Interview with sober coach Tim Devitt on sex addiction

I'm Vic Cohen and it's a fair question. It's a fair question. I'm Vic Cohen and it's a fair question. I'm Vic Cohen and it's a fair question. Hello, this is Vic Cohen broadcasting live from Skid Row studios. Yes, this is live in gorgeous downtown Los Angeles's Skid Row studios. We are in Skid Row studios and we're not actually on Skid Row. Fortunately, we do have some shelter, but we are so close. Well, the name of the show is It's a Fair Question, because on this show, every question is a fair question. Yes, there is no question that is ever too personal or ever off limits. And tonight, we are going to talk about something that affects everyone. Yes, this is a big night. I am so excited about our show. What I'm talking about is something that could affect you. It could be something that affects your friend, your best friend. It could be a family member. I'm talking about addiction, but not just any addiction. I'm talking about sex addiction. That's right. It's a little controversial. Some people don't even think sex addiction is an addiction. Our guest is going to clarify that with us. Many believe sex addiction is epitome. It's an epidemic that is affecting society unlike any other time in our history, particularly because of porn addiction. And my guest tonight, our guest tonight, is going to address that as well. He is a sober coach. That's what he does. He helps people stay sober, particularly when it comes to sex. Sounds kind of crazy, doesn't it? He's not stopping people from having sex. He's stopping them from acting out in an addictive way. Staying away from pornography, I imagine. He helps people not see hookers. That sounds crazy the way I just said that. But that is what he does. That kind of stuff. His name is Tim Devitt. He's sitting across from me right now. And it's time we say hi to him. Hello, Tim. Hey, Vic. How are you? I'm happy to be here. I am thrilled to have you. Now, what exactly is a sober coach? Are you really just holding guys down who want to pick up hookers? You're like sitting on their shoulders and arms and saying, not tonight, guy. Well, you know, I wish it was that easy. No, I got it. I have been into... And Tim, can you get real close to that mic? I want to make sure everyone hears you really... All right, sure. Yeah. We better hear? That's fantastic. Okay. Well, I've been into coaching recovering addicts for some time now. And I consider that... Addictions are essentially... Addiction is addiction is addiction. You know, whether it's sex, whether it's gambling, whether it's drugs or alcohol. And my personal story is I got sober in AA. I was a drug addict and alcoholic many, many years ago. What were your drugs of choice? I was a big juicer. You know, I drank a lot. I drank, loved to drink, but... Is that what a juicer is? Yeah. Because it could be steroids, right? Now it is, I guess. That's probably dating myself a little bit. You know, I was just... I was pretty much... I just loved to drink, but... What were you drinking? Beer, wine? Anything? Anything you get your hands on? Anything. Yeah. Yeah. How bad did it get? It got real bad. I mean, it got bad. I thought like I was going to die. I was a young man. I got sober. I was in my 20s, you know? And I thought I was going to die. I felt old. And... Why did you feel you were going to die? I couldn't stop drinking. And the only way to feel... I would... I felt this terrible hollowness inside and this terrible pain inside. And the only way I could feel better was to take a drink or take a drug. Were you cognizant of the pain? Did you actually know it was there? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I knew that the only way to make... to feel a little better was to take another drug or take another drink. And I also knew that was killing me. So it was like a cycle I couldn't get out of, you know? And I... Something inside of me... You hear this a lot if you ever go to AA meetings. You know, you hear this... There's like a light. There's like a sort of glimmer of hope, you know? So, okay, maybe I can get out of this, you know? And so I did. I quit drinking. And that was like, you know, almost 40... That was 30-some years ago. You went cold turkey? Yeah, I did. I did, yeah. And... When did you start drinking? I started drinking when I was a real little kid. Probably 10, 11, something like that. But, you know, sex... The thing about sex addiction is that you don't have to go to the liquor store. You don't have to pay some guy who's older to go in and buy it for you, you know? You don't have to do anything illegal. You don't have to buy joints on the street or whatever. So that's why I think a lot of kids get started in using sex as a way to alter their mood. Because essentially, it's the same thing. Because what you're really doing is altering your brain chemistry. There's no difference between alcohol addiction and sex addiction? There's very little. I mean, on a lot of... I mean, on some levels, certainly there is. I guess if you fucked the bottle, then it would be really the same. Yeah, but what's... I know that's not what you're talking about. That doesn't sound very good at all. That sounds painful, doesn't it? Sorry I took it to that level. Let's raise the bar here. Okay. I couldn't help myself. But you said they're very similar. Oh, they're similar because essentially what you're doing is, you're altering your brain chemistry. You know? A drug addict is not really so much addicted to the heroin or the booze or sexual acting on. What he's addicted to is the alteration of his mood. He's addicted to the brain chemistry change. Of the drug. Of the drug, right. And you can get it. Gamblers get it by, you know, just letting it ride. Adrenaline junkies get it jumping out of airplanes. You know, people get it from shopping. They get it from overeating chocolate cake, you know. But essentially... Essentially, it's all... It all comes down to the same thing. It's they're changing the neurochemistry of the brain. Mm-hmm. And sex is particularly interesting, I guess. I mean, because, you know, it's... You can live... You can put down the drink and never drink again. As I've did, you know, millions of people have done that. Or same thing with drugs. You can put it down and never do it. But you really don't want to live without sex. I mean, maybe some people do, but most people don't. We're wired to procreate. We're wired to procreate and it's a great, you know, it's one of the great joys of life, you know. So you don't want to lose it. You don't want to say, well, I can't do that. And so the trick with addicts in that regard is how do you develop a relationship with sex that's healthy and part of an intimate relationship or it's life-fulfilling and it's not... You're not using it to alter your mood, to escape from whatever your situation is. So, Tim, just to clarify here, you're saying... You're saying that one could abuse sex and create the chemistry and change the chemistry of the brain in a very similar way that perhaps a drug like cocaine or alcohol could change the chemistry of the brain. The difference being with sex, it's happening... The