152: Is Your Smartphone Training You to Be Addicted to Porn? How Technology Hijacks Dopamine, Presence, and Real Connection

What if your smartphone is quietly keeping you stuck in pornography addiction? And not just because of the access, but something much deeper?

Most men who are trying to overcome porn addiction focus on the obvious problem: the relapse, the secrecy, the shame, the loss of confidence, the damage to marriage, and the spiritual weight that comes after giving in again.

And yes, porn has to be addressed directly.

But in this episode, I want to help you look at something deeper: the way your relationship with technology may be training the same instant gratification system that keeps porn addiction alive.

I was recently a guest on the Therapy Brothers podcast with Tyler Patrick, and this conversation went deep into one of the most important recovery topics of our time. We talked about dopamine, smartphones, social media, pornography addiction recovery, emotional regulation, real connection, and the hidden ways technology can weaken a man’s ability to be present with God, his wife, his kids, his work, and his own life.

The truth is, your phone may not be sexually explicit, but it may still be training your brain to chase cheap dopamine. Every time you reach for your phone when you feel bored, awkward, lonely, anxious, or uncomfortable, you are teaching your nervous system to escape discomfort instead of work through it. And for a man recovering from porn addiction, that matters deeply.

In this episode, Tyler and I talk through the four pillars of recovery I use at No More Desire: emotional, neurological, biological, and relational, with a spiritual foundation underneath it all. Porn addiction is not only a behavior problem. It is often a symptom of a deeper lifestyle pattern where the brain, body, emotions, and relationships have been trained around escape.

We also talk about the difference between base pleasures and noble pleasures. Base pleasures are low-effort, high-reward experiences like pornography, endless scrolling, binge-watching, gaming, and constant entertainment. Noble pleasures require effort or presence, but they create deeper joy over time. Exercise, prayer, meaningful work, honest conversation, real intimacy in marriage, time with your children, and connection with God are all examples of noble pleasures.

This is such an important distinction because if a man trains his brain on cheap dopamine all day, real life starts to feel boring. His wife feels inconvenient. His kids feel like interruptions. Prayer feels slow. Work feels impossible. Silence feels uncomfortable. And when life gets painful or stressful, porn can start to look like the fastest way out.

But my friend, recovery is not just about removing porn. It is about rebuilding a life where porn loses its power.

In this conversation, we also talk about what I call relationship replacement. Your brain works through relationships. You have a relationship with God, with yourself, with your spouse, with your body, with food, with work, with nature, with hobbies, and yes, with technology. For many men, the phone has become one of the most dominant relationships in their lives. It gets their first attention in the morning, fills every quiet moment, follows them into family time, and becomes a shield against boredom, silence, awkwardness, and emotional discomfort.

That is a serious issue for porn addiction recovery because pornography also functions as a shield. It offers the feeling of connection without the vulnerability of being known. It gives sexual reward without requiring patience, sacrifice, emotional maturity, or real love.

If you are trying to quit porn, you have to pay attention to the way your entire life is training you. Your screen time, your sleep, your food, your exercise, your relationships, your emotional habits, your spiritual life, and your daily rhythms all matter.

This episode is not about shaming technology use. It is about becoming conscious. It is about asking whether your phone is helping you become the man you want to be or whether it is quietly pulling you away from presence, peace, connection, and self-command.

If you have been struggling to quit porn and feel like your cravings keep coming back no matter how hard you try, this conversation will help you think differently. You may not only need stronger willpower. You may need a stronger lifestyle. You may need to rebuild your emotional resilience, retrain your dopamine system, care for your body, strengthen your relationships, and create rhythms that help you stay connected to what is real.

At No More Desire, I believe freedom from porn comes as you build a recovery mindset and lifestyle. You are not just trying to stop a behavior. You are becoming a man who is more present, more honest, more grounded, more connected, and more capable of love.

If you want practical help overcoming pornography addiction, check out my free recovery tools at nomoredesire.com/tools. You can find my free workshop, my free ebook, and resources to help you start building a life where porn loses its power.

Keep learning, keep growing, and keep building that recovery mindset and lifestyle.

Check out more from Tyler Patrick and the Therapy Brothers at therapybrothers.org/no-more-desire, where you’ll find additional resources created specifically for No More Desire™ listeners.

Link to Blog Article for this Episode

Visit No More Desire Tools for Recovery for recovery tools and training, including my free eBook, Workshop, The RAIL Method ™ and more to help you break free from porn.

If you’re tired of trying to quit porn on your own, the No More Desire Academy gives you a structured path to recovery through coaching, brotherhood, practical tools, and step-by-step training. Learn more about the Academy.

If you want deeper, more personalized support, I also offer 1-on-1 porn addiction recovery coaching. We’ll work directly on your patterns, emotional triggers, recovery plan, and long-term growth. Learn more about working 1-on-1 with Jake Kastleman.

God bless.

Transcript

Jake Kastleman (00:00.182)
Welcome to No More Desire, where we build a mindset and lifestyle for lasting recovery from porn. My name's Jake Castleman and I'm excited to dive in with you. Let's get started, my friend.

Jake Kastleman (00:17.166)
If your relationship to your spouse and the people around you is being hampered and sabotaged in a profound way that you are not aware of, and what if you had the power right now to change this? So many of us cannot stay present. We don't know how to work through relationship issues, we have a hard time being satisfied and happy, and we are stricken with a profound sense of anxiety, depression, and decreased focus and motivation.

Divorce is at an all-time high and relationship satisfaction at an all-time low. But this dissatisfaction is not inevitable, my friend. It is not just genetic. Our current world is setting us up for it. And one of the primary reasons for it is hiding in plain sight, and we need to pay attention. We live in a dopamine nation, my friend, a place of instant gratification, constant entertainment, and a bombardment of our ability to be present and connected to real people.

