114. Is Porn Even Cheating? with Porn Addiction Coach, Matt Smith

Discovering your partner’s secret relationship with pornography can feel like a punch to the gut. You're left questioning everything: Am I not enough? Is this cheating? The lines blur quickly between private habit and emotional betrayal. If you’ve ever felt the sting of discovering a hidden porn addiction or wondered if you're overreacting, this episode is for you.

In this honest and revealing conversation, I’m joined by Matt Smith, a porn addiction coach who shares his personal story and expertise. Together, we explore the emotional fallout of pornography in relationships, the shame cycle that keeps people stuck, and the real meaning behind secrecy and trust.

Whether you’re the betrayed partner or someone wrestling with guilt, you'll gain practical insights and a deeper understanding of what’s really going on beneath the surface.

Key Takeaways:

• Understand why secrecy, not just sexual content, often defines betrayal in relationships.

• Learn how shame fuels addiction and how breaking the silence is the first step to freedom.

• Explore the blurred boundaries of porn use: When is it self-soothing, and when is it self-abandonment?

• Hear how emotional detachment and false hope can play out in fantasy bonds with porn.

• Discover what healing looks like for both the betrayed and the struggling partner.

💬 Reflection Questions:

Have you ever felt betrayed by your partner’s relationship with porn? Or struggled with secrecy yourself?

Connect with Luke:

• Website: www.lifecoachluke.com

• Instagram: @mylifecoachluke

• Email: luke@lifecoachluke.com

Join the After the Affair community at www.facebook.com/groups/aftertheaffaircommunity

Episode Transcript:

To begin with, because of the pleasure that we can get from something like porn, it can be used as a distraction from other challenges. Maybe it is work, maybe it's problems in your relationship, maybe it's just a lack of self-worth. Who knows? A long list of potential things and like this is that thing that makes you feel better, that's yours, that's private.

Yeah, I mean the shame and the guilt is one of the biggest pieces of this and it keeps us trapped in the addiction, right? For me, that was like one of the biggest things. It was like, I have this secret in my closet, it is so bad that I can never let anybody know ever, right? I mean that's what it felt like to me and that's what was like one of the hardest things to overcome. If we're afraid to externalise what we're thinking and what we're feeling, it can be very isolating.

When you're talking to, well you know, there'll be people listening who are related to this. How do you make those people feel less alone? How do we connect with other than just having the conversation? The After The Affair podcast with me, Luke Shillings, is here to help you process, decide and move forward on purpose following infidelity. Together, we'll explore what's required to rebuild trust not only in yourself but also with others.

Whether you stay or leave, I can help and no matter what your story, there will be something here for you. Let's go. Hello and welcome to the After The Affair podcast.

I'm your host Luke Shillings and today you're listening to episode number 114 and today we are diving into a conversation that's as honest as it is necessary. Imagine this, you've just discovered a secret your partner has been hiding. Perhaps it's their relationship with pornography.

You're caught in a whirlwind of emotions, confusion, anger, maybe even shame and you wonder, is this about me? Am I not enough? But deep down you know this story isn't about fault. It's about understanding, rebuilding and finding a way forward. Today's guest, Matt Smith, is here to share his personal journey and unique insights on overcoming addiction, shame and the stories that we tell ourselves particularly when it comes to pornography and its use.

Whether you're grappling with betrayal or you're trying to rebuild trust in your life, this episode is probably going to be for you. There's some great insights so let's jump straight in. Excellent, well welcome Matt.

Welcome to the After The Affair podcast. It's a real pleasure to have you here and thank you for reaching out and you know I know that you and I are both discussing some challenging topics in what we do, in the routes that we've decided to present ourselves professionally. Yeah thanks for having me.

I'm really excited to be on the show and as far as like difficult topics, taboo topics, I'm all about it. Just bring it on. Absolutely.

I got my flashlight right around here somewhere. Turn it on. Perfect, perfect.

