Escaping the Porn Trap: How to Break Free

This episode was pre recorded as part of a live continuing education webinar on demand. CEUs are still available for this presentation through all CEUs register@allceus.com counselortoolbox. I'm Dr. Donnelly Snipes and I'd like to welcome you today's presentation on the porn trap. This presentation is based loosely in part on the book the Porn Trap by Wendy and Larry Maltz and then a bunch of other research articles that I did because, you know, I go off on my tangents. In this course we're going to explore the hidden power of porn, identify the characteristic relationships with pornography, review the consequences of porn, review the impact of porn on partners. You know, we talked about that a little bit in the last couple of classes. We'll identify six action steps to quit porn, learn about handling and preventing relapses, and identify strategies for healing as a couple. So let's talk about this pull of porn. We've talked about how it's similar in some ways to online gaming because there's the never ending novelty and it's easily accessible 24 7. But let's talk about the neurobiological impact of it because, you know, that's what I like to talk about. Dopamine is our main motivating chemical. Endogenous opioids are actually our main reward chemical. So dopamine is all about seeking and searching for rewards. The anticipation, the wanting. It's our drive, it's our. I gotta have that. Think about Christmas, okay? When you were little, you had a lot of dopamine going when you wanted to. You were looking through the. Back in my day, the JCPenney catalog, that's how old I am. And making your Christmas list out. And you had all this anticipation. You were seeking and searching for rewards. And the night before Christmas, it was almost impossible to sleep because of the anticipation. That was your dopamine going, something big's gonna happen. Something big's gonna happen. Dopamine searches for novelty, which is why we get this surge, you know, we get this desire to find new things. You know, we eat the same thing for dinner every single night. It's like, okay, it's the same thing. If you throw in something new, then all of a sudden it's like, oh, wow, that's wonderful. When we're feeling blah. Well, let me, let me go jump over to endogenous opioids. Once we achieve or acquire whatever that is we're searching for, then we get a hit of endogenous opio that say, good job. Do that again, that was awesome. Let's make it rewarding. Okay, so then back up a little bit. If you've got a person who is stressed or depressed or bored or lonely or just apathetic, you know, they're not feeling good and they want to feel good, Dopamine says, okay to feel good. Let's search after something that's made us feel good before. Let's go find it. Let's figure out what made us feel good before. Unfortunately, in this particular scenario, it might be porn. Dopamine provides the motivation and drive to pursue potential rewards or long term goals. So dopamine is going, okay, there was this thing out there and it made you feel better. So you need to get up off the couch and you need to go do it, or you need to go find it, or you need to turn their computer on and find it. In order to get that hit of endogenous opioids. Interestingly, along with this, and they're not exactly sure how it works, but they have found that naltrexone, remember the drug that they use to reverse opioid overdoses, Naltrexone has been found as effective for blocking the endogenous opioids and reducing the reward. So the dopamine may be there, but then you acquire it. And if you're on naltrexone, it's like, that didn't do anything for me. Well, gotta find something else. Another thing that porn does besides stimulate dopamine, stimulate that seeking behavior so you can feel good, it also stimulates testosterone. So, you know, no need to explain what testosterone does when we're talking about adolescents. Now that's just for adults. The added problems that adolescents face are because they have an immature prefrontal cortex. And that's where we do a lot of our higher order thinking and our impulse control. That prefrontal cortex is still forming and figuring out what it needs to do and what it needs to refrain from doing. We have over responsive limbic circuits and overactive dopamine and a pronounced HPA axis. And I say all those three together to say, think about the teenagers that you've probably been exposed to. Or back when you were a teenager, everything seemed like a crisis. It seemed like the world was going to an going to end when things happened. That's not just them being catastrophic most of the time. Teenagers and you know, older, older children have less experiences than we do. So what happens in their life does seem like a big deal because they don't have anything else to compare it to. Additionally, Their body is more prone to respond with a threat response because, you know, they may not feel safe for some reason. They haven't established a long standing sense of personal efficacy and agency. And in the adolescent brain, the male adolescent brain, there are also augmented levels of testosterone. We see this, I mean, we see it in adolescents when they go through puberty. We see all those hormonal changes that can affect their skin, it can affect their mood, hair growth, everything else. We see this in adolescents. So not only does porn naturally stimulate excessive dopamine and stimulate testosterone, but you're doing that on top of system that's already amped up if you're talking about doing in an adolescent. So the brain is going to need to protect itself or it's going to be harmed from excess excitation. And it actually is. Neurochemicals, especially the excitatory neurochemicals, actually can be toxic to the neurons at certain levels. All right, so we know that we've got dopamine, opioids and testosterone going on. We've talked about how that happens. Let's talk about the Coolidge effect for a minute and some of this information. There's a link in your classroom to the site, your brain on porn. And it has over a hundred, I mean, dozens and dozens and dozens of articles, peer reviewed journals and stuff. If you really want to get into the research literature, I'm going to try to just hit the highlights in the next couple slides. The Coolidge effect is one of the things that comes into play with pornography. Basically the Coolidge effect says that we tire of a stimulus after we're exposed to it a certain