individual can... It's happening through an orgasm. Is that right? Or through looking at pornography? You know, many sex addicts, a lot of them really don't want to have an orgasm. They want an orgasm. They want it to last. They want to keep the high going. The build-up before the orgasm. Yeah, they get a little bit of a hit and they just want to keep it rolling, you know. So, but in essence, it is... You know, the pleasure centers of the brain are in this middle part of the brain. I mean, I'm not a brain scientist. I don't think you are either. The limbic. The limbic system, right. It's the old sort of lizard brain, you know. And when an addict is in his addiction, excuse me, they describe it as a cow pathological. Right to the pleasure centers in that particular area of the middle brain. Regardless of what the addiction. Right. Regardless of what the addiction is. And what happens is the brain is then flooded with these pleasure chemicals. Primarily dopamine, you know. Whether it be cocaine, heroin, or sex. Yeah. I mean, they're a different chemical. They're different, you know, neurotransmitters. Like with, if it's in a stimulating drug like cocaine or meth or... Then, you know, there might be more norepinephrine, which is like adrenaline, you know. But the primary pleasure chemical is dopamine. You know, in this... And what happens is that an addict will flood the brain with dopamine and they get in this, what they call the dopamine depletion syndrome. Which means your brain is producing... You're artificially producing so much of this stuff that your brain shuts it down. So it stops producing it under normal circumstances. So the actually receptors actually start dropping off. So you're not getting any. So you feel under normal circumstances, you feel kind of lousy. So is this from... This can happen from too much sexual activity? Yeah. Yeah. People use sex for it and people use, you know, all these other... Well, like how much are we talking here? I mean, most men in America look at pornography. Are you talking about looking for 10 minutes a day? What is... What is the... I mean, what's the threshold? Where does it become a problem? Or how can someone listening say, hey, I might have a problem? It becomes a problem when it's a problem. I mean, that's not... I mean, that sounds glib, but it's really... That's really the issue. You know, if it's getting in the way... If it gets in the way of your life, you know? I mean, if you can't stop it, if you say to yourself, I'm only going to look at this for 10 minutes and you end up and next thing you know, the sun's coming up, you know? You got a problem, you know? Right. Or if you're in your office and you know, you have to shut down your computer because the ball's coming up. And you know, you have to shut down your computer because the boss walks in. You got a problem, you know? Or if you're hiding something and lying to your wife, you got a problem, you know? If you're just doing stuff that's in the open, you have control over it, you can stop it whenever you want, then you probably don't have a problem, you know? It's kind of like one who... To test if they're an alcoholic, do some test drinking. See how if you can stop. If it's something that's not controlling your life. You're not a slave to it. Yeah. I mean, an alcoholic will say, I can stop drinking anytime. And you can say, well, go ahead. Stop drinking, you know? So, well, I could if I wanted to. I don't want to, you know? But someone who doesn't have a problem with alcohol would never, probably would never say, I can stop drinking anytime. It would never occur to them. Right. You know? Because I'm not an alcoholic. Right. And I don't have an issue around alcohol at all. I've never had to say or think. I just say, you know, that I don't have a problem. I don't have a problem. I... It doesn't come up. It doesn't come up. Exactly. Right. You don't go around telling people that you don't have a problem. Correct. Right. So, as a sober coach who focuses on sex addiction or sex addicts, what exactly are you doing? I mean, are you... Is there a guy that you like be hired to hang out with someone 24 hours and literally keep them from looking at porn and going to hookers? Here's the problem with addicts, the problem with addicts living in our culture, the problem with our... We have a very sick society. And we have... We're... We get... We get all the wrong messages. You know? We get all the wrong messages. We get all these messages telling us, if we do this, we're gonna be happy. You know? If we drink this beer, we're gonna get this girl. If we, you know, if we buy this, you know, drive this car, we're gonna be sick, whatever. We're getting all the wrong information because we're getting bombarded with information saying, if you do this, you'll be happy. If you do this, you'll feel better. If you do this, those problems you have now, will be diminished. But it does feel better sometimes if you're driving a nicer car. Okay. It's undeniable. Okay, true. But it doesn't solve the problems that it purports to solve. Correct. And... For addicts, it's particularly difficult because addicts... Well, not to get too kind of... Addicts generally develop a kind of strong codependency early in life. Yeah. You know, they did some studies. They found out that most... Many, many addicts, like a large majority of addicts, experience some kind of trauma and neglect or some kind of traumatic event or a lot of neglect in their childhoods. This is all addicts? Most addicts. Okay. I mean, it's not particularly just sex addicts or alcoholics. No, no. Actually, addiction... You know, addiction is addiction is addiction. And it's just... It doesn't differentiate... It's just... It doesn't differentiate that much. I mean, I guess you could say that if someone is sexually abused when they're a kid, they're probably more likely to become a sex addict than to become a heroin addict. Isn't it true that most sex addicts have a cross addiction, that most have a second addiction or a primary addiction? In other words, it's oftentimes the sex addict has two addictions. Addictions migrate. You know, what happens to a lot of people... And this is how I got into dealing with sex addicts and porn addicts, is that you put down one drug, and you pick up another one. The addiction migrates because you take care of one thing, but you're really just taking care of the symptom. You know, you're stopping the heroin or you're stopping the cocaine or whatever, but the addiction is going to rise up in some other way. It'll... What do they call it? It'll migrate. Mm-hmm. And so, a lot of people who are in treatment for sex addiction, for instance, were sober. You know, they were drug addicts who got clean or they were sober. Alcoholics who got sober, you know, and then they developed this addiction later on. Um... They... It... It's... The addiction, the addictive-ness, Bradshaw, John Bradshaw calls it addictive-ness. John Bradshaw is a very popular, well-known self-help author. Yeah. He wrote a lot about the child, the inner child. He wrote a lot about the inner child and about shame-based... shame-based families and the damage