Becoming the Type of Person Who Doesn't Look at Porn w/ Jacob Hess

Jacob Hess: Freedom is precious enough that all your work is going to be worth it. If you knew how great recovery is, you would put on your track shoes to get there and sprint to get there.

Narrator: This is Pathway to Recovery, an SA Lifeline Foundation podcast featuring hosts Tara McCausland, who is the SA Lifeline Executive Director, and Justin B., a sex addict living in long-term recovery. We have conversations with experts and individuals who understand the pathway to healing from sexual addiction and betrayal trauma because we believe that recovering individuals leads to the healing of families.

Tara McCausland: Welcome to the Pathway to Recovery Podcast. I'm your host, Tara McCausland, and I am so excited to have here with me my friend Jacob Hess. Welcome, Jacob.

Jacob Hess: Thanks for having me on, Tara. Nice to see you again.

Tara McCausland: And actually, Jacob, you were a presenter at one of our conferences, I think maybe 3 years back. So Jacob has been with SA Lifeline before, and so glad to again have you back. Um, and Jacob is actually kind of a unique guest on this podcast because we typically, or I typically, interview people that are clinicians in the field of sexual addiction and betrayal trauma. Um, but Jacob, you've got a unique background. I'm going to actually let you introduce yourself and what brings you here to the Pathway to Recovery podcast.

Jacob Hess: I did go to a clinical psychology program, but I ultimately followed the community psychology route. And community psychology is all about how do we take the truths and the insights that we've learned in science and psychology and bring them to communities rather than come to my office. So I was trained in mindfulness and mindfulness-based stress reduction to help people who are stressed out of their mind, just kind of calm their nervous system down. And I focused my research in depression, different competing narratives of what depression is, what to do about it.

That was my dissertation research. And with that lens, after graduate school, I, like many men, I'd been touched by pornography in the past and, and just relish the freedom that comes, right? It's such a precious gift. So I was, I was at the UCAP conference a decade ago, walking down the tables, and I mostly saw therapists, counselors who do, can do really wonderful things. And then I noticed Fight the New Drug, and I'm like, what? Okay.

So here's kind of more of a public health approach. We're going to get messaging out there to counter and prevent and push back on narratives that are leading people down a certain path. And I just was, fell in love with Fight the New Drug. At the time they were starting to consider putting an online curriculum out and I helped them in the creation of Fortify, which is, um, Has been just something to help teens and adults walk down a pathway of recovery.

It's very lifestyle-oriented mindfulness. And worked with them, for them, with Clay for a number of years. Clay and I also started a research project on, um, people who have found lasting healing. Like, what do they do? And so we did this actually for depression and for pornography addiction. We just gathered stories, as many stories as we can find. This is an ongoing study. I've written about the preliminary findings and here until the end of the world, I want to just keep hearing stories of recovery and learning from the people who have found it.

To me, that's like Kelly Turner did the same thing with cancer. You know, let's take the people who have actually gotten better, find out what they did. So we have published preliminary results. We have a book coming out this fall that also shares those results. It's called Recovering Hope. I think that's the title.

Tara McCausland: Can't remember the title of your own book, but you must be a writer.

Jacob Hess: I love writing. I really do. On my birthday, I like ask for a day to write, but I write for the Deseret News. That's my full-time thing now. And I just love working at Deseret with my colleagues, just so committed to what is the truth. Can we really say that? We have to like know for sure, you know? So I, I still believe in the truth-seeking enterprise in journalism, just as I did as a researcher. I believe universities and therapists and newspapers still have really important roles to play in society.

And, and I, I appreciate the work you're doing as an organization, Tara. It was a really sweet experience to present. and interact with the people at the conference. People on the path of recovery are some of my heroes. They are, because they're willing to look at their life. And it's just a sacred and a beautiful path.

Tara McCausland: Yeah, I agree. I've met some really brave souls on this path. And I'm grateful for your, your courage and your braveness— is that a word, Ryder?— in tackling really hard subjects. Which is what brings you here today. There were a couple of articles that you put out that I really loved that we're going to explore, and they're quite long and lengthy, both of them. So I'm going to put in the show notes for our listeners links to both so that you can listen here and then get the full article.

I hope you'll read them, those who are listening. But we're going to start off Because there are 2 articles. The first article was titled, The Kind of Person Porn Trains Us to Become. And in this article, just to kind of jumpstart us, you argue that— I'm going to read it here, if you don't mind— that the most important question about pornography is not simply whether it is wrong, unhealthy, or addictive, but what kind of person does pornography train us to become?

So this is a very different perspective. And I'm curious, why? Why is that a more powerful question to ask than, is this wrong or addictive?

Jacob Hess: I think it's been dawning on me in the last couple of years. Maybe this just happens as we age, right? That what kind of a human being am I becoming is really a more important question than what should I do today? Or Which behavior do I need to change? Or what actions am I engaged in that I need to stop? All those are also important questions. But as a parent, you know that if you're focused overly on like the minutia of like, gotta do, stop doing this and do this, it's like missing something.