It's exactly what we're looking for and of course you know I spend most of my time focussing on the understandings of betrayal and infidelity and how that impacts people and ultimately you know creating a path forward after they've experienced this in their life and for many of the people listening and many of the people that I've worked with and many of the people that have reached out to me, a relationship with porn, pornography is something that that they experience from the perspective of both either their partners or themselves and it's interesting you know infidelity itself it's like what even is it? Like when is it cheating? Like where is that boundary and yeah I don't think it really exists if I'm honest. It is not in any sort of defined way that we would all agree on other than maybe a secret habit or behaviour or choices that are made that are intentionally withheld from the person that you at least believed or you selectively chose to be honest and trustworthy with. So whether there's that deceit involved maybe that's where it falls in but that can be anything from you know a sly glance across a bar or a you know porn or a long-term sexual affair or a multiple person orgy like you name it.

The lines are blurred let's say at least. Yeah a hundred percent. I see it a lot in my in porn addiction too because you know some people will come in and say watching porn is absolutely cheating.

It is absolutely infidelity. Other people like it's just something on a screen it's not cheating and you know who are we to say what's right for you or me right? Like everybody has their own definition so I open to them all but I mean we have to look at like is that helping you or hurting you? Yeah exactly that and I know you're right even so first of all it's like is is porn or porn consumption is that even cheating first question and for those where it is of which like we like you just said it's it's a subjective experience. I have the same thing I know people who like well where partners can say why couldn't it have just been porn? Like yes if only it'd been just porn oh yeah they're not right with that if he was just locking himself in the bedroom at night for an hour like and that that's fine you know but because it's a person and when and then others you know actually just the idea of porn and and a guy usually a guy is you know getting some gratification some sexual pleasure or meeting some some urge through the use of porn in this case then that is somehow detracting from what is available to the primary partner yeah and which which can be quite unnerving but then even once we get into the topic of porn there's then that subcategories that exist within that of course yes what type of porn is it is it live is that actual connection or is it just some particular thing is it a fetish is it like an all and very then it expands again and again of which there are sub levels of what one person might think is okay versus what another person might not think is okay yeah i'd like to talk to me a little bit about that like from your experience in terms of like those nuances even just within the categories themselves yeah sure um i mean obviously you know what is porn is porn um infidelity is porn cheating it starts there and then you know we start digging down into it and i've seen and heard and talked to guys about like okay well i'm just reading ironic stories is that porn because there's no visual i'm just reading you know is uh i'm just looking at pictures i'm not watching videos but you know i'm watching videos i'm not doing this i'm chatting with an ai right it's not even real like and then you know now i'm chatting with a live person is that like i mean there's so many ways and variances and nuances that our brain will absolutely take and twist up and say yes that is that that's bad that's bad and then others are like well it's not that bad like how is it bad so sorting all that out is part of like you know the road to recovery like figuring out what's right for you and what you want to stand for is part of the clarity of just getting free of it all and when when does it become a problem like when when you know because we've got this all these subjective levels about what is okay and what isn't okay within the umbrella term of consuming porn and is well first question is is there is is there a point where porn is okay you know and if so like what what does that look like when when does when do people decide that they feel the need that they need to do something about this situation from from again from your experience it becomes a problem in the moment we make it a problem i mean porn at its core is just images on a screen and i'm not trying to downsize it or minimise it it's just a picture words whatever something that we're inputting but when we start to make it a problem or we look at it and we start to think of a problem that's when it becomes a problem right so that is um you know understanding that is kind of key to getting free of there right because we'll look at this and say i'm doing these behaviours i'm doing this it's not who i want it to be i don't like doing that bang i'm a problem it's a big problem how do i solve this right so we you know we have to look at it kind of shine it under that microscope or that flashlight i had earlier and like what is what is the problem why is a problem and how can we make it not a problem so that we can get out of this quote problem there are people in this world who you know porn stars you know that's their career it's not a problem for them now i'm not saying that globally because we all know that there are a lot of bad conditions where people fall into that but there are some very happy people who are porn stars and be like i'm happy with this is