6. Why Porn Recovery Doesn’t Work (And Why You’re Still Stuck)

Welcome to the Breaking Free From Porn podcast. My name is Samir Gardner Gardner, and today we're going to discuss how the porn recovery industry has kept you stuck. Now, it is not my purpose to go and criticize individuals or to throw shades or to be passive-aggressive. Rather, I just want to give a perspective that will allow you to see things differently and allow you to realize that maybe quitting porn is not that hard, that quitting porn is not meant to be a process that takes years and so on. So I wanna first give the example of Japan and antidepressants. I initially found about this, about what happened to Japan in the 1990s through the book called "The Cult of Pharmacology" by Richard de Grandpé. and it is a phenomenal book. It is one of my favorite books still to this day because it gives different historical events that happened where we see, okay, like, how was the concept of addiction? How were the concepts of, for example, antidepressants, which we're going to talk about, introduced to the public? And we see what, what was the motives behind some of these introductions, some of these new movements. Some of these new drugs and so on, some of these new businesses and markets. So in 1990, Japan was a country where anti-depressants, depression as a whole, was not that popular. Yes, like, of course, like, people felt bad. People felt sometimes good, sometimes really bad, sometimes hopeless. Of course, like, there were mental problems, you can say. People were not feeling good all of the time. But that was a problem for the drug companies because the drug companies, they wanted to sell their antidepressants because in the 1960s after World War II, we know that certain businesses came in the, the world where in America and other European countries antidepressants started to gain that rise in popularity. It really started to become popular because, and this is something very specific, what happened is they were introduced this concept that you essentially, whenever you feel down and you feel down for, let's say, a prolonged period of time, or you feel up and then you feel down and it's really inconsistent, then that could be a sign of depression. People then interpreted whatever they were feeling, whatever negative feelings that they get, that they had, as, well, maybe that's because I have depression. Therefore, let me get the solution. Let me get these antidepressants. But Japan didn't go through that yet. So that was a problem for drug companies because the Japanese were not educated on what was depression in the first place. And if you don't know of something, then you don't really think that, okay, there is maybe a solution to this, or maybe this is a specific problem that actually can solve. They didn't know that. The same way, imagine both for the good or the bad. Imagine that you have, let's say, a disease. Let's say you have cancer, and then let's say you eat junk food. And I'm not saying that junk food necessarily causes cancer, but let's say that it does for the sake of this example. Let's say that you have a disease and you eat junk food. In all of your life, you get told that eating junk food, yes, it's bad, but it's not like that bad. Like, you're not going to get cancer because of that. You might get cancer because of the sun. You might get cancer because of stress, whatever. Let's say that these are the reasons that you think are the reasons why you have cancer. So you eat junk food, you eat junk food, but it just worsens your health and you now have cancer and now you just continue on eating junk food thinking that it's normal. What happens is because you lack that knowledge, because you lack that information that junk food might be actually causing that cancer in the first place, well, guess what happens? You just keep on doing this and this and you just keep on making your health worse and worse and worse. But then this concept, this thing that I just told you about can also be applied to, you can say, negative things. Or applied in the opposite way. What do I mean by that? When Japan didn't know about depression, whenever they were feeling down, whenever they were feeling hopeless, whenever they felt very, really negative, they didn't think, okay, I have what we call depression. Let me attribute those emotional— this emotional instability as depression. This is a sign that I have depression because they didn't know depression was even a thing, so they couldn't attribute it to the concept or the disease, quote unquote, of depression. So then what the pharmaceutical industry did is they obviously wanted to make money. I mean, it's a business. It's not like they just want to give certain shit for no reason. Well, humans, they want to do things for their own self-interest. We all know that. So Japan was also like a one of the only advanced countries at that time, meaning that they had the capital to invest in some of these things. They were not like a third world country, but they didn't really see depression as a something to worry about. Like they knew, okay, yeah, it happens in very rare cases, but most people do not have depression. So how could they sell medicine for a problem that didn't seem to exist? So what they did is that they went and took some of the things that Japanese population, the locals, really understood. Using