Even though it's important that your son cleans his room and your daughter does her homework, Who are they becoming? And sometimes parents, when we're like, stop doing this, we're actually inadvertently leading our children to become something that we may not want. And I think we do that to ourselves too. We, if we sort of get on our own case harshly for like something that we need to stop or something we need to start like a drill sergeant.

Yeah. I'm not sure it's like leading us to become who we really want to become. So that, that question to me developmentally across all domains is starting to feel like the, the big question. Hmm. You know, um, even like all the political anger right now. Well, yeah, yeah, you can do, you can like get involved and get all angry. How is this impacting who you are? I've seen people become just angry, sort of bitter, fearful souls without realizing it.

So I, it just, for me, it's like cleaning my glasses and being like, okay, if this is the question that matters, then what does it mean for pornography? And it doesn't take long to realize just with like the, the non-controversial abundant research out there. That pornography's impacts on us developmentally are, um, so alarming that it's hard to imagine a human being saying, yeah, that's who I want to be. I want to be more isolated. I want to be more fearful.

I want to be in more despair. I want to be angrier and emptier. Lay aside all the other questions and debates, you know, like the silly stuff we see online about porn's not even addictive. Okay, lay aside that and just ask yourself, do you want to be that kind of a person? Angrier, sadder, more disconnected, more in despair? And everybody in their right mind is going to say no. And then if people who are struggling can also look at themselves and say, Yeah, this isn't what I want.

I want to be that. I, I think hopefully it can strengthen people who are seeking freedom. And, you know, everyone else, somebody— I don't want to get close to that. Hopefully our teenagers can be like, I don't want to be that.

Tara McCausland: Yeah. Well, I do really appreciate this question because as you and I were talking about just before we started recording, The conversation continues, even, you know, clinically, is pornography addictive? Should we call this sexual addiction, porn addiction, or just a compulsion, or just a bad habit, or whatever? And so when we ask this question, as you said, it just, it tables all of that, and it just allows for people to really look at, when I consume pornography, how do I feel?

And how is this shaping the person I'm becoming? I think that was one thing that I, I really liked is that you talked about how we may not just have desires, but we're being shaped constantly by the things that we're consuming, you know, whether it be pornography or whatever else it is that we're looking at, listening to on the regular. And so you had already mentioned some of the things that we see, and I think the data bears it out.

We see what's happening to people. who are regular consumers of pornography. And I'm, I'm just going to go through these even though you had kind of run through them.

Jacob Hess: Yeah, please do. I think that would be helpful.

Tara McCausland: So again, the data speaks here. And listener, again, I invite you to go to the actual article. Uh, Jacob did a wonderful job of detailing a lot of good research that, um, backs this up. But they see that those who are consistent consumers of pornography, they are sadder and more anxious. They are less capable of love and intimacy, more accepting of aggression and objectification. If I can— if I remember correctly, Your Brain on Porn says that there are 100+ studies that correlate sexual aggression with pornography consumption.

More isolated, less clear-minded, less spiritually connected, less emotionally free. There's a lot here, and I don't want to spend all of our time here, but of those 7 points, where would you like to focus and speak to a little bit more?

Jacob Hess: First, let me say, Your Brain on Porn, that website that Gary Wilson started, is what I leaned on for this because this is derivative of Gary's important work. That's why I mentioned him at top. Gary passed away a couple years ago. He's one of my heroes. He's not a believer in God. He felt deeply drawn to the importance of this. And when he passed away, I wrote a tribute to him because I just, I used to tell him when he was alive, when you get to heaven, you're going to be pleasantly surprised and all the good you've done, Gary.

So he's wonderful. And a lot of this research he gathered, right? I think it's clear to people who are struggling that we're What, where I would like to focus is this. People who are in the rabbit hole of kind of the darkness of addiction might like to believe they're happier somehow. That we could say we are happier and that their anxiety is less with this wonderful drug. And it's really helpful, almost like a mantra, just to remember.

None of this is actually leading me to real happiness and real peace. In fact, you know, that's what I kind of like, just having the research out there right in front of us. Like, okay, this way of being is for sure, there's just no controversy at all, going to lead me to a place that is sadder. more anxious and less able to show love, more likely to treat those around me, especially intimate partners, poorly and aggressively.

It's more likely to lead me to be more isolated and more confused about reality. That's the point you mentioned about clear thinking. There's a lot of evidence of just cognitive limitations and dysfunctions associated with problematic sexual behaviors, like, like struggling to comprehend things. So that's, I think that's one we should point out because we always, everybody always assumes they're seeing reality. And, you know, like I was just talking to a therapist this morning about another issue and some of the most heartbreaking things are when people are in the thick of a very destructive pattern, and they cannot see it at all.

And, you know, there but for the grace of God, we could all go, right? There are many different kinds of patterns, not just with pornography, but with the kind of political anger we're talking about or other things that you just lose your sense of reality. And that comes through in the research. And then less connected to God. and less emotionally free, literally unable to even control the direction of your life, let alone connect to the Almighty.

