast today. If you haven't realized already, laura and I are switching the format of our show. The primary difference is that we have changed our releases to fit more of a serial format, which means we will be sending out episodes throughout each week for a season. Then, once the next season begins, another series will come out. Each series will contain around 10 to 12 episodes give or take. For the winter season of 2025, seasons of Despair is our series.
Speaker 1:We still release an episode on Tuesdays, but you may see another episode pop up later in the same week as well. Also, be sure to hit the little bell to subscribe. It gives you each episode instantly once it's published. You can always connect with us at our website, thewalkfmcom, and, if you are really interested, a link in the show notes below allows you to sign up for our monthly newsletter. Our letter contains updates on the Smith family to stay connected with us, while also providing tips, tricks and challenges we are experiencing. If you sign up, you also get a free sneak peek to the first chapter of Prayer and Promises, which is a book that I am writing and will hopefully be publishing this year. Thanks again and be blessed.
