Helping Viewers with Porn Addiction

I know what abnormal looks like I'm an expert at the abnormal and y'all are [ __ ] normal you guys are just normal people that had something [ __ ] bad happen to you and then your brain is wired a certain way and then you use these you build up these walls around all of these negative feelings and so now you guys need immense courage because taking those walls down is [ __ ] it's hard Okay good so let's start with introductions and so if you guys just want to tell me how I should refer

to you and what and once again guys huge huge props to actually you know coming on today and talking about this it's a really sensitive topic affects a lot of people and I really think that you guys are just doing an awesome job at you know being so vocal about things that you struggle with because a lot of people struggle with this and to be able To put your face out there and and put your name out there and live on the Internet is really like you're just your balls are gigantic so so let's start

with so let's just start a little bit with like brief introductions so maybe just tell me how you want the rest of the group to refer to you and then tell me a little bit about why you're joining the group today or how we can help you out and let's kind of start in the top left with the dude in the blue Sweatshirt I I guess you can call me ghost for the jury okay this dream awesome goes to welcome in I this is kind of surreal yeah tell me about it what do you mean

by surreal I don't know it's it's kind of uh I've watched you as this sort of abstract person where it's a one-way shirt of thing that I'm watching you and now you're here interacting with us is just it feels a little bit oh that's a real I was there's a lot of like surreal Things there but okay and is there something in particular that you were hoping to kind of better understand today or something that we can help you with um I just saw felt like it would be a good idea I tried not to

okay think it Charla something good would come okay great well welcome ghosts and and next let's go to yeah I guess you guys don't see yeah exactly yeah awesome so my name is Richard I Live in California and first of all I just liked it not stock decay for letting all the viewers on so I'm really really excited for this my big thing with porn addiction is that there's like I so throughout my experience I've always placed a value judgment when I when I first got into the act I was king of the animal kingdom

and the two weeks went on and then I started to see it as like a shameful act and then more time went on I I don't Know I've like I've tried to differ a lot of different value propositions of like what it is like I see like right now I'm in a state of where um I see it as you know I see like a little bit of beauty to it I like even though it's artificial I still think there there is room for it in the world but the one thing that I'm struggling with

is like the dopamine and like the relationship with the frontal lobe that's a big thing on why that's Something that I kind of want to moving forward I kind of want to discuss the topic of like like nofap and like just ways that like not using porn as a form enix of escapism use it more as like a way to like create things in your reality I don't know maybe I'm kind of rambling now but I'm really excited to be on and listen Richard let me hear let me tell you what I'm hearing I'm hearing

that you've thought about this a lot and also you've tried a lot of different Things and you're curious about how different ways to look at this you're curious you have like some thoughts about nofap you have some thoughts about you know how you apply values to it and and so you're really here to just learn and kind of like like sort of sort some of this stuff out and maybe some of the other folks here myself included can like help you sort that out maybe we can try to understand this a little bit better to

come to some answers together Is that absolutely perfect perfect right on the middleman and and next we have the the dude yes hey so you can call me Harold okay and I guess I'm Harold the one thing the one thing things it's it's we're talking to you as as ghost said because I just only watched your stuff and now I'm actually talking to you welcome man thanks I guess the only thing I've been really thinking about is I've been trying to quit this For four years so I guess I want to explore reasons why it's

been so hard to kick it because I mean for four years I've been trying to quit I mean I've gone lengths of time without it but then I just always come back and it just seems like super hard to kick for some reason I've tried lots of different stuff and can't really find the right way to get rid of it okay sure so so maybe what we can do is is try to like compare and contrast a little bit see What people have tried what seems to have worked what hasn't and then maybe come to

some kind of consensus about how to help you guys overcome a porn addiction and so I think the next icon I'm seeing is myself right this the yeah and then down in the bottom left yeah welcome dude yeah oh my name is Erin I guess my porn addiction is lasted eight years now yeah okay I guess the one thing that I really wanted to address is that the first couple times that I like Well I addressed the issue pretty early on to myself but when I was trying to find support and others there was this

sort of stigma I guess that porn isn't an addiction that will share something that just like hit me pretty hard and I guess that's one big thing that I want to bring up during this stream is that like pornography can be a severe addiction just like others but in different ways of course okay yeah I was one of the main things that I want to Address so Erin it sounds like you really looked for help in support and you you really sort of judged for it and and kind of you weren't really met with a

whole lot of support or understanding or and and that was that that is a big problem absolutely so thank you for bringing that up and then next I see like anime portrait with blue eyes yes hello hey man welcome I am Virgil on the discord okay and welcome Virgil thank You appreciate you having us here I've been struggling with this issue the issue of porn addiction since I was 14 okay ballpark for us how long ago that was uh about ten years okay probably 11 actually okay so it sounds like you me struggling with this

for a long time yeah and knowing what I know now about how porn affects your brain your connections and everything it's been really tough to quit it because it was introduced to me by my by my oh sorry That's okay man take your time it's [Music] absolutely I can't I came across it in my form of years and I think that's that it's it's damaged me in a way that's very hard to sort of recognize and deal with and it's just something in general that I just want to be able to quit it because it's

just it's something that's more difficult to quit then maybe people might think absolutely people people definitely downplay the issue more than They should I don't think that they take it seriously absolutely guys absolutely so I'm gonna I'm gonna just jump out what something how many of y'all feel damaged I do sorry I just see but in this came a little quick what do you mean by damaged you kind of I'm just curious if that word sort of resonates like Virgil used the word he felt like you know being exposed to such such an early age

completely damaged him and he used he used literally the word damaged And I was just thinking about how powerful that word is and I was just curious how much what he experienced kind of resonates with the rest of y'all and just fun isn't a thousand percent and and can you can you share a little bit more by what you mean by that whoever said a thousand percent okay my I thought I came across it when I was 11 and I had a friend at the time and he you know he talked about how amazing it

was I thought I thought about looking at It before and it sort of spurred me to look at it and it was like tasting sugar for the first time sure and because it's such a sort of new phenomenon in the high-speed Internet form that we have it people don't really understand the risks and it's not really explained to you you know you're taught not to overeat sugar but you're not taught to over consume this yet it's sort of from the moment I was exposed to it it was like every day two to three times a

day at least Just from then on for about the first two years before I realized there were any negative effects and you sort of realized it as you start to grow more desensitized to regular stuff and you realize it doesn't affect you like it used to and you get exhausted with it so it's kind of like moving to not to be it like hyperbolic but like moving to harder drugs you can sort of keep searching for that hi yep so it sounds like you you have to go to more kind of More extreme pornography to

get the kind of dopamine response yeah yeah absolutely thank you so much for sharing that goes so so I'm hearing from a lot of you guys that you all feel you all feel damaged in some way yes all right so let's just put a pin in that idea for just a second let's finish doing introductions and then you know my hope is that if nothing else I don't know what we're gonna uncover about dopamine or neuro development or any of That stuff but if nothing else I would love it if if we could you know

start you guys on the path of I don't know what we're gonna do about porn but if we can start to help you feel less damaged and in more whole that's kind of at the top of my list for like like just first steps that I don't know if we can solve the rest of it but but if we can even do something about that that's just that feels really important to me can we continue with introductions so down in The in the middle right oh you're muted buddy can you guys hear him no no

so I don't know if we want to move to the discussion just right over to the right move yeah we'll circle back to you buddy so then the other anime portrait yeah me yeah George you can call me George if it's easier to pronounce okay I've been struggling with this addiction for like six years okay a discovery really early age and like 11 C 11 or 10 years old I Don't really remember actually no it was like 12 or 13 years old and pretty much I in the first years I didn't really do it too

much but then when my life started became more difficult and I became more depressed and stuff I sort of used it as an escape tool and then you just you just bite a lot of control I grew more desensitize to stuff and I started over sexualizing people that's one way I feel damaged like I started over sexualizing stuff Okay and can you help me understand what you mean by that like for example I was in school and I was in class and I looked at a girl that I was at a crush on and then