that can be done when a child is brought up feeling a lot of shame, you know. And, um, the problem with a lot of addicts is they do feel a lot of the shame and they feel a lot of... They feel... Shame about their addiction or shame that came from childhood that then, because of the shame, leads to them trying to medicate through the addiction? What... Yeah. I mean, that's what you said. Yeah? Yeah. Okay. They, uh... There's a thing that they call carried shame, which is that kids pick up shame. Somebody does something shameful to a child, and the child takes on the shame because children don't have good boundaries. As if they were responsible. As if they were responsible. It doesn't belong to them, but they take it on. Okay. You know? And so they go through... And so a lot of these kids go through life and they think... They develop what... They develop these core beliefs that are distorted about themselves. Such as? Such as, um... I'm not lovable? I'm not lovable. Nobody was ever gonna... Nobody ever loved me or... And no one will love me. No one will love me. If they really knew me, they would never love me. If they knew my deepest, darkest secrets, they wouldn't love me. They wouldn't be with me. They would leave me. I'd be alone. And isn't it often not just about other people loving them, but also, I'm... I don't love myself. Yeah, they internalize it. Yeah. Yeah, sure. I'm no good. That's the big one. I'm no good. I'm not enough. I'm not enough. You know? And, um... Be... When addicts develop this early in life, so then the... Then you get this lifelong habit of looking to someone else, or looking outside for approval. Because... Um... There's a... There's a book called A Drama of the Gifted Child. Alice Miller. Alice Miller. Yeah. And she talks about the gaze. She talks about the mother's gaze. And if the infant, with the little infant brain, you know, every infant, whether it's an... What kind of animal? You have instincts to survive. In our little infant brain, if we get the gaze from mom, then we know we're gonna be okay. We get that connection. We get that idea that, okay, I'm gonna be safe. They're gonna take me home. They're gonna take me home. They're gonna take me home. They're gonna take me home. They're gonna take me home. They're gonna take me home. They're gonna take my life. They're gonna take care of me here. But if we don't get that, then the infant brain shifts. And instead of feeling like, oh, I'm okay. I can just live my life and be myself. The infant brain goes into the mode of codependency, which is... Excuse me. What do I have to do to keep this woman near me? Excuse me. Frog in my throat. So you start... They start looking outside for what really they need to look for. inside and how does that connect to sex addiction and porn addicts because that's where they're going to numb out the feelings that are uncomfortable the feelings of of self-hate well that's part of it yeah yeah the feelings of feelings of that i'm not enough feelings of self-hate you know and they it's a numbing thing and it's a way to make the situation tolerable you know if their situation is not really tolerable now real quick uh that book drama of the gifted child by alice miller is a classic book so um those of you who are into self-help and into introspection i think you would really enjoy that book it's pretty fascinating book and uh in a sentence or two tim can you tell tell everyone what you feel that book is about is it isn't it really it's kind of what you were just talking about yeah it's essentially about the development of what we call codependency you know which is a distortion of you cannot be yourself if you're looking for someone else to what what you should do but but it is kind of human nature tim right that we feel good when the boss says great job or if a spouse or girlfriend says you look really sexy or i love when you do that or now i suppose the difference being feeling good is different from needing to you know all my survival being on those comments yeah yeah but it's also it's also um if your girlfriend says wow you really look good you feel great but if your girlfriend says that that shirt man that's really that sucks man you look terrible if you're healthy if you're in a good place you'll be able to say okay well the shirt's lousy but i'm still okay but if you're in a bad place you'd say i'm really terrible there's something really wrong with me that i would pick out that shirt you know what's wrong with me you know i must be really you know i don't have any sense of fashion or anything you know there's something terribly wrong with me so it's not right sized the amount it's the difference between like shame and guilt for him like guilt is you feel guilty if you do something wrong do something bad say okay i did something i messed up i'm sorry you feel guilt about it shame means you are wrong there's something wrong with you it's internalized one's entire being yeah yeah exactly yeah now i'm i'm still curious about what it means to be a sober coach for a sex addict yeah um i will assume that you worked with and have worked and currently working with many celebrities since we are in los angeles would that be fair to say it's a fair question tim well just by nature of the question i can't answer it but you would it be a fair question here's here's and i know the answer i'm going to ask the question yeah and then i'm going to answer it for you all right the question is you obviously work with high-profile people many of which names we would likely recognize you know you're a celebrity you're a celebrity you're a celebrity you're a celebrity you're a celebrity you're a celebrity you're a celebrity you're a celebrity you're a celebrity you're a celebrity you're a celebrity you're a celebrity you're a celebrity and the answer you would give is i can't tell you that and then i would say well you charge a lot i mean being a sober coach you basically are owned by this person 24 7. that must cost money and the answer is they're people who have money people can afford it yeah people who need it you know right what is it again like are you slapping the credit card out of a guy who's about to call a hooker on the phone no it's very different it's very different i work with i work with them my training is as a as a counselor as an addiction counselor i'm a certified addiction counselor as well as a certified coach so i do those two things and it's a lot of it is counseling and a lot of it is helping the addict understand what's going on at any given moment what essentially what the sober coach does is it helps the addict get from point a to point b addict can put down the drug or in case of sex he can stop acting out he can stop going to strip clubs he can stop trying hard trying hard trying hard trying hard trying hard trying hard trying hard trying hard trying hard trying hard trying hard trying hard trying hard trying hard trying hard trying hard that it helps the addict get from point A to point B. Addict can put down the drug or in the case of sex, he can stop acting out. He can stop going to strip clubs. He can stop doing the porn. He can stop going to massage parlor. It