So again, like I wanted this to be a mural of sorts, like paint it on the wall, Tara, and then just say, okay, is that who I want to be? And if I can tell a quick story, my wife, Years ago, taught a mindful course for people who overate. Now this is going to connect with what I just said. And, you know, with overeating, just like with watching junk media, we can get in a habit of like, oh, I'm not going to do that.

Oh, I did it. Now I feel really bad. And you can like cycle between I'm being really good, I'm being really bad. And so her whole class was designed to get beyond that pattern. So the very first week of class, she tells all these people, all right, I want you to go and eat whatever you want this week. The only thing I want is that you pay attention to how you feel. And this woman went home and ate a big bag of peanut butter M&Ms and, um, ate the whole thing just like she could.

Okay. And then, but the difference is she just like, Okay. How do I feel? And so she sort of did a meditation on peanut butter M&Ms and she comes back to class. And I've always found this fascinating that she told the group, okay, I ate the forbidden fruit, but this time I really paid attention to how I feel. And she said, I don't think I love peanut butter M&Ms as much as I've Why? Not because someone else had told her, not because some authority on peanut butter M&Ms had said, you shouldn't be eating this.

Her own body, her own heart, her own mind finally got through to her to say, oh, okay. Okay. So when I eat this, this is how I feel. And I've shared that over the years with other people struggling with addiction, because I feel like we, all of us have to have a similar moment, not just with pornography, but stuff like the short, short-form YouTube videos that my boys like want to eat up. Like, I'm like, okay, how does this make you feel?

How is it leading us to become? How it's impacting? So you get what I'm saying? Let our own experience teach us. And I actually think, and I've created a meditation on this, that if, if we quote meditated on the pornography after the fact and like, okay, what's going on in my body? What's going on in my mind and my relationships? Our own life bears witness. Like, nobody really wants to be estranged and raw and angry with your family.

Nobody really wants to feel despair and emptiness and more fear. Nobody wants to be emotionally out of control. So I hope this can be added fuel to the fire for people that are seeking recovery. Like, Who do I want to be? And, and the circumstances of your own life can remind you of what that is.

Tara McCausland: Yeah. Could we get access to that meditation, Jacob?

Jacob Hess: Yeah, I'll send it to you. It's just, it's just something I tried. I'd like to do more of these. It's, um, talking through, kind of helping someone think through that and feel that. Yeah. I'll send that to you.

Tara McCausland: Well, I really love the M&M story. Peanut butter M&Ms are good, but I guess I'm also getting old because I can't really eat candy anymore and feel good. It was a sad day when I came to that conclusion. But I think that that's incredibly powerful. And, you know, as we teach our kids, I'm often trying to think, you know, beyond ourselves, beyond our marriages, the next generation, right? I had a conversation with my, both of my, I have 3 sons and a daughter.

I sat down with my sons, watch this short Instagram video about how pornography makes it so that we can't be turned on by a regular human being because it's all, it's fake, right? Yeah. Not is it only acting, but these people are modified. Yeah. In many ways. And what I'm getting at is having had that conversation with both of my sons, I said, one of the greatest gifts that you will give to yourself and to your future spouse in not looking at pornography is that you will be able to truly love and be intimate, physically, sexually intimate and drawn to your partner because your brain won't have been hijacked by the fake, by the counterfeit.

Yeah. And my oldest son particularly, he was like, yeah, like it really resonated. And so having that conversation, oftentimes we have these fear-based conversations like, don't look at pornography because, you know, all these bad things are gonna happen. But like on the upside, on the positive is that you can have a really happy, fulfilling relationship with a future spouse. And so I just, I like this perspective because sometimes I know we get stuck. We get stuck in talking about all the bad, but how about we talk about the good when we're not consuming this stuff?

Jacob Hess: I love it. I would even language what you said as to your son, you know, or to my son, do you want to become the kind of person That can like be happy and in a loving relationship with another beautiful human being. Oh, do you? Awesome. Well, then this is— let's talk about what that would take, because then the question is on their development, it's on their identity, it's on their future relationship rather than on just the porn.

Sometimes I think in our discussions about recovery, we can give so much attention to the pornography It's like, I just gotta not do that. I just gotta not do that. And just like the pink elephant.

Tara McCausland: Don't look at the elephant. Don't look at the elephant.

Jacob Hess: Take on a life-size power rather than what kind of life do I want? What kind of relationships do I want? What kind of love? What kind of— do I want to be able to sit with myself in silence? Do I want to be able to read a book and actually enjoy it? And do I want to be able to relish a sunset and like, The subtle pleasures of life, because that's another angle to this, is pornography, like all super stimulus, takes away pleasure.

And I mean, like, the thousands of other things that could be pleasurable. I just read a poem the other day. It was 2 lines. Guess what? If you want to remove your ability to enjoy a haiku, 2-line poem, forever, Along with the subtle joy of a conversation with another human being, or going on a walk and seeing the sunset, or running into an old friend at a high school reunion and just relishing a moment. All those things go away.