I was started I will start thinking about things I will do with her like stuff like that even in the street when I looked at her woman okay so like I started over sexualizing stuff and II grew to a point where I was feeling disgust to myself which didn't help Because then it made me feel more depressed and made me wanna jerk off even more sure so yeah that's something that I've been trying to drive is struggling with I tried doing nofap I actually did like a month but then I just went back in into

it because I was struggling with school and other surfing yeah okay and do you want to try so thank you thank you very much you said it's it's George yeah yeah okay and do you want to try The one person that we had to skip are we are we good you want to try introducing yourself or you think it's Oh still not getting audio okay no audio yet okay do you want to try rejoining the call or yeah why don't you try rejoining and if not then you know we'll have you four thumbs up and

thumbs downs you're gonna be our our virtual up vote down vote machine depending on what other people are saying okay so okay so Let me just think for a second okay so I'm gonna just toss out a series of just thoughts okay topics and then you guys let me know which direction you want to go so the first is the sense of being damaged I think we should really explore because like George was saying there's something like a cycle right so we can also talk about this about the effect when you masturbate it it serves

as like a dopamine release and helps us feel good Like so we release endorphins and other kinds of like endogenous chemicals that make us feel good and so there's anytime you have an addictive behavior there's like the addiction in and of itself and then there's using the addiction is a coping mechanism for other things because basically like our brain learns a surefire way to release certain neuro chemicals that we're going to make us feel a particular way so if we're feeling bad about ourselves and we've Kind of got like this like guaranteed way to feel

better oftentimes we'll turn to that addictive behavior and so there's something of a cycle of addictive behavior and feeling bad and then using it to make ourselves feel better so we can talk about the sort of cycle of addiction in terms of feeling bad and then making ourselves feel better we could talk about being damaged we should definitely talk about what other people understand or don't Understand and how it sounds like the other thing that you guys feel is isolated right so we can kind of talk about isolation and stigma and then we can should

probably talk about nofap and just what you guys think about that and then the last thing that I'm gonna just put on the table for is control of the mind so what I would like to do and maybe this is where I can actually help is that our mind functions in a Particular way like we have certain impulses and then we have certain feelings and then those impulses and feelings kind of do some sort of you know inner calculation and then result in us engaging in a particular behavior and so how can we understand like

what is going on in your mind to actually control it in a way that you want to to achieve what you want so that's gonna be like almost like a very engineering standpoint and I'm gonna ask you guys a Lot about like the sequence of events over like the span of five minutes of like what you experience what happens in your head you know how do you struggle internally what ends up happening and and so that's something that I think we you know hopefully I'll be able to help in that way because that tends to

apply to all addictions so what exactly so cycle being damaged being isolated stigma nofap or controlling the mind what do y'all want to talk about you Guys want to go down the line just like we did for introductions or or is the most poignant which one's the most poignant you damaged okay so actually let's just take a step back so how would you guys so let's say someone you say that you tell someone that you're addicted to pornography and they say oh man that's like that's completely normal like there's nothing like special or wrong or

different about that can we actually just start by sort of defining When you guys say that you're addicted help us understand or yourselves understand like where do you draw the line like why do you think that you have a problem and like what do you think is normal let's just start by defining what we're talking about are we going in an odor at all no just anyone just you know just jump in okay for me when I had the realization it was when it was like 4:00 in the morning And I'm watching for like a

few hours and and then like the next day I wanted to watch more it was just like the ever needing like urge for that consumption okay and it just never went away it was always there always it sounds like a hunger that cannot be satisfied absolutely yep agree so that sounds like that's a pretty universal experience yes definitely yeah can you share somebody I like to know go for it sorry ghosts um yeah it seems like it's sort of this Thing that overpowers all other things I first sort of realized it was a problem at

around 13 and I did know that for three months because I was starting to learn about how it worked and I felt great and some of that like bad things I had noticed when I was a child I was able to remember anything that I wanted to so if I watched a documentary and you asked me about any part of it I'd be able to tell you exactly what was said but then once I started watching porn I know it's over a really sort of a long period of time my cognitive abilities were sort of

tapering off even though I was meant to be growing and then I realized when I didn't know FUP again they start to come back and I was able to remember things again fast oh yeah and I realized they got really bad when I was 16 and in England we have these things called GCSEs I seem like finals other trum sort of similar thing so before these big tests I was meant to be Revising getting eight hours of sleep and I was watching porn to the point where there were three days in a row we're collectively

in these three days I got two hours of sleep and I was sleeping for around 40 minutes because I guess I was using it as like an anxiety and because I was so I felt so pressured by these tests that I was just constantly consuming okay and that's when I sort of realized it was a really like it was devouring my life Wow yeah So I think it was Aaron I saw you nodding like a madman when ghost was talking so does that does that mirror your own is it okay if I if I just

call attention to things that I notice for you guys absolutely yeah hold out I'm good with that okay don't dr. kay just want to let you know I don't have my voice but okay I sign that video my I'm sorry I did not say voice on video you can call me Squatch I'm 24 I'm from South Florida And I had a significant traumatic experience that happened in my life when I was a kid at 11 years old that ever since then caused me to have a real severe addiction to pornography and I've been struggling with

it to this day so it's about all that honestly I fight every single day and its really really rough and even though I don't have my video I you guys saw my face I'm very very happy to be here and I'm looking forward to having this discussion with You guys awesome and welcome squash and I'm sorry to hear that something bad happened to you in your your teen years I'm also noticing a trend that it sounds like for a lot of you guys like stuff started very very early yeah so we should probably just I

just got to think about that in terms of the developing brain but Aaron you were you were nodding along as his ghost was talking yeah I also experienced a pretty much the same exact thing I actually managed To break the addiction for two years and during that time I was like at my peak academically and mentally and my happiness was like through the roof but uh then some things happens life happens and I relapsed I guess I'll call it that and it's been just repeating that cycle like you said over and over again and if

you I mean anybody else curious about how Aaron broke the the addiction for two years I think that's Incredibly curious about that because there's so my thing is that I think you said step four there's like something there's a conversation that happens in your mind maybe left and right there there's a point where when you're induced in this like coma this sex drive it's influencing your whole mind and body and once you start like bringing up like a conversation between like yes and though between the act of doing it or not it just seems That

like the whole like the feeling the whole feeling inside your body is influencing your mind and what it's thinking and then you start making negative rationalizations about it so and that's what gets to me most of time it comes down to a point where I start arguing with it like this side of my brain for you know maybe five or so minutes and then it gets to a breaking point where like I just my rationalizations just make sense at that Point and then the act ensues so I mean I I'm hearing something that sounds like

almost like a very very physical craving yeah absolutely that that's what it sounds to me like I mean it you know it sounds like it's not actually like your mind it's your body yeah the craving is huge yeah what is that what is the craving feel like in your body well initially so first of all it gets triggered so once it what if I see some type of suggestive and You know like a spark happens and then like my whole body kind of tenses up and then I feel it like deep inside my spine almost

my lower spine I feel it almost around my stomach and it feels like this what's the word you used it was a ball of undigested feelings what's the word for that some scar some scone some scar yes it feels like I just yeah absolutely yeah good well just feel I don't know it's just like it kind of just starts enveloping And it's just like it's it has an influence over my whole body and it's just like it's it's something I don't like because I really want to you know quit this addiction and I don't like

you know surging up this massive energy just to you know blow it out 40 minutes later and then have no motivation or more importantly energy to do anything for the rest of the day so so I'm hearing like a buildup of energy or sensation is that and then and then you you feel Spent afterward yeah absolutely I've it's yeah I feel like I just I once it's done I feel like I've given it everything and then I you know blow off the rest of the day so I can't like my biggest concern is when I

do it early in the morning and like at the end of the day I don't really see much of a problem but I still see a problem with the porn addiction as a whole this is the value judgement of like how early in the day I do it okay so Richard when you were and Sorry if I'm bouncing around a little bit you guys are welcome to sort of if you feel like we're moving too fast you all are welcome to you know invite us to kind of stay with a particular topic I'm just gonna

kind of run with what I'm hearing and and so can I just think for a second absolutely sure yeah so I'm just I'm struck by how not mentalness is like I'm struck by like the the words that you guys use do not are not words of the mind like you you Guys use words like damaged or hungry or even someone said coma I think did someone use the word coma yeah yeah yeah so so these are these are incredibly physical physical words and and what I'm hearing is that that actually your mind sort of tries

to fight against this almost like tidal wave of like hunger or demand and you can sort of like fight that battle but it's kind of like trying to keep the waves from washing on shore like you're like you're like you're like Pushing you're pushing the water back like with your hands and like you're pushing and you're like no water it's like don't come on to shore don't come on to shore but there's only like so long you can do that before like you know that wave is just it's it there's a certain there's a certain

like finality or futility or inevitability to like what I'm hearing you guys describe is that can I jump in and ask a question yeah absolutely everyone else there do You guys feel like your cravings are are more or less re a less frequent when you're out in public or when you're actively engaged in something with people yeah for me it's like a more passive thing like it's still there it's like being hungry almost oh yeah it feels almost exactly like being hungry for food like it'll be there but when you're focused on something that requires

your attention that isn't it that's a necessity it uh sort of forces It back with sort of like an equivalent force it's like two tidal waves crashing against each other in that sort of analogy yeah yeah go ahead sorry I feel like when the that emotion is as strong this is like when I'm really not doing anything like when I'm not being productive with anything I'm just like sitting there and then I end up doing it mmm so Harold I thought I saw you or heard you say something like when you out or when you

