AI is changing the game when it comes to pornography—and it’s becoming more addictive and more dehumanizing than ever. This episode explores the impact of modern porn, including its ties to fantasy, gaming, and a distorted view of connection. If you or someone you love is navigating this journey, there is hope!
Prefer to listen? Listen to the full episode here.
Juli (00:01.582)
Hey friend, welcome to Java with Juli, hosted by me, Juli Slattery. Java with Juli is a listener supported podcast and it’s an outreach of a ministry called Authentic Intimacy, which is dedicated to helping you make sense of God and sexuality. Well, pornography has been around for ages, but it can change in power and scope with new technologies. Most of us recognize how the internet and smart devices have resulted in people who never even had the intention to look at it, but are now getting hooked on porn. As technology continues to evolve, unfortunately, so does the problem of porn in our culture. We are now living in a time when pornography is not just pictures or video, it’s personalized and interactive and powered by artificial intelligence. What feels like a personal connection can actually be a dangerous counterfeit and is quietly reshaping our ability to build trust and intimacy with real people.
But here’s the good news. There are Christians all over the country who are bravely stepping into new conversations about sexual brokenness and addiction. And my guests today are among them. Jonathan Daugherty from Be Broken Ministries is with me today. He is a favorite around here. And Joel Warneking from 423 Communities is making his first appearance on Java with Juli. Now these two men and their ministries are bringing hope and healing to both men and women who’ve decided to kick board out of their lives and out of their marriages for good. And they’re going to help us understand some of these new forms of pornography. Whether you personally are struggling with pornography or you just want to be alert and stay on top of the trends, this episode is definitely for you. But before we head to the coffee shop, I want to let you know that registration for our summer online book studies is now open.
Grab your spot today in one of our groups that are going through my new upcoming book called “Surrender Sexuality”. Yep, you can be one of the first to read it, particularly in these group formats. Plus we’ve got groups that will be going through “God, Sex, and Your Marriage”, “Finding the Hero and Your Husband”, “Rethinking Sexuality”, and we’ve got both male and female groups going through that one, “Surprised by the Healer”, and “Her Freedom Journey”.
Juli (02:21.326)
Now in these studies, you’ll take part in weekly Zoom meetings with a trained volunteer. You’ll have online discussions and a live Q&A at the end of the study with the author, which is often neat. The deadline to register for these groups is June 14th, but I’d encourage you not to wait because some of these groups fill up really fast. Head to Authenticintimacy.com slash online book studies and grab your spot today. Okay, let’s dive into my conversation with Jonathan and Joel.
Juli (02:55.832)
Well, guys, we have a lot of Jays on the podcast today, Joel, Jonathan, Juli, and lots of Java, but looking forward to this conversation. And Joel, you are new to Java with Juli. Welcome to the podcast. Let me say that first.
Joel
Thank you so much. Yeah, honor to be here. Love your work. Love, Jonathan. So excited for our conversation today.
Juli
Yeah, and I just found out that you and Jonathan are good friends. You and your ministries are partnering on some different things, which I love to see. That’s really fun to see you guys link arms. Joel, you have a ministry called 432. Did I get that right?
Joel
Yes, it’s a bit confusing. It’s based out of Proverbs 423. Guard your heart with all diligence for from it flows springs of life. And we help establish recovery ministries for local churches all across the country, run in-person online groups for men, women, youth, and families. so, yeah, it’s…
Juli
Yeah, so you answered my next question, which was what is 423 come from? And now I know. Yeah. And also your groups run for teenagers, which is unique for ministries. Is that correct?
Joel (04:06.894)
Yeah, our 423Next program, you so much of the time when I would do an intake with a guy, was the same story over and over again of between the ages of six and 12, this issue became a part of their lives. I think the average age now of people reaching out for mental health support is 37. So if you have a 30-year gap sometimes between getting people connected to care, just leaves people isolated for so long and the damage that can accumulate in that amount of time is staggering.
And so yeah, we’ve put tremendous amounts of effort to create our 423Next program, which helps teens down to 13 to get into a support group and to get connected to care, as well as partnering with the parents to create a healthy family system. It’s part of why we love Be Broken and the work that they do with the entire family system in educating people on healthy sexuality. So that’s a little bit about that program.
