Transcription
I had a porn addiction. Things were way worse than I actually thought. I really did want to make a serious transformation in my life. To really want that change, you've got to understand how [ __ ] your current situation is. As harsh as that sounds, I would never have got the position I'm in if I didn't take some responsibility and realize I wasn't slipping up.
Hello and welcome to the Helpers Here podcast brought to you by the Beyond Compulsion Academy. Today we're going to be talking through some dark truths, just some real hard realities when it comes to overcoming pornography addiction. Some things that I've learned which I had no idea about before I met Mary Paul. So, welcome on the show, Mary. How are you doing today?
>> I'm doing good today. How are you?
>> Yeah, I'm doing good, thank you. I'm a little bit tired. It was a long weekend. and I was out in Glasgow. So, had a lot of fun with my friends. Uh, I wasn't drinking alcohol, but we were going out to clubs and staying out late, having a good time. But, I feel a little bit sleepd deprived. Um, but yeah, doing good. Doing good and excited to get into this video. I'm feeling very passionate about sharing the BC method with more people. At the moment, I've uh been spending a lot of time thinking about ways to maybe improve the podcast and share our method with more people um in the most effective ways possible. So very excited to be honest. Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
All right. So I shared that video with you by a different guy earlier this week who was talking about like seven dark secrets around, you know, a different subject and uh it was it was kind of funny to be honest with you. He did speak some truths. Now, obviously, we're not interested in that subject today at all, but I think this could be quite a useful one for anyone who's maybe been struggling with porn addiction for quite a while. Um, and probably been doing things a little bit wrong because of some misinformation out there by other creators, etc. Um, and of no fault your own really. So, the first one I want to go for like seven if we can. The first one where people go wrong really is like looking for a deep reason as to why you're looking at porn. So like trying to figure out some maybe some trauma. Um trying to figure out what it is that keeps you stuck. Like why do I keep looking at porn? That's the sort of thought that the addictive part of the mind will say is like what's wrong with me? Why am I into this kind of content? But people can go down that rabbit hole of searching for an answer to that question, but it's just like a dead end. like it it never really leads anyone to actually making any progress in changing your neural pathways. Do you want to expand on on that a bit more, Mary, and explain why looking for some deep reason as to why you're looking for porn just isn't effective when it comes to actually solving this problem?
Well, it's not effective because even if you figure out your deep trauma or whatever it is they're looking for or or fill your void or you know the emptiness in your life or the reason the emotions, the stress, the triggers, all of that. If you figure out all those things, you're still going to be wired from wanting to engage in porn to acting on it. So all of those things don't really matter, you know, until unless you can change those pathways directly. That make sense?
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. Yeah. For sure. For sure. And I think the other thing is Yeah. just how susceptible that sort of question is to moral unanswerable questions like going down the rabbit hole of all these different sort of deep sort of treatments that go right into your past. And it's not to say that you shouldn't work on developing a better relationship with the child self, but it's just as Mary always says, you know, dealing with your trauma is the cop before the horse. And the best way to approach things is deal with the addicted part of the mind first. Get the rational part of your mind back in control, feeling solid, feeling clear, and then you can develop a really good relationship with the child self from a solid place.
>> And if you the thing is is you can spend a lot of time and unanswerable questions, right? trying to figure out why. Okay. Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? You know, there might be certain things that made you more susceptible to addictive behaviors. There's a million reasons that there might be why that you know contribute to you having this addiction in your life now. But the knowing why is not going to really help you.
>> Still, you got to have the how am I going to stop, right? And in my experience, when people stop addictive behaviors, um my old friend Patty, who actually died from food compulsion, she said, "If you want to figure out why you do something, stop doing it." have all these pattyisms I called them, you know. But it's true because like when you stop an addictive behavior and maybe you do have some old stuff that you know contributed or whatever and maybe isn't serving you in your life emotionally or whatever in relationships and all that kind of stuff, you know, get therapy. then that therapy is probably going to be a lot more effective than it would be if you have an addiction that takes the forefront and all the consequences and everything from having that addiction you know become the issue and and literally I mean working with food compulsion for so many years as I have there's the it's like literally stuffing it, you know, stuffing it down with food or whatever so
>> stopping an addiction yeah Great. Then in dealing with that directly, changing those pathways, then maybe looking at why you maybe got involved in an addiction to begin with, you know, might be helpful. But at that point, when you don't have all those negative consequences from the addiction, you might not even be searching for the why anymore, you know.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> Yeah. And I think the thing is as well when you have that space because you are clear on dealing with the addictive part of the mind correctly then you may be left with some uncomfortable feelings and that may be to do with whatever you've been through in the past but then you can actually deal with that without escaping those feelings by going to the porn because and that's not to say you know you're looking at porn because of these feelings necessarily. It's more just saying like look, you're going to have some emotions, right? And it may actually feel even more difficult emotionally to stop watching porn than to continue watching porn in some ways. It's not to say it's like worse to stop watching, you know, it's not it's not worse. You're not going to have a worse life by stopping watching porn, but it's just you may feel a bit more. It's like you're going to be more sensitive in some ways. That's a good in my opinion. And the other thing too is like if you have these difficult old emotions from childhood, whatever traumas, whatever, if you have that and now you have this porn addiction which creates all these other difficult emotions, now you've got all these difficult emotions kind of suppressing these other old difficult emotions, you know, and it's just a big mess of difficult emotions.
