1112 - Why Quitting Porn Gets Harder As You Get Older

A lot of men assume porn is something you grow out of, that with maturity, discipline,

and responsibility, they should just get easier.

But for many men, the opposite happens.

The older they get, the harder it feels to quit.

And that can be discouraging, especially if you've been trying for years.

In this episode, I want to explain why quitting porn often gets harder as you get older,

and why that doesn't mean you're losing the battle.

It means you're misunderstanding what you're really up against.

Talking to the man within podcast, my name is Cynthia Sam, I am a men's transformation

coach, international speaker, and a former pastor of 10 years, and I've dedicated the

last seven years of my life to helping men like you quit pornography.

I've been fortunate to be part of over a thousand transformations.

My book, The Last Reel Apps, has been read by tens of thousands of men, so they could get

their lives back on track, living with purpose, integrity, and freedom, and I want the same

for you.

Now, if you do want a copy of that book, you can get it at thelastreelapsebook.com.

Now I give to you, it's completely free of charge.

Just need an email, so I know where to send it.

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Let's jump into today's material.

So I think the first thing we have to understand is the reality of the situation.

I'm not here to sugarcoat the truth or butter you up.

I'm here to tell you it's straight and then help you get your life on track.

The reality is, more years equals deeper groups.

For most men, porn you start young.

In fact, I would venture a guess that if you are listening to this show, your first exposure

to pornography was under the age of 12.

Most men that are struggling with compulsive sexual issues in their adult years had early

exposure.

That's a guarantee, and it's usually before the age of 12.

These days, it's before the age of nine.

For most men, porn you start young, which means over time, repetition, strength, and

pathways, and a lot of these responses become automatic.

There's less of a thought process that goes into it, and it's just kind of what we do.

Now, this doesn't make porn less sinful, but it does help us understand what's really going

on, which is that the habit is more entrenched.

The sin is kind of the act, and we know we are to eliminate these kinds of sins from

our lives, but it's the habitual nature.

It's the deeper grooves in the brain that explain the persistence, and why this thing has

been here so long.

Now, what a lot of, I would say older men, and older is a relative term.

I'm 35, and I kind of feel like I'm an older guy, even though most guys that are older

than me would kind of give me a smack across the face for thinking that.

It is whatever you think is older.

This is definitely true, and it's true whether you're 20 years old, and you're actually a very

young man, but you might feel like you're getting older, or you're 99 years old.

Men take on more responsibility, more pressure, and more expectations, as more time goes

on.

I mean, stress very rarely decreases, and I know people who are financially free at a

young age, they've solved one of the biggest stressors in their lives, and they have tons,

and tons of stress as their lives go on.

It's not really about that.

Stress compounds everything, right?

Not just stress, but the pressure, the expectations, the responsibility, all of it compounds

in our careers, our marriages, our parenting, our friendships, our church communities, everything

kind of gets compounded by this stress, and not just the stress, but the responsibility,

that we tend to take on more, not less, as time goes on, and so porn shifts from curiosity,

the way it started at a young age, to coping, and this is where, you know, it's really important

you guys understand, the nervous system, right?

The more stress you have on your nervous system, the more your body will seek relief, and

if you don't have healthy outlets, then porn becomes a fast and familiar regulator.

So it's not that the desire gets stronger with time, in fact, usually it's the opposite.

Life got heavier, and that's what often keeps us stuck in these deep grooves of pornography.

Now, the other thing that increases with time, that we don't really talk enough about

as Christian men, is shame.

Because as we age, we feel like I should be further ahead, I should be past this.

I look kind of man, my age still struggles with this, this is embarrassing, and so we shame

ourselves, and so when we're operating out of shame, well, then we operate in secrecy,

and we isolate, and you guys know that's the seedbed for the enemy to wreak havoc in our

lives, right?

He tempts us, he throws everything at us, and we don't have the support structures, the

strength, or the wherewithal to resist.

Older men tend to reach out less, not more.

And unfortunately, it is older men who also are more prone to getting caught, because that's

the whole premise, right?

If you're married and your wife doesn't know, or she knows a bit, but she doesn't know

the full extent, you either confess or you get caught, and the only thing that is going

to determine what you do is you, right?

Like, either you choose to confess, or enough time goes on and you get caught.

And so the greater shame, the more hiding, the more secrecy, all of it leads to guidance,

reaching out less, but actually that leaves them more vulnerable and much more likely to

get caught.

Now, even though I'm talking about, you know, confessing and getting caught, the truth

is conviction is what should really drive this more than anything, because I know you're

here, and I know you want to strengthen your relationship with God, and it's conviction.

We don't want to just do something because it's right, although you still get credit

for that, you know, doing the right thing, and we also don't want to just do something

out of fear of, like, I don't want to be found out, although maybe that's going to factor

in, and that's okay, but we want conviction to be at the center of this, right?