Juli
Well, the problem of pornography and the ripple effects, as you’re just alluding to, that go through lives and families and marriages, it’s so profound. And it’s greatly encouraging to me to see that God keeps raising up more people, more ministries, particularly can link arms with each other. I like to give individuals and couples like a list of four or five different ministries and resources that might be the right fit for them or might have something in their local community. And so I just want to start by saying how grateful I am for the work that you all are doing. I know it is not without cost and that there’s always a spiritual battle around this kind of ministry, but thank you for that work.
Joel
Yeah, it’s an honor. Yeah, thank you.
Juli (05:52.536)
So Jonathan, welcome back. You are a fan favorite. So always great to have you on the podcast.
Jonathan
Well, thanks. It’s always a joy to be here, Juli. It’s fun to see that there’s other ministries like Authentic Intimacy that are starting to get into, you know, they’re in the double digits of years being around because, you know, we need faithful presence in this area of ministry. you know, Be Broken has been around for over 20 years, and we’ve seen a lot come and go.
You mentioned there’s a lot of spiritual warfare that goes on in this area and sometimes people get taken out. And so it’s always a joy to be connected with you and what y’all are doing with Authentic Intimacy.
Juli
Yeah. Well, we are going to head into some good conversation around understanding what’s happening with pornography in today’s day and age, as well as some of the challenges of recovery. So again, Jonathan, your story, we featured that often on the podcast. We’ll link to some of those episodes. And Joel, I look forward to having you on to talk about your story. We’re not going to talk story today as much as just information.
And I wanted to start by exploring some of the ways that pornography is taking different forms than what we typically think of. mean, know, back 20, 30 years ago, Playboy and Hustler, and that’s how people found pornography or an adult video store. And then it became the internet and your phone in terms of going to porn websites.
Juli (07:35.886)
But there are some new ways that pornography is kind of unfortunately capturing people’s attention where they’re not seeing it coming at them. And so I just love for you guys both to share some of the ways that we’re seeing pornography morph in this day and age, and even maybe what you see beginning to happen in the future with artificial intelligence and some of that. So Jonathan, let me start with you. In your ministry, what are some of the things that you’re seeing?
Jonathan
Yeah, so there has been a lot of transformation that you might say in terms of the way that pornography is being accessed and the kinds of pornography that’s being accessed. Back when I was a kid, there was only the option of something in print or potentially if you got some kind of bootleg video of something. And that was it. The internet did not exist. And so just access to pornography was completely different. The internet changed all of that.
And so when the internet came along, not only did you have so much faster accessibility, there was the anonymity, the affordability, all those, you know, the triple A’s of, you know, pornography. But now what we’re seeing happening is, you know, whereas when I was a kid or even when my children were young, the types of pornography were still what you might call whole person pornography. There was still somewhat of a narrative to pornography. There was still somewhat of a interactive element within the pornography. And it has been, there’s been a reductionism, I think, that’s even happened within pornography that we are literally whittling people down into parts in pornography. So you’re seeing more violence, you’re seeing more pornography that is just focusing on parts of the body. Pornography has always been dehumanizing.
But I think the way in which it’s happening now is it’s literally starting to sever a person in terms of how the viewing is done. Video has taken over. In my day, pornography was a lot about just still images, pictures. Now it’s almost exclusively video. And then I think where things are going is we’ve always known that pornography is inviting somebody into a little bit of a fantasy world. It’s not actually reality.
Jonathan (09:53.172)
Even though, know, 30 years ago, pornography still had somewhat of a connection to reality because it was still two people engaging in this act. And there was a sense in which like, I can sort of understand that that’s not completely disconnected from reality, even if it’s not my personal reality of what I would do or know. Now, it’s like otherworldly in the sense of like bringing people into a fantasy. now where artificial intelligence is going.
That’s just another layer of a disconnect from reality where the users of pornography have a false belief that they’re engaging a real person when in fact it’s just digitally produced. So that’s a real high kind of overview of where I’ve kind of seen the trajectory over the last 20 or 30 years in terms of where pornography has come and even where it’s maybe going.
Juli
Yeah. How about you, Joel? What are you seeing?