their philosophy, using their understanding, they said your soul— okay, they introduced this concept of this idea of your soul can catch a cold. In Japanese, it's kokoro, no case, that your soul can catch a cold, meaning that your soul can have some form of depression. And they said when you feel down and then you feel up and you have times when you really feel negative and you feel hopeless or whatever, you just feel negative overall, this is a sign that you have depression. So now the Japanese were taught to see this as a problem. The same ups and downs that they were facing all of their lives for their entire history, basically, they were now told to interpret that as you have maybe this disease, your soul caught a cold. So just small changes in their moods were now seen as mental illness, something that they couldn't really handle on their own. They had to take antidepressants for. And then Japan obviously joined the ranks of consumers of antidepressants. Why am I talking about antidepressants? I can also add to antidepressants, this is going to link back to PMO, and we're going to explain like how does this work and link back to other bad habits that sometimes we try to leave behind or things that we even try to improve in our lives and how this concept of businesses really influence our desires to remove these problems, our desires to just improve ourselves. Let me explain. First and foremost, antidepressants, we see this clearly. The very famous— and there's a book on this— I mean, the very famous meta-analysis, meaning that they took a bunch of credible studies and research on antidepressants, saw that placebos for antidepressants and antidepressants worked as much, like they had the same success rate. There was only a person, 1% or 2% or 3% difference between both. Can you imagine that? A drug and a placebo, a pill that has nothing inside, and they just get told this is antidepressant they get light, so essentially a placebo where someone essentially cures them, their own selves without any drugs, worked as well at the same success rate. This is a meta-analysis. I'm not talking about just one study. And we can also argue that most, or not most, but a lot of studies, let me be generous, a lot of studies where we saw negative results when it comes to antidepressants were just thrown under the pile of papers and they never saw the day. They never saw the light of the day. So what we need to understand is that sometimes we think, okay, this is very irrational. Let me take antidepressants so I can feel better, so I can not have to face those negative emotions. But we don't understand that we sometimes get told that we have a specific problem and we sometimes create it or we interpret whatever we are facing in our day-to-day life as, yes, this is confirmation that have this specific problem that everyone is talking about. And then we get sold a solution to it. This is very important to understand this because with PMO, with NoFap, we see the same exact thing. With NoFap, we get told, look, you can't have a marriage. You can't become successful in your career or business. You can't be confident around the opposite sex. You can't do many things. Why? Because of porn. Not because, and this is my personal argument, not because of what actually you didn't do or what actually you didn't practice. Like for example, if you lack confidence around the opposite gender and you want to be married and build a family, well, maybe you just never went out there and tried to do something. Now, I'm not saying that quitting porn is not going to help with that. For sure it won't. But oftentimes we get sold the idea of quitting porn and masturbation as if it was the thing that is going to change everything for us. The number one thing. Yes, it's this, it's the only thing that's missing in your life is to quit porn and then you'll get whatever you want, whatever you desire, whatever is important. Whilst there's other people that do not get told that same exact thing, that do not come across this type of information. So they still maybe watch porn infrequently, or even maybe even frequently, and yet they get the things that we want to get, that we think we need to quit porn for. They get married, and then maybe they quit porn, or maybe they quit porn before getting married, or maybe they quit porn a year after getting married. I've talked to people that they left porn the moment that with their wives they got the announcement that there was a child in the way. They only quit porn then. There's people that still watch porn whilst they have children. But why is it that for us, we think, okay, when it comes to quitting porn, I need to quit porn and then I'll have the confidence so I can have a family and be married and so on. So then I can start my business and really put in the work because right now I'm not productive because of porn. You see how we took a small little problem. Now, sure, morally it is a huge problem, but I'm talking about physically. It is a distraction, it is something that wastes your time, energy, and so on. But it doesn't, it cannot completely hold you back from pursuing different things in life. But we get told that yes, porn will rewire your brain, and we get educated on that, that porn is an addiction that is as bad or even worse than drug addictions. That porn hijacks your dopamine, and that's why you can't even