Valuetainment - March 26, 2021


Understanding Porn Addiction & How to Escape it


Episode Stats

Length

36 minutes

Words per Minute

219.61105

Word Count

7,965

Sentence Count

565

Misogynist Sentences

19

Hate Speech Sentences

12


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 When I talk about why I got trapped in it,
00:00:02.240 is it's ridiculously accessible.
00:00:04.360 Internet pornography is just everything on steroids.
00:00:07.000 What kept me in it was the shame.
00:00:08.760 When I talk about porn addiction,
00:00:10.240 I'm talking about not wanting to watch porn,
00:00:12.560 promising myself that I'll never watch porn again,
00:00:14.840 and then feeling this uncontrollable urge to go back,
00:00:18.280 and I do.
00:00:19.120 It consumed my life.
00:00:19.960 So it started taking up more and more time,
00:00:21.800 more and more energy,
00:00:22.640 and then me pushing the boundaries,
00:00:23.720 going from pixels to people.
00:00:25.280 But when I peel back the onion and I said,
00:00:27.280 what am I going to porn for?
00:00:28.880 I'm going to hit on girls less.
00:00:30.120 I'm going to approach them less.
00:00:31.280 I'm going to interact with them less.
00:00:32.880 If you're married and you're watching too much porn,
00:00:35.280 it creates a distance between you and your wife.
00:00:37.720 If you want Xanax, you have to go to get it from somebody
00:00:40.280 for a couple dollars a pop.
00:00:41.520 But if you want to, you know, porn,
00:00:43.600 you're two seconds away from having it.
00:00:45.640 The dealer's sitting right in front of you at any time.
00:00:47.400 It's magnified for kids.
00:00:48.360 We do so much to protect kids from alcohol,
00:00:50.320 from everything under the sun,
00:00:51.720 and then what do they have to do?
00:00:52.640 They have to check mark that they're 18.
00:00:54.400 Porn addiction, it's a real issue.
00:00:59.440 Matter of fact, 40 million adults in the U.S. visit internet porn sites
00:01:03.680 on a regular basis.
00:01:04.720 One in five every internet search on mobile devices or pornography.
00:01:08.640 Men who are happily married are 61% less likely to look at porn.
00:01:12.880 20% of men admit to viewing pornography at work,
00:01:16.800 and 88% of porn scenes contain physical aggression.
00:01:19.920 49% contain verbal aggression.
00:01:22.880 My guest today is an entrepreneur CEO running a successful business,
00:01:26.800 and one day he decides to go talk about his porn addiction,
00:01:29.600 and he doesn't just do it on a small platform with five of his friends,
00:01:32.560 or maybe his relatives, maybe his mom, dad.
00:01:34.880 He decides to do it on this place called Ted Talks.
00:01:38.240 He gives a speech.
00:01:39.360 Nearly 3 million people find out about his addiction,
00:01:42.720 and that led to a lot of different dialogues.
00:01:44.640 So with that being said, Ellie, Nash,
00:01:46.800 thank you so much for being a guest on Valuetainment.
00:01:49.920 Thank you, Patrick. Thanks for having me.
00:01:51.360 Big fan of your work.
00:01:52.720 I appreciate that.
00:01:53.760 I'm glad to have you on because I think it's fair to say
00:01:57.760 this is an issue that comes up amongst men all the time,
00:02:02.160 but they're embarrassed to talk about it.
00:02:04.000 And I get a lot of random calls on how to handle this.
00:02:06.960 So, you know, prior to getting into it,
00:02:09.200 you know, one just basic question for you.
00:02:10.880 So when you went and gave the talk,
00:02:12.720 you've gotten millions of views.
00:02:14.480 You run a successful business in Miami.
00:02:16.960 What were some of the, you know,
00:02:18.560 commentary you got from people that are close to you,
00:02:20.720 family, friends, co-workers,
00:02:22.720 kids that knew you in high school in New York?
00:02:24.640 I mean, Jewish community.
00:02:26.160 What were some of the reaction you got from people that you know?
00:02:28.720 The people closest to me reacted pretty well for the most part.
00:02:32.880 All right.
00:02:33.680 Some of my family, I'm not sure what they think.
00:02:35.520 They've said nice things to me.
00:02:36.560 I'm not sure what they're saying about it behind my back.
00:02:39.280 In business, I've had sometimes mixed reactions.
00:02:42.160 So I was once trying to get, do business with a big client.
00:02:45.760 I won't name them in here.
00:02:46.640 You got a big audience.
00:02:48.000 And I had a few good calls and then the line went dead.
00:02:52.240 So I followed up with someone, the person who put me in touch.
00:02:54.400 I say, hey, can you try to figure out what happened with this guy?
00:02:58.800 Because I had some good calls with him.
00:03:00.800 And what had happened is the company looked me up and saw something about porn and said,
00:03:05.200 hey, I don't know if we want to do business with him.
00:03:06.880 I'm not sure what the deal is with the whole porn addiction thing.
00:03:09.920 But I'll give you another story that happened a couple of weeks ago.
00:03:12.800 This guy I do business with for 10 years, one of my more important relationships.
00:03:16.720 And we're at dinner.
00:03:17.360 He has a little bit of wine in him.
00:03:19.600 And he says, Elias, I want to let you know it's such an honor to do business with you.
00:03:23.200 From all the people I do business with, it's a real honor to do business with you.
00:03:26.720 So I said, why do you say that?
00:03:28.880 I appreciate it, but why do you say that?
00:03:30.880 He's like, what you've done on that porn thing.
00:03:32.640 He's like, and a lot of people struggle with it, including me.
00:03:36.160 He's like, that's just, it's so cool that you put that out there like that.
00:03:41.040 And I didn't expect it.
00:03:41.920 I didn't expect it from him.
00:03:43.040 So I've gotten mixed responses, but I would say between the two, it's much more important
00:03:47.120 to me that someone that does business with me values it than someone who's never met me.
00:03:51.520 Now, Eli, I think it's important for people to realize, you know, you start a company
00:03:56.080 called Mic Drop with you and Rush Low, right?
00:03:59.760 I don't know if I'm pronouncing this right.
00:04:00.960 I hope I'm pronouncing it right.
00:04:02.160 Can you kind of give us the optics, give us some perspective of how big the business
00:04:07.680 was and your level of success was when you decided to go public with this?
