Learning to Thrive Beyond Pornography use was the greatest challenge of our life and marriage. It had rocked my self confidence, tainted all of the most important experiences of my life and become the most impossible challenge I had as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

With this podcast or at https://www.zachspafford.com you'll learn about the struggle, how to overcome pornography use, and where to find additional resources to begin to thrive beyond pornography with your spouse.

At some point I took a step away from all the 12 step meetings and councilors and started to figure out my own brain, to look at my issue as something that I had the answer to and I was going to figure it out. Here I share those lessons and give you the power to start your own journey free. Whether you struggle with unwanted pornography use or are the spouse or partner, whether you feel stuck or just don't know where to start, here I will teach you principles, tools and skills that you can use today to change how you think and, in the end, what you do.

You'll hear interviews with my spouse, with experts on human sexuality and with former and current pornography users on how you can overcome your own struggle with addictive behavior.

The Thrive Beyond Pornography podcast will bring new perspective to your struggle and keep you coming back to improve all aspects of your life. (formerly, The Self Mastery Podcast: Overcome Pornography Forever)

Episode 194

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I'm Zach. And I'm Darcy. We're an LDS couple who struggled with unwanted pornography in our marriage for many years. What was once our greatest struggle and something we thought would destroy us, has become our greatest blessing in trying. Our hope is that as you listen to our podcast each week, you'll be filled with hope and healing and realize that you too can thrive beyond pornography and create the marriage you have always desired.

Welcome to Thrive Beyond Pornography. We're so glad you're here and we believe in you.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Thrive Beyond Pornography. I'm your host Zach Spafford, and today we are diving into what I think is the fascinating topic of our brains and the motivational triad's impact on our relationship with pornography. This episode is, I'm gonna call it you choose porn because of dopamine, because I think that's exactly why you choose dopamine.

And I'm here to shed a little bit of light on why we engage in this behavior and how we can overcome it. So let's start by understanding the motivational triad. And I've talked about this on the podcast before, so I'm not gonna go too deep into it. But I want you to understand that it's a simple process that governs the most important part of our brain's function.

Its purpose is to help us feel good. In the moment right now, no matter what else, using dopamine as a key driver, and it uses a lot of different mechanisms to do this, but this particular mechanism is rooted in our lower brain's belief that the immediate dopamine release that we can get by engaging in certain activities is crucial for our survival.

Now, here's. A really important idea that you have to understand if you're going to understand this entire conversation or really understand your brain and why it chooses porn. Seeking dopamine to feel good in the moment is the reason why we may choose to view pornography even when it contradicts our values.

Acknowledging this goes a long way to understanding why we're choosing to view pornography and when. Pornography goes against our values. It's important to understand that this step, this acknowledgement step, is a step in our journey to ward overcoming pornography for good. And it's not just a matter of values.

There are also some biological reasons that make pornography viewing problematic. And I try not to talk about porn as an evil or something that is super detrimental. Too much because I. I don't know that we need a lot of that. I think we get plenty of that from the conversations that we're already having internally with our spouses, maybe with our church leaders, but I want you to just understand this and get a little bit more depth on it.

According to Dr. Anna Lemke, who's the author of Dopamine Nation. Our constant pursuit of pleasure in dopamine spikes can disrupt the delicate balance in our brain. We neglect the part of our brain that thrives on endeavors and struggle, which then leads to this imbalance in our over overall wellbeing.

So there is a biological reason why we're engaging in this activity, why we're choosing pornography. It's not a, it's not necessarily a reason that I think we would accept as okay. It's simply about understanding it, and I think we've all experienced the aftermath of these dopamine driven activities.

Whether it's excessive time spent on social media, indulging in high sugar foods, constant entertainment or pornography. For me, there's always been a crash. There's always this low. There's always this dull feeling in my body. We feel sluggish, lost, depressed, and at times some might even feel suicidal.