>> and and I I really do believe it's the cart before the horse, you know, dealing with the old emotions to try to eliminate the the addiction, you know, which creates these these secondary terrible emotions, you know. It's it's it's not going to work that way, you know. It really you got to do it the other way around. Otherwise, you're still going to be stuck in the addiction, you know, until you change those pathways, you know. And and sometimes I you know what in my experience I think people have been more you know afraid of like what are these emotions really going to be? Oh my god. You know and then when they stop their addictions they they're able to to process them a lot, you know, more effectively and sometimes they're not as bad as they think they're going to be.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Well, emotional discomfort, like as as bad as as simplistic and reductionist as this sounds, but like emotional discomfort is emotional discomfort. Like, you know, you're going to experience emotional discomfort or just some kind of discomfort by stopping porn. But that's like a good thing. Like training yourself to be able to experience that temporary discomfort is such a powerful thing because then you like develop this skill which you can literally apply to every area in your life which means that things like going to the gym or you know developing really good relationships with people or building a business like these things just become infinitely easier once you master dealing with your own mind with regards to compulsive behaviors especially in a sexual realm. So once you've mastered that skill, you know, dealing with the temporary discomfort of other emotions, it's not going to like scare you quite as much. Whereas when you're really in the depths of a porn addiction, which I was for 10 years, is it it kind of feels like any emotional discomfort. Oh [ __ ] like I'm running away from this. I can't handle this. You know, I I need to watch porn now. That's where I was for so many years. But what you understand when you go through all of this work is actually you don't need to go and run away from these feelings like that they're actually okay. Like you can deal with them. It's okay. Uh which is really cool.
>> Yeah. All right. Let's go on to number two.
>> Yeah. There's temporary literally they come they go. Um now number two, you never slip up. So, we've talked about this so many times on the podcast, but this is something that really could be keeping a lot of people stuck in their porn addiction is this concept of slipping up. You know, accidentally somehow watching porn. You know, you're not going to walk, you know, into your bedroom, slip up, and end up on like Pornhub and masturbating. Like, it just it doesn't happen. Um, so yeah, Mary, do you want to kind of expand on this because this language is so pervasive pervasive and like no f
>> pervasive? Yeah.
>> Yeah. And and there's no there you don't take responsibility and if you if you're not taking responsibility for your actions, you're not going to be able to change them, right? I mean, I think like when we had this ice storm uh a couple years ago, no, probably three years ago now. Well, we have one every year, but I walked down to the puzzle exchange in my neighborhood. There's a little box that people put jigsaw puzzles in. And I thought, well, I actually didn't walk down. I drove my car a block. Oh, it's pathetic. I drove my car a block down there. And then when I got out of my car, it was like a sheet of ice, you know, and I walk I'm walking over to the puzzle thing now. I have these puzzles in my hand, you know, and then I slipped on the ice and and I'm like, "Okay, the puzzle's going to go flying in the air." What? You know, so I just I landed on my ass. It was not good. But could I have said, "Okay, I'm just gonna go back in time and not fall on not slip and fall on the ice." No, it's like it's it slipping and falling doesn't happen. But I think it's kind of just a way of, you know, patting people on the back and oh, it's okay. You know, you just slipped. It's it trying to make them feel better about about the relapse rather than teaching them, you know, this is what actually happened and you had a choice about this and you made this choice and now this is going to be the consequence of making that choice whether you just slipped. It's okay. You'll just get back on the get back on the wagon, you know.
>> So, yeah, it's really really not helpful at all, but it is absolutely pervasive. We hear it all the time. Yeah.
>> it's uh it's bad as well because I think it just kind of goes so handinhand with a lot of the helplessness out there and what the addicted part of the mind wants people to believe in, which is that you're essentially out of control and that there's no chance of you making good rational choices for yourself and that you have to remove triggers, install blockers, otherwise you may have a slip up. And it's just it's just so so irrational. It just doesn't it just doesn't make sense really when you look at it through a different lens and you see that actually every choice you make is a choice you're making like you are deciding this like sure there's these different players involved. So maybe the addictive part of the mind getting you to engage but you're not slipping up you know it's still a choice. Um and I mean that's obviously
>> a simplistic way of looking at it. it can be a little bit more difficult, you know, understanding how to put the rational part of the mind actually back in control in those moments you want to engage. But I do think a really big starting place for anyone is to realize like this behavior, this addiction in your life isn't just completely happening to you and it is possible to take back control. like you can be in control of the rational part of your minds like you know from a neuroscientific perspective re-engage the prefrontal cortex when you have a compulsive desire like you can do that and it's a skill that you can learn um that's going to be very hard to do that while continuing to think in this helpless way which everyone else is thinking in with regards to porn and addiction and masturbation. Um, and also we don't really want to have this kind of like culture of, oh, I just had a slip up and then you're kind of like asking for sort of uh motivation from people. I I saw this a lot in like the porn addiction recovery groups I was in in the past where it's like, oh guys, I feel so bad. I've just had a slip up. And then like you get like a load of comments replying like, "Ah, it's okay. You know, not all your progress is lost. Um, day they day one again. Like let's go for it. Come on. You know, you'll come back stronger this time." Um, and you kind of end up in this up and down motivational sort of accountability buddy culture which is so detrimental because it's so far away from the present moment and actually just changing the way you think so you can get truly free from this problem.