Joel
Yeah, I think I’m a little bit part of the younger generation on the back end of the millennials, a little bit of a different experience, but definitely seeing those same trends where it always has been dehumanizing. I think one of the things that captures this younger generation is that, you know, those chat features and the ability to engage with the real person because there is such an absence of authentic intimacy, right, in culture, where they are longing for not just the engagement with sexually explicit material for arousal, but they are deeply hungry for a sense of intimacy. And so I see the development of AI. I read a story just the other day where someone had curated an entire sexual emotional affair with an AI bot that was producing images and kind of creating a false relationship with the individual.
Joel (11:45.528)
And so the highest demographic of our communities is 18 to 35. And so we just see a lot of these young men and women who are not in a relationship, they’re single and they are craving connection. And I think the danger of kind of AI pornography and the danger of the chat cams and the live chats is that it’s filling two parts of the addictive process. It’s filling the desire and the compulsion towards healthy attachment and attachment to somebody. And it’s also filling their need for sexual arousal on any of those fantasies. Because those cam features, there’s all the fantasies that you could possibly imagine are integrated into that false form of intimacy and engagement. But that has devastating effects, especially on these young 20s and 30s men and women who are kind of being robbed of their ability to have authentic intimacy with anybody, because it’s created in this false form of attachment through connection to AI pornography or a non-realistic chat feature of a porn site.
Juli
So when I listen to you both, in some ways you’re seeing different things that are probably both happening simultaneously for some people. It is kind of the isolation of one body part or, you know, the disconnection. But then Joel, you’re also seeing like narratives attached with pornography that are kind of playing off of isolation and the need for attachment. And both of those are troubling.
When I think about that narrative playing off of attachment, I’m just sort of processing this right now. When you have physical pornography, you’re presenting something that’s unrealistic physically. But when you add a narrative of fantasy attachment, you’re also providing something that is relationally not real and not attainable.
Juli (13:51.852)
So, when you play that out, physically, if you see a perfected image or something that’s not real, you cannot enjoy real physical sex with your spouse. But I can’t even imagine the fallout if now pornography is playing with our understanding of what healthy attachment is, like how that just blows up lives. Like now I don’t know how to attach with the real person. Does that make sense?
Jonathan
Yeah, totally makes sense. think our ministry focuses more on the compulsive attachment side of the addictive process and less on the behavioral modification pieces. And so maybe we just see more of that narrative story work come out inside of our experience with people. You mentioned something, you said what AI is going to do to the future of pornography. But I think that future is kind of already here. With the deep fake technology, you can take the next door neighbor’s face and put it on any scene of pornography that you could fantasize and create an AI. You could essentially create your own story of pornography using your personal image and the person that you fantasize about and create your own pornographic journey. And that’s happening today. Just think about that of watching pornography that is you with your neighbor or your friend or the person at church. Talk about a distorted view of connection.
Juli
Is that legal? I mean, are there companies that are legally doing this?
Jonathan (15:21.782)
That’s the whole other aspect of porn right now and just AI in general is it’s going to create a whole new wave of legislation and legalities because it’s so unheard of, it’s unknown. But I would say this, I would add a little bit to what Joel’s saying and a little bit to what you were asking, Juli, is that always, and for the entire history that pornography has been around, which goes back thousands of years, it’s always been not just something that dehumanizes, but something that detaches us.
So there’s always an isolating aspect relationally. So whether it is somebody focusing on it purely for like a sexual release or something like that, it’s still going to isolate and disconnect them from healthy relationships. And now compounded with what Joel is saying of now there’s the ability to have these more interactive connections with the pornography that you’re engaging. I think it only exacerbates the disconnection because when a person has this false digital experience that can feel in the moment very like real and connected and then it’s over and the screen shuts down. It’s even more deflating. It’s even more, it’s like it almost compounds the reality that I am isolated and alone. I did not have a real connection there. I did not experience true Authentic Intimacy there. It only kind of reinforces the idea of I really am alone and I’m desperate for connection but the more I keep trying to seek it in these ways, it’s like, as the Bible says, it’s cisterns that can’t hold water. They just leak. It doesn’t actually fill us.
Juli
Yeah. And then Jonathan, when there’s tools that actually could create that ongoing exchange, even when the screen goes off. Like I know, for example, my husband and I use this training app, you know, that gives you like workouts to do. And they have an AI component now where that my husband signed up for where the trainer like will text them and be like, great workout. Like you did a great job.