And real life. I was recently a guest on the Therapy Brothers podcast with Tyler Patrick, where we discuss this. In the episode, he and I discuss how the brain interprets the world through the lens of relationship. We have a relationship to everything, not just people, a relationship to food, to nature, to hobbies and interests, and to technologies like smartphones and TV, and experiences like social media and porn. Here's the truth.

Our relationship to technology is having a profound impact on our dopamine and the health of our brain. It is having a profound impact on our ability to feel present, happy, and connected to our wife and kids. In today's episode, Tyler and I break down how this works and what we can do about it. I start by going into deep detail on the four pillars of recovery, which outline the causes of pornography addiction and what we need to do to break free.

Then Tyler and I dig deep into the neurological and psychological impact of technologies like smartphones, TV, and porn. This is a topic I am extremely passionate for. Lately I find myself reflecting on it more and more, and I feel it is one of the most important things we can be aware of in this day and age and start to change for our recovery, our relationships, and our sense of inner peace and happiness. If there is one episode I recommend you listen to all the way through, it is this one, my friend.

Jake Kastleman (02:45.678)
I hope you find help and inspiration in it. If you want more help with porn addiction, like this episode, follow this podcast, and hit the notification bell. Alright, let's get started.

Tyler Patrick (03:02.082)
We've got a a great topic that we're gonna talk about today and an even better guest that's gonna come on and talk about that topic with me. So I had the privilege of meeting Jake Castleman just recently, a few months ago. We spent we've had a couple of really good conversations. I was on his podcast as well, and we we're privileged to have him here with us today. So, Jake, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Tyler. It's a joy to be here, man, and what you Br you and Brennan do on this show is fantastic. So it's just a a blessing to be here. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, well we're we're we're really happy to have you here too today. I think you're gonna have a lot of goodness to give to the people who listen to this show. tell us just so that they know, tell tell everybody a little bit about who you are and what you do, and then we'll jump into our conversation today.

Yeah. So I am a porn recovery coach. I I am the founder and owner of No More Desire Porn Addiction Recovery. So I work with men one-on-one. I work with groups as well. I have an academy, just helping men build a recovery mindset and a recovery lifestyle. And we're gonna talk about those four pillars today that I base that on. for me, I very much come from the place of

pornography addiction and sex addiction as well, but pornography addiction specifically is what I'm working with men most often on, is a s is a symptom, right? It's a symptom of other things within my in a really broad spectrum, my mindset and my lifestyle, which encompasses a lot of things. And if I can get these things into good order, if I can build my life out in a way that brings joy and happiness to myself and those around me, then

Jake Kastleman (04:51.778)
I will lose the desire for pornography over time. And I truly can get to the point in my life where cravings for porn can be very, very rare. It doesn't have to be something you're experiencing forever. And so that's what I help guys do.

I love it. I I love the I love the approach. This is something that Brandon and I really believe in too. For too long, too many people in the industry have focused mostly just on the porn being the problem and the need to stop. And in some ways almost there's almost like a compulsion and and even sometimes a shame around needing to stop porn versus the way that you you approach it. We're gonna get into your approach here in a minute, but it's more about building the right kind of a life.

Like a moving forward kind of an energy rather than a looking back and running from the demon kind of an energy.

Mm-hmm. Yes. And for for me, my my background, I was gonna say is somewhat unique. It for some it it it's not, but I I've been addicted to many different things right throughout my my childhood, things that people wouldn't maybe necessarily consider addictions a lot of times, like video games and food. but in then into my teenage years with, you know, drugs and alcohol, because my pornography addiction escalated. And I in recovering from all these things.

You know, I've I've sat in recovery groups and they've been like, well, I'm working on my I'm working on recovering from pornography, and then I'll do social media, and then I'll overcome, you know, my alcohol habit. And it to me, it it's there are differences for sure. There are some nuances, but it's all the same problems is what I came to understand. You know, overcoming alcohol, overcoming some of the substances that I was addicted to, overcoming the porn, overcoming the video game addiction, the

Jake Kastleman (06:38.9)
addiction to TV, the addiction to food. These were all many of the same issues that I was dealing with.

So so what you're saying is is that the symptom was all of those things. That was the coping, but the underpinnings for all of those things kind of boiled down to the same kinds of places for you, right? Yeah. Well let's let's jump into you you use a four a four pillar approach to recovery. Let's get the four pillars out there and then we can kind of step deeper into what we really wanted to get into, which was a discussion around technology. But talk a little bit about your four pillars.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Jake Kastleman (07:14.552)
Yeah. So first pillars emotional. I'll just I'll just name them and then I'll I'll go over some some of the basics. emotional is the first pillar. Neurological or the nervous system is the second pillar. And then biological and then relational or relationships. And then for for me, I'm I'm Christian, as you are as well. And so there's there is a a foundation underneath it is the spiritual, right? That's is underneath the four pillars, which is really a catalyst for growth in all these areas.

So emotional, we need to learn how to regulate emotions. One of the things that I came to understand myself and then came to read about later and learn and then eventually teach people about is if I can't, if I don't know how to relate to and respond to things like anger or sadness or fear or feelings of shame, I'm not good enough, inadequacy, then I will constantly go back into craving and into relapse. And so

For me as someone who carried a lot of social anxiety, a lot of perfectionism, and then kind of connections to ADD, ADHD types of symptomology, to depression, anxiety, all these things stem from some similar, come from similar things in in a lot of ways. I needed to learn in part, what I needed to do is to learn how to respond to my emotions. How do I relate to these perfectionistic expectations?

My fear and my feelings of shame and inadequacy. And how can I work through and respond with self-compassion to these emotions? And how do I do that for cravings as well? Because that's that's the reality. Those cravings are going to come up. How do I relate to them and respond to them? And in addition, so that so that's emotions. You look like you want to come.