>> Yeah. You know um few things come to mind. So there's this idea that it's a journey. Recovery is the journey, you know, and I mean that in itself there's there's nothing proactive. It's just it's just happening to you, right? And it makes me think about that. Um, one of our clients sent a video of Matthew Perry. I think it was with the on the BBC. I think it was the BBC. And this there was this guy who was just like super direct confronting Matthew Perry about addiction as a disease and all this kind of stuff. And Matthew Perry was basically just validating helplessness over and over and over and over again. And I mean in a nutshell, helplessness requires your consent. You can act in a helpless way, but it's not going to just happen to you. you're going to have to go, okay, I'm going to act helpless in this situation. I'm going to speak in these ways that validate helplessness, you know, it doesn't just happen to you, you know. So,
>> yeah.
>> 100% 100%.
>> Yeah. And look at where Matthew Perry ended up in his helplessness, you know.
>> Exactly. Exactly. Um, okay. So, the third one that I want to share is substitution. Uh so many people are substituting porn for a different compulsive behavior and this is keeping them stuck because what will happen is you substitute out porn let's say social media, video games, junk foods, eating just excessive amounts, you know, eating unreasonable amounts compulsively. You know, you substitute porn out for a different compulsive behavior that's mind and mood altering. Well, what's going to happen is you're not actually going to be able to experience the temporary discomfort required. you know, change the way you think, actually change your neural pathways. You're just going to replace one addiction with a different one, which means your neural pathways for porn don't change. And so essentially, you're going to end up back at porn. And it may be months down the line, but you will end up back at porn because you've not actually done any real work on the way you think about things, which is what's going to lead to your complete freedom and peace of mind, which I'm sure you really really want.
>> Yeah. Well, they talk about the evidence-based practices, which really annoys me because like trying to get, you know, connected to any of the medical community that where they're trying to deal with this addiction epidemic, you know, they're not interested unless you have evidence-based practices, which I don't know how they calculate that stuff, but in my estimation, I think they they look at the primary addiction, which is let's say it's porn, right? So now you've stopped using porn. So now you, you know, in evidence-based, you have successfully stopped your addictive behavior, right? But now you're gambling, you're on social media 247. You started eating, so now you're 3 400 lb. You're smoking a bunch of weed. you're drinking alcohol, you know, and and then in time you like you say, you'll end up back at the porn because you just keep reinforcing these addicted neural pathways. But they consider you in some realms a success because you stopped, you know, for for however long that primary addiction when
>> I mean substitution. Not only does it not work, it's it's actually just promoted as a way to I mean that's so common to stop addictive behaviors to substitute a healthy behavior. It's all about, you know, exercise and, you know, nutrition. And I I've worked with exercise compulsives. I mean, these people, they don't exercise because it makes them feel good and they enjoy it. They exercise to try to get out of the uncomfortable feelings of trying to not do some, you know, usually food compulsion or whatever or porn, whatever. You know, I'm just going to go run it off. You know, it's they don't have a choice about it. It doesn't make them feel good and then they they generally speaking they come back from the run and here's their addiction to face again.