Are in public it is easier to deal with yeah well actually me when I'm in public I probably most of the time I don't have any urges at all especially like in open spaces like when I'm out for a walk or something or on campus or something I just don't get actually almost any urges at all it's really just when I'm like working at home alone or something or with a few people or something like that but in public I just don't get them at all okay so so so for some people it Sounds like

it's kind of in the back of your mind in public for other people it seems like being in public or being some otherwise engaged is it really does help and and I'm hearing that idleness of the mind really is is like let's some of those thoughts and feelings kind of come out it just opens the gate definitely okay what do y'all think about that I see two sides to the coin I don't know what it is but I see I don't know maybe there's a root cause to our different Problems between us okay what do

you think that root causes let's hear it Aaron well I've been able to so I've been to a bit of therapy and stuff good for you man so I've been able to yeah thank you I've been able to like sort of trace back to where it came from I went through a a similar event when I was seven years old was sort of forcibly sexually awakened and caused like a sort of innocent curiosity to sort of process what actually happened to me And once I exposed myself to the world of porn I was way too

young to really sort of properly handle it and process it healthily and so it became like an obsession like when I first started out I didn't even masturbate I didn't really have those urges at that age but uh once said um do you what do you remember what the draw was but before you started masturbating it was like I said almost like a curiosity and then it was still like a slight like dopamine kick and I Guess it also helped ease some sort of like social anxieties that I may have had at that age hmm

and ghosts I saw you nodding along yeah a lot of it resonated what resonated with you um what he said about the sort of curiosity and need to understand and I feel like I also had a pre-emptive sexual awakening when I was a child but a lot of the memories are sort of blacked out and I've come to a lot of realizations about what that means but I remember on making like Sexually inappropriate jokes but a very young age before most people know anything about it and I didn't really know where that came from and

it feels like my mind is constantly blocking out the source and porn is somehow my minds way of trying to go back and explore something that I some sort of trauma that hasn't been resolved and it feels like when like it's filling a void and at tons in my life where I felt wholesome or Appreciated my urges have completely disappeared like when I had a girlfriend I didn't I didn't have any edges at all who who resonates with ghosts like depiction of like is that what's happening to you guys I don't actually resonate with that

and actually the complete opposite and by the way before I keep talking is my mic okay yeah we're good man we're good squash does a lot better sounds a lot better good I actually was The complete opposite because when I actually had a girlfriend around I found myself when she wouldn't give me what I want I would turn to porn more and I would actually start to use it as a kind of scapegoat to get away from certain things when she was annoying me or when she was upsetting me and I wanted to get away

from her and just worry about myself and give in to my own selfish desires I would turn to porn and porn was really a safe spot for me in that Regard but you know the relationship ended bad and ever since then it's like it got wrapped up twelvefold so you know now I'm at a place in my life at 24 where it's like I want to reach out I want to have more relationships and the relationship I've had with porn when it came to having a girlfriend it's like it didn't matter like I still watched

it and I still went to it you sound you sound like you judge yourself a lot for that squash my doctor came I think way Too much my friend I think way too much what do you think about yourself fur fur what's that judgment I hear I hear almost self-hatred yes and it does stem a lot from the incident I had as a kid because I never wanted anything to deal with it and it never was something that I wanted and it kind of happened and there's no turning back you know there's no change in

the past there's no fixing anything or changing anything but honestly I never wanted this you know When I think about the journey that I've been on so far I was 11 years old it's just it's it's very powerful what what was powerful Richard I completely agree I saw let me think there's a lot of power and being vulnerable to like what life throws at you and I just saw like the way that you're dealing with it I see sorry can you guys feel my dog yeah a little bit let me take care of that really

quick right after a lot of power And being able to you know you know I don't know I'm lost on this dr. Cammie that's oh that's okay Richard so I think what I'm hearing squash so I thought that was it so what I'm hearing is that like people are affected by what you had to say something about squash just speaking your truth which by the way I mean you say you've been dealing with the witness for 13 years and it's hard it dude it sounds [ __ ] impossible like heart heart is the understatement Of

the year man yeah it's it's one of those things where I tell myself every single day that it's something I can be and honestly just so the stream knows last night was I want to say the first night in a long time that I had enough motivation that it just never even crossed my mind and we're helping the same routine man for the past so long but last night it was one of the first nights where I said you know what I'm putting myself first I'm gonna put the Stream first tomorrow I'm gonna not do

it and I didn't and it felt great but you know I think what was powerful about what I said dr. kay is that you know everyone always has different experiences and everyone's always going to experience things differently but the thing when it comes to porn addiction for me that I want to tell the world if I could it's just that like it's really not worth it in the end it's really not because it changes your relationships That changes the way you see people but I know that will maybe get down to it further down the

line but you know yeah that's that's how I feel and it sounded like Virgil did I did I hear you say something kind of aligned with what squash was saying I thought I heard you comment yes sir the the thing that it really resonated with me with what squash said was that you know I I didn't I didn't want this for myself I don't think any of us here want this for Ourselves we don't want to view the world through this this destructive and damaging lens that just seems to never go away it just it

hangs over your head like a cloud constantly and it's something that I wish I could I wish I could fix it feels unfixable first yeah so so this is gonna sound kind of bizarre I think you guys can get better but I don't think that this is something that you can fix like like fixing implies that there's Something that I don't know how else to put this but I mean I think what you need to be is is healed not fixed like you're not broken like that so though I'm reeling to be completely honest guys

because I have never I've worked with people who have had sexual addictions before I've worked with people who have had porn addictions before but I don't know if they were just you know cuz it's different because you're sitting in an office and you're you're talking to Another person or there's some degree of shame or or what but you guys have really just opened my eyes to first of all I've never thought of porn addiction is something that afflicts you like we think about like diseases as things that happen to you right like I got the

flu like I'm not the flu it's something that happened to me and I I don't even myself like when I think about you know let's say like a marijuana addiction I don't think about a marijuana addiction like Happening to someone it's not like you're walking down the street and you contract a marijuana addiction but what I'm hearing from you guys is that like actually you guys like contracted this that there's a there's a disturbing amount of commonality with your story about being exposed to sexual images like way before puberty before understanding what it was and

like your mind almost having a non sexualized like bizarre like fascination with some Images or things like that and then y'all are kind of like off to the races and it sounds like in a lot of cases there's actually like Frank trauma yeah doctor can I ask you a question sure go for it man you know it's one of those things that it's like it was forced on you it was not something that you wanted but my question to you is how much of I don't want to you know it to sound too weird but

I guess I can just call it like the human element of just trying Something to try it how much of that da truly believe comes into play when it comes to things like pornography and even going to it for the first time because even there sometimes there's trauma there sometimes there's other things but for the most part people go to it because they're fascinated by it they're like oh it's this thing this thing looks so cool let's check it out boy what do you say to the people who just had the curiosity And just went

for it um so oh so you're saying that that that what would I say to people who just became curious about porn there wasn't any kind of trauma or anything like that and they just went for it and because they went for it they became addicted yes my situation was yeah so here's what I would say so I think just about every kid I would imagine or most kids at some point get curious about pornography and go for it Like that's a completely normal experience right are we agreed on that and I'm so so remember

that a disease or when I think of kind of problems or addictions especially is when something within you meets the environment in a particular way that is like catastrophic right it's it's not just like kids get exposed to alcohol and marijuana all the time some people become addicted why is that other people do not become addicted why is that so there's something about Either there's a biological predisposition or that exposure to porn or curiosity about porn happened in a particular circumstance that allowed the addiction to happen instead of just like being a 15 year old

kid and like finding porn and jerking off right which is like a pretty normal experience so something is different I still think that III don't this doesn't sound and I I don't mean to say you guys are abnormal but this doesn't sound Normal to me this sounds this sounds like an affliction like you guys are using this word these words like damaging right you guys like something is going on in your mind that is not really like even start it doesn't even sound start like it sounds out sort of sexual it's it's like some kind

of weird curiosity where there's some part of your brain which doesn't understand why this thing is so cool But like it scratches a niche in your neurons and then before you know it you're like scratching that itch over and over and over and over and over again this I don't know how how many other people will feel this way but it's sort of you mentioned isolation previously yeah and it feels like pornography can kind of in a really perverse way sort of not satisfied but I guess placate that need for human connection like when you

feel really Alone when I'm around people who I feel care about me the the urge goes away and it's not because I'm sexually satisfied it's just that I feel whole I guess and it's sort of like it's just filling that void that you're numbing yourself like it's a sedative almost at times that's what I can feel like yeah I'd say very very similar experiences and we both feel very in the same way about it he basically said everything that I wish I could have said yeah in that squash Talking yes sir and what what about

Virgil's experience resonated with you squash can you just name it what he said specifically when in the beginning when he was talking about how porn addiction kind of just you know it's and I'm listening and I'm hearing back what you said at dr. K when you said it's a dopamine itch and you just keep scratching and scratching and scratching because I never thought of it Like that before and the way that I view and urge when I personally want to watch porn it's that itch you know it's that issue just got to scratch it but

with what Virgil said my point was just I agree with everything of what he was saying what he was saying about how it makes him feel I feel very similar along those lines and in Virgil how does porn make you feel it's just um it's it's kind of difficult to to verbalize for me but it Feels isolating it feels like it feels like I I have some sort of itch that I can't scratch like it feels like a like a physical affliction like like it's a part of me and I can't necessarily but like the

trouble that I have is trying to that part of me that that's been affecting me for more than 10 years of my life because I just I just want to feel like normal I don't I don't feel normal right now I know that sounds kind of oh no no it's okay guys I can I think For a second yeah I think I'm understanding something I just need to understand what I'm understanding yeah so I think I think I'm hopeful okay that's I was confusing what I was feeling for a little bit but it was hope

okay it's good and here's the reason I'm hopeful so if we think about medicine or mental health when when there are shared experiences amongst people that means like scientifically like something's going on Right if you have if you just have like a one-off event science is gonna have trouble understanding that it's when we have a repeated observation over and over and over again that we can begin to understand something and if we can understand it I believe that you know that significantly improves our chances of improving it or fixing it here's what I'm hearing from