number of times. But we have a powerful response to novelty. So even think about driving a car, you're driving your own car and you know, I have this nice little mama sedan, gets great gas mileage, whatever. I don't think much about it, but if I get in a new car, you know, it's like, ooh, new car smell. And so the endogenous opioids are rewarding that going, oh, this is, this is kind of cool. The brain doesn't differentiate very much between 2D and 3D partners, which is a problem. If somebody is viewing porn and they have never ending novelty in that porn, their brain isn't differentiating between that as being not real and their partner as being real. The desire and motivation to pursue sex arises largely from a neurochemical, dopamine, which compels you to do things that further your survival and pass on your genes. So dopamine is going you need to procreate. We've heard people talk about that quote, biological clock before. That's the dopamine that seeking and searching behavior, sexual stimulation offers the biggest natural blast of dopamine available to your reward circuitry. Let that set in for a second. Now that's the natural blast. Yes, Cocaine, any of your drugs can give you a bigger blast. But as far as natural blasts, the sexual stimulation provides the most dopamine available. So guess what? That means we're going to have the most desire to seek and search for sexual stimulation, which, you know, even back in Freud's time, we had that kind of idea. And you're going to get the biggest hit of endogenous opioids from that too. So the person is going to go, oh, that, that was the best feeling thing out there. So I really, really want to go do that again. Porn also gives people the illusion of power and control. You can fantasize in when you're watching pornography about being part of a situation that in real life you may never be a part of, or you may have too much social anxiety. People have a very robust, or can have a very robust fantasy life, which gives them the illusion of power and control. Power and control is rewarding that gets rewarded by our neurochemicals. There's a variable ratio schedule of reward with porn. What does that mean? Well, first, if you go Back to Behaviorism 101, a variable ratio schedule is the hardest schedule of reinforcement to extinguish. It means that, you know, you get a reward after three viewing three videos and then after viewing 10 videos and then after viewing one video. So you never know when that rewards gonna come. So there's a steady state of responding. When people are watching porn, they may click on a video and it's not their thing, so they click to the next one and it's something they've seen before. So that doesn't do it for them either. So they click on the next one and oh hallelujah, that's it. And then they may have to click through 10 more to find one that's rewarding. This variable ratio schedule of reward keeps people clicking, keeps people engaged in the porn to find that perfect video that is going to meet their needs at that moment. The other thing, and we're going to talk about it in a few minutes somewhere, but when people are using porn, unlike in real life, if something's not working for them, it's just kind of not working for them. When people are viewing porn, if you know they're looking at Something that's kind of vanilla or whatever, and that's not working for them, they can switch to a completely different genre in two seconds. It's not this big ordeal where, you know, you have to have a discussion with a partner or something. So that's another problem, if you will, with porn. Dopamine is released for seeking and searching for novelty food, sex and safety. So we talked about that. It's increased for novel stimuli. So when we see something new, if somebody's clicking through their porn and they find a porn video they haven't seen before or an actor or actress they haven't seen before or whatever, they're going to get a little hit of dopamine, and they may get some opioids with that if it's a rewarding combination. Interestingly, and I didn't know this until I prepared this class, Dopamine is also released for any strong emotions. So anything that violates expectations, that produces shock or surprise or something more than we can imagine releases dopamine. Think about why people like to watch horror thrillers. You know, those scary. Back in my day, it was Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Freddy, I think. I don't know, I never really got into those specifically. But we like watching things that may startle us. You know, I like scary movies just as much as anybody else. Why is this? Dopamine says, let's seek that out. Because when we seek that out, then there's a pleasurable response in some way. Strong emotions such as desire, guilt, disgust, embarrassment, anxiety, and fear elevate dopamine, that seeking response. So I'll ask you to think about what is this person seeking when they're having these dysphoric feelings? It boosts norepinephrine. So if you're watching a scary film, you know, or going through a haunted house, what are you doing? You're on alert. You're seeking. You're trying to find the way out and, you know, waiting, anticipating being startled. So there's. The stress response is going up. Cortisol is going up. Your stress response is up. When people are feeling guilt, disgust, or embarrassment when they're watching porn, it is also causing their body to secrete dopamine, norepinephrine and cortisol. Think about when people do things like have sex in a public place or the library or something, that increases the danger of it. It's that dopamine and opioid response that makes the experience more rewarding because they're increasing their stress chemicals, which provides a greater bang for their buck at the end. Over time, a porn user's brain can mistake the feeling of anxiety or fear for feelings of sexual arousal. If they get used to having that feeling, or that feeling of guilt or disgust or whatever, and having a reward associated with it, then they might associate that with arousal. Internet porn can alter brain circuitry for sexuality, especially during adolescence when the brain is highly malleable. We already talked about that up until 25 and programmed to learn all about sex. We are programmed as adolescents to figure out how to procreate to continue the species. When a person is watching porn at that age, then that's imprinting on their brain. Video porn is far more arousing than static porn