They just do, because your mind is so fixated on supposedly the one thing that will give you pleasure, when ironically it removes Thousands of sources of pleasure. I actually wish, I wish we could actually have a conversation directly about hedonism. Like, okay, all right, you want it? Let's just take this purely from a hedonistic— you want more pleasure in your life? Is that what you want? You know, you could reduce it to that level, and pornography makes no sense.

Not just because of this research on like, Despair and fear and disconnection, all of which come from pornography, but also because all the other subtle pleasures will get burned away. They just do. If super stimulus takes over the brain, you won't be able to enjoy doing a puzzle or playing Rummikub. Over the last month, my family tried an experiment. I know this is a little foray. We said, let's see what happens If we take a month without screen-based entertainment, any, any entertainment on a screen.

Okay. You can still use the screen for Duolingo or classes or, you know, watching edifying things. And we just took a month. Terry, you know what happened? All this other stuff that we used to do and we used to enjoy doing, like darts and Rubik's Cube. We hadn't played it for a long time. My boys just said, hey, I want to have a baking contest. And they each baked stuff and competed. We did— so many things came out of the woodwork that we had stopped doing because we were so focused on, can I watch something?

Yeah. Can I play that video game? And I wrote an article. I'll send this article to you. The title is, What Are the Screens Taking Away from Us? It's the same idea, right? Yeah. I hope— I actually think it's healthy for us to realize this is not just about people who struggle with porn. This is every human being. who's grappling with screens and variety of forms, what are they taking away from us? And I kind of wish we'd say like, no, because in our family now we're like, I don't want the screens to take away those things from us anymore.

So like, we're making different decisions. And I think somebody struggling with pornography could orient their recovery in a more sustainable direction by just thinking through and sitting with their life and like, what kind of a person do I want to be? Do I want porn to take all these other pleasures away from me? Heck no. You know, it just starts to kind of set our minds and hearts right when we realize all the things porn not only takes away from us, but what it's leading us to become.

And none of us really want that.

Tara McCausland: Yeah. So for the person who's listening and you're thinking, this all sounds really great, But I do have porn addiction and it's really hard to let it go. This conversation's just about to get a little bit more hopeful. And so that's why you need to read the second article, which is titled Becoming the Kind of Person Who Doesn't Look at Porn. And I again appreciated how you framed this because like you had said, when we focus so much on the pornography, you know, don't look at the elephant, don't look at the elephant.

And of course you're gonna look at the elephant. But if you're putting a lot of your mental energy, your, your time, you're just really focusing on all these other things that— and we're going to touch on some of these. There are 14 qualities that you identified that will help us to become a person who doesn't even want pornography. Then it will almost fall out of your life. Now, again, I'm not saying that addiction is easily overcome, but if we change our paradigm, I believe it can become easier.

And maybe I'll read this. So focusing exclusively on stopping the behavior can leave the conditions driving it untouched. And I think, again, it might even exacerbate it, right? When we're only focusing on the do-nots. But the dos that you said, and there are 14 of them, and again, my challenge to our listeners is to read all 14 when you go to the article. And we're not gonna have time for all of these, but you've identified these 14 qualities Do you want to read?

Do you have those in front of you? And then we will pick and choose a few to focus on.

Jacob Hess: So number one, and as you're listening to these, just remember, this is not a comprehensive list. There's been other things that come up since this article. I'm actually going to update it, but these are based on what I've seen and the research and the study we've done. people who have found recovery. I kind of drew from everything I could find, but there are other things. These are qualities of someone who just doesn't really have room in their life for porn, right?

It's like, why would I disrupt this life for that? So number 1, a person who relishes connection with people. Number 2, a person who also treats Energy, time, and money as precious enough to use carefully. Now that one might need a little explanation, but I've noticed with my own boys and with basically every human being, it's really easy to, to assume you have all the time in the world and, oh, we have all the money in the world.

Yeah. Maybe parents are not under that illusion anymore. All the energy in the world. But we all know, especially as we get older, That is absolutely not true. We have a certain amount of time, certain amount of money, certain amount of energy. What are we going to do about it? Right. And the people who are more attentive to that, they're like, okay, I have so much time. You're basically watching it, careful of it, noticing it. Time is precious.

Money is precious. They're more, less likely To have any interest in pornography. So that's just a kind of a quality that is becoming less and less common, more and more rare. Number 3, a person who allows their life to be ordered and who values steadiness and consistency. This is again another quality that is not common or natural. It's more common to be like, my sons will be like, ah, it's the weekend. I'm gonna sleep until 10. And stay up.

But we know that having order in life, whether it's your physical surroundings or your schedule, your time, is good for your mental health. And if you're like building those patterns again, you're going to be less likely to go down and continue to go down pathways that are chaotic inherently. Number 4, a person willing to practice disciplining appetites. Impulses, cravings, and urges. Again, you're starting to see a lot of these are not being promoted in our pop culture.