no problem and the same sense there are a lot of couples out there that are like they use porn as part of their just intimacy and just everyday lives and it's not a problem because they decide not to make it a problem they have different values and beliefs than other people for example so we just i think that my main point here is it becomes a problem when we make it a problem and then once we make it a problem you know how big of a problem and how do we handle that those are the key key things yeah and i think with porn consumption is it feels good like that's the the driving factor behind it is there's some there's some pleasure you know we i think humans have evolved in fact all living creatures have evolved to you know to to mate and reproduce and and humans have had it that certainly and i'm sure it's true in some of the species as well but certainly in humans that there's a there's a pleasure dopamine response as a as a consequence of you know completing the act of sex you know like it's it's a it's a very desirable thing generally speaking and you're right in context of whether that comes from a real physical person or whether it's you know whether that person is somebody that's just a one-night stand or you know a coal girl or your wife or any combination of things or porn like that is the same essential sort of dopaminergic chemical systems are at play in terms of wanting to feel good wanting to feel better you know so it's so you can see how this could really easy lead into you know not just a habit but then sort of move from habit towards even addiction so how how big a problem and when again how does somebody spot that crossover point between this is something that i do and it feels good and it's okay and i'm telling myself it's okay and there's no harm you know if no one knows about it it's fine i can do it in the privacy of my own home wherever you know we've got these little black mirrors that we carry around with us now we can literally access it whenever we want anywhere pretty much on the planet within reason is there some sort of like common things that you see where that's the point where they think okay this now is a problem for me yes okay i acknowledge what you were saying before it's when you make it a problem but there must be some regular i'm guessing that there are some fairly consistent situations where that then becomes the problem so for that you know the thing that i see the most that is the problem is that you know people can't stop right they say hey this is something i'm doing and i don't want to do it i don't like it my wife doesn't like it whatever it goes against this i don't want to do it anymore so i'm not going to do that anymore great awesome let's go do it let's live our life without porn then they start down that road and you know they can't give it up as easy as they thought and they try a little harder they you know i need to get stronger i'm gonna get better at this and so i think it's that point when you like when you realise that you can't actually stop you know it's not as easy as just putting it away and not looking at it it's more than that that's the point when i see people start to i don't want to say freak out but that's when they start to react and say hey oh my god am i addicted that's the biggest kind of first milestone like m is this a problem for me am i addicted you know what do i do those are the first like pop bubble questions that come to mind i've spoken a little bit about addiction in some other contexts over the course of the podcast um but for anybody new listening and just for you to sort of help lay that out like what what does what are the impacts and what are the consequences of addiction of something like porn so with porn the biggest thing is that like i mean you're doing something you don't want to do it goes against your values you know things who you want to be that's the the biggest problem the second problem or similar problem is that you know it takes it consumes a lot of your life right your brain gets latched onto it and you're thinking about it a lot and it becomes part of your your coping mechanism in life right like you're living your life you're going to work you're in a relationship and you know prior to you did this all without porn but then at some point you started using porn and it might have been in a very casual way like we all do like hey let's check this out and you know all that but then you started using it to you know deal with life like work was stressful you were having some relationship issues whatever i mean it doesn't even have to be that bad in your brain to be like hey you know that thing that we were looking at last week that felt so good let's go back to that and then you you go back to that and you know it doesn't just casual i just yeah i'm stressed out i had a hard day at work i'm just going to watch this for a while right and then you know next thing you know hours passed and they're you know doing this and and you know and also tied in with that is the escalation of this like it might have started out with just basic vanilla porn whatever and then eventually you know that didn't do it for them so it has to ramp up to something more exciting right and so it's those things there that's when we start to say hey this this is now the problem i mean it's i'm doing something i don't want to do it's taking up a lot of time it's taking you know i'm using it as i'm depending on it you know i'm depending on it to get through my day you know that's that's when it's really hard because it's like hey i need this so it's like you know i need coffee i need you know porn i need this i need that to get through my day and um that's when it really starts to hit home yeah i'm still thinking as you're