>> Substitution is but you know people think it's a good thing. How could you not think oh eat healthy and exercise? How can you go that's not a good idea right now? you know, I mean, just do it, whatever, but that focus in order to deal with an addiction is absolutely a detour to disaster, you know, every time. So,
>> yeah, definitely. And I think the key thing is that you're not actually going to deal with the wanting. So, as we've said many times, if you have compulsive desires, like if you have an addiction to porn, if you're unable to stop watching porn, whatever way, whether it's weeks, months, years without porn, and then you you go and relapse, right? Well, what's going on is you have these neural pathways. You have this compulsive desire in your mind, and you are going to want to watch porn, okay? Because that neural pathways being wired in that way, usually from a very young age. For me, it was between the age of like 12 and 24, just like watching porn on repeat, basically. Um, and so yeah, I got addicted, right? And and that's difficult because you're gonna have this desire, but then until you actually deal with that desire, it's going to keep on coming up. And so if you go to the gym a lot and you start eating healthfully and you get into nutrition and, you know, maybe you do build like a business and that's great. That's a good thing to do. But unless you're also able to go, okay, you know, I've got this desire right now. How do I actually think that through rationally and deal with it? You're going to keep on having these desires. They're going to keep on coming back. And that's not necessarily a problem because you will be able to deal with them, but they're not going to decrease in frequency until you've actually changed the way you're thinking about them as well. And that's why tools like the remember letter, the script, and being very proactive in thinking about porn in a different way to the way you thought about it in the past is really the key thing that's going to change the way you think and therefore the way your your mind works and your relationship with it. And you're going to get to a position where it's a lot less attractive to to you than it once was because you've actually changed the way you think about it. and you start to see like, oh [ __ ] porn equals disaster in my life. Like basically everything's gonna be screwed. Rather than like, oh, porn, hey, I really want porn. Oh god, I want porn so much. I need to go to the gym and lift up some weights to like get rid of this desire for a bit and then go home and then go on social med. You know what I mean? So
>> yeah, it's really important to understand that we want to work on changing our thinking um about things so that we can actually >> feel a lot better about the whole the whole situation and uh and not even really be in the situation anymore because we just we you know what I mean? We're going to think about things differently and we're not going to have this big scary desire anymore because we we can actually deal with those desires and then we trust oursel and we can live with integrity. And uh honestly, I I just I I really hope that you can hear and and sort of start to see for yourself that this is all possible for you as well because I literally just learned this from Mary like what year and a half, two years ago now and it's worked for me. So
>> yeah.
>> Yeah. Yeah. So honestly uh cuz these things that we're talking about here, I mean I honestly believed in all of this stuff like you got to look for a deep reason. Uh you know I believed in slip ups. I believed in um substitution being a good thing, but like my mind has changed so much since. So, uh hopefully the same can happen for you. Yeah. All right, let's go on to the fourth one then. Um no, the third one in fact. Self-improvement has nothing to do with your porn use. Similar sort of concept here.
>> Yeah.
>> But do you want to just talk a little bit about why self-improvement literally has nothing to do with your porn addiction?
>> Well, if you need to improve, that means there's something wrong. You know what I mean? So again, it's you you use porn or you have an addiction because there's something not right with you, right? Rather well, when the only thing that's not right with you is you have addicted neural pathways, right? I mean, maybe there's some [ __ ] wrong with people. I don't know. Nobody's perfect or whatever. But again, it's just a way, it's the wrong focus. It's a way of, you know, running away from the desire, thinking that somehow if I become this or I become that, then I'm not going to want to do this anymore.
>> Just just not true, you know?
>> I love what you said there about self-improvement means there's something wrong with you. Like
>> got to improve. So, it's so important to start realizing that you can get to a position where you actually just feel good enough in your sense in in yourself like as you are like you don't need to be on this treadmill of always trying to improve and optimize and strategize every single area of your life. Like you can get to a position where you're just cool with living sort of moment by moment and accepting yourself as you are. And for a lot of people, they're using self-improvement because as you as you said, they want to improve, they want to get better. uh which is a good thing that they want to improve, they want to get better, but it's just they're not focusing on the the real problem. And if they understood that the real problem is addiction, you know, usually porn, often social media, food, all these different things, right? All into one, then uh you know, if they understood all of that, they'd have a much better chance of diagnosing that problem correctly, then getting the right help for that specific problem and then moving on. And and then if you want to go to the gym and meditate, crack on, you know, enjoy it.
>> Yeah. I mean, if if there's things you want to improve, okay, I want to improve like um what I what I eat because I don't feel as good when I eat things that are not as healthy. I want to start eating more, you know, healthy organic things. That's that's a completely separate thing from dealing with an addiction. you know, I I want to improve, you know, how I take care of my house or I want to improve, you know, the things I do. Like I would I would like to, you know, how I spend my time. I would like to do more things, you know, maybe volunteer, do some beneficial things. I would like to walk more. Just whatever, you know,
>> there things you want to improve in your life. How are they con They're literally connecting anything and everything to trying to get free of an addiction when this has literally nothing to do with it.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> And just to kind of explain that a bit more, like the way I see addiction and what this problem really is is you have compulsive desires and that's due to these neural pathways being wired a certain way from a young age. Now, when you're having these compulsive desires, what's going to be going on is your mind is going to be trying to get you to engage in the compulsive behavior. So, let's say it's porn. What's going to happen in that specific moment that you have the compulsive desire? You're going to have thoughts like, "I'll just look once. One peak won't hurt. It doesn't really count if it's on Instagram. Oh, this is the last time I'm ever going to do it." You know, you're going to have all these justifications and rationalizations to watch it. So if you can just look at that in isolation like these thought patterns and see that this is the problem that's going on in that moment and that you've got a lot of discomfort in that moment as well and then you zoom out and then you look at going to the gym or meditating or eating healthfully. You just see how absurd it is to think that self-improvement actually has anything to do with this real problem when it comes comes to compulsivity is it's a separate thing. When you can separate it and you deal with the addiction can guarantee that all of the self-improvement stuff is going to feel so much easier. It it really is. Yeah.