To actually be willing to discipline any internal appetite or impulse is kind of like not cool. You know, the, what is the Sprite commercial? It's follow your thirst, obey your thirst. You know, like whatever you feel, that's who you are. And that's like your truth. Follow it. But all spiritual pathways, every spiritual tradition from Buddhism to Christianity invites a sort of disciplining. In Eastern cultures, they talk about training the monkey mind. You know, that's what meditation does.

Are you willing? You know, are you becoming that kind of a person? Because if, if you are, that bodes well for freedom. Number 5, a person not afraid of reality. Including when it's really hard? Are you willing to look at hard realities? Number 6, a person continuing to learn and grow in lots of different ways. In Europe, they have this thing called lifelong learning. In America, we were sort of like, all right, you're done with school. Great for you.

No need to read. Right. But I, every once in a while, I have a neighbor I'm going to go to lunch with tomorrow and he Reads all the time, even though he's like a full-time— every time I see him, he's like, I just finished this book. If you're that kind of a person, you're not gonna have time for addiction. I promise. You're like, you're gonna be like, no, no, no, this is taking away from learning and growth.

Are you a learner and a grower? Because that is so much joy. Oh, there's so much joy in that. Number 7. A person who keeps turning away from wrong and being accountable about actions. This is another thing I'm sure, Tara, you see in your teenagers, and I'm going to pause after these 7 and we can just see if there's anything you want to add, but I'm sure you see it's really easy to get in a mentality in today's America that you just do stupid things or do wrong things and you just like move on.

And I've been having conversations with my kids lately about, you know, We don't want to be that kind of a family. There are certain families that have had traditions, you know, like you have really big blowups and then you're just like, you don't talk about it. You just move on. Not healthy, right? What is healthy is when wrong happens individually or in a relationship, we actually, we have a conversation with ourselves, with others, with God. the God of our understanding, and we, we try to make things right.

We try to hold ourselves accountable to certain standards. And, you know, if you've hurt your brother, try to make it right. And that kind of a person is going to be far less likely to ever want to continue a pornography habit or any other habit. That's going to like, you know, are you basically willing to repent as a practice in your life? That's what that one is about. Are you willing to like look at stuff and say, that didn't feel right.

I'm going to, I'm going to eat less ice cream next time. That Love It size at Cold Stone is not good for me. Bummer. Let's pause there. I want to hear your thoughts on the first 7 and then we can finish the last couple.

Tara McCausland: Yeah. Well, just to riff off what you were just saying, I was just thinking about the 12 steps and, you know, making amends. is an important part of working the steps. And when we, when we are able to clear our system on the regular, boy, we feel so much peace. And then we don't have to fill the void with something that's addictive, right? That's spiking that dopamine. So I just wanted to say that before I forget it.

Jacob Hess: I love your phrase of clearing our system on the regular. That's like a nice way of thinking about it. Like, I actually think that's what happens at sleep when we really sleep, isn't it? It's like, there's like a house cleaning. It's a really nice image.

Tara McCausland: But just that first point about developing meaningful connections with others and being somebody that relishes connection. I'm sure you've heard that connection is the opposite of addiction. That's something we often talk about here at SA Lifeline. And so I, I know that when we're stuck in behaviors, whether it be pornography or other issues in our lives, we tend to isolate. And so I think if you tend to be that type of a person and maybe you're just more introverted by nature, and that's okay, but to put yourself out there to develop more connections, meaningful relationships, because we know how powerful that is in helping us overcome challenges, but also just increasing our overall wellbeing.

But when I noted the The financial piece, like treating that time, energy, and money with care. There is an interesting correlation between financial infidelity and sexual infidelity. Very often the two will go together where people who are dealing with compulsive sexual behaviors, they often have issues with money. That was certainly the cha— a challenge for my dad. And so I just appreciated that you noted that because Yes, time is limited, energy is limited, money. I mean, we don't want to have this scarcity mentality, but if we will look beyond, again, just the pornography or sexual addiction, recognizing if I can get this in order, it will also help me get these other aspects of my life in order, which will really improve the quality of my life.

Jacob Hess: Amen. I love that. If any of this feels overwhelming to anyone listening, I love this quote from Pema Chödrön. She says, interrupting our destructive habits and awakening our heart is the work of a lifetime. And I don't think we should read that as sort of like permission to sort of like, oh, right. Yeah. That this is a lifelong thing. Maybe when I'm, before I die, I hope I'm over this. I think rather, It just reminds us that this is it.

Sometimes we're like, oh, the life I'm supposed to live is on the other side of any struggle. And I think overcoming these struggles is so much an essence in my belief and in, and I think many other traditions of why we're here. You know, this is it. Yeah. So it's all part of the curriculum. Jon Kabat-Zinn says it's all part of the curriculum. So take a deep breath. Yeah. And one moment at a time, one day at a time.

Tara McCausland: Yeah. Journey, not destination, right?