talking there it's to begin with you know because of the pleasure that we can get from something like porn it can be used as a distraction from other challenges and problems and you know negative emotions and experiences that you have in your life maybe it is work maybe it's problems in your relationship maybe it's just a lack of self-worth maybe you know who knows a long list of potential things and like this is that thing that makes you feel better that's yours that's private that's you know they're separate from everybody else in some sense but like that in itself makes sense you know we seek pleasure we avoid pain we we can we try and conserve energy and that by doing the easiest possible thing oh yeah that's what we're doing about like that motivational triad but then becomes a tipping point where the the discomfort that you're experiencing is actually from the porn itself in the sense that you get the pleasure and then you fall off the other side and now it's like it's actually the the lack of that pleasure becomes the problem and it's it's all is also the only thing that can solve the problem so you know it's a bit you know i think about it in the context of food and chocolate and things like that and like i love chocolate as anybody listening will know that you know you can have one piece of chocolate and it feels lovely soft and it's yeah sweet and it's delicious and oh god i'm salivating even at the thought i'm thinking about it now yeah yeah i know and then so okay so then maybe i get into the habit of where every morning i have a piece of chocolate or every evening or whatever you know and i have a single piece of chocolate and that seems okay and then but then it's just getting to the point where it's not quite hitting the spot anymore just not quite as much as it was so maybe next time i'll have you know at the end of the day two bits of chocolate versus one bit of chocolate not that big a difference you know so maybe i'll have two bits of chocolate instead and so on and so on before you know it i've got like three chocolate bars fully you know down in the three times a day you know because it's the only i need more to be able to get the same response results and of course the whole purpose of that is to get away from the discomfort that i'm feeling which is now being created by the lack of pleasure that that one piece of chocolate used to give me yeah so i need more and i can see that you know when we think about addiction that kind of is what addiction is this is this is not just a habit this is not like brushing your teeth it's not just but obviously it starts as a habit and then somehow kind of at least that's how i see it like it converts from habit to addiction where you then become dependent on the thing and then letting go of it becomes extremely extremely difficult yeah so now unlike eating a piece of chocolate i mean maybe there's some shame around that maybe there is in fact yeah i said you know in fairness i think there is some shame around that you know would would i publicly to all of my friends and family announce exactly how many extra biscuits or chocolates or bits i ate like really you know if i'm honest you yeah probably not or even if i did i would feel very uncomfortable with it but if i was to admit or to potentially talk about on consumption then i would feel much more uncomfortable yeah much more uncomfortable and when i think about that that if we're afraid to externalise what we're thinking what we're feeling it can be very isolating like really isolating so when you're talking to you know in a platform like this where you know there'll be people listening who are relating to this and you know how how do you make those people feel less alone how do how do we connect with them other than just having the conversation like what what what what are your thoughts how i mean what was that like for you what's your journey right how have you got here questions sorry yeah i mean the the the shame and the guilt is is one of the biggest pieces of this and it it keeps us trapped in the addiction right because we're we do feel that alone you know we feel like this is happening to me and i can't tell anybody because it is so bad it is so shameful it is so all this stuff that we've told ourselves and that's why we can't let anybody know and then that's what keeps the cycle of addiction going because you know we can't express ourselves we can't tell anybody how how much we're hurting we can't admit that we can't stop watching this that is so shameful if sometimes right like that's the first thought that comes to mind like i can't nobody can know that's what for me that was like one of the biggest things it was like i have this secret in my closet it is so bad that i can never let anybody know ever right i mean that's what it felt like to me and that's what was like one of the hardest thing to overcome i mean first you know it starts out with like i think you know like we talked about is this a problem yes it is for me and this is what's happening okay now what do i do with about that well that means i gotta get help and oh man i have to tell somebody that i do this thing that is so shameful yeah that that can block that blocked me for a long time and it blocks a lot of guys and so what i say to that is like i got you i understand like it's you are not alone there are a lot of people in this world who are exactly where you are like there are so many people in this world that are using porn and don't want to and feel so overwhelmed with that guilt and shame that they can't even get out of it so just understand that like you are not alone there's billions of people on this planet and billions of them are in that spot of like feeling so vulnerable that's the um i think one of