doesn't matter what they do. But in real life, he's going to reach a point where the stressors of life are going to make him want to do that. And there are hers in this too. And there are hers in this. Yeah. Yeah. There aren't as many women or women aren't owning up to it as much. Let's say that. So, okay, getting back to this. So are you literally traveling on the road with some of these men? I have done that. Yeah. And so the stress of life is getting overwhelming for one of your clients. Yeah. And that's a time where perhaps they're very vulnerable to acting out through some type of sexual activity. Right. And then you step in. Yeah, exactly. So you have to have a very tight relationship with your client for them to, because it doesn't help if they call you after they've been to the, right? Right. Well, that's what they like to do, you know? Yeah. Does that happen? It happens all the time. You'll be out on the road with someone and they'll call you up in your hotel room and say, Tim, I did something bad just now. Well, not exactly, but close to that. Yeah. Or Tim, I need to talk to you. Yeah. And you go, what happened? Why didn't you call me beforehand? Well, you know, I thought about it, but blah, blah, blah. You know, I just, I didn't think, you know, whatever. I didn't think. That's the key thing. That's disheartening, isn't it? No, it's not. It's part of the deal. It's part of the deal. It takes a long time. It's like an addict, any kind of addict, whether you're a sex addict or a drug addict, you spend your life medicating your feelings and finding inappropriate ways to handle your stress. You know, you're handling your stress in ways that are not really useful. They're only useful in that moment. So once you get sober and you stop doing whatever you're doing, you have to find new ways to handle the stressors of what you're doing. You have to develop new habits and you have to develop a new understanding of how to get through those times when the compulsion is so strong that you think you can't do anything about it. You can't, you know, it's like you're powerless over it. Right. But isn't there an argument to be made that having you around is perhaps a crutch and not allowing the addict to stand on their own two feet and use the tools of their recovery like anyone else? Such as I would imagine calling their men with similar problems, calling you the sponsor, right? You're not their sponsor, but they have a different person who's a sponsor. Like, isn't it perhaps making them reliant on you, rely on you in a way that's not really healthy because it's not gonna, you can't be there every day of their life. It's temporary. It's temporary. And it allows them, it allows them some breathing room. It allows them some space to be again, to understand what they're capable of, and what they're, what is dangerous for them. You know, it's a safe place for them to sort of step back into life without their acting out behavior. What about someone listening who says, I've not lost anything in my life. I have a job. I'm married. I have kids. I make really good money. I went to a great school, great college. I don't, you know, so I look at porn every day. I go for a couple hours and masturbate in the morning and masturbate at night to go to bed. Okay. So what? So I've had, you know, maybe cyber sex. I like going to strip clubs. I mean, my life is still really good. My wife loves me. I mean, what do you say to that person? Does your wife know? Well, why would she need to know? It's porn. It's not a big deal. I mean, I'm not cheating on her. Well, it depends on how you look at it. I suppose. You're taking, you're taking a part of your relationship with your sexuality. which if you're in an intimate relationship, committed intimate relationship, your sexuality is part of that. You're taking that away. Okay, and just to be clear, that was me role-playing. I'm not married and I'm not looking at porn. And I wanna make, this is something I wanna make really clear and I've never talked about it and I want to. I have a real problem about pornography, Tim. And I think that it's, we have a thing in this country of glorifying it. We've got teenagers wearing shirts that say hustler or playboy and other provocative sayings that support the pornography industry. And I think there's a real misunderstanding out there about how destructive pornography is and how it's destroying people's lives. And I just don't, we have this thing out there where it's somehow seemed as cool, but it's not cool. I mean, you're seeing it up in the front lines, aren't you, Tim? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I read online and you can probably confirm this for me that a big issue now among guys in their 20s is ED, erectile dysfunction. Now a normal 20 year old male, 25 year old male should have no problem having an erection. But we're finding that suddenly all these young men are having a problem having sex with their girlfriends. And what is the common denominator? Excessive masturbation and porn use. Correct, Tim? Yeah, that's true. There was actually, they did a study. They were trying to do a study. This doctor up in Toronto was trying to do a study on porn use among young men. And they had to cancel it because they couldn't get a control group because they couldn't find any young men who didn't use porn. They were like none. So they couldn't do the study. Well, yeah. And what's happening now and what's very exciting about what you did do, Tim, in your career, is you're really, as you know, you're in the very early stages of something as Patrick Carnes has said, who's really the forefather of really defining sex addiction as an addiction, that we're looking at a tsunami. I'm sure you've heard him say that, correct? I have heard him say that. Yeah, and describe the tsunami to me. Well, you know, the, I started off earlier talking about how our society gives us, you know, we get the wrong, sort of the wrong message. We get these distorted messages. We get these, they're almost delusional ideas about what we should do. And part of that is this whole idea of using sex in this way, that it's subjectified, it's dehumanized. When we're looking at porn on the internet, we're not looking at women, we're looking at pixels. There's no women there, they're pixels, you know. And there's no relationship there. And as I was saying earlier, it takes away from the, the idea of having an intimate human, a human relationship, person to person relationship. You know, our, if we look at porn, we can see more sexual imagery in a minute than our ancestors saw in their whole lifetime, you know? And our brains aren't equipped for that. Our brains are not equipped for, for that, for the speed and intensity of that kind of imagery. And unfortunately what, what happens is that we begin to, this is what happens to the young men. We begin to substitute intensity, for emotion. So we go for intensity. Intensity is the only thing that works. The intensity, meaning the graphic nature of the pornography. And from my understanding from what I've read, that just like drug, a drug addict needs to get a bigger hit by taking a bigger dose and then