Yeah, it's i it's interesting. I was just thinking about cravings that so often the cravings themselves are tied to some kind of an emotional coming and going in our lives that then the craving is, hey, that's the solution. And and I was thinking about that, like there was some research that I heard that said they did some research on emotional intelligence or emotional quotient with people and found that people who start this was with marijuana, I believe.

Tyler Patrick (09:28.578)
But people who started marijuana, at whatever age they started smoking the marijuana was pretty closely associated to their emotional age in terms of their development. And so it makes sense that if we learn to cope with life and we find the thing that works the best, you know, whatever those addictive things are, there isn't a need to continue to develop the emotional intelligence, the emotional skill. And so it would make sense that

this would be a massive pillar in in terms of recovery is learning how to develop the skills that maybe we needed to be developing all along, but we didn't need to because we had quick solutions with our addiction.

Yes. And and this actually brings me to the second pillar. I love that you said that, Tyler. And it's a to me that study is it's like it's sad, it's eye-opening, but it's it's the reality. It's what I it's what I saw as well. And this will be unpopular for some people. It's an unpopular thing to say to some to some extent. But I started playing video games when I was four years old, and I feel like in a lot of ways my emotional maturity was very much stunted from the hours I spent on video games per day. Because that also

is a massive dopamine spikes. And it's something that I went to constantly as a way of quote unquote, you know, emotional regulation doesn't actually regulate you. It just gives you that that escape that out, much like porn. And so for me, starting into that and, you know, using as food as a coping mechanism. Speaking of the neurological pillar, these I talk about base and noble pleasures, right? So base pleasures

are things that are low effort with like a a high or an intense emotional reward. In other words, you're getting a pretty big spike of dopamine, right? With no effort or low effort from your end, which is really, really key. Noble pleasures are anything that's requiring either effort or presence from my end. Right. I ha I have to be present and focused, or I need to be putting in some significant effort and

Jake Kastleman (11:31.85)
And this yields a reward that's about equal to that effort. So a really good example would be exercise, right? I go work out. The harder I work out, the to a degree. The harder I work out, generally to a degree, the more of an emotional reward I'm going to experience from that. In other words, I come out of the gym, I'm like, I feel good, right? I feel, I feel satisfied, I feel fulfilled, I feel like I did something good for my body.

That carries me throughout that day in a lot of ways from the endorphins and other chemicals that have been released. That is a really good example of a noble pleasure. Another one that's not so the so much high effort, but more presence would be I'm just laying on the ground with my infant and he's playing with toys and I'm just looking at him and smiling at him, just admiring his little features. He's so cute. And I'm just like, man, I can't believe this guy's my son. Like so cool. That is a moment of a very simple.

pleasure that requires me to be present. If I'm on my phone, right, and I'm scrolling social media, I'm not going to experience that moment. It's not going to happen. And so these base pleasures, the more base pleasures we do, like social media and video games and TV as well, though it's not as intense as you know, shorts or reels, screen, you know, scrolling endless reels or engaging with pornography, these, this is going to train me more and more to want that

Quick and instant hit of dopamine. And it's going to make me less and less able to focus and feel motivated to engage with the noble pleasures that are either simple and present or that are higher effort because I have less dopamine available. And that gets into some deeper neuroscience and how that functions, but that's the general idea. So I teach guys more noble pleasures, minimize base pleasures. That's what we're going for over time.

In some way you have to convince you have to convince your clients that the pursuit of the noble pleasures, even though it takes more effort, is the is the actual more fulfilling one. And that's probably a hard sell sometimes when we live in a world that's so full of instant gratification, you know. And I I I'm thinking too, just in the realm of sexuality, it's interesting because sex itself can can be wrapped up in both either the base or the noble, according to what you just described, right?

Tyler Patrick (13:54.71)
Yes. Like there's there's maybe that's something for the idea of fidelity inside of a relationship. I now attend to a complete relationship that includes some form of sexual expression, and there that brings a different kind of fulfillment than sitting down on the computer and looking at pornography and having the instant or base response that happens. yeah, yeah, and I and I was just you you have

Yeah.

You know, just speaking to my heart guy, I just listened to a podcast to the Huberman lab talking about this idea of dopamine and he kinda used a different language than you, but said if you want a happy, healthy life, you need to earn your dopamine because anything that's not earned becomes highly addictive.

Yes, a hundred percent. And like you're talking about with sex, right? Pornography requires, again, nothing from me, no investment, no effort, no relationship, no patience, no need to engage with someone. it when it comes to comes to a s a sexual engagement with some risk and vulnerability, a lot of risk and vulnerability. Am I willing to put myself out there and am I willing to risk, you know,

those awkward moments or someone else really seeing me, right? And that's only in the bedroom, but on the grander, the grander scale of the relationship itself, I've invested so much of myself, especially when I have kids. Now I'm a teammate with this person, or at least I'm I'm practicing or wanting to become a teammate with this person in raising those children and building something together. That takes so much investment. A lot of that is difficult.

Jake Kastleman (15:36.758)
And it's painful. And then you get those spurts of of joy and, you know, some daily experiences of this togetherness, this is cool. You know, I'm glad we have each other. But it requires me to invest so much and to be a person of safety, a person who's loving and giving in order to receive that back. And pornography requires none of that. Neither does, you know, a one night stand or something that's you know meaningless. It doesn't require any of that of me. And that's a real problem when it comes to my dopamine and other.

Other things.

Yeah, that's that's excellent. Interesting interesting thoughts there that you know, anyone listening, it's like what what is your quit dopamine today that needs to maybe be put in check a little bit? So yeah. go ahead, go with th go with your third pillar there, the biological.

Yeah. So biological is is we I mean, we could talk about genetics and things. For me, I like to focus on what do I have power to change, right? So so I come with a genetic code. We could get into epigenetics and all sorts of things like that, but that's not really my my forte. I think it's fascinating. But I talk about biologic from the standpoint of nutrition, exercise, and sleep. Right. So how can I impact my biology to bring more balance and peace?