the most beautiful things about human beings in our is that we're such good people that were like open and accepting so even if you're thinking you're alone you're not there are people out there who are open and accepting or wanting to help you willing to talk to you was willing to listen and willing to help you move forward you know and that's what you know human beings are beautiful for right and so getting over that shame i mean we have to understand that like we're creating the shame for ourselves like it's because of the story that we have in our head and so we have to sort of look at that and say okay this is really killing me but this is really just a story and how can i overcome that so i can get the help that i need how can i let go of that shame and that guilt so i can get out from under it because if i can't like if i can't get out from under it i can't let it go and if i keep making it this thing that i can't talk about i definitely can't let it go so i would say that like you know look at why why is it so shameful why is it so guilty what do those things mean to you where did you learn that stuff and what can you do to kind of minimise it or at least change the definition somewhat so that you're not trapped it's so interesting with humans because you know i grew up and i you know i drank alcohol for many years and i quit that i did drugs for years i quit those i did porn for years i quit those and you know my siblings have similar you know stories and one of my sisters is like she was addicted to drugs at an early age and she has immense guilt and shame over that whereas i was like drugs what's wrong with their drugs i don't you know no problem there like i mean i got stuck on them but i got you know i didn't feel the same guilt that i did with porn like i could go to someone and say hey i can't stop you know smoking weed i can't stop doing coke whatever i mean it is a little bit shameful but it wasn't as bad as porn but with my sister like the drugs were as were the worst thing in the world so it's interesting how we all have kind of slight variations of the things that we're embarrassed of but that's good news because that means it's like it differs that's based on our opinion our thoughts and our beliefs whereas i don't see drugs as a big shameful thing and my sister does unfortunately or did she's got over that so we're all good but it's just it's just you know that's why we have to look at like what is our brain doing is it helping us here is it hurting us here how can we use our brain to actually help us versus just letting it beat us up all the time yeah of course and as you talk about that humans like how accepting humans are in general i couldn't agree more and i i think and again sort of tying that in with the stories as well we our brains tell us that everybody else is thinking terrible things about us yeah and and it kind of doesn't really matter what it is like it can be anything you know but particularly with topics like you know drugs and alcohol and sex and porn and probably a variety of others that with infidelity you know like these are things that everybody must be judging me everybody's going to have this they're not just going to have an opinion they're going to have this opinion yeah really that opinion is your opinion not theirs yes and then we're just projecting that opinion like it's like so that's the assumption of course that's scary as hell if you walk down the centre of your local high street and there's like thousands of people and you believe that every single one of them would say the same thing and you're probably not going to want to talk to many people yeah about that particular thing you know it is it is scary it's frightening and i think that platforms like this and and people like you and me to sort of try and normalise the the conversation around these topics this is not about creating a subjective right or wrong or moral impact like that's at least not for me anyway and be interested in your perspective but that it's more about creating a space that it's okay to a experience emotion of all type of all kinds and it is and it's be okay to talk about the things that lead to these emotions these it's this this perception that we have about the world and i think it's just so important that people can know that there is somebody out there that is going through what you're going through or at least very very similar and there are lots of people out there who won't judge you the way you think they might and you will always be your own worst critic yes yes i uh one of the things that helped me i saw recently was you know when you're stuck in that place and you're worried what people are going to think about you just remember no one cares no one actually cares and i don't know i don't want to say gives an f but like that's what i'm gonna say yeah but no yeah and that like every one of us is living in our own world and we might think about other people for a few minutes but we're not usually dwelling on it for like oh as much as we think and the trick that really helped me what i read or heard was like it's called turn the spotlight off like imagine like when you're feeling that like hey i'm being judged or what will people think you know imagine this spotlight is over your head and you're this is where you're at this is the way you feel and you can reach up and you turn that spotlight off and now you're not in the light and you recognise that like no one cares no one's thinking about you you are not under the spotlight and so for me just that visual that mental like turning that off gives me a little bit of peace because it's like okay i know that this is just my brain doing what brains do is brainy i know it's just trying to keep me safe it's just