Jacob Hess: Yeah. And there's a way that we can seek recovery with peace, even when we're not at the destination.

Tara McCausland: Before we continue, I wanted to announce that registration for our 2026 SA Lifeline Virtual Conference happening November 13th and 14th is now live. We will hear from 7 expert presenters sharing practical insights on recovery from sexual addiction, betrayal trauma, and healing marriages and families. Why come? Well, I know that we do better when we know better. And connection is the opposite of addiction. So through education, connection, and intention, we can build meaningful momentum in recovery. Clinicians can also receive up to 8 CEUs.

And if you can't make it live, no problem. You can watch post-conference recordings through the end of 2026. So please come heal with us. Register today at salifeline.org. And a quick shout out to our 2026 SA Lifeline Conference sponsors, Circles of Grace. So grateful for the work they're doing helping others heal from sexual addiction and betrayal trauma. Check them out in the show notes. Take us through the last 7.

Jacob Hess: Okay. The last 7. So a person willing to share heart and challenges with trusted individuals. Not everyone is for obvious reasons. There, there could be trauma in the past. There can be, um, I have a foster daughter and she's just like, Sometimes feels burned so many times that she just has a, can I trust anyone? You know, but being, learning how to do that is so huge and protective and really strengthens all of us. Number 9, a person who prioritizes the needs and suffering of others in how they orient their lives.

Again, this is not very American. That's the key. Me first and my people first. And, uh, and all spiritual traditions, every single one of them point in the other direction to say, all right, my neighbor is— C.S. Lewis, how he talks about our neighbor is sacred. Are we willing to orient our lives not in a codependent way, but in a, okay, in how I structure my day and my time and my work and my, like, Considering my neighbor who just had brain surgery.

How does her brain surgery impact anything about how I'm living? If you're that kind of a person, pornography is gonna be a nuisance. It's gonna be like, why would I ever allow that dog in my home? Number 10, a person who possesses their soul in patience and kindness. That's a phrase from, I think, the Bible. But I love it. How patient are you? How kind are you? The more of both you get, the less likely you're gonna want anything to do with pornography, cuz it makes you the opposite of that.

Number 11, a person not scared of silence and stillness. Da da. And actually begins to appreciate them. Can we pause there just to talk about this one for a sec? Yeah, please. There was a study done of people They gave them an option, sitting in silence or shocking themselves. And it was shocking how many people would rather shock themselves and have some kind of stimulation, something, than silence. And, you know, even people who are in the news all the time, even high and mighty people, just hate the idea of being alone with their thoughts.

If you cannot be alone with your own thoughts and cannot be in silence without some radio on, you know, someone I love, it always has to have the radio on, has to have some noise. That's a problem. It is. It hints at some work you have not done, and it could be trauma work. I know people who have been so traumatized that it's scary to be alone with their thoughts. Well, let's do that work. So that you can be alone with your thoughts.

Because if we always have to have something, like I was talking about with my kids, like, can I watch something, Mom? Can I watch something? It means you're always needing something else, you know? And even if it's not porn, if you like have to have the news and have to have the ESPN updates and have to have like the, the, some sort of social media, that is a great work to do. Right. Right there. And you can even try it in your relationship or in your family.

Like, let's try this for a week, you know, let's go without this, you know, and you might be a little trembly. People who take meditation classes regularly feel like, oh, how can I do this? Like going on a big lagoon ride or a big amusement park. How can I do this? And then you do it and like 10 minutes of silence, you're like, it's kind of nice. So, and I also believe the God of our understanding, the Almighty, finds us in silence in a way that when we're all consumed with everything, it's just, you're just not gonna find the living God either.

Yeah. Who ends up being quite a bit better than short-form videos on TikTok. The living God is better than all of that.

Tara McCausland: I love it. Amen.

Jacob Hess: Anything you wanna say to that before I read the last 3?

Tara McCausland: Well, I do remember that study from the book that you co-authored, Power of Stillness, and thinking that is shocking. Is it? People would be more willing to shock themselves and sit in silence. And I, for a moment, I was like, would I be one of those people? I'm like, no, I can sit in silence, but I had to pause and reflect because we are becoming so fast-paced. Do, do, do, go, go, go. stimulate, stimulate, stimulate, look at my phone every 20 seconds.

Even it's, it is exhausting at the bare minimum to live like that. Yeah. And so for our listeners, if that's you, if you cannot bear to sit in silence, recognize, you know, you're in good company. This is the battle we're fighting as human beings right now in the world we're living in. That might be one thing that you choose to work on is, can I sit? I turn on a timer and I sit quietly and I breathe for 3 minutes and then 4 minutes and 5 minutes.

Jacob Hess: Or can you just go on a walk without lice and just like walk and feel the ground? And you know, there's lots of ways to do it. Yeah. It reminds me a little bit of the old stories of the founders of the 12 steps. I love Just the, those old stories. And some of the men in those early groups and women, they'd talk about, you know, they would quit alcohol and they'd, but they'd be smoking at the meeting, meeting afterward, they're eating donuts and smoking, you know, and you can kind of like shift like the same addictive pattern.