switching to a harder drug, we're seeing the same thing with pornography and that someone may start out with a soft core porn and eventually they get kind of so used to the soft core, they need something bigger. And more stimulating to their mind, which means more hardcore stuff. And before they know it, they're looking at stuff that never even interested them. Correct? It's absolutely, yeah. It's tolerance. It's the same thing as a drug tolerance. You know, if you, if you have a Vic, if you have a pill problem and you start off, you're taking four Vicodin in a day, a couple months later, you'd be up to 10 or 12. And then, you know, six months later, you're taking 30, 40 pills a day. Right. Why is it Tim? And this is what makes me very upset. why is it, why is it that this is not talked about more? I mean, we need to let people know what's going on. There are people, there are boys, the average age of a first time porn user is 11 years old. So you've got, and because 11 year olds now are growing up in a internet age, I mean, at least when I was young, you had a fight to find porn. It was a tough thing to find a playboy. You know, I mean, it would take a while. Yeah. Well, you know, it was at the, in the drugstore, but they had covers at the head, like where I was, they had them covered up, you know? Right. But now these kids, they go unmonitored and you parents listening, you're insane if you don't have a blocker on your kid's computer, and I'm not trying to offend you, put you down, but you're not living in reality. Because if you don't know what your kid's doing out there, you might as well put them on a street corner somewhere and just leave them there. Well, kids are curious, you know, kids are curious, and they're going to want to see whatever they can see. And curiosity is healthy. I think that- A parent needs to monitor what they're doing, looking at their history. Absolutely. And I would never, I don't have kids, but I'm telling you, Tim, if I did, I would not allow them to have a computer at home, in the bedroom. If it were at home, it'd be in the middle of the home. They wouldn't have any access on their cell phones to internet use. Because I understand it's a problem because of what all I've read, and I think parents really need to take this seriously. I think one of the reasons we don't talk about, we don't hear people talk about it, is because they're having mental, it's relatively new, the whole, you know, the internet, internet porn has not been around that long. So there are not a lot of consequences for it, you know? And the consequences are only now just beginning to be understood. And once, you know, once the consequences start being understood, then there will be more talk about it, and more, you know, more attention paid to it. Well, it's just shocking to me how little people know, you know, before I did the show, you and I were briefly speaking about a website that we both found really interesting called, and if you at home are, or wherever you are, would like more information about this, go to Your Brain on Porn. It's all, no spaces between the words, Your Brain on Porn. The videos they have there are fascinating. Now, where I'm coming from, I have no, I'm not coming from a religious standpoint here. I have no judgment. There's no moralistic or theological perspective on this. I could care less about that. Where I see, where I get frustrated is that I think that I hate seeing people hurt themselves. Because on that site in particular, and there's some other great videos online, what I've learned, and Tim, please correct me if I'm wrong, but literally, pornography changes the actual map of the brain. A frequent, addictive pornography user, actually, if you were to take a MRI or some other scan of their brain, would be different than a brain of a man, a woman, a man, or a woman who is not a frequent, addictive porn user. Am I correct, Tim? Yeah, it is. It's, yeah, you are correct. I mean, no one talks about that. I mean, this isn't like casual, this is a big deal. People's lives, their brains are literally changing. Yeah, I mean, people don't understand it. Like I said, saying there are no consequences to it. I mean, a friend of mine, Rob Weiss, wrote a book about internet porn. And, you know, and what Rob's finding, is that, you know, essentially, the stimulus is so rapid, and so fast changing, and so stimulating, that the brain really, our brains are not set up to function that way, you know? So that's why that you would see those chemical changes in it, because the brain is furiously trying to cope with this, all this information, and all this stimulus, you know? So it's, yeah, it's a problem, and it's, but you know, I look back on, I saw this, I saw this photograph, I was doing some research on early AA a while back, and I came across this photograph, and it was a photograph of Bill Wilson. Bill Wilson is the founder of AA. The founder of AA, and a few of the other guys who were around at that time, and they were sitting at a conference table, having some kind of meeting, and they were all wearing masks. They were wearing, like, you know, like Lone Ranger masks, and it was just kind of silly to see these men in suits, and sitting there, doing, you know, doing business wearing these masks. And then when you realize, well, that was okay, that was like 1939 maybe. So it wasn't that long ago that being an alcoholic was so shameful that these guys had to wear masks. Now out here in Hollywood, if you're not in recovery, you're nowhere. I mean, it's like a badge of honor. But I would suspect that the sex stuff's not as hip. It's not. But what I'm saying is this is coming along later on. You think 10 years from now? 10, 15 years, yeah. Well, how many scandals do we have to see before it becomes obvious there's- It's harder. It's just harder because there's so much shame involved in it. There's so much secrecy involved in it. I mean, I talked to a lot of guys who are married middle-aged men who act out with other men. Are they gay? They have sex with their wives. They say they love their wives. They also have sex with men in secret. So they lead two lives. Is it because they have an interest in both sexes or is it often because their addiction has gotten so out of control that they need a new high, something they've never done before, so they go to someone of the same sex? That's a good point, Vic, because I think it's a little both. I think sometimes it's both things. And sometimes there's another point to it too, which is sometimes it's a reenactment of a trauma from youth, you know? A lot of guys were sexually abused when they were kids and then they act out with men as a sort of reenactment of that, you know? Yeah. So a white man, a wife of a sex addict, should she feel sorry for him? She should understand that he's sick, you know? It's very difficult because he's also been lying, you know? He's also been hiding and lying, you know? Well, if we were to talk to a woman who's had a husband serial cheating on her, I think we'd have a hard time finding sympathy. You sure would, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's really tough. It's helpful when I'm working with addicts. I try to help them understand that an addict is a perpetrator in this case, but also a victim. And you have to try to get your mind around both those things, you know? When you treat a sex addict who's been a serial cheater on either a spouse or a girlfriend, you do something called full disclosure, I believe you've mentioned, or I was talking to someone else in your field that would talk around this. Generally. Generally, full disclosure is important. If you want the relationship to go away, continue. Full disclosure is important. So full disclosure means, honey, for the last 25 years, I've slept with more than 60 hookers and have spent over half a million dollars. Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes that's what it takes, yeah. And what happens in that room? Good question. You're there, right? As a coach, as a... Yeah. One of three things happens. They either split up, the woman leaves, says, screw you, you know, she hires some lawyer and takes what she can get. That doesn't happen that frequently. What happens most frequently is that they stay together and they do one of two things. They either slog through it, and it's difficult, it takes time, or they do what we call a therapeutic separation. So they separate for a while to give themselves time to work through, to give the woman time to work through the feelings of betrayal. She's been traumatized, you know. She's been traumatized and betrayed and lied to and she's had the pins pulled out. She's had the stuff from under her, you know. You know, it's like, she's had, you know, it's like Maslow's, you know, pyramid of needs, you know, human needs. She's had like the bottom layer just sort of like wiped out, you know, so. So that takes time. So, you know, as difficult as these things seem, they work out. Because most of these guys will say, I would never, ever in a million years tell my wife what I did. Never. Never. But then somehow they come around to doing it. And when they do, then they can start to feel, you know, like, I'm not gonna do this. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do this. And they can start to feel whole again. And they can start to live in an authentic, integrated fashion. Well, tell me if I'm wrong here, because my guess is the reason that works so well is because it puts the addict in a place of reality. And for so long, the addict, in this case, the sex addict, has been fooling himself and believing that whatever he was doing wasn't really affecting other people. And it was really a big fantasy. In a sense, living a lot in fantasy. And when you gotta tell your wife that for 25 years, but you've been lying to her face, you get caught, you meet reality fast. Yeah. Yeah. Because they have been delusional. They've been delusional and in fantasy. And you're right in that they develop this double life and they think, you know, well, okay, this isn't hurting anybody else. I'm just doing this, you know. If a guy cheats on his wife once, does that make him an addict? No. No. No. Here's my answer to that question. I would say it depends what else he's been doing. Well, exactly. I mean, if he's been looking at porn 12 hours a day and he's only had one affair, because like you were saying, it's a big picture. It's a big picture. And you know what? People fall for other people all the time, you know. I see, okay. People see other people and say, wow, you know, and situations are such. But the thing that will destroy a relationship faster than anything is the secrets, the double life. Because the guy in this situation, he has this feeling that if she really knew me, she'd be out of here in a second. And this is the mindset of a married guy or a guy in a relationship. Yeah, yeah. If she really knew me. Not because of the acting out, but necessarily partly because of that. Because if they really knew who I was as a human being. Right, right, right. And then add on the acting out. But then add on all the acting out stuff, you know, and then they just say she would never, you know, she would never stay with me. Right. And in that case, she may not. She might not. She might not, but she might. And if she does, then they have a chance for a truly, truly integrated relationship. Well, what's in it for the woman? I mean, this guy's been cheating on her forever. Maybe she loves the guy. Maybe she, you know, maybe she takes him. Maybe they have a good time. Also, you know, I mean, it's, she will almost certainly have her own issues around being hooked into a relationship. You know, because that's part of this too. Well, Tim, I believe in the idea, I'm sure you've heard this, that water seeks its own level. Now in a relationship, if water seeks, and particularly in relationships, meaning if the sex addict or any addict has a woman in his life, or if he's gay, a guy in his life, that's, there's something there that's at the same level. So, which means that that partner does have a part in this. A very healthy person isn't going to stick around long, correct? In general? That's a good point. In general, yeah. In general, that a woman would not want to settle for that kind of half a person in her life, you know? Because even if the guy doesn't admit, he's still not around. He's not there. Mentally. Exactly. He's not there. And this is another important thing, I think, is regarding the porn. I don't think men realize, and if you guys, if you're looking at porn all the time, you've got a relationship. It's with your porn. Mm-hmm. And if you think, because you've got a wife or a girlfriend, yeah, she's around, but you're depriving her, as you said, Tim, you're depriving her of all of you. And I do look at it as cheating, and I sound like a total buzzkill. But I don't care. It doesn't have anything to do with morals. No, I don't have a moral thing about it. I'm like, if you want to be married or you want to be in a relationship, give that woman everything. And if you don't, fine. Some guy asked me, he said, well, what's wrong with me going to a massage parlor? In other words, stop at the massage parlor and get a massage with a happy ending. Meaning a woman will manually stimulate a man to climax. Okay. Is there anyone who's not sure what a happy ending is? Okay, so. Go on. So, and my answer to that is, that's fine, if you want to do that, and if your wife's okay with it. Right. That's all. Right. If she's okay with it, fine, go ahead. And this is the thing that I don't think guys, now that seems really obvious to me. To some guys, it isn't. Yeah, yeah. But I think the more subtle thing is this porn stuff. Mm-hmm. Because. Yeah. Suddenly your wife, I don't care who she is, she's not looking good compared to what's on the screen. Right. You know, you see these guys who are married to. You asked me what we do as coaches. Yeah. As Sober Coach, and one of the things that, the main thing, the number one thing, is to try to help guys develop a new relationship with their sexuality, which is sexuality as a part of an individual, sexuality as a part of an intimate, romantic, committed relationship. Not necessarily, I mean, it could be serial monogamy, whatever. What if a guy's single? What if a