Juli (17:23.596)
Mike starts texting back, not realizing that this is an AI bot, you know, at first like, wow, that person’s really encouraging me. Like that’s great. They’re on it. As soon as I finished a workout, they know I finished. And then he starts to realize like, that’s not a real person, but I could just imagine with pornography, there is no disconnection in some ways in that it’s not when the screen shuts off. You could, as you’re describing Joel, like literally have it programmed to be texting you all day, responding to you. Geez, like, that’s so scary.
Jonathan
And when you think about those who are sort of leveraging the AI in this way, it’s kind of like what we learned some years ago about the algorithms in social media. They are set in such a way that you should never stop scrolling. Never stop scrolling. Always the algorithms are to keep you scrolling. In the same way, I think the way that AI is being leveraged in the pornographic space is keep feasting. Keep feasting your eyes. Keep feasting. Just keep connected. But again, like I said, I think this is even more dangerous and insidious than older pornography, know, 20 years ago, because what it’s doing is it’s keeping a person connected to like fantasy. It’s keeping them disconnected from reality and keeping them connected to something that is not real. And I think that has way more it’s way more detrimental, I think, for the soul than even what former porn used to do.
Juli
Yeah. And then when you compare that to a real life relationship with somebody who gets their feelings hurt and…
Jonathan (19:02.614)
or contradicts you or…
Juli
Yeah, it’s like, who wants that? Boy, it’s sobering. Another trend maybe related to this that I keep hearing about is something called fans only. Did I get that right? I keep inverting my words today. But can you talk about some of these new ways that people are getting hooked on porn like that? And the reason that we’re doing this is certainly not to give people ideas of how to access pornography, but awareness. Calling porn what it is, looking for ways that the enemy might trip us up. And I think even as parents or if you have a loved one who’s struggling, to be aware of some of the ways that you might not even know pornography draws us in.
Jonathan
Joel, you want to take that one first?
Joel (19:57.486)
Yeah, I was gonna let you go for that one, but not as familiar with OnlyFans other than it’s just a way for it’s it kind of ties into the celebrity culture I believe where you feel like you are a part of someone else’s life that reality culture where you are not only drawn into the the sexual experiencing in the engagement piece not just pornography But you are a part of their world, you are a part of their daily experience, their daily life kind of ties into that social media experience. And then typically it has, I believe has a sexual component to it that, you know, laces in that desire for that explicit material. But I think that again, just ties into what Jonathan was talking about of how pornography and the experience that it has inside of culture is kind of evolving with technology and culture.
It’s moving beyond just the use of a lustful image and it’s moving into trying to tie into people’s core experience of life and the way that they attach into healthy forms of intimacy, that they can feel a part of something bigger themselves. So they almost have a sense of purpose attached to their pornography outside of just using an image for self-gratification. It’s tying into some of those deeper narratives of the soul that are part of the human experience. And I think that’s why it’s so damaging and so much of a draw to people in that space.
Jonathan
Yeah, and would say that I think even the platforms like OnlyFans are just a natural outcome of a capitalistic society that doesn’t put any parameters on moral depravity, if I can put it that way. It’s like if you just keep going this way and say, hey, let the market sort of drive what people want. Well, you get OnlyFans. You get something like that. It’s kind of like a platform for just kind of promoting amateur porn because it even is drawing people into pornography, like to be actors in it, because it’s like, hey, I can make money just, you know, basically letting people see me in my bedroom or whatever. And so there’s a sense in which even there’s, I think, some societal underpinnings that are driving a lot of these kinds of things, because we talk about it all the time. Porn is ubiquitous in the United States of America. It has been normalized. There’s a sense in which we’re called like a pornified culture. Porn is not even seen culturally as something that’s that big a deal.