To my body so that I have less my my body finds less of a reason to escape or to try to seek comfort through external means. If I'm taking really great care of my nutrition, my digestion is function functioning better, my whole body is feeling better, my energy levels are better, therefore my motivation's going to be higher, my focus is going to be better, my ability to feel connected towards with those around me is going to be better. Everything's going to improve, right?

Jake Kastleman (17:20.311)
And we could get into the microbiome and how that impacts, you know, neurotransmitters and all sorts of things like that, which is fascinating. in addition, exercise, of course, I think we all, I think that's an easier one for us to grasp. The nutritional things are still coming more into the mainstream with the microbiome and understanding some of the deeper things of why nutrition really impacts mental health and addiction recovery. But exercise, a lot of us understand at this point, it it makes you feel good, it helps you feel energized.

you do something hard, right, and that builds your self confidence, your health is overall better. Right. So that's great. And then sleep as well. Right. Which sometimes we don't get enough. And that's kind of the reality, especially, you know, for me, I've got a toddler and an infant. I don't get enough sleep most of the time. Right. So there are ways, there are things we can do, strategies we can follow to kind of mitigate that or deal with that lack of sleep. Right. All sorts of things things we can do. But in general, aiming to

get more quality sleep if we can, right, is is is helpful for recovery as well.

Yeah. So so you're basically saying that true it I'm I'm picturing like the idea of driving a vehicle and doing proper maintenance on it. You're you're tuning up the vessel with which we live our lives, our bodies, on a regular basis with and those three things, if you look at all the research and in all sorts of recovery, those three things always rise to the surface. Proper nutrition. Nutrition's probably behind the other two with like exercise and sleep, but sleep has been really prominent where I was listening to Doctor Anna Lemke

Who's so good? She's awesome. You know, the author of Dopamine Nation, she was talking about how some of the research is showing that if you had to choose sometimes, if you're sleep deprived, if you had to choose between going even sleeping and even going to the gym on a particular day, sometimes sleep is more of a precursor to r to relapse than even your exercise, which is amazing because exercise has always been right at the forefront. So it's tuning up that vessel that we live with. And and and to me, another thought about that is

Tyler Patrick (19:23.042)
More of an emotional component is by doing those things, not only are we helping to regulate our emotions and regulating our chemical bodies, but it feels like it's also maybe a physical way of doing affirmations for ourselves that we're worth taking care of ourselves when we when we pay attention to these three things.

A hundred percent. I was leading a group the other day and a guy was saying how just the very fact of you know, he'd he'd spent a lifetime doing so many things of just neglecting his body every day and and and also not building self trust. You say, you know, I should work out or I'm gonna work out today, and you just skip it, right? Again and again and again. And eventually you just have no self trust, right? Or and you're losing I I I would say we have a relationship with our own body, right? In in that vein of what you're speaking about.

We need to build a good relationship with our body, take care of it and show it, hey, I care about you and I'm glad I have you. And I think that that's a reciprocal relationship where then our body is able to return that to us again through energy, feeling good, feeling happy, you know, being able to do the other things we want to do in life. I know for me, exercise has been huge in that I get to feel good and I get to do the other things in my life that I want to do. When was

A teenager and in my early 20s, it was like, I want to get big and buff and I want to look good and I'm gonna get a six-pack. So I can and then then I got married and I realized my wife doesn't care about that at all. And and I realized the bigger purpose here is is I just wanna live the rest of my life and feel good doing it right. I want to be able to do the other things that I want to do and serve people and all that. And our bodies are we we we need healthy bodies to do that, you know? A quick pause for just a couple minutes. There are a lot of men who feel

discouraged by some of the recovery programs or therapy services out there. Maybe you are this way as well. Tell me if this sounds familiar to you. You show up to a one-on-one session, someone asks you how your week went, you talk about your problems, maybe you talk about your relapses, and perhaps get a bit of advice or a listening ear, but you don't really feel like you are being given any sound tools to use throughout the week, throughout each day. This is not to say that these aren't well-meaning professionals or that they don't do a lot of good for you.

Jake Kastleman (21:39.33)
But to overcome porn, you need a sound structure. Many of the men in my program who've tried traditional therapy routes or other services find something different in this program. I provide a step-by-step structure that guides you in building habits and tools for your recovery. I provide you with 10 to 15 minute daily practices to build emotional resilience and work through cravings, an entire online course library that I've worked on for years with short lessons and applied exercises.

In the program, you will learn practices derived from CBT, IFS, neuroscience, nutritional psychology, faith philosophy, and I help you apply each teaching to your everyday life through reflections, worksheets, and instructions. It's all about that application, guys. For guys who are looking for a higher level of support, I provide weekly one-on-one coaching to build personalized plans for your specific situation.

I also instruct you in meditation practices in session to work through cravings and emotions and to train yourself to do this so that when they come up, you'll know what to do. Many men find this extremely helpful. In addition to all this, you don't do things alone. You are part of a private online community and meet with a weekly group to connect with other men who are on the same journey. It's a really awesome culture. At No More Desire, you're not just getting sober. You're designing a life that you love. So to learn more about the program,

Go to nomoresire.com slash coaching. All right, back to the show.

I love that, man. And it's interesting too because this is these three things are the things that like people hear right now and they're Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've been told all of that. But the they don't often give credit for how significant it is. And and I think it's because we kind of slowly I I'm thinking about my own situation here, Jake. So I I I'm in my own recovery myself, been in my own recovery for a couple of decades now. And for the longest time I worked at UPS in the mornings from say like ten at night till two or three in the morning for like twenty years.