trying to protect me and the way it does that is it scares me it says oh my god what are what i can't tell anybody well that's not true i can definitely tell somebody and people will care so it's you know i'm having this moment where my brain is worried okay what do we need to do to calm down and turn that spotlight off recognise that like i'm okay i'm a human being there are other people that love me that care about me and it's not as horrific as bad as i am making it mean you know get some deep breaths in regulate your nervous system you know get back to a place where you can make better decisions about what you want to do and i think this ties in nicely with again i'm thinking from the perspective of someone who has has been betrayed and and porn is the the mechanism of which that betrayal occurred and they are probably going to be quite judgemental in their own mind about what that means that their husband or their partner was you know consuming and getting sexual gratification outside of them like does that mean i'm not enough to can i not provide what he needs to does does he not love me does he not care there's you know like all of these things but interestingly making it mean everything about themselves yes like that's that's the key focus here is again it's that spotlight playing the role again so even if you are as the betrayed and this applies to all types of betrayal of course is we put the spotlight on ourselves and then we assume that what our partners did must mean something about us like that is and of course that's not true it's you know i hear i hear so many people tell me that if i had a client today and said exactly the same thing like he did this to me he's like no no he didn't do it to you he did it for him it's not the same thing it's not the same thing he's not he's not making these choices to hurt you at least in every single case that i've worked with directly that has been the maybe there are some small exceptions but very very very very rare and i'm sure i can justify my way around those as well but certainly in the usual context it's never done to the person it's done for the individual because that's what we do we it's all about ourselves where we're like we are the the lead role in our own movie i forget that you know but it's like it we play that character and i think that's such a i did i did want to do something else i just wanted to ask and i'm just i'm asking when i ask it because it's i imagine other people might be thinking the same thing so you'd spoken with obviously we went on to addiction and then you'd suggested it or you'd spoken that you'd shared sorry that you have had a relationship with alcohol a relationship with drugs relationship with porn and there's been a similar similar pattern that has emerged so i'm i'm thinking like my brain's offering like well is does that does that mean that you are more susceptible is that like something that's in your character as you have an addictive nature or are is there any is there a correlation to draw there or is that my mind just creating a correlation i just want to open it as broadly and honestly as i can yeah i've actually had that question before um and i've heard it a lot too about like oh i just have this i'm just addictive to everything i get addicted to this and and i know why people think that because of you know they might live the life that i had where i was doing alcohol and drugs and porn and and you know and i you know i heard those words somebody i used to go to 12-step meetings and all that and i heard those words like you just have an addictive brain and you know and i started to believe them and i was like that doesn't feel great like that means i'm gonna have to worry about food i'm gonna have to worry about this and so i didn't i didn't like that um but i mean when we look at it from the point of thoughts beliefs and feelings and all that i mean truly at the end of the day it is a story that you're telling yourself that i am more addictive than others i am prone to addiction and so i'm not saying that's not valid but i want you to ask yourself is it is it is it helping you to to believe that or not right if you believe that you're addicted to things is that going to help you not get addicted to things of course not we we live we live into the identity that we create for ourselves and that is that identity is created by the story that we tell ourselves yes i'm the kind of person that does this then guess what that's how i show up yeah yeah and whatever that is and you can literally insert whatever you want into that slot of this is who i am and this is who i want to be you know even think about it in the context of of as being a business owner and as being as a coach and you know and you know that in a business like this we we start out these journeys because we want to help people and we want to be a coach but a coach actually only plays about maybe 10 of what actually goes on within a business you know it's you know it may be more but it's sort of it's certainly one of many hats you know and so where we're leaving from it's like are we the ceo of our company are we the the janitor of our company like like how that story we tell ourselves about our own journey significantly impacts how we show up in our own journey and then reinforces it positively or negatively depending on which which story we're telling ourselves in the first place yes okay so what's so you've come to this realisation like that things have changed and you this thing that was once just a little bit of pleasure has now become much more now reality want to stop but i can't stop there's a lot of shame around it um i want to seek some solution so i would imagine i know it's the same for many of my clients google is the