because it involves more senses and is more lifelike. Think about the difference between viewing, you know, Playboy or Penthouse or I don't even know what else is out there, or viewing videos. When you view something that's one dimensional, you're seeing a picture or even the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, it's one dimensional and there's only so much you can really imagine. When you're viewing a video you hear its involves your senses. You're seeing, you're seeing movement, which is stimulating to your visual receptors. You're hearing things. So there's a lot more, a lot stronger memories that are created to increase sexual arousal and raise declining dopamine. People can instantly switch genres in the middle of a porn viewing masturbation session. Porn videos replace some people's imagination and may shape their sexual tastes, behavior or, or trajectory. They don't have to think anymore. They're looking at it and, you know, they're just kind of immersing themselves in it. Like we immerse ourselves in a good movie. And instead of thinking about themselves or instead of using their own creativity or imagination or what, what, thinking about what they might want, they are just immersing themselves into whatever the director wanted them to want. Porn is stored in your brain, which allows you to recall it anytime you need a hit. And this is true whether it's written porn, you know, narrative pictures, videos, auditory, whatever. Unlike food and drugs, for which there is a limit to consumption, there are no physical limitations to Internet porn consumption. Food, you can only eat so much before you feel like you're going to bust. I mean there's, there's a limit. Drugs. And you might say, well, people use drugs just in excess. Yes they do, but at a certain point it will kill them. Any drug you take, you know, you can OD on cocaine, you can OD on alcohol. So there is a limit to consumption. There are no physical limitations on Internet porn. The brain's natural satiation mechanisms are not activated until the person climaxes. But even then, the person can click to something more exciting to become aroused again. There's that little refractory period, and then they start feeling feelings or feeling bored or whatever, and they want to escape again. So the dopamine gets released. The brain says, I don't like where I'm at. I need you to seek and search pleasure. And lo and behold, it's right there at a mouse click. Psychological messages. People get that condition their brain during porn. This is how people have sex, and this is how I should do it. They're watching it, they're going, oh, this is a how to guide. You know, we're not really born knowing how to have sex. I mean, evidently our ancestors figured it out along the way. But people like to know what they're doing. There's a big priority placed in our society on doing it right and on being virile and all that kind of stuff. Another psychological message people get from watching porn is, this is what turns me on. Well, what are they comparing it to? Do they know what turns them on in real life? They may not. A lot of people, especially in traditional relationships, really don't talk a lot about sex, and they really don't talk a lot about sexuality. So they're not sure what turns them on or they're not sure. They haven't explored much. Whereas in a lot of non traditional sexual relationships, you know, bdsm, kink, those sorts of things, communication is paramount. But when watching porn, you know, people are seeing this, they're like, okay, I know this turns me on. I'm not sure about anything else. I've never picked up a kama sutra or what have you, but I know this works for me. And porn also indic tells people this is what people should look and act like. Which is why there's a lot of body dysmorphic issues that emerge when people watch a lot of porn. Not only do women feel inadequate because they compare themselves to these porn stars who've had a lot of them have had significant plastic surgery. But the men also compare themselves in terms of body composition and the size of their penis and everything else, which is very different for porn stars versus the average person. Physiological conditioning, excess masturbation is the signal to your primitive brain that you have hit the evolutionary jackpot. And it's just like, might as well get while the getting's good because it's out there with continued regular over Consumption. High levels of dopamine trigger the production of protein delta phos b, which accumulates in the reward circuitry and activates certain genes, which initiate several brain changes, including sensitization. So let's break that down for a minute. The biggest thing I want you to hear is that with regular overconsumption, this protein, delta phos b builds up. Well, what do we know about things that build up? They can also be used up, which leads to us understanding how the brain. One of the ways the brain restores itself after it has dampened down a little bit, how it restores to normal functioning. That's when that delta phos b kind of goes away after a while. But we've got to wait till it bleeds off. Essentially. Chronic overconsumption leads to dopamine release and delta phosphb and sensitization. Sensitization occurs when the brain wires together the sensory stimuli. You know, what you're smelling, what you're hearing, what you're seeing. Okay, well, all that isn't necessarily in the porn. No. But guess what? Now your brain is wiring the porn, this experience and this pleasure, together with what you're smelling, which may be the fresh laundry that's sitting in the laundry basket with where you're at, which is your room, with the device that you're on, which is your desktop or your laptop or whatever it is. Your brain is taking all these things and going, okay, these are reminders of this good thing. All of these stimuli are kind of packaged together and associated with a big reward or. And this creates a pathway to the reward center that can be activated by cues or triggers, creating powerful, hard to ignore cravings. Which means, okay, so your room, where you're at when you're doing this, becomes associated with this intense reward. When you walk into your room, that's a trigger. That room reminds your brain and triggers that pathway that says, oh, this is the place. This is the place where the good things happen, which triggers the cravings. Desensitization occurs when stimuli become old and the person needs