Tyler Patrick (23:37.152)
I I quit like three or four years ago. And and I did it just to kind of like I justify I need my medical benefits for my family. I'm a good man because I'm providing for them. And what I didn't realize is is that I slowly over time cooked myself into being completely sleep deprived all the time. And I thought I was operating at a hundred percent, going to work and working with clients and thinking through things, and then after quitting, within the first couple of months of getting a full night's rest again, it was like

the discrepancy between my cognitive and emotional abilities was double or triple what it had been. And I didn't even know that I was operating at such a depleted state because I just slowly let those habits just cook me into a state of what I thought was normal, but it wasn't actually good health.

Yes. it's it's it's so true. It's so true. And one one of the things that I was thinking about, Tyler, on you know, on this topic of biology is just how how much we do actually neglect nutrition because you were talking about how exercise and sleep come ahead and and I I can't emphasize enough how much, you know, coming off of processed sugar and making some other changes in my diet transformed my recovery. I didn't realize how many of the cravings that I experienced actually for pornography and for masturbation.

were stemming in part and and sometimes entirely from what my diet was doing to my body. I would, you know, I'd eat desserts and or eat candy. And then then the following hours, I would experience, and from what I understand now, it's it's blood sugar, it's inflammation, I mean it's a few other effects on the body where that would then translate in my body to

I'm not feeling good. I'm feel I I feel out of balance. And it would translate into the the cravings, right? Because my body was seeking solace, seeking comfort, seeking homeostasis in just the most fit the most instant way that it could, and the way it knew from habits from a lifetime.

Tyler Patrick (25:38.402)
Yeah, great thought, man. Sorry, I keep derailing us. Let's go your la the last pillar here was relational, right?

Yes. And I don't I don't think it's derailing at all. I I love it. so relationships and this will actually segue us really nicely into the topic itself with our relationship to technology. So when it comes to relationships, we we all know the phrase well, maybe we don't all know, but or we should know the phrase of the opposite of addiction is connection. Right. And I think in the episode we did together, you may have even mentioned that line, and it's so true.

one of the things that I think we really miss these days and and that we're all we're all fish swimming in water, not realizing what's happening is we are constantly inundated with technology, with social media, our smartphone that's constantly locked to us, right? That we're always scrolling on, we're checking notifications, even if it's things that's that are productive, like my calendar and my text messages and my

Gmail and or my, you know, email, all that stuff, we are constantly checking out of and getting disconnected from the people around us, from God, from ourselves, from our life, from presence because of technology. Right. And then we have, we have TV and we have video games. We have, we have all these constant sources of entertainment and these constant sources of distraction. And I talk about relationship replacement, which is

These technologies are replacing my bandwidth and my capacity to connect with real human beings. And I'm I'm not the first person to say this. I actually learned this from Dr. Anna Lemke that you're talking about. She was on a, she probably talks about this in her book and I don't know, but she was on a podcast episode and she said, our brain works in relationships, right? Is one really, really great way to see it. I have a relationship to people, but I I have a relationship to God.

Jake Kastleman (27:39.968)
I also have a relationship to myself, to emotions, to nature, to hobbies, to technology, right, to sports, whatever it is, you name it. I have a relationship to it. Right. And if if I have this relationship constantly ongoing with technology, like I'm spending three hours on social media a day, well, that's depleting so much of my ability to actually connect with real human beings. And when it comes to pornography, that only gets to such a more exaggerated.

extent, I would say.

Yeah. It's interesting, you know, just thinking about relationships in general. And I want to come into this relationship with technology. But, you know, I like we you hear the classic like trigger things, you know, bored, lonely, hungry, angry, stressed, tired. Those are the biggest triggers that people have. But but I'll tell you what, like in my practice over the years, if I have say, let's say a young man who's in a relationship with a girl and he comes into group one week and he's like, Hey, we just broke up, almost

A hundred percent of the time the following week, he'll come back to group and be like, Hey guys, I don't know what happened, but I had a relapse. And and it's like, Well, I know exactly what happened. You know, that connection is so, so important with us in relationships, and especially when it comes to like our our main sort of romantic or supportive relationships, when there's stress and tension there.

It's really hard to manage the emotions that are tied to all of that because of what connection really means to us. so yeah, I I I think that's so, so important. And yeah, I I can I can totally see the effects of that. And now you add in what you're talking about. I was I was up the I was at the tire place and getting my getting my oil changed the other day, and I walked in and I sat down.

Jake Kastleman (29:24.547)
Yeah.

Tyler Patrick (29:32.342)
And I thought to myself, I'm just gonna do an experiment and see how many people I can talk to. You know, I so I'm sitting in this waiting room. There's like six people in the waiting room. And right when I sit down, every single person grabs their phone and is like looking straight down at their phone and just like like scrolling, you know. And I'm like, that's what I want to do too. I just want to grab my phone and like scroll because that's the easiest, most comfortable, least awkward thing to do. And instead I sit down next to this dude and I like he's scrolling, like,

Today.

Tyler Patrick (30:01.1)
Hey, how's it going today? And he looks at me like who are you? Who are you? What are you what are you doing? You know? I'm like, yeah, it's a beautiful day outside, just getting the oil changed. I hate doing this. You know, to whatever I'm talking to him for he just kinda like gives me the short answers and then he kind of gets back on his phone and like turns on turns so I like look look at the kid next screen. I do the same thing like three times.

Right. It's like back to my main relationship. He's like, I'm getting back to this main relationship here. Like, what are you doing talking to me? What is this is weird. Why would you speak to me? People don't do this, right? Yeah.

The to get the response of like you're the weird one because you started a conversation with me, that says something about I think just the overall world that we're living in now. And I'm guilty of it too myself, Jake. Like sometimes I get get into a public place and my anxiety about having to speak to somebody is the first thing that's like ring it on your phone and and look busy, you know, like because it takes energy and it's stressful sometimes just to to have that connection.