starting point for most of these things um easily accessible and of course if i've not looked in into these questions specifically myself but certainly the infidelity space there's a lot of information and there's a lot of ways to do things and to not do things and what you should and shouldn't and like all the things what do you do yeah i mean if you google um you know porn addiction porn addiction coach you'll get a lot of options i mean how many results you're going to get billions billions and that's great because there are many options for us and i think you know getting free of this or anything is finding the right thing that works for you right i'm a coach i want to tell the world that i'm the greatest coach and i can solve all every porn addicts problem but i i wish that were true i want to make that true but i can't solve everybody's problem so some people are saying like coaches work for me and i'll say that because it worked for me i had one-on-one working with a guy who had been there before and he really showed me and i had a second coach who's a woman who helped me get just over the end and it was great other people 12-step meetings are the programme are the way to get free other people are just doing 50 push-ups every time they have an urge this is about retraining your brain to do something differently and how that how you get that how you figure that out how you learn that is going to be tailored to your learning style so look at all your options and figure out like what would work best for me some people therapy is the greatest thing you know so it's not about like hey there's only one solution and one solution for everybody and if it doesn't work for you you're screwed it's like if this doesn't work for me i'm gonna go find something else that does work for me what about that that works that i like that did work for me what did i did not like about that like figure out what works for you so that you can get the life that you want being addicted doesn't mean it's a death sentence you're not going to be doesn't mean that you're stuck this way for the rest of your life and you have no choice to do this it means that like this is the way your brain is currently programmed how do we programme it so that you can be the person you want to be doing the things if you want to do that's how i look at i'm very i'm i'm a former software engineer and i'm very logical so i like i look at the brain is like a almost like a computer it's almost like ai talking my language yeah you know how you know how you chat gpt makes up the answers and sometimes they're not right well that i i see so much similarity in chat gpt in our own subconscious your own subconscious is gonna if you ask it a question like why am i addicted to porn it's gonna make up some answer that is the worst possible thing you're wrong right so it's like no chat you got it wrong what are the reasons i'm using this why you know that sort of thing so looking at your mind is like kind of an ai that sometimes gets it wrong or mostly gets it wrong and not be so tied to the answer is like okay it gave me a wrong answer what do i need to do like how can i change that sort of thing i think that helps it helps me because like i said i'm an engineer so i look at my brain as logical and i look at why we do things as logical and how do we get free of them as a logical process one of the things that just kept in mind um a little bit earlier and i'm thinking about when i was growing up there were lots of people who who smoked a lot here in the uk and much less of it now it seems to be vaping seems to be all the thing now in fact i only learned recently that people actively started vaping not as a way to stop smoking like i always thought that vaping was just there to like wean you off in some sense of smoking smoking cigarettes and things um which turns out that's not the case anymore anyway but so that was a surprise to me um but one of the things i did notice amongst sort of friends and family members who smoked and then stopped smoking was how easy it would be for them to start smoking again like i mean i suppose in in the in the alcohol world it'd be like was it falling off the waggon i suppose would be like the the phrase that would be would be used and so i'm just i'm interested to hear your perspective on that and how that applies to to sort of porn consumption as well yeah no um uh you know i smoked for a year when i was 16 and thankfully it did not take i thank god because i i've witnessed my siblings and my family members struggle trying to quit smoking and um you know my wife at the time was you know she was struggling too and i remember her telling me she's like you know i smoke because i want to but i do want to and she would say like i've stopped for years before and i would smell someone else's smoke and i would immediately want it and she was like i would thought i would i thought i'd get over that but it doesn't seem to go away and so when i think about that i think about my own journey it's like you know i'd see something that was triggering and it would you know cause me to go look at porn and then you know i got coached and changed my mindset and got free of it and so i still see these things right i still see women in the world i still see beautiful people and so my brain will be like oh my god let's go do this and it's like hold up a second that's not what i do anymore that's that's interesting you want to do that but it's not what i'm going to do right so i get that like it's easy to think that like hey i'm prone to falling back into it because i've done this before my brain is ready to be like hey let's go do that excuse me and so it's easy to fall into that like thinking of like hey i'm really you know i can slip back