And so that’s why a lot of times when we’re even having these discussions, there’s a whole segment of the population that would have no interest in this conversation that we’re having because they’re like, why are you guys even talking about this? It’s not a big deal. And yet, of course, as is always the case with sin, there is always ultimately, eventually a negative outcome and a negative consequence to that. Even if in the moment, it’s not as prevalent or understood in that way. This is why I love the fact that Joel’s really, you know, we’re trying to emphasize how can we get upstream with the next generation? Because if you think about it, one other aspect that has changed over the years with pornography, with the advent of the internet, and certainly with where things are going with AI, is the speed with which an addiction can be formulated and with which the brain can be changed is exponentially faster today than it was 30 years ago. Because when you only had a magazine and maybe there’s 30 pictures in that magazine, there were certainly changes that could be going on in the brain and could result in an addiction. But generally speaking,
If you were viewing that type of pornography on a regular basis, it could take anywhere from nine months to a year to really have all of what we would consider the compulsive addictive components with pornography. Nowadays, with the screens everywhere and AI and these things screaming at you, like you mentioned, Juli, it’s going to text you and all these kinds of things. You’re talking about a matter of weeks before you can have those same kind of brain changes towards compulsive behavior. just the whole the whole playing field has changed around pornography.
Juli
Yeah, I want to get into some of what the recovery process looks like. Before I do that, I want to ask you about one other thing that I keep hearing about, which is anime porn, which I would think would sort of fly under the radar, like how dangerous can cartoons be? But can you say a word or two about that?
Joel
Yeah, it’s a growing popularity in the category. I think it kind of again ties into that desire for fantasy. There’s a high prevalence also of video game addiction. Again, it’s that outside fantasy drawing you into something that’s other than, I think most of the depictions of anime pornography are not about intimate sexuality. It’s grotesque, it’s larger than life, it’s violent, it’s bondage, it’s abuse.
There’s a way to approach those more extreme forms of pornography using cartoons or just random characters that feel the void of human. And so that you can go a little bit more unhumane with the type of pornography that you’re using. And I think that has a deep draw for a lot of people that are kind of wrapped in that direction.
Jonathan
Yeah, it’s literally creating caricatures that can exaggerate features and exaggerate experiences. And I think there’s a lot of overlap with anime with a lot of the gaming community because a lot of that was sort of originally introduced through kind of a gaming space. And then it sort of became its own thing because when, again, a lot of this is what can be monetized? What can be, you know, what are people, it’s a mark. I hate to put it this way, but it is, it’s a market driven paradigm that those that realize, we can make money doing this. And so let’s start to pull it away separately from gaming and have it be its own platform and its own thing. But again, the underpinnings of it are all the same as far as like it’s drawing you away from reality. It’s drawing you into a space that’s not human really in terms of the real connection.
Juli
Yeah. And I could see how some people would say that that’s an ethical form of pornography because it’s not actually real people. It’s not even depicting real people. So I could see how there might be a rationalization there too.
Jonathan
Yeah, but it’s, you know, what’s the old saying? All art imitates life. You can’t ultimately fully and comprehensively detach any art form from something that is rooted somewhere in reality. So even though we’re talking about how these things are all gonna draw us away, there is a sense in which everything is birthed from a sense of the mind that, from a person who has made in God’s image. So there is at its root something that is real.
And then it gets distorted and then it gets exaggerated and it gets blown up into these caricatures of what is actually real. And so I would say even that, I mean, that’s a pretty poor argument because are you gonna say, I mean, there’s studies that have been done with even the gaming community and saying you cannot disconnect what you’re looking at eight hours a day from what you ultimately end up doing and think and how you think and make decisions in your life. There have been studies that have shown there’s a link to that.
People wanted to say, all those violent video games, they have no effect on young people. Well, we know that to be false now. So in the same way, you could say, anime, it’s ethical porn. No, you’re looking at that stuff. It’s going to have an effect on how you relate to others in real life.
Juli (27:44.654)
Hey, friend, Juli here, breaking into our conversation for a minute. If your spouse has been engaging with pornography, you know the sting of betrayal and discovery. I mean, it’s devastating. But what you need to know right now is that you are not alone. It is not your fault and there is hope for you and for your marriage. Check out our brand new Hot Topic Kit on porn and marriage. It’s full of solid biblical guidance for anyone who’s ready to confront this issue head on. This kit pulls together our best content from how porn affects intimacy to what it looks like to confront your spouse with truth and grace to the next steps that are required for a recovery. You’ll hear from men and women who’ve walked this road, people who get it, and they’re sharing their stories with honesty and hope. Plus, we’ll connect you with trusted ministries like Be Broken and 423 Communities, so you’re not trying to figure this out all by yourself. Whether you’re feeling overwhelmed or you’re just looking for next steps, this kit is a great place to start or maybe to start again. If you’re an Authentic Intimacy member, you can access this kit for free at Authenticintimacy.com. But if you’re not a member, you can get it for just $20 in our online bookstore. And we’ll put both of those links in the show notes.