00:04:11.920 How successful were you guys at the time?
00:04:14.160 So Mic Drop is a second business that I started more recently, somewhat of a passion project.
00:04:18.720 There's a business that I started in 2006, which is a distribution business.
00:04:22.400 J-E-G?
00:04:23.520 That's correct.
00:04:24.480 Yeah.
00:04:24.640 Okay.
00:04:25.040 That's a distribution business.
00:04:26.800 And we've been doing it since 06.
00:04:28.320 Like I said, at the time of the Ted talk, we probably had about 80 employees.
00:04:32.000 I'm doing north of a hundred million in business a year.
00:04:35.600 And Mic Drop was something that I had done because get this, Patrick, I had a painful
00:04:41.120 fear of public speaking.
00:04:42.160 Get out of here.
00:04:43.360 Really painful fear of public speaking.
00:04:45.360 And the guy who helped me get over it was Rush Low.
00:04:48.640 Rush Low was a local news reporter for Channel 7, local to Miami.
00:04:54.800 So he helps me to speak a different talk I gave on child sex abuse, sharing my story
00:05:00.320 within the community.
00:05:01.600 And then I tell Rush, hey, I want to start this as a business.
00:05:05.120 I saw the impact it had on me and on a lot of people that I introduced it to.
00:05:09.360 I found it as one of the best teamwork things I've ever done in my company is to have him
00:05:13.280 come in and train people to tell their story and get over that fear of public speaking.
00:05:17.760 So that's how that business started.
00:05:19.600 Pretty powerful.
00:05:20.160 And the reason why I want the audience to know that is because you're not just like
00:05:23.920 somebody, hey, let me go out there.
00:05:25.200 You're talking about 80 employees, a hundred million dollars a year.
00:05:27.600 That's not like a, that's a, you know, it's very hard to run a hundred million
00:05:30.560 dollar your company.
00:05:31.360 Most people get to a million, 10 million, 5 million, a hundred million dollar your company.
00:05:34.960 And you say, I want to get out.
00:05:35.840 So walk me through what happened when you went up to your partner and said, hey, I'm thinking
00:05:40.640 about doing this.
00:05:41.360 What was his initial reaction to you?
00:05:43.520 So, so here's what happens.
00:05:44.880 Um, I, I approach him about starting a business, helping people tell a story.
00:05:50.080 I say, why don't you leave channel seven, do this full time.
00:05:52.240 It's amazing.
00:05:52.800 I saw the way it changed my life.
00:05:54.320 I feel like I have a voice.
00:05:55.680 It was something I brought to my employees as well.
00:05:58.080 I said, let's, let's turn this into a company.
00:06:00.640 So after he started his business, he goes into a, he starts doing a few different projects.
00:06:04.400 And I say, hey, let's do it again by us.
00:06:06.320 So the first time we did, it was 2016 while he was still at the newspaper.
00:06:10.880 And I, this, the business we started, I believe it was 2019 or end of 2018.
00:06:14.800 I said, let's bring it back and let's do it again in our company.
00:06:20.000 And one of his secrets, I guess that he offers is the CEO should always speak as well.
00:06:25.360 Don't just have the company do the talk also have the CEO talk.
00:06:29.680 So he asks me, what do you want to talk about?
00:06:31.840 And I say, I know exactly what I'm talking about.
00:06:34.160 I'm talking about porn addiction and you should have seen his face.
00:06:36.880 So the reason why this was a big deal, we have to frame this correctly, Patrick.
00:06:42.720 This guy is a guy who encourages people to share their story.
00:06:46.000 That's who he is.
00:06:47.760 His job is training people to tell their story.
00:06:50.240 So he's trained people.
00:06:51.600 And as a news reporter, he's trying to get the story.
00:06:55.440 And when I tell him that I want to share my story on porn addiction, the story guy,
00:07:00.560 the story guy tells me you can't do something.
00:07:03.440 Yeah.
00:07:04.000 That's why it was such a big deal.
00:07:06.080 And that's what clicked for me.
00:07:07.280 I said, if I can't tell this story to him, him of all people is telling me, I can't say
00:07:12.320 the story.
00:07:12.880 I got to do it from the biggest stage.
00:07:14.400 And that's when I decided I'm doing a TED talk on porn addiction.
00:07:17.440 So, so now that was done.
00:07:19.200 TED talks went live with your porn addiction video, June 24th, 2019.
00:07:23.840 I'm assuming that's not the day you gave the talk.
00:07:25.680 It's probably a month prior to that or two months prior to that.
00:07:28.240 And it's at two months prior to that.
00:07:30.320 Okay.
00:07:30.560 So 2.683 million.
00:07:32.560 What has women's reaction been to this?
00:07:35.920 You know, let's men is a different story.
00:07:37.680 Hey, bro, I'm so glad I've been struggling with them myself as well.
00:07:40.960 Or, you know, and maybe they don't even want to talk about it.
00:07:43.280 They're uncomfortable.
00:07:44.400 But what have women in your life said about your, uh, you opening up regarding escaping
00:07:50.960 porn addiction?
00:07:51.600 So the two most important women in my life, my wife and my mom have been extremely supportive
00:07:57.440 of it.
00:07:58.000 Very, very, very supportive.
00:08:00.000 My wife in general takes it as a, um, a huge plus.
00:08:04.480 She says, I trust my husband more than, uh, cause you know, I'll be honest.
00:08:08.320 I spoke about porn addiction there, but here we're having a conversation and I went from pixels
00:08:12.800 to people, right?
00:08:13.440 It got porn addiction became a problem for me that was beyond that was beyond porn itself.
00:08:19.600 And, uh, being a recovered sex addict, so to speak, a recovered porn addict, my wife takes
00:08:25.120 that as a source of pride as far as she's concerned.
00:08:27.920 And that's one of the things that gave me the pride to, to speak up about it.
00:08:31.920 And my mom as well, she just thinks it's awesome that I've, uh, that I'm willing to talk about
00:08:36.160 it.
00:08:36.320 She understands that I'm doing it to, to help others.
00:08:38.960 I, you know, I was, I, I wish I heard it from someone else about porn addiction while
00:08:43.440 I was stuck in it.
00:08:44.160 And that's why I talk so that someone else, I know it.
00:08:46.880 I know the pain of, of porn addiction.
00:08:48.800 And that's, I speak to those people.