novel stimuli, which is, you know, after a while, the body kind of taps down because it can't be that stimulated for that long. So you've got to find something else to get that extra push of dopamine and opioids. We haven't talked a lot about what is porn, though. We're talking about what people are seeing. And, you know, we've talked about video porn. But there's a lot more to porn than just pornhub or videos. Online porn can Be any sexually explicit or erotic video, any sexually explicit or erotic audio, sexually explicit or erotic pictures. You know, back to Playboy and Penthouse and Hustler and those things. It can also include sexually explicit or erotic prose. One of the best examples of this is Lady Shatterley's Lover. That was one that, you know, raised all kinds of ire when it was first published back in the day, was, you know, decades ago, and it was extremely racy. Fifty Shades of Grey would be considered erotic prose. That can be considered porn. The definition of porn, and this is important when we're talking with people about problems they may be having and pornography addiction and what they may need to stay away from for a while. The definition of porn does not rely on how graphic it is, but with the person's relationship to it. Is this something like an artistic statue that you're looking at and appreciating the beauty of it and in awe, or is it something that is. Whose primary goal is to sexually arouse you and involve you in a relationship with it, getting you to imagine yourself in that situation? A lot of people, we talk about adolescents a lot because a lot of people encounter porn early on. A lot of people encounter porn when they are adolescents and even young adolescents because. Or as a means of satisfying unmet childhood needs. Learning about sex. Children are curious, so they may start poking around and trying to learn about things and stumble upon something and go, oh, you know, way more than I bargained for. But it's cool. They may want to view it in order to belong to a group. We talked about how younger people, especially younger men, tend to watch porn in groups, and it becomes a bonding experience of sorts. Sexual pleasure is another reason people watch porn. And permission. Remember, the brain is programmed to learn about sex at this point, to learn how to procreate the species. So people curious and porn in some ways gives people permission. They're seeing something that other people are doing and going, okay, well, that can't be all that bad. Other people are doing it or using it, you know, as they learn about sex. But it's helping them feel like they've got permission to explore their sexuality and their. And their bodies. And porn can help people cope with distress in the context of learning about sex or belonging to a group or just discovering your own body. People discover that there are certain things that feel good and it helps the pain go away. Guess what? That dopamine the brain remembers that releases dopamine and says, all right, you're stressed. Well, when you were stressed the last time and you did this, it made you feel better. So I want you to seek that out. And when you seek that out, then you'll feel better. And guess what? Lo and behold, it happens, at least for the short term. And we know by talking with people who are addicted to other things like alcohol or drugs, exactly when they're using, when they're under the influence, when that those endogenous opioids are just flooding their brain, they feel good. When they are under the influence of dopamine and they are focused on it and thinking about it and searching for it, they're focused on something besides their distress. So they feel okay. When those endogenous opioids settle down and they return to baseline, they feel crappy again. So guess what? The brain's gonna say, oh, we feel crappy again. Guess what? We need to do it again. So you may have people who end up spending three, six, seven, eight hours masturbating and watching porn every single night because they're, when they're home alone and they're alone with their thoughts, it's too distressful. And every time they, if you, if you want to use the term, sober up from the rush of the endogenous opioids, they don't, they don't feel so good and they want to feel better again. We are likely to become emotionally and physically attached to something we regularly turn to for emotional comfort. Makes sense. So people use porn when they feel distress, depression, anxiety, loneliness, anger. You know, you can just keep listing off those dysphoric emotions. They may use it to quell cravings. Once they've established that that makes them feel better, then when they start having the craving, which is generally precipitated by distress of some sort of. They may use in order to quit feeling that way so they can focus on something else. They may feel like if I don't masturbate, if I don't watch porn right now, I'm not going to be able to focus on anything. And they may use it to provide excitement because their life is drab right now and they want that dopamine rush. They want that excitation, that feeling of pleasure. So it may just be because they feel apathetic protective factors. Disliking porn and the reasons for disliking it can be many. Some people don't think it's appropriate. Some people don't like to watch it because they don't want to see something that graphic, whatever it is, if they dislike it, if they watch it and it doesn't do anything for them, that's a protective factor. Obviously having limited contact with porn, especially before the age of 25. So children who are exposed to porn at an early age, either through the media or through, you know, sexual abuse, etc. May be at more risk. Now there is not a one to one correlation. You know, you can't say if somebody was sexually abused that they're going to have a problem with porn. Many times for people who are sexually abused it's just the opposite because they don't want to see that again. When they don't want to see somebody else being engaged in sexual activity, we just need to kind of look at what's going on. But that exposure to porn before the age of 25 is a risk factor. If they feel sexually secure and satisfied, then they may be less likely to develop a problem with porn. And remember we talked before about the fact that porn use in and of itself is not necessary problematic. Some couples watch porn together, some people watch porn and it doesn't become a clickfest for them. It's just