you guys this is not there's a sense of hole there's a sense of warmth there's a sense of isolation There's a sense of something on that spectrum which somewhere along the way when y'all were young something [ __ ] that up it just came in and it [ __ ] it up and I'm not quite sure how and and now what it is is you guys have this this hunger the sense of isolation the sense of loneliness the sense of not being understood and then along comes porn which is your brains way of like taking

that away for a little while bird and and so you might imagine Absolutely and so you guys have this sense that okay and then we get into the situation that y'all are in now where like you can only like fight off hunger for so long right and all of you guys are using this strategy of like fighting off hunger which if you think about it that's just not gonna work right you can't fight off like hunger needs to be satisfied the thing is though what you guys do doesn't truly satisfy that hunger like The hunger

is partially for porn but it's like partially for something else does that make sense yeah it's like you're eating shitty food and it feels like it's the only food available yeah I never cure hunger but you can eat better food and so I think that if you guys want to be free of this and I do believe and this could be a little bit you know stupid I do believe that people's like mental health can be substantially like improved I don't Think it's a lifelong struggle I just kind of choose not to believe that I've

seen enough stuff in my personal career to where I people I think people can really like conquer what we call quote unquote mental illness right doesn't mean that they don't need to be on medication or that it won't crop up from time to time but I think you can basically live a normal life like that's my target I don't set my target any lower that and I think you guys can live A normal life I think what it comes down to is understanding that this thing you guys can't fight the hunger you're just not going

to be able to so the question is how do you satisfy that in the way that is like healthy and good because I I don't think that that hunger I don't think your body is stupidly hungry right I think in each of y'all's cases something happened to you that you became damaged or busted in some way and and something within you is just Striving to be like whole again that's what I'm hearing from you all that is that you all want to be whole again yeah desandem oh sorry go for it buddy this might sound

wild I don't know if this is gonna resonate with anyone but there are times where I've it feels like you can be so addicted to porn that I've preferred porn over sex which might sound crazy to some people but it really can it feels like it because it's a solo Activity there's more I feel like I'm still stuck in my head having sex because there's another person there and I can't get that same feeling of escape agree yeah it's almost like another element of control that you have as well at least it's Saudis yeah yeah

the situation so so not to be indelicate but I don't think sex and what y'all are dealing with is the same at all they're like completely different phenomenon right yeah and just because you not at The end does not mean it's similar at all right and and and that's my whole point is that I think we need to like if we want to get better or make you guys whole again we have to like really understand what it is and what it isn't and let's take a step back and not judge it and just assume

that sex is gonna be a replacement for this because that doesn't sound like that's the same thing at all right it's not just about Ejaculation it's not about arousal it's not just about sexuality but it does get muddled together with those things yeah when I was doing no five before the Blacktip month every time I did that the geared I will do push-ups and I was trying to do 100 pushups a day and I felt like it helped because I was sort of releasing energy it's like I didn't feel like fapping was the thing that

it was gonna be it's kind of hard to put it in in Words but like Bucky transmuted it yeah yeah like I the urge wasn't really for the fapping was more like releasing the energy if that makes sense yep and I think because I was so addicted like the only way I saw of releasing that energy was riffing off okay so Harold it looked like you wanted started not Harold um Aaron it looked like you wanted to say something yeah when yeah I also in firmly an agreement That it can be healed and it can

be done like I guess overcoming this because no but I've done it before yeah I've done it before and what it required was sort of yeah fulfilling that void that is there that sort of the porn addiction kind of just barely emptily feels what I found was very helpful is just having that like being able to be open about it and face it head-on actually during that time of two years I didn't have I had a girlfriend but I Didn't have sex so it wasn't even like sex was a replacement for it was just being

appreciated and being in a lot of healthy relationships and also having a dharma to also mention that having some sort of like purpose that allows you to push forward that helps a lot as well thanks for sharing dr. Kato for what he said yeah please man go for it I for me own personally I related to that because it really just takes a lot of energy to actually fight the urges And I realized that last night as I was laying in bed it was like nine o'clock and I was playing in Grand Theft Auto and

I'm sitting there and I'm thinking like I totally can just yesterday there's no problem there's no issue like how much porn it's not a big deal but then I kind of stopped and I really paused and I said to myself like dude you don't want to do it there's no reason for you to do it but The amount of energy and the amount of strength it took for me to just simply like not do it it was really interesting to me to see it because I've never seen that before in my entire life and for

the first time last night when I stopped I was just like wow dude like I'm six foot seven and I'm a lot stronger than I think you know it's like I I like to think of myself is so small and I like to think of myself there's like so tiny dude but it's like I'm six seven like I'm a big guy I'm a strong dude I like to move I like to release energy and [ __ ] but it's like to stop it it just takes a lot man it takes a lot yeah so I

think that's that's because the some scar so I'm [ __ ] amazed by also understanding of Sanskrit concepts so props to y'all so I'm just gonna dive right in okay and if I leave someone behind just please let us know so I think that's because the some scar that forms that is hungry is not six foot Seven it's like an 11 year old kid yes right so Harold I think you said yes first yeah well actually I said yeah because I thought it was interesting because for me it's not really it's hard to place the

age of that some scar it's kind of like this it for me it's such an alien thing in my mind that I can't really compare it to any age it's like this thing I don't know it's it's hungry thing yeah yeah like a hungry beast kind of a thing like a blob I don't know yeah So how long has it been with you Harold uh well for me I started like around ten eleven like most of these people uh and so at first it wasn't really that bad I mean I some some guy told talk

to me about porn like in elementary school and so I just looked it up and I didn't really get hooked on it then then right then but then I'm guessing it's because as I got into middle school and I I was like having trouble with like finding friends Especially like good friends I was I had bad I was in this group of friends but I I just knew they weren't really you know great people for me but I I was just sort of lost in essence and so I guess I gravitated more towards porn like

then especially because those friends actually talked about it as well with me and so they just talked about as like this cool thing and you know it just I think that it helped to solidify my attachment to it and then I just started It Korea was kind of a gradual thing I just I started watching more and more but super slowly cuz like throughout the middle school years it got worse and worse at but it wasn't really as often as some people have said again sometimes it was three times per day but usually was like

once a day I don't know where I'm going with this uh know I mean III think it you know Harold so guys by the way y'all don't have to make sense okay just to be clear so like you're not here To make sense that's my job I'm supposed to take whatever you guys so don't worry about making sense okay I'm just just the more you guys I think share with each other so first of all you guys I don't know if you all like how does it feel to be talking about this by the way

um at first I was very nervous about it considering like the overall stigma on the topic and it's it's really easy for people to laugh at the issue but you know you're in our position you won't be Laughing then but now it just feels very relieving to me I agree go for it George okay so it feels really really thing because I've never talked about this subject with anyone else like this is the first time I'm actually talking with someone about this and so like hearing other people talk about it just sharing my story like

it feels reliving it feels like unless how do I put it I'm less closed off I don't think that's the word like I'm not as constrained as I was like I yeah I cannot see that this is nothing not something that only happens to me like all I can relate to the to the people in this group and this people probably can relate to me and it kind of makes like gives me a sense of happiness because like okay I'm not alone within this all right abso-fucking-lutely so I I think I mean I you know

do you guys feel like the People who are on this call understand you yeah what does that feel good like you're not a freak yeah so so let me ask you guys this the part of you that's hungry what happens to that part when you're understood by others goes away it's yes right now it's gone completely gone it's smaller so what do y'all think about that it's it's it's just dr. K I've been dealing with this for a really long time and I'm not a social dude I don't have Any like Facebook I deleted all

my snapchat like I'm on nothing man it's like I work I go to school I have a very very small circle like I have a very loving family and it's like I get really lonely sometimes and it's just I said you know what I'm gonna try this I'm gonna see what this is like and it's just this whole experience chatting with everyone in the car just not feeling like such a freak it's a really rewarding thing and I'm very Thankful for that yeah so I want you guys to just notice this right cuz I don't

think this gets better through control control matters I I think it gets better when whatever that thing within you that is broken and alone and sort of like wants to be in the darkness but also like thrives on it right like darkness [ __ ] feeds this ship yes yes and and like you guys you guys need the [ __ ] light man and in the amazing thing is that when you put Light on it it just goes away it gets we mentioned in the past that when something is kept within like a Sun scar

it just grows until it eventually consumes you and that's like a really relatable feeling that that's that's what's happening here guys is that you guys have had this thing and just think about how long you guys have been carrying this how long it's been in your basement and sort of like feeding off of that darkness right like we're talking Like a decade or more for so it feels really strong and you guys also go for it okay um like earlier we were talking about physical feelings like mentally and I'm sort of I'm okay with talking

about this and I wasn't really that anxious but when you join the core it wasn't like a thought that hit me it was this physical it felt like that got agitated and it was like this wave of energy sort of overwhelming my nervous system like it was rushing through every Part of me really intensely and as the calls gone on up so I've been able to sit in the experience and my body is sort of calming down which is quite a refreshing feeling yeah so okay anybody else want to add anything I think it's all

great yeah actually it it reminds me of a lot of these times where I mean I've gone sometimes without porn for a long time like up to like 50 days one time I think and then when you're without it for a while and then you come Back to it you get like for me my whole body just starts trembling like when I see just one suggestive image like I just started trembling like super violently you know that's kind of the same feeling I got when I joined the stream as well it's like this thing is

like waking up it's freaky like it was doing exactly yeah man this is some this is some demonic possession level [ __ ] man I don't know if anyone used the word animalistic impulse but you know I don't Know if it's hardwired in our nature I remember there was something that someone told me humans are meant to mate humans are made to survive that's it we're married to mate and feed and then we die and it's a really weird way to think about that and I don't like seeing it in that light so the thing

with me is I don't want to see it as like a monster anymore for me it's like I train after I masturbate I don't have the energy to go to jujitsu I want to train then I Haven't gone to training in like two weeks because I've been on a really bad binge so I'm going to go to training I'm gonna go to jujitsu and I'm gonna be fine then I'm gonna be able to put the energy in different places and not have to rely on this crutch that I've been dealing with her so long can