00:08:50.320 I speak to what I needed to, to hear women outside of that.
00:08:54.400 I don't know.
00:08:54.800 I'm not talking to them.
00:08:55.680 I'm a married man, man.
00:08:56.560 I'm not talking to them.
00:08:57.920 Good answer.
00:08:58.720 Well, listen, I get, I get messages.
00:09:01.840 Every once in a while on Instagram from women who are addicted to porn, not a ton, but I
00:09:06.080 do.
00:09:06.320 And I just wonder, you know, when we talk about the scale with men, like you're reading
00:09:10.880 the statistics at the beginning, it's almost every man, but let's say with women, it's
00:09:15.200 one in four women or one in five women that have that watch pornography a lot.
00:09:20.240 It could also be a big problem there.
00:09:22.480 I don't know the scale of it.
00:09:25.040 On the woman's side is what you're saying.
00:09:26.560 You don't know the scale of it.
00:09:27.440 Yeah.
00:09:27.680 But I have received anecdotally.
00:09:29.440 I've received messages from women who say, Hey, I'm addicted to porn.
00:09:32.000 And it's really hard for me to say anything about it.
00:09:34.080 So yeah, I mean, the fact that you said there's only two women, you know, the most important
00:09:39.760 women in your life, your wife and your mom, uh, if you're a sex addict, it's good to be
00:09:44.320 a sex addict while you're married because you're addicted to having sex with your wife.
00:09:47.920 So I'm sure that benefits your spouse, which is a very good thing.
00:09:50.480 Your wife is lucky to be married to a sex addict.
00:09:53.840 That's a good place to be.
00:09:54.880 Now for men, okay.
00:09:57.280 I run a sales organization.
00:09:59.040 I was in the military in the army.
00:10:01.760 You know, I had a sergeant in the corner who was the kink.
00:10:05.840 Everybody looked at this guy.
00:10:07.040 They admired him.
00:10:07.760 They just admire the hell out of this guy.
00:10:09.760 And I'm an 18 year old kid.
00:10:10.880 I've been there for a little long.
00:10:11.920 Now, obviously, you know, as a kid, my mom caught me under the mattress with my best
00:10:15.920 high quality porn addiction from hustle magazine, whatever I had had the nice stash,
00:10:20.000 high quality and hidden in the right places.
00:10:22.400 She found it one day and, uh, you know, she was, uh, she was shocked by it.
00:10:27.600 I said, what, what would you like me to have?
00:10:29.280 You want me to have naked pictures or what here?
00:10:31.200 You know, girls, men, you know, animals.
00:10:33.600 What would you like me to do here?
00:10:34.720 I'm I like women.
00:10:36.160 So we had a different reaction, but there was the judgment.
00:10:38.400 You always kind of feel like there's a level of a judgment.
00:10:40.640 Now I go in the military, the guy in the corner, if I, the mountains of porn VHS tapes
00:10:47.280 he had was incredible and everybody would always go to a suite.
00:10:51.040 And I wonder why is everybody going there?
00:10:52.640 And then we found out today, we're going to look at this.
00:10:54.480 Today, we're going to look at that fast forward to me running a business.
00:10:59.040 I cannot tell you how many times I've walked into one of my sales guys and they're sitting
00:11:02.720 there and all I hear is, oh, you know, the sound in the background and they're like trying
00:11:06.960 to close the window.
00:11:07.680 I'm like, bro, what are you doing, bro?
00:11:08.960 We got clients here a few months ago.
00:11:11.600 A very funny experience happened because one of my employees, uh, I said, hey, you know,
00:11:16.800 where are we at with this image that we got to put up for the thumbnail?
00:11:20.000 He says, here, let me show you the thumbnail.
00:11:21.360 I have it right here.
00:11:22.000 He takes his phone out proudly shows me the phone as he's going through it.
00:11:25.840 He forgot to close the window of his porn.
00:11:28.080 The penetration is taking place.
00:11:30.080 He was so embarrassed.
00:11:31.200 He couldn't talk to me for a couple of weeks.
00:11:32.960 Good news is he's still an employee of ours.
00:11:34.640 He hasn't been fired for a porn addiction.
00:11:36.880 He, what, what, what is it with men being addicted to porn?
00:11:41.600 And why is it that is such a bad thing for men to be addicted to porn?
00:11:46.160 I always speak from personal experience.
00:11:47.920 I can't speak for, for everyone.
00:11:50.160 That's, that's what I'm bringing here.
00:11:51.600 I mean, you can always have a psychologist who comes as well, or a scientist.
00:11:54.960 I come from personal experience.
00:11:56.240 So first of all, I want to say, I'm not an anti-porn advocate.
00:11:58.640 There are many anti-porn advocates.
00:12:00.880 If it's working for someone, God bless them.
00:12:02.800 It didn't work for me.
00:12:03.680 I'm coming from that perspective.
00:12:06.480 It's, it may not work for anyone.
00:12:07.520 It may work for everyone, but me, it's not my business.
00:12:10.720 But when I talk about why I got trapped in it is a, it's ridiculously accessible, ridiculously
00:12:16.400 accessible.
00:12:17.360 But the second, and also, I mean, there's some, you know, we like women and I like women and
00:12:22.240 that's all you see the pictures and it's, there's a, there's a lot there and they get
00:12:27.520 better and better at it.
00:12:28.480 Right.
00:12:28.640 When you talk about the magazine, um, it's, it's not the same problem.
00:12:33.200 There's an organization called fight the new drug and pornography, which combats pornography
00:12:38.240 or gives information about pornography.
00:12:40.640 And they considered a new drug, even though pornography is as old as time itself, because
00:12:45.520 internet pornography is just everything on steroids.
00:12:48.000 Like when you're done with that hustle magazine or whatever it is you were looking at to get
00:12:52.640 another one, you got to go, I don't know how old you were at the time, but you got to work
00:12:56.240 to get that next magazine, especially if you're under 18 as a teenager.
00:13:00.400 I mean, it's just right there at your fingertips more and more and more and more.
00:13:03.920 So the variety and the accessibility.
00:13:05.920 And for me, uh, what kept me in it was the shame.
00:13:09.920 And when I talk about porn addiction, I'm talking about not wanting to watch porn, promising
00:13:15.280 myself that I'll never watch porn again.
00:13:17.040 And then feeling is uncontrollable urge to go back.