It's our shield, right? And the more I engage with that shield and I opt out of the natural discomfort of life and the discomfort of engaging with a stranger or another human being, the harder and harder and harder it becomes to do that. And I would say the less joy that I experience as a whole, right? And actually feeling connected to people. For me, I've been pursuing this harder than I ever have.

in in my whole life because I've I've realized and I've as I've learned more about and become more serious about this this technology relationship. For me, I I actually tried getting a dumb phone, a flip phone, fairly recently because I was like, I'm gonna replace my smartphone. It's gonna be awesome. I am sorry to say that that dumb phone, the reception on it was absolutely atrocious. It was such a poor piece of technology.

Jake Kastleman (31:57.448)
So it didn't work out the way that I wanted to. However, I've built in a system and I'm I'm practicing the system of I have no notifications pop up on my smartphone other than reminders that need to be on there, right? From from the calendar, right, for certain things that I that I need. But I other than those reminders that I have set up electronically, which I may make physical at some point. I don't know. I'm still working this out. But

I have a physical planner that I I'm I'm slowly trying to transition over to, right? And writing things in there and keeping that. It's a little pocket planner. and I have a f a physical watch because the thing that we don't realize and that I've gotten so annoyed with is if I'm checking the time on my phone, what's there? Notifications. Everything. It right. All those notifications, including for for me personally, like even the calendar notifications and stuff, it's yet another way.

To distract myself from life, to come out of the present, out of what I'm doing. And it breaks my ability to focus and to be here and actually to accomplish and create. We think we're being so productive, right? It's like, I'm gonna check my notifications and I'm gonna do this and that. And we're getting little dopamine hits, right? If we're someone who's more productive on our phone, let alone the social media stuff that pulls up, right? And we might hit that little short that or that whatever pops up, right? And then we're there for let's say 10 minutes or longer.

And then we're back to reality. Well, the more I do that throughout the day, the more of my focus and presence is broken, the less ability I actually have to connect with the people around me. And so I've gotten a watch because I'm like, if I wanna check the time, I can check it on here. If I wanna write things down in my planner, I can do it in a physical planner, right? Can I still have a few things in the phone, right? Like birthdays. I haven't I'm like, okay, I have to go through and like write down everyone's birthday in my whole calendar for the whole year. I still haven't

haven't made that shift, right? And I'm just like, will I? I don't know. I might just keep that electronic. Right. But anyway, so having having a watch, having a physical planner. I'm someone, you know, I love to read scripture, right? So my wife and I over the weekend went and bought physical scriptures. I haven't used physical scriptures in years, right? I've I've done them through the app, right? The app on my phone. And so we're making this shift and my wife has been doing it as well.

Jake Kastleman (34:25.714)
And I can't say enough about what this has done for us. I've I take my smartphone and I stick it in my office drawer and it stays there pretty much exclusively these days, unless we're going somewhere and then I need to take it with me for phone calls. Right. But I have all text messages, all that stuff just turned off. And then I check those, you know, in the morning or the evening. And this is the weird thing. Like when I say that to people, they're like, wait, so you mean like

If someone texts you, like you won't get back to them for like until the night, right? And it's yeah. Why is that so weird for us? Why is that so weird for us that we can't wait, you know, 24 hours for someone to get back to a text that we need we think that people need to respond within, you know, 30 minutes or that we need to. We all we all feel this pressure of I need to respond immediately. I don't need to during a work day.

I have Google messages up on my right. I'll I'll have it up on my my screen, right, so that I can receive those messages when I need to, right, and respond to clients. But other than that, I can if it's a text, I can get back to someone later. And that has it's helped me so much in feeling more present in my life, more focused in my life. So many of the issues that I've had with procrastination. and also I've

Feeling feeling more patience in my life as well. I just I can't say enough about the dividends that it pays. And I think we're all living in this and swimming in it. We just have no clue how much this is impacting our happiness levels and our susceptibility to escape and seeking out comfort through pornography and other means.

I man, as you're talking, I'm thinking of my own situation. An another part of this that's cropping up for me is my relationship with anxiety. And, you know, I I made some changes myself a couple of years ago, similar to yours, maybe a little bit different, but I took all of my social media completely off my phone. I took all gaming off of my phone and I did the same thing you did where I silenced all of my, you know, notifications.

Tyler Patrick (36:38.526)
And and when I did that, there was actually a spike in my anxiety until afterwards. And now it's like my my overall level of anxiety is way better now than it used to be. Where I'm not so worried about like you said, I think there's like a slow it's in a weird way, it's almost like a slower pace of life s while still being inside the fast world. Yes. And it feels it there's almost like a level of peace to it that I'm finding that I that I thought would

yeah.

Tyler Patrick (37:06.54)
wasn't going to happen when I first did it. And yeah, overall mental and emotional health has improved. I think I've probably hurt some relationships a little bit, not meaning to, by not being as responsive as I could be or as I used to be. but I feel way more you used the word earlier, you used the word presence. I feel personally more present. I feel less triggered. you know, in terms of my old ways of coping.

And and I do think I feel more connected with people, even though I might not respond instantly to them. so it makes a lot of sense. I I'm wondering there's two questions going through my mind. The first one, maybe let's do the first question first and then come back to the second question. But the topic of the podcast here for just the next few minutes, let's hit that. Like besides the idea of presence.

How does my relationship with technology affect my overall recovery? What else would you say is connected to this idea of our relationship with technology to our overall recovery?

think a couple of things on that Tyler one is how what is my relationship to gratification right so do I expect to be instantly gratified and I I think a vast majority of us do, right? To to varying degrees these Yeah. Yeah it's a world of instant gratification. Or or am I able to experience delayed gratification?

That's the world we live in.