guy's single, Tim? Then it's fine, he's with his girlfriend for a while. No, single with no one. What's healthy sexuality if a guy's alone? Well, that's. Like Jeremy here. This guy, he's very lonely. Jeremy. What's healthy sexuality for him? Well, I think that's a little tricky because, you know, it's, it really. I'm not alone. Well, you're alone a lot. Oh. So, he goes from one guy to one guy. One guy. Thanks. Now I'm gay too. No. There's nothing wrong with being gay. But what about a guy like Jeremy? If he's alone and doesn't have, what's healthy sexuality for him? Well, the problem, the problem with. Our producer. With those kind of relationships. The problem with, with, with, with short-term relationships is that the, sex gets, in my view anyway, sex gets introduced way too early. And sex is way too powerful. And it overwhelms the rest of the relationship, you know. So, a good, when I say an intimate relationship, I mean, an intimate, it doesn't have to be a long-term marriage. No, but this is what I'm talking about, Tim. We have a lot of single listeners here. They don't have a woman in their life. Right. Guys like Jeremy. Right. Forget about other women. What is healthy sexuality with oneself? When there's no one around, whether it be a guy or a girl. With sexuality with, with oneself? Yes. What is healthy? What is it? Is it health? Are we talking a healthy way of masturbating? No, I think masturbation can be healthy. Sure. Yeah, it can be. It depends on what you fantasize to. There's such a thing as- And what you use, you know? What you use. Well, hold on a second. Yeah. There's such a thing as unhealthy fantasizing? Yeah, sure. Well, why? It's just in your head, no one, you're not doing anything. Well, because you're, you're introducing shameful, sometimes you could be introducing things that are shameful to you. What if that turns the person on? Well, then, then you're gonna, then you're gonna get turned on. And then afterwards, you're gonna feel ashamed. You're gonna say, oh my God, I was watching this woman with a dog and now I feel just horrible about myself. Yeah. Where are you then? You know? So, but forget about watching, you're saying even imagining. Right, or even imagining, you know? Fantasy. Yeah. So then that's just building more shame. That's just feeding the shame. So, so when Jeremy is pleasuring himself, he should not be thinking about himself with a dog. No, he should think about, you know, think about, you know, I don't know, Sarah Palin or somebody. I don't know. I said without a dog. No, that's, that was too easy. I have no problem with Sarah. I just said that. I have no problem with Sarah Palin. I mean, I'm not trying to bash anyone here. But the point is, there is such a thing as even when one is not in an intimate relationship with someone, we're always in an intimate relationship with ourself. And that's something that we need to look at as well. Indeed, when it comes to fantasy, during masturbation. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. There's this thing that they call blue balls. Forget about it. It's not real. You know? You don't have to, you don't have to have an orgasm. Can I say that? Yeah, of course we can. You can say anything. You know, that's not, you know, guys say, oh, well, you know, I gotta get released. Well, there is, there is a difference. There's a discomfort. I mean, that comes from a reality of cramps. There's a discomfort. You know, so what? We have a thing that gets rid of it. We have wet dreams. That's what happens. Right. That takes care of it. So what I'm saying is, you don't, we feel this need. And whether it's societal, we say we're gonna be a real studly kind of guy. So we gotta get a woman or we gotta do something. But we can deal with that for a period of time. That's fine. Yeah, I've gone periods just for my own, kind of like a cleanse. Yeah, yeah. And it's been really interesting. I think it's helpful. I think it's good. So, and this is the other thing that I've read and seen online that if one were a sex addict, in their mind, they're literally, their brain has changed, that it can be unchanged. Yeah, the brain is plastic that way. Yeah, it'll, it'll- It's called neuroplasticity. Right, right. And they've discovered that if one were to no longer engage in those activities, such as pornography use and other addictive harmful stimulants to the brain, that the brain will actually repair itself. But how long does that take, Tim? And what would be- It takes a time. And that's what, when I was talking about being a coach and helping someone through this period of time, it's, it has a, it's a finite period of time. Well, what is a, I've been reading online a lot about rebooting the brain. Yeah. Now, and some talk about 90 days of no masturbation, no orgasm, and no pornography. What's your thought on that? Okay, I think that's a good idea. I think it's an excellent idea. 90 days of abstinence. Yeah. Jeremy, could you go 90 days without an orgasm? I don't think so, no. What's the longest you've gone? You mean with zero masturbation or anything? Yeah, nothing. Probably tops, maybe a week. Was that because you were ill and you couldn't perform it or because it was a deliberate choice? Most likely I was just busy and, you know, when I'm busy, I don't think about it. What do you, what's your average currently? Um. At least once a day. Okay. So, do you look at porn every day? Um, if I'm not with someone, then yeah, I'll use porn. But if I, you know, have a girlfriend, then I don't need that. Is he an addict? I would have no idea. Jim? I would have no idea. Well, let's, you know. It doesn't sound like an addict. Well, we have. Could be though. We don't know because we haven't really explored. Right, we don't know, yeah. Have you ever paid for sex? No. No. Have you, do you go to strip clubs? Yes. How often? Um, maybe once every three months. Have you ever hired a prostitute? No. Have you ever had a happy ending and a massage? No. Okay, well. We got to hook him up to a lie detector. Okay. That's funny. And he's got a, he's got some company here. He's got a lady in the other room, so I don't know. Yeah, yeah, so. He's got to watch what he says here. Right. We'll talk to him privately. We'll talk to him privately later. All right, all right, okay. We'll have a private consultation. Okay. Well, and also I did put him on the spot there. But it is a fair question. I mean, if you're going to be in the room, things like that are going to happen, Jeremy. You know, that's a good idea when you talk about 90 days, something like that. That's a good idea. But this isn't arbitrary. This is science, correct? Yeah. This isn't you just going, yeah, 90 days sounds good. I mean, there's actual studies that have shown that's a good. It's the dopamine receptors start to rebuild. Because when you hit the dopamine depletion, the dopamine receptors start to drop. The dopamine receptors start to drop off. So the brain's not producing enough dopamine. The receptors start to rebuild. And so you start to feel more normal under normal circumstances. After 90 days. After 90 days. But I've heard that it takes three to five years for the brain to fully