And shame drives us to hiding, but if we operate with conviction, if our hearts are actually

alive, the Holy Spirit can convict us, and we act on it, it draws us towards God, and

that's a really beautiful thing.

Now, some important things for you guys to understand, okay?

Harder does not mean hopeless, okay?

It is harder when you get older.

There's no way I can sugarcoat that.

It doesn't mean that you're hopeless.

Scripture itself assumes that transformation is a process, right?

There's nothing in Scripture that says you should be instantly perfect and changed, right?

We are being perfected.

That language is used all throughout Scripture, especially the New Testament.

The brain remains plastic, okay?

I shared in an episode earlier this month where you're talking about the neuroscience

behind porn addiction and all that kind of stuff, and I shared a story about a guy who's

over 70 years old who, after 50 years of being addicted to porn and cheating on his wife,

rewired his brain when he finished with us, he was clean and porn for two years.

The brain is plastic.

The nervous system is trainable, and probably most importantly, as God's grace is equally

available to the young, the old, and the in between.

So your age is not an issue here, okay?

But trying to fight a formed habit with unformed tools, that's a problem.

And that's why you're here, because I'm not going to leave you without some tools or

some practical things that you can take away from today's episode.

So the first thing is I want you to stop treating this like a willpower problem, okay?

Trust me, if this was a willpower issue, with all that willpower that you've put towards

quitting porn for however many years it's been, you would have figured it out by now.

Your willpower is finite, especially under chronic stress, okay?

Number two, we have to learn to regulate, all right?

We can't just resist, we have to learn to regulate, learn to calm ourselves down.

And this, you can learn this very quickly.

Like it does not matter how deep the grooves are, it doesn't matter how much trauma, it

doesn't matter if you're 119 years old, you can learn to regulate, right?

We are called to resist sin.

And we are not able to do that because we are poorly regulated.

And learning to regulate really goes a long way.

Okay number three, you have to understand that struggle, these struggles are solutions

to deeper problems.

Porn is a solution.

Did you know that porn is the solution for most guys in today's day and age.

It's solving the problem of disconnection, of feeling alone, of feeling uncomfortable,

of feeling inadequate, of feeling like you're not good enough.

Porn is solving a problem and you have to understand what the underlying issue is.

And if you fail to do that, you will fail to change anything in your life dramatically.

Okay, and the last thing is, you don't need to keep trying the obedience thing in isolation, right?

Like you have to ask yourself, would God rather that you did the right thing once, but you did it alone?

Or that you did the right thing for the rest of your life, but needed some help from others?

Like which one do you think God would prefer in your life?

When you have community, when you have brotherhood, it's going to deshame the struggle.

It's going to reinforce identity.

It's going to catch you when you fall or when you're weak.

And it's going to allow you to sustainably live by those convictions and obey the voice of the Lord.

Holiness was never meant to be practiced alone, right?

This is a communal thing, we're in this thing together.

So look, here's the deal, okay?

If quitting porn feels harder now than it did years ago, it doesn't mean you're failing.

It means the habit has had some more time to form and life has had more weight to add the pressure to it.

Now, the answer for you is not pretending that this isn't a moral issue or that this isn't a big deal, it is.

But that alone doesn't explain why habits persist, right?

And so there are psychological explanations.

There are things underneath the surface that we need to address.

And that's what I want for you, if there's nothing else you get from that, let that be the message.

Now, this is why I wrote my book, The Last Relapse.

This is basically laying out my entire framework that I've, again, the same framework that has helped me coach thousands of guys into freedom.

It's the framework that helped me experience 10 plus years of freedom from sin, 10 years in counting, praise God.

It's not about excusing sin and it's not about just trying to push your way through it.

It's really about addressing what feels it over time.

If that sounds like something you're interested in, you just want to clear ground a place to start.

You can get a free copy at thelastrelapsebook.com

or you can buy anywhere books are sold and we donate all those profits to charity in Uganda.

Now, here's the deal.

I'm sorry, that charity does evangelistic soccer tournaments to preach the gospel in Muslim villages and to invest back in the local economy.

I don't have time to explain it all, but it's amazing and it's a good endeavor.

So either way, it's a win-win.

Here's the deal, my friend.

Freedom rarely arrives in a dramatic moment.

It compounds with obedience, wisdom, and support or practice consistently.

If you're ready to take the next step, get your copy of the lastrelapsebook.com.

If you already downloaded it, you haven't read through it.

Hey, this is a reminder.

And as always, you can join the Last Relapsebook community.

We'd love to have you in there and in that community, there's a free workbook, there's a free course.

Tons of material for you to get started and to really make sure that you have your last relapse too.

Thelastrelapsebook.com.

Guys, thanks for listening.

I'll see you in the next episode.