something they do once in a while. But for people who are prone to develop problems, if they don't feel sexually secure and satisfied, then they may seek that from their fantasy life with the porn. If the person wants to experience emotional intimacy, then they are going to be less likely to have a problem with porn because there is no intimacy with porn. If they have a sense of high self esteem, confidence and self efficacy, then they tend to feel like they can acquire what they need to meet their needs in real life and don't feel the need to do it through a fantasy. And if they have a secure attachment relationship that helped them learn to deal with the stress and form a solid sense of self and self esteem. That's a huge protective factor. Since we know that people who develop problems with porn typically are exposed earlier. They typically use it to help them cope with the stress and they often have difficulty with intimacy. All of those things can be caused by a lack of a secure attachment relationship. Our secure attachment relationship helps us develop our coping skills and our emotion regulation and all that other stuff as well as our self esteem. Our initial attachment, our primary attachment helps us develop a sense of ourselves as being great for who we are with all of our faults and foibles. Risk factors for problematic porn use. If you associate it with pleasure or relief from dysphoria, you know, if the brain already knows that, yeah, this is a great thing to do. If you're feeling bad, then you might see that. You see people who tend to act out sexually More when they're under distress, you see more sexual acting out. You know, on college campuses, around finals time and other times like that, when people are really stressed, untenable stress, anxiety or depression can be a risk factor. Some people use non suicidal self injurious behavior, some people masturbate, some people do other things. But we want to look at the role. What is the function of porn for this person? Is it helping them in some way manage the untenable stress, anxiety or depression? The answer is yes. Then we need to find, help them find alternate ways to deal with that problem. A lack of social supports is another risk factor. Unrestricted access to porn. If you've got access, then you know it's easy to be drawn into it. If the person has difficulty with intimacy, difficulty with trusting other people. And this can be because of a lack of a primary attachment or because of any trauma in early childhood. A difficulty with intimacy, because of abandonment issues, or just because they don't have effective communication skills to say what they need and get their needs met. And people with non traditional sexual interests may have a higher risk of problematic porn usage. And I put an asterisk by this because I don't want to pathologize non traditional sexuality. However, some people who have non traditional sexual interests like kink or BDSM are afraid to bring it up to their partner. So they have a sex life with their real life partner, but then they explore all of their fantasies regarding BDSM or kink in their relationship with porn. One of the keys to addressing this obviously is opening up that line of communication with the real life partner so people can start to really explore their interests and de pathologize kink and some of those other things if that's something the person is interested in. Negative consequences of porn use. I'm just going to review these real quick. People are easily irritated. Well, you know when your dopamine is low and your stress hormones are high, yeah, you're going to be easily irritated. They may feel depressed because the brain has dampened down the response to things because it can't be overstimulated that much. We see a lot of people who engage in excessive sexual activity of any sort can easily develop depressive symptoms because they're exhausted and their brain is just holding on to those pleasure chemicals. A sense of isolation, objectifying people, neglecting important life areas. Remember, when the person's using porn, they're feeling okay, they're focusing on the porn. They're not focusing on all the crap that's going on in their life that they're trying to run away from. But as soon as they stop using, as soon as those opioids bleed off, it's like they're back to reality and reality sucks. So they want to go back into a pleasurable place, which may lead to not studying, not going to work, or being late for work, not getting enough sleep, etc. Sexual dysfunction, we talked about that in the last class. How porn use can desensitize people so they're not as they're not turned on by vanilla sex in real life, if you will. It can also lead to sexual dysfunction because they've been having sex so much that the brain is just going, you know, whoa, you hit the jackpot. But at a certain point, we need to take a break. Relationship issues because of the porn. Shame and guilt, especially if they're hiding their porn usage. Escalation into risky areas. And this can either be escalation into real life sex with other partners, or escalation into potentially illegal pornographic, pornographic areas and a physiological and psychological craving or need, quote, unquote, for porn. That dopamine is just firing, going, I really want to have that feeling again. And the dopamine is associated with so many stimuli that is constantly being triggered. A smell, a sight. You know, when you wake up in the morning, if you're watching porn in your room, you wake up in the morning and guess what? You're in that room. That's a trigger for porn. You wake up in the morning and you don't want to go to work. You really don't like your job. Distress may be a trigger for porn. There's triggers for porn everywhere. And when the person can't access that, when the dopamine is flooding your system and you can't get the opioid relief, then people tend to become more stressed and more irritated. How do we develop motivation to quit? Well, ask the person, what does your rich and meaningful life look like? You know, theoretically, we're assuming this person is in counseling with us. They said, I've got a problem with porn, I want to quit, but, you know, I'm not quite ready. Or my spouse says, I've got a problem and I need to do something about it. What do you want me to do? What does your rich and meaningful life look like? Who's in it? What people are in it? What people are important to you, and what do you need to do to