Now let’s head back to the coffee shop for my conversation with Jonathan and Joel.
Juli (29:16.024)
Well, all of this is a wake up call, it’s frightening. Let’s talk about recovery now. And you both are in the work of recovery, you’ve created ministries that provide places for recovery. Jonathan, I think you and I have talked about the importance of groups in recovery. I’d love to hit that again. I actually just had a conversation this morning with somebody who’s just trying to navigate a porn issue by themselves or even themselves and a friend.
So maybe we could talk for a minute about why groups are so powerful and necessary for this.
Jonathan
Yeah, well, what I’d love to do is I’ll kind of launch it, you know, groups is really Joel’s bread and butter. But I wanted to share with one of the reasons that we’ve partnered with with Joel with four to three is because we approach recovery with what we call our three dimensional recovery strategy. And we believe when you have these three environments, these three aspects in a person’s recovery from porn or any kind of sex addiction, it drastically enhances their ability to truly be free to truly experience long-term freedom. And those three elements are counseling, groups, and intensives. When you put those elements together, because there’s distinction between each of them, they each have their own value of what they bring to a person’s overall recovery.
And we feel like if you just do one, there’s a value to that. But if you put these three things together, groups, counseling, and intensives, the angles that your issues are being addressed from iIt really helps you see your whole person, your whole struggle and the whole hope that you can have for really moving forward. And so one of those obviously is groups. And I feel like groups is really that environment where you work out a lot of what you need to learn in practice, like for those elements that need to change in an ongoing way. And I’d love for Joel to speak to that because that’s what his whole mission and what their whole focus is, those group environments for really helping guys experience transformation.
Joel
Yeah, thanks for pushing it over here. Yeah, I think, you know, just as a base level, we were created to function inside of community. I think that’s the way God created us. That’s the way He created us in the garden is to be in relationship. And that’s how the early church function. That’s how the church should function is inside of community. And it’s with that idea that we come together every week, right? And when you’re on the recovery journey and you’re unpacking all of these you know, items of the compulsion side, which are the early childhood wounds and the attachments and the core internalized messages of shame. And you’re trying to wrestle with this new identity of self and you’re trying to put to death some of these addictive patterns and behaviors in regards to pornography use or social media or gaming. You cannot do that alone.
You cannot learn how to reform healthy attachment and connection to God and others in isolation. You cannot practice confession and repentance and the healing of the soul in isolation. You have to be with a group of competent individuals who know where we’re going together and to be able to begin to find the healing that is necessary on this journey of recovery. And so when a guy or woman or teen steps into a group every single week, they have the ability for eight to 10 other people to be reflecting back to them. We call it a witnessing community that while you are running your race, while you are running the journey of recovery, that you have eight to 10 people with you who know you, who can see you, who can help you pinpoint some of those areas in your story that are affecting your recovery journey and your mental and emotional health.
Joel (33:12.578)
As well as sometimes be that brother that needs to come in with that iron and be like, hey brother, we need to talk about some of these patterns in your life and how we can get those worked out so that you can find lasting health and change. so group work is essential. And again, that’s why we’ve partnered with Jonathan and Be Broken is the power of the intensive experience. Our groups are long form, they are year round, it’s never ending. We’re here for as long as you might need support. We will walk with you and equip you. But Jonathan and his team do an immense job bringing in some of those incredibly important integral pieces to the recovery journey in a three-day shotgun, right? I had a guy in a group yesterday who just got through the Gateway to Freedom intensive experience and he was, like, my mind is so blown open. I’m like, that’s great, let’s keep going, you know? So it’s a perfect partnership that we’ve been working on.
Juli
Sort of one-two punch.
Jonathan
I would say, Juli, real quick too, one of the values of all of those environments, counseling groups and intensives, one of the core values of that is each of these are environments where a person can share their full story. That is so rare in our community. Think about, Joel mentioned earlier this, so much of what he’s seeing in the interactive elements of pornography is this deep, deep longing to be known, to really connect.
