117. The Day I Went Public About My Porn Addiction (Rare Footage)

Opening Up About My Porn Addiction: Rare Footage of the Day I Went Public

In this episode of the Unhooked podcast, host Jeremy Lipkowitz shares his personal journey with porn addiction, revealing the challenges he faced and the liberation that came with opening up about his struggles. Jeremy discusses the importance of vulnerability, sharing one's story, and finding a supportive community. He introduces a pivotal moment from six years ago when he first went public with his addiction during a Facebook live challenge. This episode aims to inspire hope and encourage listeners to take ownership of their stories as they navigate their recovery paths. Jeremy also emphasizes the significant negative effects of porn addiction and the benefits of cultivating a wholesome life.

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Shownotes
00:00 Introduction to Unhooked Podcast
00:23 Reflecting on the Journey
00:58 The Power of Sharing Your Story
01:55 Jeremy's Public Revelation
03:36 The Impact of Porn Addiction
04:29 Invitation to Unhooked Academy
05:31 Jeremy's Vulnerable Confession
08:14 Consequences of Porn Addiction
09:46 Path to Recovery and Mindfulness
11:20 Conclusion and New Year Wishes

Transcript

 You're listening to unhooked  

on today's episode. The day that I opened up about my own history with porn addiction. You will get to see a rare glimpse of the time that I opened up to the world about what I was struggling with. So stay tuned.

 Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the unhooked podcast. I'm your host, Jeremy Lipkowitz. It is December 29th, 2024. We are almost at the new year. It's almost January 1st, almost 2025.  And I was sitting here thinking about what to record for this week's podcast. You know, I like to think about things that would be helpful for anyone on this journey. 

For those of you out there who are struggling with porn addiction or sex addiction or. Uh, compulsive behaviors around any of these topics. I like to think of something that might be helpful. For you listeners.  And one of the things that came to me is around the idea of 

sharing your story. And being vulnerable and letting other people know. Your history with porn, with sex with addiction.  And it's not an easy thing, you know, I know it's not an easy thing.  

 

It took me many, many years before I could talk publicly about my own struggles with addiction, my own relationship with pornography.  Uh, so I wanted to do an episode today that could hopefully give you some hope.  And.  Inspire you to share your story to the vulnerable, to find a safe place where you can talk about what you're going through and the fact that you may be having an unhealthy relationship with porn that you may be want to quit. You know, you don't have to go all the way, but the more that you can start to be real and be honest, it's gonna just massively improve your recovery.  And so what I wanted to do on today's episode is actually share.  The video that I released when I first went public to the whole world about my relationship with porn.  This was at this point, I think around six years ago somewhere between five and seven years. I forget the  actual date.  I was living in Chiang Mai in Thailand. Uh, and I was.  Going on this live video challenge where I, you know, I did a challenge with a friend of mine. 

We're going to go on Facebook live every day for 20 days and talk about something. You know,  And on day three of this challenge, I decided to talk about my relationship with porn addiction. Uh, and that was the first time where I went public with it. You know, I really opened up about it to the whole world.  And it was such a liberating experience for me. 

You know, I had already broken free from my addiction. At this point. I was already teaching meditation. But it was still something that I had a lot of shame around, you know, and something that I.  You know, still kind of. Holding it back and was worried what people might think if they knew about what I'd gone through.  And so I want to share this video with you. Just because it might give you some ideas of how you can talk about it. Um, I know this has been helpful for some of the guys in my unhooked academy community. 

Some of the clients I've worked with to see, you know, what that moment might be like, or feel like, you know, what can you say? And, and how can you say it? Uh, so this was my first time talking about porn.  I even mentioned in the video that, you know, maybe it's not the most coherent thing. Um, but that's fine. 

You know, you can fumble through this. You don't have to be perfect about talking about it.  But I wanted to release this, you know, especially at the end of the year, 

december 29th, almost end of the year, the start of the new year. And the theme is, you know,  Hope hope for the future. Like starting fresh. And this is an opportunity to start fresh. To be real, to be authentic. To own your story, you know, to take ownership and say, yeah, this, this is real. I do have an unhealthy relationship with porn or with sex or with love or whatever it is.  Uh, so hopefully this video that you're about to see will inspire you and give you some hope that you can be honest. 

You can be real.  One little tip on this. If you can find a safe place to be. Vulnerable that's the best, you know, it's one of the reasons that I run my unhooked academy community is that it's a safe space for men to be themselves where you can show up, you can be in community with other guys who are going through this. So, I guess, you know, this is a little shameless plug here, but if you're looking for a community.  Looking for a men's group. That specifically focuses on porn and sex addiction and overcoming it. And is not based on shame. 