00:13:21.040 And I do so, and I, what the difference for me and what kept me in there, what changed,
00:13:26.400 what's the real variable that changed is shame is talking about it.
00:13:30.480 So I was in therapy for five years, talking about other stuff and intense things.
00:13:34.960 I was sexually abused as a child.
00:13:36.480 And that was a lot of the work I was doing in therapy.
00:13:39.840 And I lied to him about the fact that I was watching pornography for five years.
00:13:43.600 So what does that tell you about the average guy who's struggling with porn?
00:13:48.000 We may be comfortable watching it and talking about it, but if we're trapped in it, can we
00:13:52.960 turn to someone and ask for help?
00:13:54.720 And that's what, that's what it took for me to get out of it.
00:13:57.440 And that's one of the main reasons I speak so that if someone else is having a hard time and say,
00:14:01.520 no shame, there's a lot of us who've been there and there's a way out and the way out is through
00:14:06.640 combating the shame.
00:14:07.920 What, so, so what, what, but if you go a little deeper, I mean, I'm on the website that says the
00:14:12.880 12 step program to get, uh, you know, stop watching porn.
00:14:17.520 And, you know, I'm on the website as well.
00:14:18.960 They just talked about fight the new drug.
00:14:21.200 Um, this is something where I get, uh, a lot of calls, uh, myself as a guy that runs a company
00:14:27.600 with 20,000 agents, I get a call from wife sometimes saying, hey, can you every once in
00:14:32.000 a while talk to the men about porn addiction?
00:14:33.760 I don't want you to bring up the name, but you know, I've caught my husband watching porn a lot
00:14:37.840 and I've, et cetera, et cetera.
00:14:38.960 So a lot of these things come from the women's side as well on, you know, I, I don't want my husband
00:14:44.960 to watch porn because he can't stop watching porn.
00:14:47.280 Right.
00:14:47.920 But to go kind of a little bit deeper, what is the challenge?
00:14:52.680 Like, what is the problem of watching porn?
00:14:55.560 I can speak from the experience from my behalf and what I've read on it myself, when I'm studying
00:15:01.660 what the challenges of this is for both were single men and married men, but for you, what
00:15:06.420 was the challenge of watching too much more?
00:15:08.140 Like what kind of negative effects did it have on you?
00:15:10.620 It consumed my life.
00:15:11.940 So it started taking up more and more time, more and more energy.
00:15:14.800 And then me pushing the boundaries, like I mentioned, going from pixels to people, but
00:15:18.800 when I peel back the onion and I said, what am I going to porn for?
00:15:22.360 Right.
00:15:22.760 Which this is a, that's really the question someone has to ask them for.
00:15:26.960 I'll give, I'll give you a great story.
00:15:28.140 So I get a call from a kid who finds me on Facebook and he's struggling a lot because
00:15:33.180 he's 21, 22 years old and he's tried and failed to stop porn multiple times, different
00:15:39.740 promises, different filters on his computer, everything.
00:15:43.320 He sees my talk.
00:15:44.460 He reaches out to me and said, dude, I've tried everything and failed.
00:15:48.160 Maybe you can, maybe you can have a call with me.
00:15:50.100 So I said, sure.
00:15:50.720 I get on the phone with him.
00:15:51.760 And the first question I asked him is, why do you watch so much porn?
00:15:55.540 And he says to me, cause I'm a guy.
00:15:57.540 So I said, so you're telling me that the reason you're going to porn every single time, the
00:16:01.100 reason you're going to porn is strictly for a physical sexual need.
00:16:03.920 That's what you're looking to get from it.
00:16:05.360 And he said, yeah, I think so.
00:16:06.940 I said, okay, obviously I didn't believe that to be the case.
00:16:09.580 Cause that wasn't the case with me.
00:16:11.600 And this is, I think the kicker, right?
00:16:13.520 So as we continue the conversation, I said, Hey, just tell me when it got the worst.
00:16:18.320 When did, when did your porn use get so bad that you said I'm done or tell me what's going
00:16:22.220 on now that you decided to message me on Facebook.
00:16:24.820 Cause that's not easy to do to reach out to someone and have this conversation.
00:16:29.280 So he says, Oh, I finished school.
00:16:31.180 I think it was in college.
00:16:32.120 I came back home.
00:16:33.720 I'm back in my parents' house.
00:16:35.800 My, one of my siblings was dealing with an illness.
00:16:38.020 I think it's very stressful and I'm watching porn.
00:16:40.900 So I said, okay, this situation turns you on.
00:16:43.900 He said, what do you mean?
00:16:44.920 I said, well, you told me the reason you watch porn is because it's like just a guy
00:16:48.240 because, you know, just a guy doing his thing.
00:16:50.200 It's sexual.
00:16:51.120 And he understood from that question that my, he understood my point from that question
00:16:56.280 that the reason he was watching pornography was because he found himself in a stressful
00:17:00.060 situation and he was using pornography or abusing pornography to meet some emotional need.
00:17:06.620 And that's where it gets wildly destructive.
00:17:10.440 Did I answer your question?
00:17:11.920 Yeah, I guess, I guess what I'm trying to find out is what is the negative impact?
00:17:16.900 So, okay.
00:17:17.180 I have some stats here for teenagers, right?
00:17:19.200 Nine out of 10 boys are exposed to pornography before the age of 18.
00:17:22.400 I'm surprised it's nine out of 10.
00:17:23.660 I figured it'd be a hundred percent of kids that are exposed to pornography.
00:17:26.920 Six out of 10 girls are exposed to pornography before 18.
00:17:29.640 On average, a male's first experience to pornography is at 12 years old, okay?
00:17:34.440 71% of teens have done something to hide what they do online from their parents.
00:17:39.620 I believe that teenage boys 12 to 17 have the highest risk of developing a porn addiction,
00:17:45.820 right?
00:17:46.200 Okay.
00:17:48.000 Then the next one says, I have here is from wives.
00:17:51.480 My husband is addicted to porn.
00:17:53.500 Pornography addiction does not only affect the addict, but it can also negatively impact
00:17:57.340 the well-being of the individual's wife or girlfriend.
00:17:59.000 The addiction can cause the following feelings within the wife of a porn addict.