And of course that cannot happen in that false substitute of pornography and AI and all those kinds of things. But when you get in a community, whether it be one-on-one with a counselor who has got that confidential safety for you, when you get in a group where there’s some confidentiality safety, when you get in an intensive where there’s that safety, and you go, I have never actually shared my full story with anybody. That in itself is a cathartic experience to finally bring your full self into community.
Jonathan (34:59.276)
And it’s scary, because we work really hard at making sure these, what we call shame-free spaces or grace-based environments, it’s safe. It’s safe to do that. And for so many, that just absolutely accelerates their recovery because they’ve never been in a safe enough place to share their full story.
Juli
And be in a place where other people are going to be like, I can totally relate. Your story overlaps with mine and there’s not that judgment or that shock factor. Jonathan, let me ask you, how often do you all run the Gateway to Freedom intensives?
Jonathan
We do about 10 to 12 a year, and we do them in Texas and then also in the Southeast region in Georgia, Florida area. So about four five in Texas, about four in the Southeast area. But there’s always one that’s coming up.
Juli
And then Joel, your groups are, you join a group, is it the same people that stay together for their duration or is it open groups? How does that work?
Joel
It’s an open group with a high level of fidelity and integrity to the process. So one of our main goals is to never have someone have to wait. And we get so many guys who are, I’m in line for this next program, but it’s a 10 month journey and I can’t get started until it starts. And we have the ability for a guy to get plugged into a group right away.
Joel (36:31.896)
We have an eight week kind of intensive introduction to 423, where it’s with me or another PSAP or CSAT counselor led intensive process where they’re onboarded into the group experience and kind of walked through those different layers of how we approach recovery. And then they’re plugged into a group with guys all over the country. They have a pretty low turnover rate. And so, yeah, some of these guys have been running together for eight, 10, 12 years, working, having sobriety and restoration. But our focus is so much more about what does it look like to live in restoration and to be a healthy follower of Jesus, not just finding that initial sobriety. And so these guys find true community and they run together for a long time.
Juli
That’s fantastic. I heard somebody make a statement a few months ago that sort of caught my ear that I’d love for you all to speak into. They talked about withdrawal from pornography. And whenever there’s an addiction, like we classically think of a drug or alcohol addiction, you know there’s withdrawal. And you’ve seen movies about that. You kind of have an idea of what that might look like. But I’ve never really heard somebody talk about like a physical withdrawal from pornography or sexual addiction. Can you describe what that is and how you work through that?
Jonathan
I’ll share because that was actually my personal experience. I was a full blown porn and sex addict, when I started my recovery, it was very much a cold turkey deal. The day my wife left me was the first day of my recovery. God really broke me in that day. I didn’t know what was going on. Thankfully, I got into counseling with a really good counselor that could help me understand.
Jonathan (38:07.702)
Why do I have these, know, why do I start finding myself hyperventilating? Why do I get cold sweats? Why I have such bad headaches? I mean, all these things were happening. And now looking back, can understand a lot more what was happening physically there. The way God designed our brains is our brains crave balance. If you think about the brain as being lit up, like it’s, you know, going to glow. It wants to have an even glow all the way around it. That’s the way God created the brain. Well, when we start overusing one part of the brain, and that’s really what pornography does, it overstimulates, it’s releasing all these chemicals in a way that’s hyper, as if that part of the brain really lights up, but it means that other parts of the brain start to go dimmer. And so even though it’s our own chemicals in our own bodies, in other words, we’re not bringing a foreign substance into our bodies, what porn and that sex addiction, that compulsive, behavior was doing is it was creating an imbalance in my own brain. So when I stopped those behaviors that was hyperactively lighting up that part of my brain, it’s as if the brain was starting to try to go back into balance, but that part of the brain was fighting that it’s like, wait a second, you’re not giving me as much stimuli as I had before. And so there’s a sense in which there’s always going to be some difficulty with that transition. And every person’s different in terms of what that might look like.
For me, like I said, was headaches. was, you know, sometimes these, I’d feel like all of a sudden I can’t breathe, almost like a mini panic attack kind of a thing. But that’s a natural part of getting the brain to come back to balance. And so if anybody’s out there and saying, man, I’m ready, I wanna stop. Just know that that’s some of the things that are gonna happen, but it’s a good thing. It’s a sign that the brain is trying. The brain is trying to really rebalance. And that’s why support, these supportive communities, counseling groups, intensives, are so important because that’s the environment that you need to be in when can all the haywire nature of initial phases of recovery happen.