I get a [ __ ] yeah absolutely man so so I okay I got a I just need a second to think is that okay guys yeah yeah okay all right I'm so I we could talk More there's a lot of stuff we haven't covered right so we haven't really talked about nofap we haven't talked about relationships I think all that stuff is gonna be you know super important to talk about but there's a part of me that wants to help y'all and I think we've done that already so I feel good about that but

I want to help you guys more concretely and so I want to talk to you guys about solutions is that okay Yeah so the first thing is that this is a physical thing this is not like you guys aren't like mentally ill I mean sure you I'm sure you meet some criteria somewhere but like I don't I don't think of this as a defect in your mind okay III think about I mean there's just this overwhelming sense that something happened to you guys when y'all were young and something kind of got damaged and then that

is a thing that is not bad it's not evil it's just hungry It's just unsatisfied and and whatever that thing is that we call it loneliness call it the beast call it a demon I I don't think it's actually an evil thing I think it just it just gets you know it's gonna eat whatever it can however it knows best does that make sense it's kind of it's kind of like a yeah absolutely it was like the Strega yeah and and so I think much like this trigga you can find the princess underneath right so

I think That's that's actually what needs to happen it's a really good analogy actually wait what's this trigger people who can explain this trick um but it's like when does when the when a pregnant mother dies and the baby is like cursed and it comes out and it survives it just eats the flesh of people and it's like this one's the child pause pause for a second so this is a fictional thing from The Witcher if you guys have played The Witcher if you all assume let's so Ghosts let's just start there right we got

to let people know it's not anyway so it's like a cursed thing that's just perpetually hungry so and if onlys is like dead flesh then it's gonna be evil but it doesn't necessarily have to be yeah so it's kind of like a baby that's you know tragic circumstances and all that and then it kind of becomes a demon sort of thing but so the first thing is that I think that you know you guys are just missing something that is is not I Mean it's not that y'all are like morally defect it's that something happened

to you guys when y'all were pretty young it sounds like and then there's something within you that's just hungry for wholeness for more for beyond anything else what I'm sensing you guys need is wholeness y'all just want to be like whole and calm and like chillin in the Sun and not like Hungary in like a half thing that's like half living in the basement and then you guys are Fighting this thing right because sometimes it comes out of the basement and sometimes you guys like you grab like a chair and a whip and you guys

like drive it back into the basement and then it's like down there and it's mucking around for a while then it bursts out again and then you guys are in this constant war which you're just not gonna win like that's not gonna be how it works but there are things that calm it down right there are things that Cause it to be like Morcant and and that's actually like talking to other people it's like recognizing that oh there's like a half dozen dudes out there who have like weird stringers in their basement and and and

somehow like you feel like at peace and as long as you the more that we can cultivate that sense of wholeness and we'll get to how to do that and what I'm talking about is wholeness I'm talking about warmth I'm talking About connection the less powerful this thing is going to become and our strategy here go for it ghost oh sorry it sort of feels like the idea Jung's idea of like integrating the shadow if you continue to just repress it it will grow into this monster but it's a part of you it's like a

part of your soul that you're oppressing and assumes that you learn to integrate it into who you are sooner you can feel holy yeah I completely agree so I'm a big fan of Young and that's a big part of like my general treatment approach right which is that we are just like go said that we have parts of us and then like we have to bring those parts together because I think this thing is not evil what it is is hurt does that make sense like this thing is just a gigantic ball of hurt and

then what it's done is it's managed to find some circuit in your brain which makes it feel a little bit better for a little while and since that hurt in that Hunger there it's gonna like keep on making you fat because like that's the only way it knows how to feel like a little bit better for a little for a little while and so the solution here is not to get like really really controlling I mean we can talk about that in terms of like resisting the urge to fat because there may be some value

to that it's really in figuring out like what is this hunger inside you and like how can we calm that down how can we Help you feel like loved and whole and accepted because the more you guys feel that way and this is the other trend that I'm noticing is that that you know when you guys start to feel like positivity in your life the thing weakens so what we want to do is not conquer it we want to like make it weak we want to tame it not like destroy it does that make sense

yeah any questions about that general idea like you who here disagrees with what I'm saying and Sort of thinks like oh no this is like we're completely off I agree but um what one thing I sort want to draw attention to I remember you said something on another stream about if someone is like anorexic and they're cutting and they have like academic problems you can start to solve one but then the problem will manifest with the others no it feels like there been times in my life where I've been able to not kick the addiction

but I guess keep it At bay for long enough to see that I could live a better life without it and that my life is better without it but then it feels like I'm scared of my own success and I get drawn back into it because you default that there's conflict and that's how it feels like because you can't fall further than the bottom of the pit yep so I was you you jumped ahead a little bit but there's there's one thing that I think is gonna be really dangerous guys is that as you Guys

get better this thing is gonna start freaking the [ __ ] out and it's going to be harder to resist because it does not want to die and as you put light on to it it's gonna feel afraid that is dying this some weird like psycho mumbo-jumbo kind of [ __ ] okay so like this is not scientific but like there's something within me that that tells me that as you guys actually start to get better as we start to sometimes heal wounds they don't understand what The [ __ ] is happening like there is

some part of you that's gonna be primitive and it's gonna fight you tooth and nail to bring you back to where you were because the mind prefers what it knows to what's good yeah actually when it's especially when it's something that you know you've become so used to and it kind of gets part of your routine you know you do the same things every single day and you don't even realize it the same Job the same school the same work same wife same girlfriend you know it's it's all a circle it's all one big circle

absolutely it's about breaking here's the thing you guys have been struggling with this for so long for so many years we're talking a decade or more right for many of y'all and so there's gonna be a part of you that says even though your life is shitty right now at least you can survive I know you can survive I've done it for a decade I can do it for Five more NBD no big deal and there's gonna be a part of there's gonna be a time and place where actually I think you guys are gonna

need another level of courage to actually like risk living a life without this thing because then you don't know if you're gonna be able to survive I know it sounds completely crazy and I honest you guys get what I'm saying sorry cool so what I mean to say is that there's actually gonna be a time where Right now you guys want to be free from this right you are gonna have to fight a battle because one day there's gonna be a thought in your mind where you don't want to be free of it you actually

want to go back that's gonna be a [ __ ] hard battle does that make sense yeah I've had literal flashbacks before when I've like abstained I've had sudden memories come to me of the process and it feels like um like on its dying breath it's desperately trying to pop up One last fight and it feels like it feels like a battle of forces within you and that the whole you is like the body on which these competing forces is acting and you're just sort of watching a war within yourselves yeah so you guys have

to watch out for this okay we're gonna I mean this is I do not envy you guys so up until this point I really have not thought about this but this is the one moment where I know Arendt I mean I like I feel sad for your Situation because I think this is a heart like it's hard to let go and that's what you guys need to learn how to do which is we're gonna get there but you have to let go of wanting this thing right you have to say to yourself at some point

like okay that's a life that it's gonna tell you and you guys have we haven't talked too much about rationalizations and all that but you guys know you remind relies all kinds of [ __ ] to you so it's not about convincing It that it's wrong because here's the crazy thing it's not wrong that's your buddy being controlled by the some scar and it's not wrong that's why it's so [ __ ] hard to argue against because you guys are smart and the smarter you are the better it's gonna be at coming up with reasons

to convince you so it's not your self Bethell absolutely so it's it's not about convincing it it's not about fighting it it's about letting go it's about saying yeah you're right There are a thousand good reasons for me to go back to that lifestyle there's security there there's safety there I get to be in control of the hurt inside me and that's what you guys have to give up that's what's [ __ ] hard because right now you guys have a light switch to control the hurt inside you you can go to this thing in

the heart inside you gets taken care of for a little while in a shitty way but it gets taken care of and what you guys have to choose is a Life where you're no longer in control of that hurt you got to give up this is your [ __ ] cheat code it's the coping mechanism for everything negative within you what would you say if um if you feel like there's immense sort of guilt and shame within you from let's say age four or five onwards and it feels like there's this really dominant force in

you that feels that you deserve this pain and you deserve to be in the pit how would you say um yeah how would you Go about dealing with that I mean I think that's the crux right that's the damage that's the thing so I think you've got to figure out you know why you started believing yourself why you started believing that about yourself and then as long as you believe that so that's what you have to let go of so that that - and sorry if I'm speaking abstractly because it's I mean you weren't saying