I wanna note here that if you ever experienced suic suicidal thoughts, You're not alone. Reach out to those around you or call the helpline at nine eighty eight. Help is available and people care about your wellbeing. I care about your wellbeing. So you know, if nothing else, send me a message, email me. I wanna know how you're doing.

I wanna make sure that you're safe. A clear example of how this aftermath of dopamine driven activities works is pretty easy to see if you've ever taken little kids to Disneyland. We used to live in Southern California and we were pretty fortunate we were able to have season passes to Disneyland.

We did the Southern California pass, which meant we couldn't go on weekends and big holidays and I'm like, I didn't want to go there anyway, during those times . I want to go, I wanna have a great time. And our kids were pretty good most of the time. Occasionally, after a really great day at the park where we had very short lines and we got to do all the things that we wanted to do, we would have a meltdown on the way home. That great day at the park was a high dopamine experience. Lots of fun, lots of engagement. What happens after is a natural response to all the dopamine being rung out of the system.

As a parent I didn't really understand this. Concept until I understood dopamine depletion and the way our brains interact with high dopamine activities and the possible costs of those activities. Now that I know what's happening for my child and my children, I have lots of children, obviously, I can see more clearly what happens for me and for my clients.

Much like the emotional crash that's occurring in a kid's day, after spending all that time at Disneyland and really enjoying it, or I've seen this. When we've gone on vacation, adults can have these emotional crashes based on the biology of dopamine. When we choose activities that supercharge our dopamine usage, understanding the biological crash that follows pornography consumption, sheds light on why it may be problematic for you.

However, I think this knowledge also empowers us to make positive changes. When we choose pornography. We're essentially creating a dopamine seeking habit. It works with the reward centers of our brain to provide instant gratification, but then it also compromises our long-term sense of self, the person we want to be, the person we see ourselves as.

I've discussed this concept before and I've referred to it as emotional borrowing or emotional debt, and it's akin to using a credit card without knowing when the bill will be due or what the payment will be, but there's really good news. Knowing the inner workings of this mechanism gives us two advantages.

First and foremost, it reminds us that we're not broken. We are not defective. We are not degenerate. We're not unworthy. Our brain is actually functioning. The way that we set it up and the way that it was designed to operate. Now, those are two different things. The way it was designed to operate, it's working perfectly exactly how it's supposed to.

It's always going to do that, which means we're not defective, but the way we've set it up means that it's not working the way that we want it to. Based on the principles of the design. Now, secondly, now that we are armed with this knowledge, we can make the necessary adjustments to align with our brains functioning and our desired outcomes, to bring us towards our values, to put ourselves on a path to be the person that we want to be.

To actually create that integrity with who we are, when we're alone with ourselves and the person that we present to, the people around us. So let's revisit the analogy of emotional debt and borrowing. If we acknowledge that we'll eventually have to pay back the emotional debt that we've accumulated, and there's always a way to pay it back, we can strive to become emotional lenders.

Emotional lenders are individuals who prioritize dealing with difficult situations upfront, creating a sustainable flow of dopamine without the sudden crashes. I recall my experience with a Microlending website called Lending Club. It allowed me to engage in the system where small amounts of money were compiled to provide loans to those who couldn't access traditional banking loans. By lending even just $25, I could earn up to 20, sometimes 24% interest on my loan.

This concept resonates perfectly with our dopamine system. The short-term sacrifice of being uncomfortable for a few moments can make all the difference in the long run. When I lent money through Lending Club, I had to give up that $25 expecting to reap returns over a period of two to five years.

Each time we choose porn, we are. Not like lenders. We're like borrowers. We're receiving high levels of dopamine up front that we pay back over time with interest in the form of additional negative emotions each time we opt to resolve our unwanted, unpleasant or uncomfortable emotions. Upfront. We become lenders.

We become the lender. In this equation, we fully feel the sense of discomfort upfront while expecting to reap returns emotionally, like increased self-confidence, satisfaction in who we are, and a sense of integrity. Over time, over a long period of time, borrowers, high dopamine levels during pornography use become lows that cost us . that's the interest that we have to pay. Lenders, low dopamine levels as they go through discomfort for short periods, become low levels of dopamine that we can sustain over long periods of time. That's the interest that we earn.