Joel (40:07.918)
Yeah. Yeah, Jonathan, I think I see so much similarity to that with the men and women in our program, my own story. We teach a lot on polyvagal theory, so window of tolerance, how we regulate the nervous system. so pornography or just sexual behaviors where you’re getting that dopamine and those endorphins and that prolactin for relaxation, right? Like that has been the primary way that you have learned to regulate your nervous system from either hyperactive stress or from that dysregulation into dorsal vagal where you’re feeling depressed and isolated and disassociated. Right, so pornography has been this synthetic attempt to rebalance the body and rebalance the nervous system. And so you see that where all of a sudden you have unchecked rage, right, where you’re just peaking in hyperarousal on that sympathetic fight or flight state. Or you have those long prolonged periods of being disassociated and numb because you’re no longer have that hyper stimulus to kind of pull you back into center. And so even guys that are have a period of sobriety and maybe have a weekend of a relapse, they have a withdrawal period. I call it the limbic storm, right? Where they have a three to five day like, hey, it’s going to be really bad for three to five days. Just hang on and get back, get back in there. Yes, I know it sucks.
So just encouraging them that, this can be rewired. The brain can be retrained. I think there’s even some correlation with the overstimulus and the reward center with dopamine as it affects the serotonin barrier, right? So it lowers your serotonin barrier so cortisol can overtake the brain easier. I think that’s why you have those panic attacks. So yeah, there’s a lot that goes on in our bodies. But one of the main things that we see and that I see, is that pornography has been, or sexual behavior has been one of the main ways that we have numbed and suppressed the emotional wounds, the emotional pain of our internalized belief about self. And so when you take away the sugar pill that you take every day to help yourself feel okay, the increase of shame, the increase of those core attachment wounds of I am unworthy of love, I am not good enough, no one could ever accept me, those, begin to flare up in a tremendous fashion.
Joel (42:25.518)
So I always warn guys of hey your two to three week burst of excitement and recovery and your sobriety, you’re going to start to feel things on a different level than you have ever felt before Because like my story I’ve been medicating that internal pain since I was six, right, so if you’ve spent 20 30 40 50 years medicating your internal perception of self and all of sudden you take away your medication, you’re gonna feel the pain. And so we see that happen a lot.
Jonathan
One way that I describe it sometimes too is, you know, if you’ve been laying on your arm wrong at night and while you’re sleeping, you wake up and your entire arm is completely dead. It’s like totally numb. You know, that’s not a good state for your arm to be in. But when you move and start to get that blood flowing in there, it’s not a painless process for your arm to kind of come back to life, but it’s a good thing.
It’s good that you start getting blood flow there and it’s like, okay, my arm was meant to function. My arm was meant to move, but the process of it going from being totally numbed out, because that’s really what the pornography, it numbs us out emotionally. It numbs us out relationally. When you start learning to get into an environment where you’re saying, okay, I’m meant for more. I’m meant to actually have blood flow in that limb. Then there’s a pain transition, but man, it’s so good when you can finally move your fingers, right? It feels so good when you can finally actually operate the way you’re intended to operate.
Jonathan
And that’s why both what Joel and I do, and you too, Juli, we are hope-filled people. While we have to talk about really, really hard things, we have the hope of Jesus. We have the hope of transformation. I mean, Joel and I can testify by the grace of God, we are free from all those strongholds and entanglements from our past. And we want to invite other people into that journey of experiencing the wholeness and the freedom that we were made for.
Joel
Amen, brother.
Juli (44:20.014)
I am super grateful that you’re so equipped to explain what you just did and to help men and women walk through that because I think in the Christian community, so often the message is porn is bad, stop using it, just pray, promise God you’ll never see it again, read a Bible verse once a day and your problem goes away. But when you explain even the long-term impact of pornography on our nervous system, on our brain, that this is a process and the process isn’t pleasant and it’s a stumbling journey. It helps us understand why this is so difficult to overcome, but also why it’s so necessary to not do this in isolation. So I just highly, highly encourage people to connect with you to, to connect with your ministries and the work that you’re doing. because this is not something that we can do on our own.
Jonathan
Thank you Juli. Well, we’re here to help.