something vague but I just don't know if other people are Gonna understand this I feel like hopefully you will but so there's something very possessive like you want to hang on to that right there's something very jealous about your shame you're like you you deserve this this is yours to bear it's mine it's my precious right and you want to hang on to it even though it makes you feel bad you want to hang on to it you gotta let go and this is the really dangerous thing when it comes to like Letting go of

negative feelings within you like do you guys understand that when you all have that negative feeling with with you know since the age of five you've had this thing and then now you guys have walls that keep it at bay which is the porn addiction you guys build up walls to protect yourselves you guys are are y'all are [ __ ] good people right like I look at you guys and I like each and every one of you I'm surprised by how normal you are right Like you guys are normal people there's nothing wrong with

you that means a lot coming from you dr. K and I know that's a giant I know what abnormal looks like I'm an expert at the abnormal and y'all are [ __ ] normal you guys are just normal people that had something [ __ ] bad happen to you and then your brain is wired a certain way and then you use these you build up these walls around all of these negative feelings and so now you guys need immense courage Because taking those walls down is [ __ ] it's hard because ghosts you have to

let that shame run rampant through your mind you have to open the door to that shame because right now you keep it walled off because you can control it is the fuss though not just technology just breaking the [ __ ] walls down and letting it flood you that's what you've got to do like sit in the experience absolutely yeah I mean if you can observe it Fantastic I think you're gonna get [ __ ] overwhelmed for a little while and then you'll you got to come up for air you know it's gonna wash over

you so I think at some point there's got to be some letting go and in that kind of stuff but I'm also like a really practical guy like I can tell you guys this weird [ __ ] abstract stuff there's a there's a voice in the back of my mind that's like what the [ __ ] are these guys gonna do with that like I can I can weave this beautiful symbolism and then you know then you guys like log off the call and then you know that what let's talk concrete okay so we go

into more so like what it is to let go good so first of all my approach to it has always been rationalization and it's always been an uphill battle what does it mean to let go like is it just to like be in the experience of it or um I'm not quite sure yes you mean by letting yeah great so I'm gonna tell you Guys so now we get to the concrete part great great question Richard the first thing is that this is something of your body it is not necessarily of your mind first thing

you guys got to do is something physical so who here goes to a yoga class who has access to yoga you guys do yoga all of you guys need to go to yoga or Tai Chi either ones fine okay and if you want to understand what letting go is Richard do yoga then you'll understand yoga okay can I can I Throw in another example and see if it might work so my I'm fairly blessed to have a sauna inside my house and I use it very regularly does it have the same kind of effects as

yoga or is there something about the the experience of yoga when you're using your body complex to you know do yoga stuff yoga superior one is making more receptive to endorphins so saunas fantastic I think if you have access to a sauna First of all jealous much and then secondly it is different okay so there's overwhelming scientific research that mind-body exercise practices are superior to other exercise practices okay so like there are lots of randomized control trials that compare yoga to exercise so the control you guys know what I like how a randomized control trial

works okay just real quick so what we do is we take we're studying a condition let's say like depression or Anxiety and then so let's just say anxiety and what we do is we take a hundred people and we put 50 of them in a control group and so the control group is sometimes like an exercise class and 50 of them in a yoga class and then we measure their anxiety like after eight weeks and we see like what's going on so yoga and Tai Chi have been shown to be superior to exercise and it's

probably because they have a relatively mental component so yoga and Tai Chi are both Mind-body practices they're like both mental and physical practices they're not just physical practices and for a lot of people who exercise they over time incorporate a mental component but yoga and Tai Chi are like designed to be mind-body practices whereas a lot of people will discover a mental component to their physical exercise but it's not like baked-in like running is a good example where people who are runners will describe this kind of meditative Like state when they run for long periods

of time yeah but but I mean but that's all I mean it's Yoga is like designed to sort of make you into a particular mind-body space which I think is gonna help you can I think question about yoga yeah I remember I saw you you you did an exercise with someone where you had them buzz like a bee ah and it really fascinated me and it made me think about the connection between The body and emotion and I was reading about this idea that trauma is like physically stored in the body I have that Yoga

is like opening a series of chambers throughout the body and it sort of allows the emotions to flow through because like you know I don't know like go on a like a tirade here but like if your nervous system gets overwhelmed like your body floods with the emotion and they can just store it for years and it can make you like physiologically it Increases like your morbidity and everything and I was reading that Yoga paired with therapy is better than either one of them alone because Yoga allows the emotions to flow through your body so

they can more easily be so opened up and it was saying that memory trauma and the body are all linked in that way yeah so I believe most of that although most of that is not scientific right so so that there's like a lot of pseudoscience around physical stuff and Trauma in my experience what I think is much more scientifically valid is simply that men experience emotions much more physically than mentally so if you talk to men like when you guys are talking about like what are the words that we use to describe this thing

physically it's like pop no we know we don't use deceitful we haven't deceitful has not been mentioned at all Mike point entirely what is the actual language that you guys used to describe this Hunger absolutely right you guys don't think that's a [ __ ] emotion that's an emotion right but you guys don't understand what emotion it is but you everyone understands like one person's like hungry and that everyone else is like yeah man like that's an emotion right and and so with it I mean well the whole point is that this is physical like

we've been [ __ ] talking about trauma you guys have been traumatized when you're all like ten and you guys Talk about hunger now like this is my point is that that it's not the children cry it's just like literally like this is how we're like we're socialized to experience emotion this way so we are going to access this so I agree ghost that Yoga is very helpful for trauma I agree that trauma has I mean I think anything in our mind has some kind of physical manifestation or correlation and a lot of this stuff

about you know using like physical like knots and and Energy and chakras like I buy into a lot of that stuff but it's not actually scientific okay so we just got to be a little bit careful there so it doesn't mean that it doesn't help it doesn't mean that it isn't therapeutic and I'm advocating yoga to you guys I think you guys must do yoga because you have to get in touch with your body because this is a physical thing for y'all and in yoga yoga is going to connect your physical sensations with emotions And

it's also just you know does good things for your immune system and things like that second thing yeah and so the goal of yoga is to help you guys be in your body and Richard when you say how do you let go I mean so that's not something we can talk about it more but my voice isn't gonna last very long but I think it's something that's merely something that you have to you have to learn how to do right like so if I took like a Two-year-old kid and I was teaching that kid how

to let go like how do I teach that kid mm-hmm so it's a good question I think as you do yoga you'll learn that like getting into the right pose is not about trying harder it's actually about letting go would you say that Yoga is for the body what meditation is for the mind like it's almost this sort of meditative process well yeah so technically what Yoga is is a premeditation state for it's like it's To prepare your body for meditation and Darren's the the when whenever you guys are doing yoga so I'm gonna teach

you guys just a little bit about yoga because there seems to be some curiosity okay so the goal of yoga is to bring the attention of your mind to the present so we're gonna do we need Richard for this because Richard has to okay we're gonna I'm gonna teach you guys exactly what yoga's so the goal of yoga is to bring the attention of your mind to the Present and so the goal of doing all like turning yourself into a human pretzel is not to increase your flexibility it's to adopt a particular physical like posture

that you can't think about anything else okay so we're gonna do this right now you guys ready hold your arms up yeah and tell me what's happening in your mind it's okay okay so I want you guys to just notice okay so arms up so you guys are having thoughts but over Time what's gonna happen the physical demands of your body arms up no pushing to talk okay so just keep your arms up so as your arms get tired just keep them up there then it's gonna start demanding your attention you guys feel that your

arms are like signaling to you now they're like hey hey we're up here and then the the further the longer we go the more your attention is going to be stuck in your arms does that make sense the arms are demanding the attention Demanding your attention demanding your attention notice what's happening in your mind now close your eyes feel hold it good now continue to feel you may notice thoughts arise you may notice perspiration okay now hold it hold it hold it and now let go you feel that Richard absolutely eyes closed oh yeah that

is [ __ ] letting go do you understand now just feel that's letting go how do you all feel right now now you can open your eyes and use Push-to-talk peaceful like a weights been lifted incredible yeah relieved that jeez that physical that physical exercise was such a powerful experience that the that my mind trying to like my arms trying to bring the attention to my mind was a it started to kind of build and then I was able to like maintain that connection and then once I let go it was just like okay hi