nurture those relationships? What things are important in your life? For some people, it's their car. For some people, it's their dog. Whatever it is, what's important in your life? When you look at this Oz, if you will, you're going down the yellow brick road to get to oz. Where? What does this look like? What activities are important to you? You know, if going to your kid's soccer game is important to you, or work or playing golf or whatever it is, start adding those in there. And what values are important to you? And in the book they have a list of things and they have people write out, I want to be someone who is. What things do you want to have describe you? And they have a list of about 20 or one of the things I have clients do is just identify their top three to five values. So if they died, heaven forbid, what do they want people to remember them for? They were someone who was. Fill in the blank. What are the five most important characteristics? And does using porn help you draw closer to those goals? So if your relationship with your kids or with your spouse or your best friend is important to you, does using porn help you get closer to that person? And if not, okay, you know, just, just saying. If being successful at work is important to you, does using porn help you get closer to that promotion that you've wanted? So we take all those things once they identify what it looks like for their rich and meaningful life. And we can do a decisional balance exercise. And if you work in substance abuse, you're very familiar with this, you do a four quadrant chart. And we look at the benefits to stopping using porn emotionally. How is it going to affect you? How might it make you feel? You know, less irritable, happier, more relaxed, whatever. If you keep using porn, what are the emotional benefits to that? And yes, we're going to list all of the benefits to continuing to use porn. Why? When we do decisional balance exercises and when we look at motivation, we need to consider all the reasons the person is doing it, what is beneficial about what they're doing. Because if we don't make, if we don't address those issues, then we're kind of setting them up for the potential for relapse, if not failure. If one of the benefits to continuing to use porn emotionally is that it helps them feel calmer. Okay, so tell me what else you can do that makes you feel calmer. Sometimes people are going to look at you and go, I got nothing. What I do, I either masturbate or I drink or whatever it is. And for me, using porn is better than drinking. Okay, so we take that and we say, alright, so porn is serving A function for this person to help them survive. This is one of the tools they have. What else can we do? And you can ask them questions like, you know, before you started using porn and you got distressed, what did you do to help yourself calm down when you're not using porn or when you can't get to it and you feel distressed? You know, maybe you're driving across country with your kids in the backseat and they're grating on your every last nerve. What do you do to help yourself calm down? Start identifying some of those strengths and tools that the person uses, and then you can build on those. But in order to help them increase their motivation, we've got to make it less rewarding or provide them alternatives to meet these same needs. Alternatives to porn. Then we want to look at the drawbacks to stopping using. And yeah, I know, that's another one of those. You're like, why would we list that? Why are we going to highlight that? Because the person's already thought about it. So if they are afraid to stop using, they have an emotional relationship with it because it's been there for them. It's what they've turned to in times of distress for the past three years. Well, they have an emotional relationship and they may feel like they're gonna miss it. They may have, you know, physical drawbacks, all the cravings that they're going to experience. Interpersonal drawbacks. Well, when they're not using porn, at least initially, they may be more irritable. So let's get all those things out there so we can talk about, okay, how can we make this less punishing, if you will, if you're going to miss it? You know, let's talk about that. And what can you do instead? What can you do that might fill that gap if you feel like you're going to be more irritable when you stop using porn? Okay, so what else can we do? What can we do to mitigate that so it's not so unpleasant? Think about medication assisted therapy for drugs. You know, one of the reasons people don't want to stop using cold turkey is because the withdrawals are so awful. And medication assisted therapy kind of takes the edge off those withdrawals. And that is one of the responses to the drawbacks to stopping using certain drugs. So we do want to enhance the benefits. All the reasons to stop. We want to make that look really appealing. We want to enhance all the drawbacks, all the reasons the person wants to, or all the person. All the drawbacks to continuing to use. So all the ways that porn has hurt them, let's enhance that so the person can start feeling uncomfortable here and going, okay, I need to do something. But then these other two things, the benefits to using and the drawbacks to stopping. Those are your hurdles that they've got to traverse in order to achieve motivation and sustain recovery action steps. Encourage people to tell somebody about the problem. They're going to need some kind of support now. They don't necessarily have to tell their significant other right away. Ideally that will be a discussion they have at some point. But even if it means just going to a counselor or going to a sex Addicts Anonymous meeting, going to their clergy, whatever it is, tell somebody about the problem. Get involved in a treatment or self help program. There are workbooks out there. People can try to do it on their own. Generally with these sorts of things, social support is very helpful. Talking to people who've been there and who have gotten a little further in their progress than you have. They can give you feedback, they can give you suggestions for what worked for them. Create a porn free environment. We've talked about family oriented cable before. You know, get a package that doesn't have, you know, some of the racier stuff on it. If there are certain channels that or certain types of shows that tend to have racier programming on it. Block those from your tv. You