00:18:02.700 Rejection, betrayal, depression, abandonment, isolation, loneliness, humiliation, anger,
00:18:08.360 right?
00:18:09.000 So did you, like my way of studying a topic, if I'm struggling with something in my life,
00:18:14.600 I'm trying to raise money.
00:18:15.500 I have no clue what the different controls are.
00:18:17.320 Before I go and raise this, you know, next money, I got to find out what controls are.
00:18:21.400 I go read everything and anything I can find on the topic.
00:18:23.820 If I'm struggling with parenting a girl versus a boy, I want to go read everything I can on
00:18:28.440 that topic.
00:18:29.240 When you were going to the rabbit hole, did you yourself go out there and do a ton of
00:18:32.860 due diligence to see the effects of porn can have on men, on singles, on married?
00:18:37.940 Or was it just like, look, I'm struggling with this.
00:18:40.260 I met with my therapist and then I just wanted to talk about it.
00:18:42.920 Did you do a lot of research on due diligence?
00:18:44.660 So the research for me came to addiction and that's where I spent a lot of time.
00:18:49.640 And I looked at this very quickly as an addiction.
00:18:52.040 As soon as I read, I read a great book by Patrick Harnes called Out of the Shadows.
00:18:57.260 And Patrick Harnes talks about sex addiction.
00:18:59.560 He's actually the one who coined the term sex addiction, not coined the term, but he was
00:19:03.080 the first therapist.
00:19:04.940 They call him like the father of sex addiction recovery, where he was the first therapist
00:19:08.240 to really talk about the possibility of someone being able to be addicted to sex.
00:19:13.320 Some don't believe there could be an addiction.
00:19:16.380 So as soon as I read that book and I saw the parallels in my life with what he was talking
00:19:21.660 about, that became my obsession.
00:19:23.040 My obsession became recovery from addiction versus how destructive pornography is for anyone
00:19:29.360 else.
00:19:30.180 Got it.
00:19:30.360 Listen, for me, it's that my motivation.
00:19:32.700 And in terms of girls, I mean, what's the likelihood that I'm going to hit on girls less?
00:19:37.920 I'm going to approach them less.
00:19:39.020 I'm going to interact with them less.
00:19:40.580 All of those things is going to, in a real human way, right?
00:19:45.200 Because I have something easily available to me that met my need in some way.
00:19:50.900 So I can talk for hours about the way it affected my life.
00:19:55.240 I think some of these questions that you're asking about how large of a problem it is and
00:19:59.640 how much it affects people, someone else is probably better suited to answer those questions.
00:20:05.300 I only ask it because if I speak on a topic, like, let's just say everywhere I go, I get
00:20:10.460 pulled over for different topics.
00:20:12.020 If I'm a valley guy, I pull up, a valley guy will get out and say, he's Italian.
00:20:14.980 He'll say, man, I got to tell you, out of all the interviews of mobsters, which one do
00:20:19.160 you like the most?
00:20:20.120 Is it Sammy DeBoer-Gervano?
00:20:21.540 Is it Frank Collada?
00:20:22.560 Is it Oscar Goodman?
00:20:23.840 So it starts a conversation.
00:20:25.260 Then I get hit up from emails from people from Sicily, from people from all over the world.
00:20:29.460 You should interview this Russian mobster.
00:20:30.800 You should interview this Albanian mobster.
00:20:32.760 And then I'll go into bodybuilding and a bunch of people from bodybuilding come to me.
00:20:36.240 I just wonder if you talk about a topic this sensitive as porn addiction, did a lot of
00:20:39.980 doctors, psychologists, therapists come up to you, send you research to say, here's
00:20:44.220 the challenges.
00:20:44.760 And the reason why I ask this question is because I think this is as big of a deal as you think
00:20:50.240 it is.
00:20:51.140 But I think the impact on this is very massive for the community, for somebody like yourself
00:20:57.720 who's already made an influence.
00:20:58.820 You got 3 million people on this topic.
00:21:00.180 I watched Pamela Anderson talk about porn.
00:21:03.360 And it was one of the most fascinating interviews I saw with Pamela Anderson.
00:21:07.720 So you know, when you think about Pamela, what do you think about?
00:21:10.540 You think about Baywatch.
00:21:11.560 You think about who's the guy she was with.
00:21:13.920 What's the guy's name she was with?
00:21:15.720 I don't think.
00:21:16.960 I don't know what his name is.
00:21:18.140 You know who I'm talking about.
00:21:18.880 The good looking guy.
00:21:19.860 What's his name?
00:21:20.800 Tommy Lee.
00:21:21.400 Tommy Lee.
00:21:22.120 Yeah, Tommy Lee.
00:21:22.680 So hey, they're together and their video came out and it was so public and all this other
00:21:26.700 stuff.
00:21:26.880 So and then she had a son and then she talked about in an interview where, look, you know,
00:21:32.100 when you're going out there meeting men and you're having sex, it's starting to get annoying
00:21:36.180 because men think they have to have sex with you the way men have sex with women and porn
00:21:40.820 because that's what they get their education from.
00:21:44.040 So a lot of times that becomes a form of education where single men are thinking, hey, that's what
00:21:48.900 I need to do to go, please, X, Y, Z.
00:21:51.240 Number two is, you know, when if you're married and you're watching too much porn, it creates
00:21:57.620 a distance between you and your wife almost because, you know, it's kind of like, man,
00:22:02.100 you know, there's no way in the world you can meet this expectation of what I saw in
00:22:05.140 here.
00:22:05.400 So anything below that is, you know, just not going to turn me on the way X, Y, Z turned
00:22:09.380 me on in this movie that I watch or in this series that I watch.
00:22:12.540 I was just curious to know if you had any thoughts on that.
00:22:15.100 Please.
00:22:15.360 Please elaborate on that point of what's turning someone on because one of the things that
00:22:21.220 impacted me towards the end, I committed in March of 2013.
00:22:26.520 That's when I committed to stop watching porn and it's been about four and a half years
00:22:30.160 since I've seen anything.
00:22:30.960 So it took a few years.
00:22:31.920 Zero, zero.
00:22:32.540 You haven't watched any for four and a half years.