I've accepted that it's time to just so Richard what is why that's letting go right like I can't [ __ ] explain it but just got it you know you gotta let go it's like field ring answering all the the demands of your arms that are saying like dude put me down please yes and you're really answering right okay so you guys alright I got um I got addicted to running in the past and it feels like I now understand where that feeling came from like I was letting go that is a Great focus on

when you focus on the energy demand of your body and when you really experience the sensation of running without you know suffering when you just feel the sort of pain but neutrally it's this really peaceful state yes dr. kay about the connection between yoga and why yoga was so different and the way that I was able to put all of my attention up on my arms reminded me of my jujitsu training but that was special I didn't realize how Simple it was when you take out a lot of the complicated it's like you said you're

not trying to turn your body into a pretzel you're trying to use your mind to get to a better place and I I think yo that's amazing okay beautiful I'm glad you guys like that so sorry yeah I just have a personal concern about yoga because okay my back a few years ago and I was just worrying if they're they're like more simple poses That I can do or simple things like like what we just stated like raising our arms up or something like that that can benefit me because I have limb ability absolutely so

first of all if you have if you've broken your back you know talk to your doctor about doing yoga or Tai Chi sometimes people handle Tai Chi a little bit better than yoga if they've had a back injury but Yoga is actually really good for back injuries so if you go to a Yoga class and you guys have like a medical condition you should let the instructors know and also talk to your doctor about it and just say hey and then you know listen to your body so don't like it's not about a pissing contest

it's not about who can hold their arms up the longest you guys understand that if you're comparing yourself to someone else in the room your mind is not where it should be which is on you so don't do anything in Yoga that is painful Yoga is not supposed to be painful so if your back is signaling to you hey I don't like this kind of stuff that's completely fine there are all kinds of postures that you can do from a seated position there are all kinds of postures that you can do [ __ ] straight

laying down you can do all kinds of stuff with a back injury and yoga so definitely you can also you know have you seen a physical therapist in recovery after your back After you broke your back yeah I went through physical therapy for about six months it helped a lot and now I don't I don't really need anymore yeah so if you don't need it you're probably kind of back to normal so it's good to know if you you know to be careful about yoga but the other thing that you can do is depending on

how long ago that was or if you have a relationship with your physical therapist you can also talk to them and Say hey I'm interested in doing a yoga class what do you think are there are some kinds of strengthening exercises that I need to do or there's some things that I need to avoid and and really like this is exactly what you know physical therapists and doctors are for great point okay so coming back to this now earlier I was kind of talking about you know the sequence of events before you kind of you

know when you kind of feel certain physical things or mental things You try to rationalize and all that kind of stuff so the other thing about this practice is where was your mind it was mostly on my arms like I've had experience experiences with meditating before I'd probably weren't the most read transformative experiences um while I was meditating a few years ago I felt like it was it's very easy for me to just focus all the attention on my arms good for right so go for me my mind was my mind was blank and just

experiencing The sensation was I don't know if that was in my mind or that was my body but that's that's all I was doing I was just experiencing this sensation so that's consciousness right so it's consciousness without mental activity so thoughts are the mind desires thoughts that's all mine you guys were hopefully conscious so you were present and experiencing without thought does that make sense yeah yeah and when you guys struggle against the the porn addiction Is that within the mind or outside of the mind that's it's outside of the mind is the physical urge

that we have to do it okay and then what about the battle where does the battle take place in the mind yeah absolutely right so the other thing that I want you guys to try to do is is learn something called urge surfing so as you feel that physical sensation notice the the the connection between the physical sensation and what it creates in your mind and then you Guys fight in the mind sometimes you win sometimes you lose so be it if you can step out of your mind and sit with the physical sensation just

see what happens and understand that that desire to turn to porn is going to be like it's like an urge that's going to come and you can actually surf on top of it it's not fighting against it it's not trying to keep the waves at bay it's just riding it out surf I wrote that I read that monks can hold their hand on burning hot Objects for longer just by focusing on the sensation of the barn is that like a sort of similar feeling that you're able to sort of quell the immense feeling just by

focusing in on it yeah so what once you experience so don't hold your hand on burning things just there but what what monks are able to do is to sit with a sensation without judgment right so like it feels bad to hold your arm up but you can sit with that feeling of badness for A longer period of time as long as you're sitting with it purely does that make sense like with intention and focus you can sit with a negative sensation for a greater amount of time than you otherwise would so it's like decoupling

the emotional component from just the actual sensation it's up you beautiful it's decoupling everything not just the emotional component decoupling is the point decoupling is via our detachment It's separating yourself from the thing okay now we're getting into advanced concepts I want to like close off a couple things to leave you guys you know with like some kind of plan so yoga second thing is understand that when you guys do these practices you're trained training your mind to do what you tell it to which is to focus on what you choose to do this is

cool because once you train this skill you can tell your mind hey I want you to go and think About that and then your mind is gonna be like okay because right now that's not what it does right now your mind is like oh porn and then you're like no no come over here and then your mind is like no no no let's go to porn and you're like no no come over here no no porn so like train yourself to focus your mind where you want it to go that is a skill you can

level that [ __ ] up and this is how you do it right you do this [ __ ] every single day not Necessarily that one but if you guys like that one you can do that one now we get to one more yoga practice which I'm going to teach you guys I'm going to teach you guys a bunt up okay so number one do any of you guys have a history of a hernia okay if you have a history of a herniation - if this is unpleasant or is painful in any way or anything

like that any of you guys have a history of the base chakra thing yes that's exactly What it is so any of you guys have a history of like improper valves in somewhere in your urinary tract or anything like that okay so rule number one if this is causes some kind of pain or unpleasantness or anything like that just stop okay I'm gonna teach you guys something called Abunda which is a lock so bunda means lock like LOC k so what I want you guys to do you guys know where the taint is yeah okay

So the taint is the area it's it's your perineum it's the area between your scrotum in your anus okay so I want you guys to try doing something I know this is gonna sound kind of weird but you guys know you can contract that yeah so like you know there's a muscle that you can do that you can use to like lift your penis right to load the Kegel thing yes like the Kegel thing focus boys and girls so you know there's there's you guys know Sorry just flex that muscle for a second you guys

know what I'm talking about flex it so you can raise the peanut and now where as you flex it you should feel a tightness in the perineum with me yeah yeah does anyone not have a [ __ ] clue what I'm talking about okay so now close your eyes and then I want you to tighten one two three relax tighten one two three relax tighten one two three relax hold on a second hello hello yeah they Can tighten the perineum but it's gonna be different for them okay fine okay okay so so if you're a

woman you can do this too so this is the other way you can find this thing is it's also the same muscle that you do that you use to stop the flow of your urine midstream so that make sense already badly can I go yeah yeah go go piss okay so but you guys you guys get the sensation that I'm talking about so just okay let's like just so tighten again One two three relax and do two more rounds good okay fantastic all right so yoga class learn to concentrate your attention right do this this

is called mula bandha mula is your base chakra and what you're kind of doing like so you can do this for let's say like between one and start off with like just doing five rounds because it's like kind of hard right does that mean it's like difficult to do so you can work your way up to doing like you know Rounds that are maybe five seconds ten seconds for a total of like three minutes and you want to do this at the end of like a meditation practice or end of yoga class or something like

that so if you guys go to a yoga class at the very end that are gonna have you do something called shavasan which is corpse pose so they're just gonna ask you to lie down on the floor on your back and relax as you do shavasan you can do mula bandha For like a minute or two two minutes three minutes is fine okay if you start to feel bad or it hurts or anything like that don't do it last thing is that you guys were talking about idleness and so idleness is gonna bring this out

so the other thing that you all have to do is figure out how are you guys gonna like reduce the idleness in your life right like so what do y'all want to do about that the way that I see it dr. K is I view it as internal volume Is when I would get an urge to masturbate or to go to porn I would get a very strong feeling of just you need to do this you need to do this you need to do this and it kind of goes into what you were saying a

little bit earlier about trying to surf and ride that urge and ride it away and go the thing that I wanted to ask you specifically was what do you do when it gets to a point where you feel like you know maybe medication would be something that would be Beneficial for me maybe I cannot turn down my internal volume yes so I think it's completely reasonable for you guys to get evaluated by a doctor or mental health professional for this problem there are some medications that can help with this they don't work great but especially

if you guys have some kind of depression or anxiety or things like that that are contributing to it because remember that so conquering this thing is not it's Like it's about probabilities right it's about strengthening your ability to reduce its effect on you and that that battle is fought like five percent at a time so if you guys start going to yoga class then that's gonna be like five percent if you start meeting with other people and hanging out like that's gonna be five percent and then you're gonna build up like five percent over time

so I do think that if the urges are too strong getting a professional evaluation Is a great idea and the other thing is that you know it's you're not gonna fix this overnight so treat yourself with compassion and forgiveness for like not being able to fix yourself I don't know dr. kay I had a quick question on that yeah so um I'm uh I'm in the circumstance where I recently broke my computer right now I'm using my laptop and I've significantly reduced my video game time and when my urges occur they don't occur when I'm

playing the Video game so now that my computer's is not functioning right now I do have a I'm in a state of I have a lot more idleness you know just throughout the day so is that more like do I just need to fill my day with more things outside of the house or and yeah yeah that's exactly what I'm saying guys it's like you guys need to think about this right so understand that your forward progress is going to be influenced by your Environment so like the two things that we still need to talk

about is idleness and secondly connection because when you guys are isolated things get worse and talking about this I mean you guys realize which we've been doing for two hours we can do this for two [ __ ] hours I had no idea right plumbs was like that's crazy and and so you guys have to structure time with other people and you have to structure time away from idleness because you're not gonna be Able to fix this as long as your idle we heard it from squash earlier about you know going to jiu-jitsu class and

like finding motivation and stuff like that so I don't know what exactly it looks like but you guys have to figure out you know what you want to do the other thing is y'all can come hang out on discord if you guys want to you know figure out like like if you guys want to meet and just check in with each other once a week I don't think that's a bad idea so At some point you know I'm in the process of training coaches and maybe the coaches can help you guys out a little bit