>> Well, yeah. And the other thing too is if you think that there's something wrong with me that I need to improve, people will use that as a reason, as a helplessness, as oh, there's something wrong with me. Therefore, I'm I'm in this addiction. I'm going to act out in this addiction. I'm helpless against it because there's something wrong with me that needs to be improved.
>> Yeah. And a bit like what you said earlier about the whole journey thing is what you can have as well is the addictive part of the mind saying well when I get to this position in life that's when I'll be able to stop watching porn. It's like and using the self-improvement as the excuse as you say. So it's like when I have a really good body when I'm making this amount of money when I'm in a relationship that's when I'll be able to stop watching porn. Whereas it's you start watching porn and then you're going to get to enjoy, you know, improving yourself if you want to do that. Or maybe you stop watching porn and you go, actually, I'm good. I don't really need to improve anything, which is also possible. Let's see. Uh,
>> I'm good.
>> Let's go on to number four. Reducing frequency is still being addicted. This was gamechanging for me, Mary. Before you, I was that guy on the journey doing the no flap streaks up and down, up and down, genuinely thinking I was in a good place at times because I could go on long streaks. You talked to me. You said to me, Tom, you relapsed two weeks ago. You shared that on the podcast. Like, you're still in addiction, bro. Like, you need to sort this [ __ ] out if you want if you want to be free. Well, you didn't say bro cuz why would you say bro? That'd be kind of weird. If you did, it would have been funny though. But um yeah, you were like,
>> "Oh, baby." said, "Dude,
>> dude,
>> dude."
>> Um, you know, the thing is like this whole weaning thing, it's like the that's what they tell smokers to do all the time. Even like the um like the the tobacco hotline, you know, supposedly these experts and whatever. Wean yourself off, you know, and like what that's well helplessness because you got to wean yourself off because you're not going to be able to face withdrawal, you know? So you give yourself a little bit, but they're just messing people up because they're inter in intermittently reinforcing it. And with nicotine for sure, you start, you know, you you build a tolerance. This is how much nicotine your addiction wants, right? You know, and then now you're going to cut it back. So then you're basically going to be in withdrawal all the time. And now you're just like in withdrawal, in withdrawal. Oh, now we'll give it a little bit, you know, and then now we're going to just stop. Stop for a while again. And then in withdrawal, in withdrawal, in withdrawal, now give it a little bit more. You know, it's just the whole weaning thing is I mean, do they not? I You would think that people that are trying to deal with addiction would understand intermittent reinforcement. You know, it's it and it was porn, you know, you're just teaching your brain, okay, just hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. I'm and then I'm going to do it. You know, it's it's so detrimental and it basically is saying that
>> you are unable to face the discomfort of withdrawal. And okay, I just want to like tell people out there, I I get it, you know, because when you don't have a tool and you're trying to run around the block and self-improve and all this [ __ ] yeah, he you can't face it, you know? It's it you need a tool, you know? You need a tool that actually connects you to that desire and and gets you through that discomfort, allows you to be with that discomfort, you know? So, yeah. Yeah. Weaning based in helplessness and it's just it's it it's more throw some [ __ ] at the wall and see what sticks, you know?
>> 100% 100%. I'm just going to try
>> [ __ ] falling off the wall, you know, but
>> I'm going to try log in here. I don't know if I'll be able to or not, but we have like a compulsion test, right? And if I can, I'll try log in. Um, because what I want to do is just like read out the average result for the compulsion test with regards to people uh being unable to stop watching porn after telling themselves they're going to stop. Because that's what we get like all the time is people tell themselves like, "Look, this is it now, you know, final time. Never going to do this again." And then they go and choose to engage and they get stuck in that cycle for years and years. Yeah.
>> And then what we have is we have YouTubers out there saying, "Oh, you know, you're making great progress if uh you know, you do it only once every every week and you used to do it twice a week." And it's just like, what are you talking about? Because choosing to engage once is what keeps you in the addiction. That that's like the critical thing to understand because if you don't understand that, then you're always going to have that one last time. It's always going to be like, "Oh, I've made progress. It's been a few months now. I'll just do it one last time." And then you do it and then you want to do it again because it's choosing to engage which creates the desire to engage again.
>> Yeah.
>> So, uh, so critical to understand that that's where that desire is coming from. You know, back to like the very first point we talked about on today's episode. This desire, it's not coming from some deep trauma. You know that may be why you got started in the first place which led to you getting involved in the psychological emotional dependency and having these neural pathways wired a certain way
>> but the desire is coming from you choosing to engage. You know that's what creates more desire
>> from reinforcing the addicted neural pathways. Every time you do that you're creating more desire. You're not creating more old trauma you got to deal with. You're just reinforcing the addicted neural pathways. And so then that then then you're going to continue to want it,
>> you know.
>> Yeah. Exactly.
>> Yeah.