repair from this. That's a high estimate. I tend to think it's more like 18 months to two years. Have you seen miracles in your work? I see miracles every day. What's the biggest miracle you've seen? That's a hard one. I can't really. I mean, I don't have an anecdote that I can pull out and say. I suppose miracles are miracles. But miracles are miracles. And they're so personal that I could say. This one guy said to me that he drew a picture of himself drowning and he was reaching out. And it was me. I was like holding a cell phone. I was like, what? I was holding it. I was grabbing him by the hand. You were in the picture. Yeah. And I was pulling him out of the water and he was drowning. And that really touched me, you know, because I thought, you know, I really helped this guy, you know. But they're all miracles in a way. Because you know, when I talk to somebody, I'll say something like, well, did you ever have any trauma or anything like that? And they almost always say, no, no, no, I had a fine trauma. You know, I said, well, did your father beat you with a belt or anything like that? No, no, no, no. Okay. And then often, they'll be like, well, there was this one time, you know, or there was this priest or there was this guy who was just like my, you know, and he would start telling me these stories and they weren't necessarily sexually graphic or sexually that traumatic. Well, how's this one for you? Go on. And then I got to, yeah. But they were bad enough that, see, if a kid is, if a kid is betrayed, if you use a child for your own use rather than taking care of them, because we're made to take care of our children and take care of their needs when we use them to take care of our needs, that's a betrayal. Well, I think it's, his name's Ed Farmer and I could be mistaken, but there's a therapist, a psychologist expert who coined the phrase or the idea of covert incest or emotional incest. I believe he said covert, meaning there's no actual physical touching or sexual activity between the parent and the child. Yet there's a unhealthy bond, almost a romantic energy. It was Ken Adams, I think. Ken Adams. Yeah. Yeah. He wrote a book. Forget him. He wrote a book called- Ken Adams. He wrote a book called Silently Seduced about that. Okay. That's what I, that's who I'm remembering. And the idea is that, so if someone were to look back at their childhood and there was no priest and there was no bad, but perhaps there was, and that's the subtleties of this, correct? Yeah. I'm not sure if I'm a priest. I'm not sure if I'm a priest. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. I mean, you take a little boy and say, okay, now you're the man of the house, you know, cause your daddy's left, you know? Well- Or daddy's coming home late or whatever. Yeah. I mean, the kid's eight years old. He said, well, how can I be a man of the house? You know, I can't even, I don't even know how to be a boy yet. You know what I mean? So it's like the set up for failure saying, well, I'll try to be a man, but I don't, you know- And how does that turn into addiction? Well, it's, it's, you start to look like, you start to look outside, you know, and you're like, oh, I'm just going to go outside, you know? Or, or you could just say, I mean, sometimes that's an intolerable situation. It's just so stressful for the child. Can't deal with it. So they mightn't numb out. They would numb out. Yeah. Yeah. You know, if I had a daughter, I would tell my daughter that if you are dating a guy who's regularly looking at pornography, regularly going to strip clubs, I would say, he's not right for you. I would say, this guy's not grown up. This guy isn't, is not going to be there for you. And the way you need to be treated. And I know that sounds really, uh, perhaps, um, I don't know, over the top. Like I don't, I would say if the guy wants a big bachelor party with strippers, he's immature, not ready. What do you think? Well, the, what you just described is someone who is not, certainly not ready for any kind of relationship, you know? Right. But women, you know, they're guys, I was one of them years ago when I wanted a bachelor party and I did have one. I would never, now I was different back then, but you know, I was like, what you're, you're not, or they say like, you can't look at porn. I'd be like, what are you talking about? What are you, you're not in charge of my penis. Right. You don't get it. You don't get a say in that. But we're getting, you see, we getting, we get all the, all the wrong information, you know? People say, you talk to a guy, I say, well, you know, I'm, I'm really looking for a woman to settle down with, you know, to have a relationship and have kids and saying, well, what are you doing about it? Well, I go to the gym and I work out, you know, I'm looking really good. You know, it's like, what the fuck is that? But it's, it's, it's not the, that's not the way to get there, you know? Right. You don't get the, if you're, if you want to go from Los Angeles to Chicago, you know, and you head south, you're not, you're not going to get there, you know? Right. So, you know, that's, that's, that's the challenge, you know, is to, is to help people understand and continually. That's why it's, it's the daily thing because every time you turn around, I'll tell you the best thing I ever did, I just, I got rid of my television set. I never watched television. Mm-hmm. I never got rid of it. I watched, I have a computer, so I watch movies and all that stuff. But you know, this, the distorted delusional messages we get are, are just make, it make all this stuff that much harder, you know? Mm-hmm. So let's say someone listening is finding this particularly personal to them. Maybe they think, well, I might need some help in this area. I'm kind of curious. Or perhaps they have a spouse or a boyfriend or a girlfriend. What do they do? Well, there, there are a number of things to do. I mean, they could, they could go to my website, which is lasobercoach.com. That's all one word, L-A-S-O-B. What if they don't live in Los Angeles? Well, I, I do coaching over the telephone. So, I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's a possibility. But I would also suggest, you know, they have these 12, they have 12 step meetings for, for, for sex addicts all around, all around the country. 12 step being like AA, but only for sex addiction? For sex, yeah, yeah. What are those? Well, one is called Sex Addicts Anonymous. And one is called Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous. Okay. Those are the two big ones. And then there are a few others. But, you know, those are really helpful. Tim, I wish we could keep talking. You've been an amazing guest. Thank you so much for listening. And I want to have you back. Does that sound okay, sometime? Okay, sure. Because this is great. That was great. All right. Okay. And thank you all for listening right here to It's a Fair Question. We'll talk to you soon. I'm Vic Cohen, and it's a fair question. It's a fair question. It's a fair question. I'm Vic Cohen, and it's a fair question. It's a fair question. It's a fair question. I'm Vic Cohen, and it's a fair question.