we're just not there yet in terms of their training but I think you guys should get together because like y'all's camaraderie with each other is like important right and you guys get a lot out of that so at the end of the day there's all this deep damaged dark whatever inside you but like yoga classes mula bandha thinking about Idleness and then companionship right not necessarily like romantic or anything but just like other people like it's a multiplayer game you guys got a party up so if you guys wanted that's what this discord is for

so you know you guys can hop on discord but I I just think that each of y'all has to think concretely about what you're gonna do to reduce your idleness and it's not corner go just getting out of house just think about like one of the things when you Think about yourself three years from now what's something that you would like to be different about your life you know whether it's being in shape whether it's learning a different language whether it's having a job whether it's being back in school or you know just think about

this like I don't I I think sometimes like this is gonna sound really silly but you guys realize you create your life yeah absolutely absolutely right like so so you can you Can actually like try to do something tomorrow in the next day in the next day and a year from now you will be a different person and your life will be different so think about what that is and start with like one thing don't start it don't make it a wish list you guys aren't magic genies just think like take like one thing right

like what is something that you want to be different about your life what is something that requires time go for it Um something really like so hopeful it feels like um when I was still like so I just turned 18 and it feels like being like an adult now and having these freedoms feels like maybe this time I can actually so break the addiction for good because I can go out and actively do things rather than being considered like a child so if I can actually create my own life I think I can kick it

yeah I'm sorry Harold um just bouncing off word he said I Turned 18 like a few months ago as well and I thought the exact same thing like finally I'm in more control I can use that better so [ __ ] lazy yeah right on man I think the the problem that I have is that you know like like for me personally I'm financially well-off and I I'm in a relationship with someone so those those things aren't necessarily something that is grading at me but the I think the core of the problem for me Is

that I just don't have a sense of purpose and I just feel kind of stuck in life so when when I try to integrate these these positive behaviors like you know going outside something as simple as going outside for a walk or meditating or something like that it's hard for me to stick with those things sorry for me to even integrate those things in general even though I want to do that you know yes I think that's something else and I struggle with a lot So Virgil that's Virgil right yes sir yeah so Virgil I

I completely sympathize with you man unfortunately I don't think we have time to dig into that now because we're about that time for the day but I think you know that is a common problem for like everyone on our discord and everyone in our audience and it's central to the work that we do at healthy gamer videogame sort sorry sorry button is it in terms of like does it stem from a way are the way That our brain processes video games and how changes or is it are you asking me no I'm asking dr. K

actually and so so what's the question you said that like this is a problem with you know it is an obstacle rather that everyone is kind of suffering from from this discord is it because I know that a lot of the discord comes from a video game audience yeah I guess I was trying to hint at the idea is that is that where it's stemming from video Games yeah the process is like I'm having trouble creating things I'm reading avenues yes and no so I mean I think that's I mean there that's a lot of

what I talk about on other streams I I think that many people who are directionless find in the same way that for you guys the porn addiction you know how it like feeds you a little bit but doesn't satisfy it does the trick but it doesn't actually satisfy what's missing in your life so I Think a lot of people who feel directionless get some degree of satisfaction from the video game which is really not what they're looking for but it's like close enough and it's easily accessible right because games do challenge us they're like hard

they're challenging they give us a sense of accomplishment you know we feel like you know when you're lay if you're playing like a competitive game like you're gonna feel really amazing after like a Really hard game that you win and so it's it's hard for your brain when you have such an easily accessible trigger for some of those positive feelings it can be really hard to invest all of this time into like building your life because you don't know what that's gonna bring I have two questions yeah um so the first one like earlier you

were saying when you were talking about the odds of hitting you and your mind bouncing around do you think that voters Are more like predisposed to like falling into that trap being like the wind element and like yes and no so I think I think vatta's are gonna bounce around more but I don't think that vatta's like you know I think everyone is gonna have urges so and you guys are by the way a wide variety of different Ayurvedic doshas but interesting question so vodkas are gonna have more fluctuations within their mind but I think

everyone is going to have the Urges so vodkas may experience the urges more quickly and more suddenly whereas other doshas are gonna like have kind of a slow burn of an urge that starts to build up in the morning and then kind of creeps up and then kind of overwhelms you other people are gonna be kind of like medium burn and vodkas gonna be like very dynamic in terms of when you experience the urge and how hard it is to you know how long the urge is gonna last So I'd say vodkas will have high

frequency of urges and low duration of urges that makes sense they're not gonna last long since what they'll hit randomly and more often okay someone's really doing their homework okay this is unrelated I just want to like quickly ask this um do you have any thoughts on like I think it's called Bromwich Oreo in relation to NOFA okay so we haven't even talked about no fat so Bromwich Aria is why don't you start With ghosts why don't you tell us what bromwich idea is I have like a really basic understanding sure from my it seems

like it's um this idea of like transmuting sexual energy I like the idea of energy like climbing up your chakras to be more conscious and like like okay it's about the way you conduct yourself I'm sure godly way so let's talk about what bromwich audio so brahmacari is frequently translated as celibacy which Is not really what it is so brahmacarya means to dwell in Brahman and Brahman is sort of the infinite or cosmic consciousness so in the east they believe that the basic unit of reality is like this cosmic consciousness and that our individual consciousness

is like a drop out of this ocean and that we kind of get that bit of consciousness gets wrapped around with a mind in a body and that's what makes up a person and so Brahma chharia is the practice of Dwelling in Brahman so to have your mind or consciousness be focused on the cosmic consciousness and not focused anywhere else so technically brahmacari is translated as celibacy so monks for example will engage in Brahma cheerio which means that they usually don't have sex technically though technically brahmacarya does not mean being celibate it means not being

horny yeah right so it's To have your mind dwell in like whatever the infinite is I you know it's getting hokey so if you guys want to understand what Ramachari is like if you want to understand what the infinite is I think you guys saw just a tiny tiny amount of it like when you did the arm practice and then you relax there's just a moment where you're just like your mind is kind of off it you're just kind of like chilling like you're in just the straight chillin mode and when you get Closer and

closer to Brahman like you're in that straight chillin mode all the time and when you're when you're enlightened that's like what your mind is doing all the time it's just straight chillin like all the time so nothing bothers you and like everything's kind of gel and fun did you survive it yeah okay so anyway we haven't had a chance to talk about nofap or relationships but I'm gonna have to stop cuz also I just Can't keep going so I just want to offer huh okay so closing thoughts guys go for this was one of the

coolest experiences I think I've had in 2020 starting it off with Kobe Bryant passing away and it's just like this has really set me on such a really good path and this is giving you such a feeling of empowerment and I'm honored and I'm blessed the fact that I got to be here so thank you guys thank you all and and can may I say something yeah so we went over a lot of A lot of things relating the porn addiction how difficult the process of kicking it will be for us maybe some more difficult

than others but I would like us to reconvene maybe like once a week and just talk about how things are going for each of us because I think one of the reasons why we're been benefitting from this so much is because we don't have a person to turn to in our personal lives to to talk about this so I think this this Talk was more important that then it may have seemed yeah this experience this experience has been incredible the whole session I thought it went really well it was incredible to hear everyone's unique take

on this and and it kind of you know widened my understanding of like what it is to be dealing with this and like that probably the best thing my best takeaway I'm gonna be watching the vaad to you know kind of you know look over it again but probably the highlight of it was Just to like hear dr. K's voices just being in like a total blissful state and just saying I have hope for you guys there's there's something you know there's something that it's just a simple obstacle it's gonna be difficult to take on

but it just comes with you know setting that intention and you know sticking to it so I'm really excited for it I think I'm speaking on behalf of everyone that you know this this might be the shift that everyone hears that Was looking for and yeah I'm just super excited so this has been awesome yeah I'm just like this at it again like also I think I speak for everyone when I say that like we all really respect you dr. K and thanks for the AoE healing and I hope you get some healing soon so

you don't feel as though yeah thank you so let me ask you guys though like do you have faith do you have hope for each other forget about yourself for a second do you hope for The other people in here yeah just think about that for a second man it's not just me you guys have hope for each other just think about that every single person in this call has hope for you wild there's seven random strangers from the internet that have hope after listening to you talk about everything that you've struggled with they have

hope that you can get better if you don't believe in yourself you can believe in the people That believe in you absolutely I'm glad my camera's off so you guys can't see my tears that's wholesome yeah right and so just think about what you had to show the other people on this call to convince every one of them I mean you don't even try to convince them they just they've listened to the words that have come out of your mouth they've watched your face in some cases they've listened to the tone of your voice they've

listened to what You've said they've listened to your struggles and they are all concluding that they have hope for you that is [ __ ] amazing [Music] alrighty anybody else want to share some closing thoughts are we I just want to thank you dr. kay and everyone in the call for sharing the experiences and like talking about this subject because as I said never really talked about this and it's been really helpful like Hearing your stories and just relating to them so yeah it like thank you and I hope you get better and thank you

everyone need a call I just want to acknowledge this is completely off topic I just want to not acknowledge that the chat is saying I look like a guy called burger I don't know if that's how you say his name and also talked from Santorini okay anybody else want to say goodbye are we good I don't want to pressure Anyone thank you so much all right guys thank you all for coming on this you know February 14th strong work guys and and once again just huge props to the you know the cojones to show up

and talking a bunch a sensitive topic because it's it's not easy and yeah good luck guys you take care of make it I'm gonna make it