>> And then that can just go on and on and on. And that's why like a lot of the guys we work with, they've been in this addiction for decades. It's not just, oh, struggled with this for a few weeks or something. It's like it's been going on and on and on sadly. Um,
>> oh yeah. Hopefully people can hear some truth from what we're saying right now because it's very very important to understand that it's acting on the desire which creates the desire to engage again and that's how people stay stuck for such a crazy amount of time. Um, right I think I might have actually got the compulsion test results up here. Obviously I would never share anyone's like private results but what we can do is have a look at like the means and averages of questions which is quite cool. So like the last question is, have you tried to quit porn many times but eventually ended up watching it once again? This has had over 280 responses with a mean score of 8.98 out of 10.
>> Yeah,
>> pretty much everyone. And I I think that's the highest response as well. That's the highest score of anything on the compulsion.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah, it actually is. Yeah, I've just had a look and that is the highest score by a long way. So, you know, in that compulsion test, we talk about, you know, have you feel have you felt like shame? Have you felt, you know, disconnected? Has it impacted your joy, morale? Like all these different areas of life. They're just examples, but it's that kind of thing. But the last question is, you know, have you tried to stop and you've you've gone back to it? Basically, that's the highest score. So, like that's that's where people are going wrong. And and the thing is it impacts your your confidence so much because you could be doing really good. Like you've developed like a relationship or a new friendship and you're showing up and you're feeling good cuz you're on this streak and then you turn up to work the next day and you're just a different guy and you just your mood's low. You're feeling a bit depressed. You're feeling like anxious. You're not really wanting to make conversation with people. And it's this up and down nature which I really really want people to understand is such a big problem because that's where I was and it doesn't have to be like that. So don't listen to anyone who tells you you can just like reduce the frequency and it's okay if you're doing it once every now and then. If you're watching porn and you're struggling and you're trying to stop that behavior, you're in an addiction and you've got a serious problem. So wake up basically.
>> Yeah. Um all right, number five.
>> Looking at vanilla content is still being addicted. Another one I had to understand because I was watching stuff and looking at stuff on Instagram X, Tik Tok for so many years, thinking, "Oh, well, Tik Tok not for that many years, but there's other platforms for longer." Thinking, "Oh, this is fine." You know, as long as it's not an actual porn site, I'm good. Um, it's such a bad, ineffective way to think. And then again, you came along, helped me realize, Tom, what are you talking about? Like, it's still porn. Like, if you if you're seeking out sexual content on a screen, it's porn, basically. Um, do you want to elaborate on this a bit more, Mary?
>> Well, vanilla, I mean, it's like if you're eating vanilla ice cream, you're eating, you know, chunky chocolate or Ben and Jerry's, whatever they put in those things, you know, you're still eating compulsively, you know? I mean, not that ice cream is is the compulsion, but if you're negotiating around what kind you're going to eat when you're binging on ice cream, you know, it's like and you know you're in your compulsion, you know, it's it doesn't really matter. It's just minimizing, which is standard junky thinking. Minimize. It's not bad. It doesn't count because it's um because it's vanilla, right? It's it's all it's the thing is is you know when you're in your compulsion. You know when you're doing it and and the thing is is you don't if you're not in in a compulsive head you don't minimize or negotiate with you know try to find reasons for doing it. I'm only going to do it's only vanilla so it's okay. If you hear those words it's okay because you're in your compulsion. reasonable behavior does not require justification. you just aren't going to be going. It's okay because you know, you know, it's um yeah, but the Well, I think I don't know if we're maybe we're going to maybe we already got to that, but it's kind of like the same idea as um doing it less. You know, I'm going to do it less. I'm only going to look at vanilla content. You're still in a negotiation with the addictive part of your mind, which does not give a [ __ ] about your health, happiness, and peace of mind. All it wants to do is go from this desire and find a way to [ __ ] you into engaging. You know, it's just another way. It's a lot of ways, you know. And the thing is is once you learn to identify that, you don't have to fall prey to this this entity within your mind that you this connected pathway that really doesn't care about you, you know, about what you really want, you know, in the long term. the things that you're not willing to live without because that that this addiction is robbing you of, you know, doesn't care about that and it just wants to go the way it's wired. It's it's natural, you know, when you're in an addiction. But
>> yeah.
>> Yeah. Negotiating
>> straight out my book.
>> Yeah.
>> Bringing up the vanilla ice cream example is good cuz Yeah. If you imagine you got some fat food compulsive addict, right? Um, and they just eating like their dinner, their goods, like they've eaten enough, and then they have this really strong compulsive desire to eat some ice cream. And yeah, they've got these different ice creams in their freezer. And the compulsive desire is this discomfort going on in their minds. And they know they know that eating ice cream would be an unreasonable amount. It'd be too much ice cream at that point because they're full and they know they they really want to lose some weight, okay? and they they go in their freezer and they go, "Oh, well, this vanilla one has not got as many calories as the cookie dough." So, you know what? That's okay because it's not got as many calories. I'll just eat that one.
>> Okay. Because Yeah.