00:22:34.360 I haven't intentionally went to watch porn in four and a half years.
00:22:36.940 Yeah.
00:22:37.080 It's sometimes hard not to bump into things like you mentioned, right?
00:22:40.040 Your employee opens a phone in front of you.
00:22:42.540 So if you had a streak going, then that wouldn't work.
00:22:44.460 So I'm specific about what I mean.
00:22:46.120 I haven't intentionally gone to to look at porn, but I saw an interview with a porn star
00:22:50.960 a couple of months before my decision to stop.
00:22:54.280 And she spoke about walking in on her boyfriend watching pornography.
00:22:59.140 And right.
00:23:00.500 So she said her whole view of pornography changed in that instance.
00:23:04.400 Right.
00:23:05.280 Because until then, she's like, OK, I'm hotter than these other girls.
00:23:08.720 That's the reason why everyone's watching me.
00:23:10.540 And, you know, makes sense.
00:23:14.320 Right.
00:23:14.500 I'm the hottest.
00:23:15.240 They're less hot.
00:23:16.000 So watch me have sex.
00:23:17.500 And here is a guy.
00:23:19.200 Here's a man.
00:23:19.880 The one man who I want to have sex with.
00:23:21.740 And he's watching pornography of other people.
00:23:23.740 And that's when that's when she realized for herself that porn kind of operates on a little
00:23:28.400 bit of a different track than the regular sex drive.
00:23:32.220 In the sense that it's not just I'm more attracted to this.
00:23:37.000 So I want so I want the one that's most attractive.
00:23:39.820 There's something about the variety.
00:23:41.460 There's something about the it being as a not a human being being inanimate.
00:23:48.360 There's something about being able to watch anything that we are thinking about that day.
00:23:53.840 Right.
00:23:54.860 Et cetera, et cetera.
00:23:55.760 That pushes us in that direction or pulls us in that direction.
00:23:59.900 And she said after that, she was done with porn.
00:24:02.220 She realized that, yeah, what she's doing isn't helping people.
00:24:06.120 It's not, you know, it's I don't know.
00:24:08.600 Some some people say, you know, I watch porn with my wife to kind of get myself to get
00:24:12.800 the engines revved.
00:24:14.220 And over there, she said, hey, this is something else going on, because if it was just about
00:24:18.340 that, he'd be sleeping with me.
00:24:20.040 And instead, other people are watching me are watching me have sex.
00:24:26.740 And the person who could is watching someone else have sex.
00:24:29.340 Something not good is going on here.
00:24:30.660 That's a great perspective from somebody who's in that field.
00:24:33.720 You walk in onto your man watching porn of another girl while you're you're a porn star
00:24:39.880 and you're very, very interesting perspective.
00:24:43.200 I'd be curious to know what the what her name is.
00:24:44.960 I'd love to interview myself to see what she can bring to the table.
00:24:48.000 So, look, let's talk about this part.
00:24:49.940 I think the one part with this is it's such a sensitive topic that, you know, sometimes
00:24:56.280 when people talk about this topic, it almost comes across as, oh, I can't believe you do
00:25:02.500 such a thing.
00:25:03.200 And I can't believe, you know, it's kind of like looking down at people who have watched
00:25:07.240 it.
00:25:07.420 And then there's also another group where it's where it's what's the big deal?
00:25:14.340 You know, just it's not a big deal.
00:25:15.560 Just drop it versus not realizing that, you know, just like a guy's addicted to Xanax or
00:25:20.020 Vicodin or cocaine or pot or, you know, heroin, whatever, maybe it's a similar challenging
00:25:24.780 thing to get rid of.
00:25:25.620 The difference is if you want Xanax, you have to go to get it from somebody for a couple
00:25:29.680 dollars a pop.
00:25:30.460 If you want Coke, nose candy, you got to go find somebody to buy it from.
00:25:34.800 But if you want, you know, porn, you're two seconds away from having it.
00:25:38.920 The dealer is sitting right in front of you at any time.
00:25:41.060 Especially for kids.
00:25:43.120 Yeah.
00:25:43.760 I mean, it's magnified for kids.
00:25:45.540 We do so much to protect kids from alcohol, from everything under the sun.
00:25:48.900 And then what do they have to do?
00:25:49.780 They have to checkmark that they're 18.
00:25:51.760 Yeah.
00:25:52.300 And it's just a crazy question for you.
00:25:55.020 Did your parents talk to you about sex early on or no?
00:25:58.060 No.
00:25:59.080 They didn't talk about sex early on.
00:26:00.260 OK, got it.
00:26:02.120 Neither did mine.
00:26:03.040 I mean, my mother would ask me in Germany, have you taken science yet?
00:26:05.960 I said, why do you keep asking me if I've taken science yet?
00:26:07.980 Like, what are you asking me about why I've taken science yet?
00:26:11.060 Walk me through.
00:26:12.300 Someone's watching this.
00:26:13.640 OK, right after they watch this interview, they clear history because they don't want
00:26:18.500 to see that they're watching an interview like this about porn because they don't want
00:26:21.100 anybody to know that they're watching, you know, a video with history.
00:26:24.420 Something tells me this interview, the percentage of people watching the entire interview is going
00:26:29.120 to be higher than usual because they want to see exactly what things are going to be said.
00:26:32.900 Because I know a lot of people struggle with this.
00:26:36.840 What is the process?
00:26:37.820 I have it in front of me, but I'm curious to know what process you took.
00:26:40.440 What was your process to go through dropping porn where for four and a half years you haven't
00:26:46.780 intentionally watched any porn?
00:26:48.900 What was the process you took that worked for you?
00:26:50.760 There were three components of the process.
00:26:53.220 There was therapy.
00:26:55.080 Well, first, before I go into that, it was whatever it takes, right?
00:26:58.620 It's if someone asked you what you had to do in business, the real answer is I was willing
00:27:03.260 to do whatever it took.
00:27:04.220 And this is what it happened to take for me.
00:27:06.020 So I want to qualify that it was 100 percent whatever it took.
00:27:09.900 I it was the most important priority for me.
00:27:12.160 Once I noticed how much it was affecting my life and the way I found out is trying to
00:27:18.280 stop doing it, doing it for a period of time.