Jake Kastleman (38:40.748)
We because we've sought out convenience, right, and speed, so these are some of our prior primary objectives when it comes to technology, which there's been a lot of advancements that have been positive for humanity. But I think when it comes to technology, maybe it's pessimistic to say, but I think a vast majority when it comes to screens, a vast majority of what's happened with tech screen technology has been very, very negative for us. I think

We

Again, if we think in relationships, that technology is a relationship. Well, when I get on social media and there's an interpretation in my mind that I'm connecting with people, right? Because my subconscious doesn't differentiate, right? If I'm I'm reading people's posts and I'm seeing what's happening in their family or I'm watching entertaining shorts or, you know, seeing a conversation, whatever, whatever it is, some things are going to be higher stimulation and higher kind of

Gratification and others are going to be lower depending on what I'm engaging with. But I expect that my brain comes to expect: okay, when I am engaging with other human beings, they give me everything I want and they expect nothing back. Right. Or I have, I have this ability to just have this experience that I like and enjoy. And if something's boring, I'll just move on. Right. Or if something's not what I like, I'll just go somewhere else. Then I believe.

Can't I had that belief system follows me in my day-to-day life with real human beings. It can't help but follow me. Of, well, now I feel less patient with other people, right? When they're doing things I don't like. Or now when my spouse does something that I'm just like, I can't, my gosh, 10 years of this. I can't stand the way they peel their orange. It drives me nuts, right? Or whatever the thing is. It's not a thing for me. But I'm, I heard someone say that once. He's like, that's weird. But we all, we all have things, right? For me, it'd be like,

Jake Kastleman (40:40.972)
Why don't you just pick up your dang towel from the floor? Right. You left your your soggy towel on the floor again. Right. And so if I have this kind of this belief inside of like, well, when I engage with people, they shouldn't do things that I don't like. Right. Because technology has taught me this, right? Social media and other pieces of technology have taught me this. And I really want to, again, it's it can be hard to think of this, but

Again, if I have an overall relationship to TV, I sit down, I turn on the TV and it feeds me entertainment. It stimulates me and it expects nothing back. So I carry some of that mentality into my relationship. Not all of it, right? I'm not saying if you ever watch TV, then you you you don't give anything to anyone, right? But it influences me. And so now I'm carrying that in. And I think one of the things I've really realized in my life.

And that I think was more common for people to understand, you know, a hundred years ago was, yeah, like sometimes people do things that you don't like and it's and it's not fun. And that's life. Like that is part of marriage. And you need to learn how to just deal with that or how to talk about and work that out. Right. And I think for us these days, we expect instant gratifications and for things to be what I want and how I want it right now.

And that's just not how life works, you know?

It fuels that idea though in our lives that we can have that. And then maybe you're saying that crosses over a little bit into other parts of life, the inconveniences. Like it's funny, we we're watching a World Cup game last night with me and my daughter and we happen to be watching it live, which we never watched anything live because we like to cut out the transaction of having to watch ads in order to watch our media, right? So we're watching we're watching it live and the first ad pops on and my daughter's like, Hey Dad, fast forward this and I'm like, We're live.

Tyler Patrick (42:33.676)
And she's like, I don't even wanna watch this, dad. Like I'm like, it's gonna be ninety seconds and then they're gonna go back for another like ten minutes. Like, it's gonna be okay. She's like, it's not even worth it, dad. Like ninety seconds so that we can watch like the World Cup for free. Like, come on.

Yes. I I I actually and I apologize if I'm cutting off something else you're saying, but this is really bringing this up for me. AI is a massive exaggeration of this. It's it's I I I don't think we can even anticipate what it's going to lead to when it comes to kind of this general topic. and I and I'm saying this from personal experience. You know, when AI popped up, w I don't know how long it's been now, it all blends together, but for me I started using it to write, you know, different content.

Right. And it was it ble it blew my mind as it blew everybody's mind that I could feed it a prompt and it could just and just build this entire this massive piece of content. I'm like, my gosh. Used to write it take me two hours to write a blog article like this. And now this just creates it for me. What in the world? And it slowly over time I found myself getting less and less and less patient with creating my own content. And I was still doing still doing podcast episodes and all that, but

I was leaning more into AI. And I think so many of people so many people are doing this now. And I realized I started to lose my ability as a writer and my ability as a content producer. And to really, and I would say on a spiritual level, to pay attention to what the spirit is sharing with me and how that's working through me to write a piece of content. And that can't happen if I'm having a robot write it for me. And I've I've really kind of that personal understanding for me and having this push in my life, I'm gonna write my own.

content, my own emails, my own blog articles, my own podcast episodes. Right. And a lot of people would be like, well, why are you going to do that? Like you're you you're not going to keep up with everybody else. Right. You're not going to keep up. And because one again it showed me all those things. And another thing I experienced was just overall patience in life and my expectations of the people around me, my my children is what I think of in particular. Why are you not doing what I want you to do? Right.

Tyler Patrick (44:26.742)
Yeah, that's exactly right.

Jake Kastleman (44:45.334)
Why like, why are you not instantly gratifying this? Because AI just it does it like that. Exact and then it asks you, would you also like me to create this for you and this for you and this for you? And it'll do it all for we don't even we can opt out of thinking. And that's it just makes us so much more prone towards desiring that instant gratification, right? And that will turn us back to porn, right? If that's one of our drugs of choice.

Yeah, I man, I I love I love where you're going and what you just said there kind of ties back into your pillars where you're consciously choosing, at least in certain areas of your life, you're you're you're instead of the expediency and instead of instead of like the be the ability to keep up with content, you're choosing certain parts of your life to cultivate that emotional intelligence, that ability to sit with being patient, the the need to be creative, the need to wrestle, the need to listen spiritually, all of those things

You have to make a conscious choice because otherwise the autopilot of where things are going. I'm not saying technology is a bad thing. Technology can actually help with a lot of this stuff too when it's done intentionally.

Yeah, and that's not to say that's not to say I don't use AI, right? I just need to consciously choose where am I going to create, right, on my own and with with the spirit, right? Right, where's that gonna happen?