focus. That's why you can't even get anything done. That's why you haven't achieved anything. Rather than looking inwardly and asking yourselves, yes, that's true to a certain extent, but on my side, I can still do certain things. I do not have to rely on quitting porn before I can do certain things. Yes, I can quit porn now and it will be better for me, but you don't want to fall into Sorry to use that word, but mental masturbation where you think I need to solve this problem and then everything will just fall in line. We see the same exact thing across different industries. The fitness industry, for example, and I love fitness, I love working out. I actually have a coach that I invested in. It's been a year and a half now that I've been with him, or almost a year and a half. But we get told you can only, for example, be confident and you can only be attractive to women, let's say, once you have the physique. But we all know people that do not have the physique, that are maybe skinny or maybe even overweight, yet they are attractive to the opposite sex. There's different industries. The business industry is a big one. The entrepreneur space, the Andrew Tate stuff, where you need to make money and then you'll feel worthy and then you'll feel valued because other people will put you on a, not put you on a pedestal, but they will find you more valuable because you're gonna have money, then you'll be able to retire your parents, then you're gonna be able to help them and so on. And these ideas are presented as you need to do this and then you'll get this, but then you'll get there and then you realize, no, there's another thing that you need to get to. The people that take antidepressants, do you think that suddenly they're all happy 24/7? That there's not something else that they're going to be chasing? The people that quit porn, do you think that suddenly their life is just rainbows and flowers and they, they're just satisfied and they don't need to chase anything new? There's always going to be another problem anyway. The same people that say the moment I quit porn, then can be confident because porn held me back for all of this time. The moment I quit porn, then I'll start my career or business because porn is holding me back from being productive. The moment I quit porn, then I'll get married and have a family because porn is holding me back from how I carry myself and so on. And yes, there's some truth to it, but I'm telling you, if you do quit porn, you'll see it. No, I need to then work on this specific thing in my life. Then I'll be able to get married and have a family. Oh no, I need to work on this specific, let's say, mental limitation I have, limiting belief that I have in regards to productivity in business and careers, and then I'll pursue my career or business. This is what's going to happen. So be careful with what you're presented with, with apparent problems that are then you see a solution for them. People tell you, okay, you need to, and look, I'm not against that, but you need to, work on your traumas and then everything will be so much easier for you. And I do think that if you work on your traumas, quote unquote, there's going to be a lot of advantages depending on how you go about it. I like memory reconsolidation, for example, which is a process where you go and change the events of the past. You update them so that whatever bad memories that you have that still kind of affect you still to this day, you kind of like alternate them, you update them, therefore you see them differently and therefore they do not have the same impact on you. So you take, for example, someone that bullied you and you go back to that event, then you think of a positive outcome from that event rather than the negative outcome that happened. And that updates your memory in your brain. Very nice. But then if you say, okay, I really need this, I cannot function without this, this is where the problem is. I really need antidepressants. Let's say the Japanese, oh yeah, I now really need antidepressants or else I can't live a good life. We gotta just realize that we live in a, capitalistic society. Capitalism is one of these things that we just fall for. We take— and this is something I, I've talked about a lot with my students— we take, for example, and I'm going to go into a tangent because this is going to be important, I can only feel worthy the moment I achieve something or the moment I work hard. And where does that come from? Does, does, does it just come from the fact that we are masculine and we want to achieve things and we have a natural drive to just go after it. Okay, maybe to a certain extent, but why is it that women also do this? They think nowadays, I really need to achieve things and have a good career and provide for my family and so on. I'm not saying there's something wrong with that or something good. What I'm saying is we place so much of our self-worth on our achievements and on our work ethic. And we think that the only way that we can feel worthy is through achievements or by working very hard. Just because we live in a society, we live in a world where we get told, yes, you can only feel worthy the moment you achieve something. Worth is dependent on achievements. But is it? This is the question I'm trying to ask you because worth is abstract. Worth is not something tangible. To feel worthy, to feel