Now you're like hours on short-form videos or like social media or like Sports, like you just can't. And it's like, wait a minute, if we're doing that with other things, it's, we're kind of exercising similar pathways. So before I read the last 3, there's one that I missed on this list that I'm going to add in. And if you go to the online article in a week or so, I'll update this, but people who take care of their physical health, and I'm talking about their sleep, their, what they put into their body and their physical activity, are also It's going to be very annoying to have pornography in your life if you care about taking care of your body.

And, and as you know, that, that, that's swimming upstream in American culture too. Um, actually putting into your body things that are good, actually getting to bed at a decent hour and waking up, as you know, in an early— and physical activity. You kind of have to like swim upstream. But if you're doing those things, point is, yeah, porn's going to be an annoyance. And that's what we really want to get at is where you're like, my life just like revolts.

You know, it revolts against it. This other stuff is what I want. So the last 3 are a person who taps into the love, peace, joy, and power of God. If you know that for yourself, and actually, this is one of the biggest findings in our study, of people who have found lasting freedom, both from pornography and from depression, by the way, they have had some kind of experience with God. And these are for people from all different denominations.

They've had some kind of experience with God where God is not just some idea. God is now like this. Oh my goodness. I had one people say that is better than any drug. I have ever had. Like, that love, that peace, that joy— you can't find pornography that is going to give you that. You can't find a, you know, a psychedelic or some marijuana. You can't find anything, even some romantic love, that's going to be better than that experience I had with God.

And I, that's not something that I can convince you of or that anyone should. It's something you have to know for yourself. You alone with God, the living God, and, um, you can find it. And so if you've tapped into that, oh my goodness, you want to make porn a nuisance, find more of that. And, uh, those who have, it's just like, why would I ever want That. And I get that though, the excitement of sexual stimulation can feel to people like the most exciting thing.

And this is an important point, Tara, that I do think sex in our secularizing American culture has become to many, it has come to feel to many like the ultimate transcendence. Is sex. Like, it's the best of anything. I've, I've heard people speak this way, you know, like, if you listen around the popular conversation, people talk about sex and sexual pleasure like it is the be-all end-all best. And it can be amazing and wonderful way to bring people together, certainly.

Like, we, you know, We don't deny the beauty and the, the wonder of that, but there is something that supersedes its power and joy and peace and love. And until people find that, honestly, until you find a life that supersedes what porn is offering, like, how are you going to be really convinced to walk away forever? That's, that's why I get excited about this developmental stuff, Tara, because it's like, how does somebody leave this behind forever?

When your life becomes so full of light and love and peace and joy and power from all the best sources, porn is an annoyance. And, um, just like Alan Carr, who started this amazing program in, in Britain to help people stop smoking, It's just this brilliant thing where he he says like tobacco offers you nothing. There is absolutely nothing that smoking is doing for you, only bringing misery. And like blah blah blah blah you know like this is the spiel he has, and he has results in helping people stop stop smoking that very few people have because I think because he takes the same approach.

Helping them see this thing that you just, you know, you get a little, you know, a momentary high, is actually doing nothing for you. If we really believe that, not just because Alan Carr told us or Jacob Hesse or Tara, if we believe it because our life is telling us that every moment, that pornography is going to be so far behind you that you're going to be— it's just going to be a bad dream. It's going to be a nightmare that you're like, oh, thank heavens I have that behind me.

Tara McCausland: Just as you were speaking, I don't know who coined this phrase. I thought it was Brené Brown, but I think it was probably the Big Book or something. But you've heard the term God hunger? No. Right? No? Okay. I should figure out who said that. But I feel like whenever we are engaging in compulsive behaviors, compulsive patterns, there is this God hunger where we don't have that love and that connection with God enough that we are constantly trying to fill the void with— Yeah, with something else which needs to be filled by God.

And so I just wanted to say yes, yes to what you were saying, because again, pointing back to the 12 steps, The 12 steps really help us understand initially that our life is unmanageable and where our— where we find our power. And it's not in us, it's in God. Where we find our peace, it's not in us or in the habit, it's in God, right? And so I just wanted to again point to the 12 steps because I think that the 12 steps are so powerful in how they bring people step by step to this understanding of I need God and I want God in my life.

And then without God, life is nothing. And with God, life is everything, right?

Jacob Hess: Beautiful. C.S. Lewis said, God is the fuel we run on in the car. But we have to acknowledge and realize that for a lot of people, they've been putting other stuff in the tank for so long that they really think It's easy to start to believe, especially with sophisticated people talking about erotic energy, you know, all these sophisticated scholars like this sexual, this is what you orient your life around, but it's not, not really. Not if you want the kind of lasting, deep, deepest happiness and peace.