00:27:20.140 And I got at one point, the first time I tried to stop was 57 days.
00:27:23.660 I was feeling freaking amazing.
00:27:26.020 So many parts of my life getting better.
00:27:27.620 But on the other hand, I was feeling amazing in the sense that my feelings started coming
00:27:32.380 up, right?
00:27:33.060 So it's like I started feeling better.
00:27:35.220 And some of those feelings were extremely uncomfortable feelings that were coming up.
00:27:38.980 It's when I became better at feeling because some of the porn numbed so much of it.
00:27:43.880 So I started some of the trauma, some of the pain, some of the confusion, some of that started
00:27:48.220 coming up as well.
00:27:49.300 But in answer to your question, there was therapy, there was support groups, and then a little
00:27:53.780 bit of help from technology.
00:27:55.060 That was kind of the three-pronged approach that I took to stopping to watch porn.
00:28:00.520 Can you tell me support groups and what technology?
00:28:04.340 Yeah.
00:28:04.520 So technology, at the time, I used something like K9 Browser, and then the general stuff
00:28:10.880 on the iPhone when I got an iPhone.
00:28:12.560 I'm sure there are better stuff now.
00:28:14.520 I know there's, I've worked with Covenant Eyes.
00:28:17.900 Covenant Eyes, I think, is a really good one.
00:28:20.740 Covenant Eyes uses a, it's kind of like a mentor relationship where I've been on the other
00:28:28.800 side of that.
00:28:29.340 So I didn't know this software when I was trying to stop.
00:28:31.600 But the problem with using something like K9 Browser or some of the other stuff is that
00:28:37.220 there are always ways around it.
00:28:39.200 Whereas Covenant Eyes kind of screenshots at random times, and it gives someone on the
00:28:43.820 other end, hey, the guy didn't use his phone for a long period of time, or here are some
00:28:50.020 snapshots.
00:28:51.480 For example, I can be on Instagram that's not picked up by the browser, but I'm watching
00:28:55.520 stuff that may as well be porn.
00:28:57.040 Something like Covenant Eyes will see that, they'll take pictures, and then you'll have
00:29:02.300 a conversation with your accountability partner.
00:29:04.300 So imagine one of your employees came to you and said, Patrick, I'm struggling watching porn.
00:29:08.200 Will you be my accountability partner on Covenant Eyes?
00:29:10.440 And then it'll send you reports and have that conversation.
00:29:13.820 So there's a lot of different technology out there.
00:29:15.860 I used K9 Browser and the regular Apple stuff just to limit it.
00:29:19.540 And the reason is, this isn't a fail safe.
00:29:21.240 I don't have anything today on my phones, just to be clear.
00:29:23.460 What it does is, it just gives you a space between stimulus and response.
00:29:29.020 And for me, that I've sat down on my computer so many times, I see the Google screen, and
00:29:33.920 I'm already, for years, when I saw that Google image, that was a trigger for me.
00:29:37.880 So I needed something to block all Google images, even on my work computer for several
00:29:41.700 years.
00:29:42.300 Now that trigger has weakened.
00:29:43.760 So one was technology, but again, that's just to put a small gap.
00:29:46.760 Support groups, I use the 12 steps.
00:29:48.980 I'm a big proponent of the 12 steps.
00:29:50.500 Obviously, there's an anonymous factor to the 12 steps, because in the 12 steps, no
00:29:55.540 one wants to come and say, or not so much the 12 steps, but the specific programs within
00:30:00.980 the 12 steps.
00:30:01.600 So I won't name the program that I'm a part of.
00:30:04.080 And the reason for the anonymous factor is, you know, let's say next week, I slip on porn
00:30:08.420 or I'm found in a strip club or something else.
00:30:10.640 Someone doesn't say, oh, look, it doesn't work.
00:30:12.920 It does work, but I don't want to be the poster child.
00:30:16.100 There are no poster childs for any of these programs.
00:30:18.780 And then therapy, really deep dive in therapy, and therapy means everything you can imagine
00:30:23.160 plus.
00:30:24.200 You know, are you close to both your parents, mom and dad?
00:30:28.180 Yeah, I am.
00:30:29.280 Respect my mom.
00:30:30.720 You're a very values guy.
00:30:32.440 What did you pick up from your mom and what did you pick up from your dad?
00:30:35.400 Because you seem like a very raised, properly values and principled type of guy.
00:30:40.580 Thanks.
00:30:40.900 I appreciate that.
00:30:42.060 Both my parents, you know, we didn't grow up with much.
00:30:44.520 Both my parents decided to become more religious in their late 20s, early 30s.
00:30:49.060 So they brought us up with religion, but in a way that was not indoctrinated to them,
00:30:55.380 but chosen for them.
00:30:56.620 So I think that was a little bit different.
00:30:57.960 They both chose.
00:30:59.060 It was a very religious life, a very Hasidic life.
00:31:01.100 I don't live that way today, but I saw that my dad was very involved in the community.
00:31:06.940 He helped out in pretty much anything he could.
00:31:08.600 We didn't grow up with much money.
00:31:09.620 I was one of nine kids.
00:31:11.000 My dad was a government employee and my mom was a part-time teacher, but I saw them help
00:31:14.800 people and I saw them, uh, I saw them do what they could to, to be better people and
00:31:21.520 be better people within the community, within the community.
00:31:24.400 So respect.
00:31:25.440 I mean, it's felt it's, it's, it's felt you, you, um, I'm in a business of reading people.
00:31:30.120 It's what I do for a living.
00:31:31.080 Many times people think I'm like a entrepreneur or insurance or finance.
00:31:34.800 I'm in the business of reading people.
00:31:36.560 That's what I get paid to do.
00:31:37.860 And I've been doing that for 20 years and I'm not on all the time, but I'm, can get
00:31:42.740 a pretty good read for folks.
00:31:43.960 So, uh, so flip the question for you now on, you know, raising kids.
00:31:49.900 Do you have any kids yet or no?
00:31:51.480 I have three kids.
00:31:52.480 You have three kids.
00:31:53.180 Are you trying to beat your parents record or no?
00:31:55.900 No, but I have a two-year-old, a one-year-old and a newborn.
00:31:58.600 So I'm, we're moving quickly.
00:32:00.700 That, then that means that you're using your addiction in the right way.