>> You know, my friend um my friend sent me this. It was a pint of ice cream and and the thing that you tear off says on the top says, "Don't stop till you get to the bottom." Like, what the [ __ ] You know, this is like this is where we're at, you know, justify. Don't stop till you get to the bottom. Oh, I got to eat this whole pint of ice cream because the lid says so, you know, Uh
>> it's so absurd. It's really legitimately so absurd. But this is this is the society we live in now. So, all we can do is what we're doing, I guess, you know.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> Let's go on to number six, then. So,
>> yes, that's
>> it. Doesn't matter if everyone else does it. I want to get this one across because just being with my friends in Glasgow. I mean, we didn't talk about porn too much, but I'm pretty sure every friend of mine watches porn from time to time. And, you know, if they want help with that, if they ever want to solve it, you know, they can come to me. They know where I'm at, right? But some of them watch porn and some of them are addicted. Some of them watch porn. Maybe they're not addicted. I don't actually know. Um, because yeah, I mean, maybe they are, maybe they're not. But that's not the point. The point is all my mates probably do watch porn to be straight. I don't think I know anyone in my life who doesn't watch porn. Um, like very very few people I know don't watch porn. Um, maybe there's a few, but yeah, most people in my life do watch porn. All right, so I don't care if they watch porn or not. Like it does not matter one bit to me whether everyone around me, even if everyone in the world, literally everyone apart from me watch porn, I would still choose to abstain from porn, right? because it makes no difference to me because it's my mind that matters to me. Um, and you know, it was quite nice because at the weekend like all my mates were drinking alcohol, we're playing these drinking games, we're getting a bit Larry, music's on, you know, having a dance like it was great times. Uh, really, really fun. I absolutely loved it. But I was there uh choosing to abstain from drinking alcohol. You know, I'd have a few alcohol-f free beers. Um, I'm not really the biggest fan of them to be honest, but for me, I just I didn't want to drink alcohol, you I didn't want the consequences of it. So, wasn't an issue one bit at all. And one night, one of my mates says to me like we were just kind of uh it's just so cringy, but for some reason we're like kind of going around giving each other um like almost like compliments in a way, which sounds so weird, but yeah, we just were uh we've been friends for over 10 years and sometimes we get a bit corny when it gets late into the night. So anyway, we're kind of like just uh being quite kind to each other for a change cuz usually it's just like arguing all night long, which is very very funny and fun. But anyway, actually being kind for a change to each other. Um and yeah, one of my mates was like saying how he respects that I just do my own thing even if everyone else is doing something different and he was he was saying he respects that and it's like
>> nice. Yeah, I actually I respect people who are like that now as well. And it's one of the reasons I respect you a lot as well, Mary, because you don't really care that much that you're going against the grain with things. It's like when you've had a lot of [ __ ] in the past about the food compulsion stuff, you just stick by it because you believe in it and you believe in your values. I think this is so important. So if everyone else is watching porn, if everyone else is on social media, if everyone else is eating excessive amounts, if everyone else is playing video games, look, you still have a choice for yourself. How do you want to behave? That's the thing that matters, not how everyone else is behaving. And this is so so critical um to sort of stand apart from other people. And honestly, people won't actually um be that pissed off with you. Like when I first started doing things differently to a lot of people around me, there was a bit of fear and like, oh, I'm not going
To be fitting in with the tribe. But as time goes on, you realize who your closest mates are. Like you realize who your brothers are. You realize who your family is. And the people who seriously love you, they're going to stick around and they're probably going to respect you more for it anyway. So yeah, just uh embrace that discomfort of, you know, standing out a little bit and and enjoy it is my my advice to anybody.
Yeah, I agree 100%. you know, and it's it's been coming, you know, a lot more clear to me, too, since I left my job at the art center. And you know I don't I didn't really like talk about you know what I do with food compulsion and everything there but it's it was difficult for me to listen to you know everybody normalizing it you know when I know when I know the real detrimental effect of people being stuck in a food compulsion and listening to everybody normalize it that's it's challenging and you I'm just trying to relate back to you listening to your guys, you know, knowing they're in a porn addiction and stuff. It's like I don't care what they do, you know? I don't care what they do. And but I feel like it I don't know. It kind of got to a point where even though I didn't really talk about it, it's people know what I do and I have a different without even saying it, you know, I just I have a different perspective and I think that maybe, you know, people kind of maybe turn against me a bit because I have um maybe I'm a mirror, you know, a mirror that I think that they know that I know, you know what I mean? they as they talk about this and normalize it and act like it's all okay, they know that I know what they're actually going through. I mean, of hundreds of remember letters from people that have been, you know, stuck in food compulsion and there's not no memories that are happy golucky, you know, like, woohoo, let's all do this. And, you know, it's it's not like that. Maybe they know that I know, but you know, people can just do what they want to do. That's fine. And if they if they want help then that's great too. You know we're help is here right?
Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And I think it's important that the help comes like only when someone is going like can I have some education and like the help is really just education. Um it's not like there's anything me and Mary can say that's actually going to help anyone. It's so ideas and thoughts that come from people who, you know, lived probably before me and Mary to be honest with you, have been passed on and passed on and passed on, right? Um, and we're just trying to make that information as clear and concise and easily um taken in and applied as possible, right? That's that's all it is is it's information and education that can be used in certain ways, right? And uh and to to want that change, right? It's got to come from individuals. That's why like with my friends, I'm I'm never really like, "Oh, guys, like join the Beyond Compulsion Academy." Like, if someone wants to, they can and I'll help them out. But, you know, I'm never really going to try and like sell my program to my friends. And I to be honest, I'd give that I'd give it to my best mates for free as well, right? Um, but I wouldn't even want to do that because it has to be autonomous. It has to come from the individual, otherwise it's going to be ineffective. It's like we once wor with a guy who had kind of been forced into our program. Like I think the church or his wife or someone was paying for him to be a Beyond Compulsion Academy member and we barely spoke to the guy. Like I don't know if he even had a liberation day call. So he was just like so disconnected from us even though we were there available. We could offer him a call. We wanted obviously to help him if we can. But it's like he was never really going to he wasn't set up for success in my opinion because someone external to him is trying to get him to change and that doesn't work. The the the change has to come from you. You've got to want that change yourself as a starting place. Um and I think a good a good thing to understand as well with like wanting that change is realizing that people don't change until their desire to change is greater than their desire to stay the same. And to really want that change, you've got to understand how [ __ ] your current situation is, as harsh as that sounds. But I would never have got the position I'm in if I didn't take some responsibility and realize I wasn't slipping up. I had a porn addiction. Things were way worse than I actually thought. Um, and I I really did want to make a serious transformation in my life because my girlfriend had broken up with me at the time years back um due to me just being a mess basically and I was in a bad state. And Mary, you were the only person in my life to actually show me like Tom, you're just you kind of messed uh your neural pathways kind of messed up right now and like these can be changed, but you got to take some responsibility and do some work here. And uh it's very hard at first cuz I was in so much denial, but I think it's so important to to realize that.
Anyway, I've done a lot of talking.
Early conversations.
Yeah.
It was crazy. It was crazy.
Look at how far we've come.
Couple years.
Super cool. It's mad. It's so mad.
Clients all over the world. I love it so much. And you know, even if we can just make a small dent, you know, I mean, at least we're not
Just feeding the [ __ ] you know.
Yeah. Going against the grain.
That's been my whole life. But, you know, now we're really going against the grain.
100%.
Yeah. I love it.
We'll be going against the grain even more. I've got some plans to absolutely uh well just want to critique and analyze certain uh certain people who I think are talking nonsense personally. So I I think it'll be interesting. I think it'll be useful to people because if you keep trying at something and it doesn't work then you really do need like a radical not radical because that's probably a bit of an extreme word. We don't want to create radicals. Um, but you definitely need a serious change, right? That's the key thing here. And yeah, we we really really do not want to create radicals. That that sounds pretty mad. I don't know if we can edit that out or something.
And to realize that your failures aren't you your failures are the methodologies that are failing your the the issue you're trying to deal with. So yeah, great.
And final thing to say uh before we get on to point seven because we do have a point seven, but
Oh, we do.
We do. Yeah. Yeah. So what you just said there there is so true. Like the the failures aren't coming from you. It's coming from your application of your method. It's your process. It's your system. Whatever how you're thinking basically right now um and what tool you're using to deal with compulsive desires. So what's really important about that is if you're feeling a lot of discomfort hearing what we're saying right now,
That's kind of a good thing. Like if people are actually feeling pissed off and there's a lot of like, oh my god, this is like
These truths are so hard and solid. That's good because that means we've got resistance from the addicted part of the minds. Yeah. Yeah. And and hopefully this can propel you to change, you know, and actually be like, "Yeah, I'm going to take some action here. I'm going to make a transformation in my life because that is possible."
Yeah. All right. Final one. We've kind of talked about this already, but going on a long streak isn't going to change your neural pathways. And that this just comes back to if you choose to engage once, you're going to want to engage again. It's like you're relighting up that part of your brain and you're going to have more desire. So, anything else to add to that or should we kind of conclude?
Yeah, I think that we pretty much beat that one to death. But, you know, it's just basically, you know, this the whole streak mentality. It's I mean, it's all the same stuff. You know, it's like you're just you can distract yourself for 90 days or whatever, do all these other things to try not to think about it or end up substituting. You can drag all that [ __ ] out, you know, for a while and go on a streak, but without actually changing um neural pathways in the critical moment of compulsive desire, you know, that you're just hanging on by a thread and then usually back to it. So, yeah. Cool.
Yeah. Cool. We'll wrap it up here then. If you would like to learn more about the Beyond Compulsion Method, feel free to get in touch. I'll leave a link below to our website where you can take the compulsion test. Cheers, guys, and we'll see you in the next one. Bye-bye.
Cheers.