value, to feel any feelings for that matter, is a decision that you make. Let me explain. If someone says to you, hey Samir, you're such a nice guy, I like what you do, I think you should really feel proud of yourself, what you did, what would you achieve, I think like that's amazing, I wish to be like you, whatever. I can think, okay, what he said is something which I think is true, therefore I'm going to feel worried. But then on the flip side, if that same person comes up to me and says the same exact thing, but I think that he's saying this because he wants to get something out of me, therefore it is not genuine, what's going to happen? The same exact words were said, but I'm not going to feel worried. Why? Because I do not think that I should feel worthy because I rationalize that, no, actually he's doing it for this specific reason, not because he's genuine, not because he's honest. So when you realize that, you realize, okay, actually that means I can feel worthy right now. Why do I have to wait? If I validate my own self, if I decide to feel worthy based on how I interpret this compliment, of him. If I am the one deciding to feel worthy, therefore I can feel worthy right now. So then the question is, why don't you feel worthy? What do you gain out of feeling not worthy? Let's link it back to PMO. When we understand that, for example, with feeling worthy, the reason why most people want to feel unworthy— this is the main reason— is because they think that if I feel unworthy and wait until I achieve something to feel worthy, then I'll be motivated to get out of that state where I feel negative, where I feel unworthy, and then it will motivate me to achieve more because I'll be motivated by the fact that I'll only feel worthy the moment I achieve something. That's the logic. Essentially, you'll have a better— you'll work harder and you'll be more willing to do more when you feel unworthy. That's the belief that most people have. But when the person, the individual realizes, no, actually I can feel worthy right now and actually get more done, that's when he's like, okay, let me just feel worthy right now. Let me be even delusional. I know society, the people around me, my environment might disagree with me. They might think, I know I'm not worthy enough because I haven't achieved X. I don't have a salary of $1 million a year like they do, let's say for example. And also, how does that link with PMO? How does that link with porn and masturbation? With quitting porn and masturbation, with quitting PMO, what we need to understand is people use that same logic where they think, "Okay, I'm going to wait until I quit porn and masturbation," or "I'm going to make quitting porn and masturbation so important to me so that I can get a sense of achievement, so that I can get a sense of I've done something." But what they do actually is they know that— and this is something which some people disagree with, but I'll argue for this, and I have full conviction in this— that people know that quitting porn is actually not that hard. Yes, maybe unconsciously they have limiting beliefs, but they know that quitting porn can be a decision. They can just face their desires and just eventually leave it. And this is not me trying to be passive-aggressive. This is me saying that people know— there's a part of them that knows that, yes, I have control over this, but sometimes they just want to put it under the rug because they think that if they fully admit this and they then watch porn, then it'll feel just worse, essentially. So The thing with porn and masturbation, making quitting porn and masturbation a goal, is that oftentimes it saves a person from facing real adversity, real challenges, and real, real life. Really, when you make quitting porn and masturbation something you wait until you quit porn and masturbation to feel confident, to feel this and that, you might think in the back of your mind, okay, "If I feel confident right now and I try to go in real life and talk to the opposite sex, go and do business and pursue this career, I might be faced with a lot of adversity and this might just overwhelm me. Therefore, let me wait until I quit porn so then I can feel confident." This is the delusion where it's like we wait until we— until a certain moment before we feel something. We wait until we quit porn. Whilst we can feel confident despite the fact that we watch porn, there's so many people that do watch porn. I mean, the percentage of people that watch porn is high, and a lot of people still feel confident. A lot of humans are confident despite the fact that they watch porn, simply because they do not make this association that I can only be confident if I don't watch porn. This is very important that you guys realize this. And I'm almost shooting myself in the foot here by saying these things because I am a coach and I help people quit porn. It's what I do full-time. So I really hope that you guys can see that you don't want to hold yourself back. You don't wanna fall into this trap of, okay, I can only, get this the moment I achieve this. I can only feel this way or achieve certain things the moment I get to this certain point. No, you can feel this way and you can pursue these things right away. And this is what you need to understand. So this is it for the podcast. I hope this was helpful and I'll see you guys in the next one.