00:32:04.660 You're using it with one family and you're building your kids.
00:32:07.780 Uh, by the way, Patrick, a lot of people who are porn addicts don't have a lot of sex
00:32:12.480 with their wives.
00:32:13.760 So I know that, but I know that.
00:32:16.320 Yeah.
00:32:16.460 I know that.
00:32:16.880 It's so funny.
00:32:17.400 I got a call, very random call.
00:32:20.540 Hey, how many times do you and your wife have sex?
00:32:23.480 I said, what do you think?
00:32:25.920 And you know, it's like, well, we only have sex once a month.
00:32:28.660 I'm like, what?
00:32:30.320 We don't have sex once a month.
00:32:31.440 Why?
00:32:32.240 I don't know.
00:32:32.600 It's just once a month.
00:32:33.400 So, and that's not one person or two or three.
00:32:35.840 That's many people who have asked that weird question.
00:32:38.200 And for whatever reason, that question is being asked a lot in the last five years.
00:32:42.140 But here's a question for you, just out of curiosity.
00:32:44.540 We're both parents.
00:32:45.680 You got three kids, two, one, and one on the way.
00:32:47.960 I got three and one on the way.
00:32:50.140 A newborn.
00:32:50.880 That's right.
00:32:51.200 I got a nine, seven, a four, and one on the way.
00:32:53.220 Okay.
00:32:54.500 What are you planning on?
00:32:56.020 Like the approach you're going to take with this, with your kids?
00:32:58.380 Have you thought about it?
00:32:59.120 Have you sat there and said, you know, when my kids come up this age, this is how
00:33:02.580 I'm going to speak to them about this.
00:33:03.780 Have you processed that at all?
00:33:05.380 I'll tell you something that happened a few weeks ago.
00:33:08.420 They're not necessarily, not for my kids.
00:33:09.840 I've thought about it for my kids, but I got a lot of nephews and nieces.
00:33:13.400 A few weeks ago, I come downstairs with a t-shirt.
00:33:16.940 It's a t-shirt from Fight the New Drug that says, Porn Kills Love.
00:33:20.040 And I don't think about wearing around my kids because my kids don't read yet.
00:33:22.700 But my nephew was over and my nephew was, um, two nephews.
00:33:27.700 One is 10, one is nine.
00:33:29.640 And the nine-year-old says, what's porn?
00:33:33.500 Well, he sees my t-shirt.
00:33:34.900 That's a good question, by the way.
00:33:36.600 So at first I, I turned kind of red.
00:33:38.640 I was like, oh shit, I wore the wrong t-shirt.
00:33:40.840 I weighed a little bit.
00:33:41.880 I ran upstairs.
00:33:42.600 I changed my shirt.
00:33:43.880 And then a funny, I actually left.
00:33:46.120 I went to a, I said, I have to think about it.
00:33:48.380 Let me answer you another time.
00:33:49.880 And I actually went to a 12 step meeting after that.
00:33:53.360 And while I was sitting there, I was thinking, saying, hey, he saw the Porn Kills Love and
00:33:57.540 he asked about porn and I got a little bit ashamed.
00:33:59.440 But if you look at those stats, that's the average age that kids look at porn.
00:34:03.320 Wow.
00:34:03.820 And that's what I told his mom.
00:34:05.220 I said that, you know, yes, I probably wore the wrong shirt, right?
00:34:09.960 Around kids.
00:34:10.660 But on the other hand, I think that a conversation has to happen.
00:34:14.320 And that's, that, that's what I have.
00:34:17.340 That's what I think about with my kids.
00:34:18.660 There's nothing you can do technology wise to stop your kids from watching porn.
00:34:23.080 Yes.
00:34:23.260 You want to have blockers.
00:34:24.220 You want to have filters, but what are you going to do when they're at a friend's house
00:34:27.080 and you think you're going to tell them they're not going to have a phone?
00:34:29.100 Then they're going to feel like the kid that's left out.
00:34:31.220 So the only, the only thing we could do sort of, you know, if we want to take on the fight
00:34:36.520 with the government and everything else with the porn industry, there's some people
00:34:40.020 doing that.
00:34:40.500 But short of that, if the industry looks like it does now and it's as accessible, then
00:34:44.540 we got to be able to sit down and have conversations and they know they can, they can talk to us.
00:34:49.020 Well, I can tell you, there's three types of audiences that are going to watch this video.
00:34:52.440 This interview, one is going to say, I don't struggle with porn.
00:34:55.660 Great.
00:34:55.980 Then share this with somebody who, you know, that may struggle with porn.
00:34:59.300 Then there's going to be an audience that's going to say, yeah, I watch porn, but I don't
00:35:03.200 consider myself an addict.
00:35:04.220 And I think you guys are crazy.
00:35:05.340 If you think it's a big deal, it's just watching a movie.
00:35:07.960 It's not a big deal.
00:35:08.860 And they don't think they have a challenge.
00:35:10.640 No problem.
00:35:11.120 Then there's going to be the third kind that's going to say, you know what?
00:35:14.680 I may have a porn addiction.
00:35:16.740 I may have a challenge that I can't stop consuming the content.
00:35:21.200 We are going to put the link to everything Ellie just shared with us, whether it's Covenant
00:35:25.440 Eyes, whether it's the book he talked about Out of Shadows by Patrick J. Carnes.
00:35:31.280 We'll put that below as well.
00:35:32.220 And I'll put the link below as well to fight the new drug for you to go do your own due diligence
00:35:35.740 if this matters to you.
00:35:37.420 And if you want to get a hold of Ellie as well, we'll put the link below for you to
00:35:41.220 get a hold of Ellie.
00:35:42.020 Ellie, thank you so much for your time.
00:35:43.780 This was very helpful.
00:35:45.380 Appreciate it, Patrick.
00:35:46.440 Have an awesome day.
00:35:47.480 Take care.
00:35:48.360 Take care.
00:35:49.260 Sensitive topic, but millions deal with it.
00:35:51.300 And if you're somebody that watched the entire interview, I'd be curious to know what you
00:35:54.260 took away from it.
00:35:55.000 Maybe you comment anonymously.
00:35:56.500 Maybe you comment proudly and say, here's where I'm at.
00:35:59.080 But definitely, if you're someone that relates to Ellie, we have links below to everything
00:36:05.220 he spoke about.
00:36:05.920 And if you want to watch another interview that has to do regarding porn addiction and
00:36:09.600 dopamine by a doctor who does this professionally, click over to watch the interview with Daniel
00:36:14.320 Lieberman.
00:36:15.220 Take care, everybody.
00:36:15.900 Bye-bye.