You can, you can put sex in the tank as the fuel you run on. You really can. I know people who do. And when I look at them, and I'm just, I'm just going to be honest, when I look at their faces, I do not see deep, lasting peace and happiness. I just don't. I see something else going on, like some sort of almost an animalistic thing that you can orient your life around sex, sexual pleasure as the highest form of transcendence, but the happiest people don't.

If you tap into that love, peace, and joy. And then the last 2 is a person who delights in truth and goodness. I mean, just close your eyes and just ask yourself, do you know someone who just delights in truth and goodness? I'm not going to lie. Like, I just wrote something about Dolly Parton for the Deseret News, and I just found her— sometimes I wish she'd like wear some more clothes. She was funny that way. But I found her so delightful.

I found her— I was just delighting in her heart, in her 59-year marriage, in her funny little mannerisms. Not that I always— we have to like agree with everyone that we delight in, right? But she also delighted in truth and her faith. There's so many beautiful things. So do you delight in truth and goodness? If not, you can. You can reclaim that as a sacred heritage. And if you do delight in truth and goodness, you are going to be so annoyed at the nuisance of pornography.

You're going to be like, get out of my home. Because in here we relish, you know, my boy has started painting and he's like painting these beautiful things. And I sometimes look at what he's painting as a little 11-year-old painter. And I'm just like in awe. And, um, If he got into some of the stuff online, that habit of art and the beauty of— it would just go away just like that. Number 14, a person who sees divinity in themselves and others.

Forgive me for referencing Dolly one more time, but she talks about the God spark that is in everyone. Mm-hmm. And don't allow our theological differences to make us believe someone that thinks differently than we do, religiously or politically, is somehow less divine. That's what's taking over America right now. It's like, yeah, all the people that think like me are great. Everyone else is despicable. That is evil. That kind of divisiveness. And so can you see divinity in everyone, including perhaps people Not just perhaps, but the people that were engaged in these intimate acts that in past videos, you start to say that woman is a daughter of God.

And, uh, if you, if we really believe it, everything would be different. I really do think so. Literally everything. This has been such a fun conversation. Thank you.

Tara McCausland: I would even say delightful. For those who are listening, you haven't been able to watch Jacob, which by the way, this will be on YouTube, um, so you can always jump over there and watch this. But it's actually been really fun to watch you express yourself, Jacob, because I can see how passionate you are about this subject and that you find true joy in expressing truth around this issue. And so for those who are listening, we hope that you feel hopeful about the ability to become the person where pornography is no longer even of interest.

But it is a one-day-at-a-time journey. But I hope that you'll take a look at the articles, and the second article in particular, my challenge to you is to find 2 or 3 points from those 14 that you can start plugging in this week. And maybe there's some that are easier, some that are harder, but there's a lot of wisdom here just for a happy, fulfilling life. And so I am going to take some of what you have suggested, Jacob, just and share with my family so that we can live more joyfully, lessen our screens, lessen, you know, the things that are taking away from our joy.

So this really has been wonderful. Thank you.

Jacob Hess: Let's make porn an annoyance. Yeah, a nuisance, just like the telemarketer or the mangy dog that wanders down the street. Let's make it so annoying that we just can't even— it doesn't make sense to have in our life anymore. If that's not you, I just want to just say before we're done, keep learning, keep growing. Keep getting up. Keep hope. Keep staying hopeful, and you will put this behind you. Like if you have a voice in your head saying, "Yeah, maybe for others, not me," that is a lie.

Everyone can find freedom from this, including you. Everyone, because I I believe the God of the universe has enough power and love to help every one of us, and um. And he knows exactly what you need to beat this. And, and, and, uh, so tap into that and never ever give up. If you, uh, go listen to Winston Churchill talking about never ever giving up, Great Britain when they were under siege.

Tara McCausland: Yeah. Well, and we always ask the bookend question and actually you answered the first question, which was, what would you tell somebody that's maybe just starting this journey? But the second point would be, what would you tell somebody Who's been doing this work for a while and might need a little fire under them to keep working, keep going, keep striving.

Jacob Hess: Yeah. You're not abnormal. I don't know why we've gotten this idea that change— my friend Vinnie is working on a book about recovery that's going to come out and I should have him on your show, but he's like this idea that change is supposed to take 21 days or something. And we, we think everything needs to happen quickly. The most important things in the universe and the history of the world have been gradual. And give yourself a little break.

These habits have developed gradually, and your triumph will not be any less glorious if it takes a little time or a lot of time. You just stay on that journey and keep learning, keep growing, and, um, Freedom is precious enough that all your work is going to be worth it. And Vinny, I have to quote him. He says, if you knew how great recovery is, you would put on your track shoes to get there. Sprint to get there.

It's so good. And then he also says, happy people don't stick needles in their arms. So go that life where it's just so annoying. pornography, you just can't even imagine why. Yeah, you can get there.

Tara McCausland: Hear, hear. Well, thank you so much, Jacob. Our time is out, but thank you again for sharing your wisdom, your enthusiasm, and keep writing. And to our listeners, go to the articles. They're worth your time. Thanks again for being here. See ya.

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