know, it's not going to kill you to not be able to see the show. Change your email. If a lot of people who have watched video porn have subscribed to multiple services and they will get inundated with email. But even if you haven't, I don't know if you've checked your spam lately but you will get just random spam emails about all kinds of sexually explicit stuff. Install the NetNanny programs. You remember that's not their actual name but like Bark, that are programs that alert somebody else. If you go to an adult oriented website, if you travel, have people call ahead and have porn movies not available their room. So you know you can get those pay per view movies. Whenever you go to a hotel, just call ahead and tell the front desk that those movies are not to be available to your room. And avoid driving by adult stores, places where there's strip clubs. Most of the time those are congregated in certain places. Sometimes you can't avoid it. It's you know, right on the interstate or something. But try to avoid driving past those kinds of places. Establish 24 hour accountability so somebody knows where you're going to be and you can even have it set up at your house if you want to. Somebody else has the password to the Internet. The Internet shuts off at 7 o' clock at night and the data on your phone shuts off at 7 o' clock at night. You know, that's an option. Take care of your emotional and physical health to prevent vulnerabilities. Reduce as much distress as possible. If people are using porn to cope with distress, then if we can help them reduce distress by getting enough sleep, eating a nutritious diet, addressing any sources of pain, yada yada, then they're going to be several steps ahead of the game and have people start healing their sexuality. How do they do that? First, encourage people to differentiate between healthy sex and porn. And some of the differences are the fact that sex is caring for someone, sharing a genuine connection with a partner. It involves healthy communication, it respects boundaries and it enhances who you are and your self esteem. All of those characteristics really need to be present in a healthy sexual relationship. Now it doesn't mean it has to be this monogamous, one on one, you know, committed relationship all the time. You know, that's just not realistic. But being able to feel like the sexual act enhanced you some way and your self esteem and you know, it was a healthy engagement is what's really important. So relapse prevention. First know the types of relapse and you're thinking relapse is using again. No, relapse involves a lot more before then emotional relapse. And all of these can occur in different orders. Emotional relapse is when the person starts having dysphoric feelings again. When the person starts missing whatever the addiction was, in this case porn, that's your emotional relapse. When they start longing for it again, maybe when they become depressed because they can't access it. Mental relapse is when you start having those negative thoughts and self talk that caused the distress that made you want to use porn. Mental relapse can also involve starting to justify and minimize the problem, to try to make it okay for you to go back to it. And physical and behavioral relapse are when you go back to doing those things that you did when you were using porn. And it can be things like, you know, staying up all night. And we see relapse coming from a mile away, if you will. If you look at people's behaviors, when they start going back to feeling the way they felt, thinking the way they thought, and doing the things they did when they were using, we can pretty much guarantee that they're going to start using again pretty soon. People need to be aware of the multiple relapse warning signs and the multiple areas that those relapse warning signs come in. Now, sometimes people will have the mental relapse first and then they'll have the emotional one. Or sometimes they'll have the physical relapse first where they, they stop doing fun things and they stop getting enough sleep. Then they start getting irritable and cranky and having stinking thinking, as we call it. You know, it can come in any order, but you can see these relapse warning signs in all three of these areas. Encourage people to know their triggers and how to prevent or mitigate them. You're not going to be able to prevent every trigger. You're going to walk by and you're going to smell a smell. You're going to walk into a room and it may trigger you. It's going to be a certain time of day and there's going to be a trigger. You may be watching TV and a snippet of a television show comes on that relatively graphic. You know, there's. Who knows what the triggers are. You can't prevent all of them. Prevent the ones you can. You know, obviously don't turn on a show that you know is going to be explicit if that's a trigger for you. But if you happen to encounter it, you know, you go to the movie and you expect it to be, you know, pretty low key and it turns out to be raunchier than you expected, then what do you do? How do you mitigate that if you start feeling triggered? How can you handle that so it doesn't lead to a full relapse? Develop healthy alternatives to viewing porn and masturbation. Well, one of the ways to do this is to look at the function that porn and masturbation served. Did it provide excitement and pleasure? Did it help you find relief when you were feeling bad? Did it help you feel less lonely? Well, if so, let's find alternative ways to meet those same needs. Learn radical acceptance and the bee theory. I've told you guys my bee theory before. Radical acceptance is saying it is what it is. I'm not going to judge. I'm just going to accept the moment when a bee lands on your arm. And again, assuming you're not deathly allergic to them, if you swat that bee, which is your natural urge, or, you know, most of us, get the bee off of me, I don't want it to sting me. If you swat the bee, the bee is most likely going to go into a defensive posture and sting you. Now, when bees sting you, they die. So they don't want to die. They don't want to sting you. They're doing that to protect themselves. In some weird sort of way. If you just let the bee sit on your arm and then fly off when it's ready, it'll fly off. Just quit paying attention to it. So the bee theory. Whenever people get an urge, I want them to envision it as a bee that's sitting on their shoulder and just wait for that bee to fly