I need to. And I I think that's another big piece of recovery is the conscious choice, where you're saying, if I'm going to continue to improve myself as an overall person, there's going to be some areas where I might actually choose a little bit of a difficult path for the sake of the exercise, emotionally, spiritually, relationally, because it's in my better interest to wrestle with those things, even though I might use those other things in other parts of my life.

Tyler Patrick (46:30.028)
Because I need to do that for myself as an entire human being. Really good, man. Yeah. man, what a great discussion here. We we're getting a little close on time. So two questions for you. The first one is just, you know, when you're working with your clients and we're talking about this relationship idea with technology, I'm just thinking, my own relationship with technology, if my relationship with technology looked the same way as it does with my relationship with my friends and my family, I'd be in big trouble. Right. You know, like

Yes. Yeah.

Tyler Patrick (46:59.63)
It's a it's You and me both. If if I'm looking at it from a relational lens, I've got a I've got a lot of inventorying for myself to do. because I I never give anything back to technology. I only take and then I feel entitled all the time. Sure. And then I just feel inept at it too. So my own my own shame. My own shame as well, I guess. So but but the but the so the two questions are this with when you're approaching this with your clients, what

I get that.

Tyler Patrick (47:28.928)
What kinds of things do you find people doing besides the things you've already mentioned for yourself that help them in this idea of relationship with technology? And then secondly, just let everybody know what's the best way for them to find you or connect with you as well.

Yeah, a hundred percent. So I think one of the things that comes to mind for me, especially as someone who dealt with, you know, anxiety and a lot of different mental health issues, right? And still dealing with that perfectionism and different things on on on varying degrees, right? But much, much better than it used to be for me. I needed to create systems and strategies, right? And also to to taper down on things or wean off or slowly

And we all have to do this, right? When it comes to habits, slowly increasing, increasing good habits, decreasing the bad habits or the the harmful habits. Right. So if you want to change, let's say you're watching social media three hours a day, or I have a client that's doing that, which many of my clients do that, right? then we're going to need to start to build in systems. So can I

begin to become conscious of that first off. And the the the reasons that I don't want to do that, how that's impacting my recovery and my happiness, that's really important to know. Right. And to start to build that motivation. But then can I create a system where maybe let's decrease from three hours a day to like two and a half hours a day. Right. And let's start working on that. And what am I going to replace that half hour with? Right. And that's part of that system. So can I go for a walk?

Can I spend some time in meditation? Can I start reading a fictional book that I like? Can I call, you know, a f a friend on occasion or I can spend some one on one time with my spouse? Right. What is a noble pleasure that you can replace some of that base pleasure time with? And then can you increase that more and more over time? The other things you're doing. So you're you're enjoying doing those things, which will not be as stimulating as an and as exciting in the beginning.

Jake Kastleman (49:34.478)
But eventually they become more enjoyable. They become the go-to, right? Rather than the base pleasure. So just being self-compassionate, being really realistic about it's not all or nothing. That all or nothing mentality often gets people, it make it causes them to fail in their efforts. And if I'm going to stop something, I need to start something else, right? So decide what that is that you're going to start increasing.

And just making a plan, like just sitting down, whether it be with a coach or a therapist or on your own or a friend, right? Sit down and make a plan. What that what does that look like? And in addition to sip systems, and I touched on this, I would say motivations are very important to get the what and the why, why do I want to change this and what's it gonna do for me?

I love the I love the why part. I think that's left out a lot of times and when you start to have that why then it's easier to choose the discomfort of the more healthy, less appealing instant option. And yeah. so yeah, really, really good, man. Thanks so much for for what you've brought today, the energy you brought. I think you got some really good ideas here and hopefully our listeners are gonna get a lot of value out of this. I think they will. yeah, it's just share how people can find you, connect with you.

Yeah, hundred percent. So if you go to nomore desire dot com, everything is found there. the best place to go, nomoresire dot com slash tools. I have a free workshop, I have a free ebook. You can find links to my coaching, one on one group coaching. I have some courses there. You can become a member of the free community. really cool culture there. So nomore desire dot com slash tools is the best place to go.

Awesome, man. You're the man, Jake. thank you, Jake, for your your time today and for the the goodness you brought to the world and the good you're doing in this world. So to our listeners, if you enjoyed what you got, one way obviously you can go and check out Jake's stuff, one way you can also help us and help Jake at the same time is Libre View and mention what you learned, mention what you appreciated. we'd love to read those on air again about the things that Jake brought. So,

Tyler Patrick (51:44.056)
Thank you for being here with us. Thank you to our listeners for being part of our community. We love connecting with you. And until next time, keep on keeping on.

Thanks for listening to No More Desire. It's a genuine blessing for me to do the work that I do, and I wouldn't be able to do it without you, my listeners, so thank you. If you've enjoyed today's episode, do me a favor. Follow this podcast, hit the notification bell, and shoot me a rating. The more people who do this, the more men this podcast will reach. So take a few minutes of your time and hit those buttons.

If you want to take your sobriety to the next level, check out my free workshop, The Eight Keys to Lose Your Desire for Porn, or my free ebook, The Ten Tools to Conquer Cravings. These are specialized pieces of content that will give you practical exercises and applied solutions to overcome porn addiction. And you can find them at Nomordesire.com.

As a listener of the No More Desire podcast, you are part of a worldwide movement of men who are breaking free of porn to live more impactful, meaningful, and selfless lives. So keep learning, keep growing, and keep building that recovery mindset and lifestyle. God bless.

Jake Kastleman (53:11.478)
Everything expressed on the No More Desire podcast are the opinions of the host and participants, and is for informational and educational purposes only. This podcast should not be considered mental health therapy or as a substitute thereof. It is strongly recommended that you seek out the clinical guidance of a qualified mental health professional. If you are experiencing thoughts of suicide, self-harm, or a desire to harm others,

Please dial nine one one or go to your nearest emergency room.