Imagine that all emotions have a dollar value of $1. Whether they're a positive emotion or a negative emotion, each emotion is worth the same amount. Now, let's consider a scenario where I feel bored and to escape that boredom I turn to pornography.

Now, you might have had this very same experience, but you can look at your own process of viewing pornography and ask yourself, what is the primary emotion that I am working to escape? In that moment that I choose pornography, I suppress my boredom and replace it with arousal. Essentially, I've traded $1.

Of boredom, that $1 emotion of boredom for another $1 emotion of arousal. If this were at the end of the equation, that might actually seem like a manageable way to navigate life. However, the equation never stops there. What typically happens, and I know this is what happens for me, I know this is what happens for most of the people that I work with.

Is that after the arousal fades, because it always does. We find ourselves dealing with two or three additional negative emotions that we now have to manage and confront, and these emotions can range from guilt, shame, frustration, loneliness, or even a combination of any or all of them. So instead of a simple one-to-one exchange, we've created a four to one exchange where we're paying four negative emotions for just one.

Often fleeting, pleasant emotion. This imbalance in our emotional equation highlights the toll that engaging with pornography can take on our over wellbeing. This imbalance in the emotional equation highlights the toll that engaging in pornography can take on our overall wellbeing. It becomes clear that the short-lived pleasure that we seek comes at a high cost, leaving us with a burden of negative emotions to navigate afterward.

By recognizing this pattern, we can start to question whether this exchange is truly worth it. Is the temporary escape from boredom, worth the heavy price we have to pay in negative emotions, and you can just sit there and ask yourself that question whatever it is that you are trying to negotiate or avoid in your emotional state, in your day-to-day, whether it's stress or boredom, or loneliness, or frustration, whatever it is.

Is that temporary escape from that negative feeling worth the heavy price that we have to pay in negative emotions over time afterward. And I would argue that you are probably sometimes thinking that the answer to that is yes, and I don't disagree that maybe sometimes it feels like it is a yes, but I would definitely ask you to.

When you think about it, I mean, you're here for a reason. You don't want this negative habit in your life. When you think about it, is it really worth the price? And then ask yourself, is there a better way to find fulfillment and meaning in your life without resorting to this particular unhealthy coping mechanism?

And I know some of these. Questions seem rhetorical, but I'm asking you to earnestly and honestly go through this exercise because in having this conversation, you'll start to formulate the reality of what you do want. It's not gonna change everything overnight. It's not gonna. End your pornography use just to answer these questions.

But it is going to help you create a pathway for your brain to travel to say, okay, this is what is worth it, and this is what is not worth it. And when something stops being worth it, we're much less likely to engage with it. And if we can articulate how little it is worth it, then I think. And I know for myself, and I know for many of my clients this has been extremely helpful, then we actually can start to formulate how to Aleve that particular behavior behind in a way that's meaningful and quite honestly.

Simple and sustainable, which is what we struggle with so often when we struggle with pornography, is sustainably and simply leaving behind this bad behavior or this behavior that we no longer want. So in the next episode, I'm gonna help you explore some strategies and techniques to break free from the cycle that you're in and to find healthier ways to manage your emotions and to build a little bit better life beyond pornography.

. The primary reason we choose to view pornography despite its conflicting nature with our values is the pursuit of dopamine for immediate gratification. That is the primary reason choosing porn creates a dopamine seeking habit that compromises our long-term wellbeing For a short-lived ple pleasure.

Recognizing that our brains are functioning as designed and understanding the mechanisms at play will empower us to make necessary adjustments for the desired outcomes. And becoming emotional lenders means prioritizing discomfort upfront to create sustainable dopamine flow without sudden crashes. I want you to remember this.

Thriving beyond pornography is possible. By understanding the role of dopamine, embracing discomfort, and becoming emotional lenders, we can build a life beyond pornography and overcome it for good. All right, my friends, I will talk to you next week.