off. Encourage them to practice mindfulness so those relapse warning signs, the emotional, mental, physical, and behavioral relapse warning signs, don't sneak up on them. Check in with themselves at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. How am I feeling? What am I needing? How can I best meet those needs? Those are easy questions to ask themselves. Encourage them to prevent and mitigate vulnerabilities. And again, you can do your best to get as much good quality sleep and eat healthfully and yada yada yada, to make sure that you are, you know, as well rested and healthy and emotionally and physically as possible. But sometimes it just ain't gonna happen. Like last night I woke up every two hours and I didn't want to. So I have to mitigate that vulnerability today because I know I'm a little crankier and I'm a little foggier than I normally am. Encouraging people to prevent and mitigate those vulnerabilities. Encourage them to pay attention to what makes them more vulnerable, to wanting to use porn and addressing that. Add pleasure in. You know, porn provides pleasure. And most of us get caught up in our day to day work and all work and no play, as they said in the Shining, makes Jack a dull boy. We need to make sure we actually make a devoted effort, a concentrated effort to add in pleasure every day. Something that makes you happy. Have a support system. You know, some days are going to be easier to abstain from porn than others. And when you've got a support system, it makes it easier because you've got somebody that can kind of walk you through while you're waiting for that bee to fly off. And develop an emergency plan. When you're in the midst of a crate, a strong, intense craving, you're not thinking about, okay, what are the four things that I can do? No, that's not where your brain is. Your brain is focused in that dopamine and focused on seeking that pleasure. So have an emergency plan available that you can look at and know who to call or what the next step is. Look at healing as a couple. And in an intimacy oriented approach to sex. Encourage people clients to engage in courtship with their partners. Go back to what it was like when you were dating. You know, how you looked forward to each other's phone calls. I remember when we were dating, there was one day my husband was coming home from work, he was on midnight shift and he just pulled his patrol car over to the side of the road and picked a bunch of wildflowers and brought them to me. It was so sweet. And those are the kind of courtship things that we tend to forget when we get into relationships for a long period of time, we get sloppy. If you will practice looking with love. And instead of looking at your partner with these glaring eyes, like you did not put your dishes away. Looking at your partner intentionally with loving eyes, those goo goo eyes. As you know, I kind of tell my daughter. Expand your sensory awareness. Be aware of what your partner smells like. Hopefully not right after the gym. You know what it feels like to lean up against your partner, being aware of the sound of his or her breath. Explore the realm of sensual pleasure together by just holding hands. And that may be too much for some couples right after porn is discovered, but eventually getting back to holding hands, you know, even when they're just sitting watching TV or one person leaning up against the other while they're watching a movie. Massage, foot massages, back massages, head massages, brushing of hair, all of those are different physical sensations that you can share with another person. Enjoy a hot tub together, you know, that's easy. No contact necessarily, but it's a different sensation. Aromatherapy or even touch. You can explore different sensations of touch other than massage through the use of feathers, massage balls, or just different types of manual touch like tapping or rubbing or scratching or whatever it is. Another activity you can do with touch is to encourage people to explore communicating emotions via touch. So if you're going to be flirtatious, how would you do it via touch? What would you do if you wanted to communicate to your partner that you were feeling sexy? How would you do that Via touch. And those are exercises that you can assign for homework. Encourage people to talk with each other about sexual likes, dislikes, needs, etc. Create ground rules regarding emotional and physical safety as it pertains to sex. And there's a lot of emotional safety that goes along with it. There's no teasing, there's no making fun of people. And those are important ground rules that need to be unfortunately laid and actually said out loud. Pornography is everywhere. It hijacks people's primitive drives for survival and reproduction. Pornography use is not always bad, so I don't want to pathologize people just because they're watching porn. It's the degree to which it's impacting their life. To begin the change process, encourage people to describe how they envision a rich and meaningful life. Review the effects pornography has had on them. Explain how pornography does or doesn't fit into that vision of a rich and meaningful life. You know, not for me to say. I just want to know how does porn fit into that? Identify triggers for use and prevent or mitigate the ones you can't prevent. Identify the needs that porn fulfills and find alternate methods for need fulfillment, practice mindfulness, and get support this episode of Counselor Toolbox has been sponsored in part by Foundations Events. As the behavioral health industry evolves, the need for collaboration is greater than ever. Join Foundations Events at the Innovations and behavioral healthcare conference June 20th and 21st in Nashville. Focused on listening to both the patient and provider, this conference offers two days of sessions that follow the journey from meeting the patient where they are to helping them find recovery. Special pricing for licensed clinicians is available, with the opportunity to earn over 20 CEUs. Visit foundationsevents.com counselortoolbox for more information and to register today. If this podcast helps you help your clients or yourself, please support us by purchasing your ceus@allce.com or getting your agency to sponsor an episode. A direct link to the on demand CEUs for this podcast is@allce.com podcast that's allceus.com podcastceus to sponsor an episode of Counselor Toolbox and reach over 50,000 clinicians per week, go to allceus.com Sponsor thank you.