It's not based on religion. It is a secular shame-free compassion based space where you can own up to your issues and start to work on them.  Then that is what the unhooked academy is all about. So if you're interested, Check the show notes, you know, all the links to my program, my coaching program, or in the show notes. 

So just make sure to go check those out. If you're looking for support. So without further ado, Enjoy. This conversation with myself from about six years ago, where I talked openly about my relationship with porn. 

  Alright, so hello everyone. Welcome to my rooftop in Chiang Mai and I've been sitting up on this rooftop for the past ten minutes debating whether or not to push live because I want to share something that I feel very vulnerable about, something I I'm quite ashamed to talk about, or I have been ashamed for most of my life.

 And lately over the past few months and particularly the last few weeks, it's something I've been opening up a bit more about because it's a big part of my story and a big part of why I do what I do with teaching people about meditation and mindfulness. So I wanted to talk about it and share it with the world in the hopes that Me sharing my story will help other people.

If you've seen the title of this post, it's about my story with porn addiction,  and, or my history with porn addiction. And that's what I want to talk about today, is porn,  internet pornography. It's something that I think most people, maybe not most, but a lot of people have experienced on a regular basis, but not a lot of people talk about.

Not a lot of people talk about what are the consequences of using internet pornography.  And in my own life, I had been using it since I was very young, at least since I was 11 or 12.  I think it started before that, with the Macy's catalog and porn. comic books and whatnot. But I remember, dial up AOL and going online.

That's when the internet really started to make things more possible. And so it's something that I've been using regularly since about the beginning of middle school or high school.  And I used it very regularly. And going into college, I remember it got to the point where I was using it so often that I was looking at porn probably every night.

for about two or three hours every night. And it was something I kept completely secret to the best of my ability. I didn't tell my friends. I didn't tell my family. I was ashamed of using it. And so I kept it secret. And it was a big big deal. scary thing in my life, something I was ashamed of. And what is crazy to me is how much of an influence it has on your mind.

So just, when you think about watching a movie, watching one movie and how you might think about that movie for, the next few days or the next few weeks,  and then imagine watching something as enticing, something as exciting as internet pornography and imagine watching it for two or three hours a day. 

for about ten years. It's wild what it can do to the brain, what it can do to your mind. So what I want to talk about just briefly is what are some of the downsides of pornography when you're actually addicted. There might be some of you out there who watch porn. porn and really enjoy it, and it's a very positive thing in your life.

But I think for a lot of people, we watch porn and it's a negative influence. It has a lot of downsides that we're not necessarily aware of. So, In my own life, what I realized is that some of the influences were things like increased dissatisfaction in my actual 

relationships. When I was using porn, everything has  You know, models and plastic surgery and you get these false expectations of what women should look like, what sex should look like. 

And it distorts your reality, it distorts your expectations so that when you have a real relationship, everything feels flat. Everything feels like it's not meeting your expectation. And I was noticing that in my life. And the ripple effects of that, not just in my, not just in my relationships, but  having this kind of perfectionism in my life where everything had to be perfect.

 I also couldn't focus. I was, constantly like low energy. My mind was scattered. I was constantly craving watching porn or having sex. So I was completely addicted to arousal, addicted to sex. And it had a lot of  just very negative consequences on my life. You can look at the research behind it.

Look at the the whole host of research studies showing the negative benefit or the negative effects of looking at pornography.  So I don't want to go on this too long, but I just want to say that for me, understanding the effect that it was having on my life and starting to learn about things like neuroplasticity and meditation and realizing that 

 

what you do with your life on a day to day basis affects your experience of reality.

If you're constantly looking at porn and getting sucked into that, it will affect your life. And on the contrary, if you spend your time cultivating more wholesome things like contentment and appreciation and patience and compassion, all these beautiful things,  it can affect your life as well.

So for me, porn it was something that had a really negative impact on me. of my life and I'm still dealing with the consequences of it of being addicted to sex, addicted to arousal. But the benefit is that going through that process, it opened me up to learning about my mind and learning about how to have a more wholesome life, how to focus on what's beautiful in life.

So that's just a little sneak peek of what I wanted to talk about today.  There's a lot more I could talk about pornography and my struggles with addiction, and this is my first time really talking about it publicly, so I know it wasn't very coherent what I was saying, and I can probably do a better job of talking about the downsides and how I got clean from pornography and maybe I'll do that in some future videos.

But just wanted to talk about that today. 

So that's it. Signing off from beautiful Chiang Mai. Goodbye, everyone. We'll talk to you next time. 



All right folks, that's it for today. 

I hope you have enjoyed this little blip in history. At least in my history. About when I opened up to the world about my porn addiction. So I hope that's helpful for you. I hope you'll have a wonderful new years. That's it for now. We'll catch you guys on the next episode.