easily but that's when we really have to hold on to like who we are as a person like am i a person that slips back into things right am i a person who lives by my values do i want to live by my values why do i not want to look at porn why do i want to look at porn like asking yourself these questions and getting real answers you know patiently loving yourself through the process of this figure out why it is that you think you need to go back to or why it is that you think you cannot handle it right that's the sort of thing that we talk about in coaching and that's what the sort of thing that helps men get free of this and stay free of it not slip back into it i was i was wondering if um thinking about the association that we have with certain things like you you spoke then of a family member who every time this smelt um smoke in the air that they immediately like had this connection that said i want a cigarette like that's that's what i want to do but in the same way that we're kind of like you know we're cognitively reprogramming our mind through you know questioning our thoughts you know and our beliefs but maybe we could also retrain our minds in a more tangible way in the sense that you could theoretically you know put the smell of smoke there so that you could smell it and or eat at the same time i don't know put your hand or squeeze something that's very painful or or put it in a pile of shit or something like i don't know something like where it's like a really unpleasant like so all of a sudden you create a new association yes like whether that's possible as well in in this context when we create so that so that we literally just don't see smoking as appealing as it used to and we don't see porn as appealing as it used to like our brain literally just doesn't it just doesn't it's actually if anything it feels more like a repulsion than a draw yes yes i uh luke i agree with you on all that because i come from a very like um i'm gonna say tony robbins background so i uh and i've i've heard you know his stories about scaring people into yeah yeah or just i mean yeah do like you know you and i are coaches we help people get over you know get free and live better lives but we do it in a soft comfortable loving way that's the way i do it there are other ways that you can shock your system so that you never use it again um i know that's possible because i know humans and i know i know the stories but i don't think it's something that we can do to ourselves i don't think you can scare yourself enough i'm not saying it won't work what if i mean if you did some of the things you're talking about you know but you know and and you know i was fighting porn for a long time i tried everything and so what i i remember i was reading something that's what i read about like what i was just talking about um and so i got this big fat rubber band i put it on my wrist and i said every time i think about it i'm just gonna wind it up and snap it into my wrist i mean just you know i was like it's gonna work and then like i couldn't i didn't i did it a couple times and i'm like that hurts and i didn't like i couldn't bridge the connection with like and when i think this uh when i think this you know i don't want to i want to experience pain i couldn't stick with that because it was too painful like you know humans are going to walk away from pain and i walked away from that pain i think you know i think if i forced myself to stick with it i probably would have got there but i don't know if i could because i'm again i'm forcing myself to do something it's like putting your hand on fire but like on the other hand if you know if somebody like did that to me i'm sure it would take like if it was out of my control like i got zapped no matter what i'm sure it would work i just don't recommend it at all right no i mean of course we change our associations with all the time you know it's perfectly common to have a very very solid belief about something and then some event happens in our life and all of a sudden we look at it very very differently i mean in the context of love you know we think we know um we think we know what um love feels like what it means and like and how how it is to us and then someone betrays us and everything that we thought we knew kind of just like falls to pieces yeah like everything that that we have the foundation of our understanding has just kind of just just just changed in a moment almost so we can absolutely change our um the relationship that we have the the correlation between two things very quickly in the right environments but you're right it usually creates it usually requires some fairly significant discomfort and would we voluntarily choose that discomfort probably not yeah like not when i was studying tony robbins i remember he was telling that he would tell the story about somebody who had smoked and uh he basically took this person and gave them like 20 cartons and forced them to smoke all the cigarettes until they could not do it after that smoking was disgusting yeah yeah i don't imagine that worked when i first when i first got into like self-help coaching i was you know i love tony robbins i went to one of his events and i ended up hiring one of his coaches and his coach said to me well you know what if you just watched all the porn that you possibly could like to try and replicate that that cigarette thing and i was like that's a nice thing i mean that sounds great but i know that won't work i mean i can't possibly watch that and i don't even want to watch no no that's the thing you don't want to spend the whole weekend doing this at all that's what i'm trying to get away from so i mean those things do work i mean our psychology is so amazing that we can change on a dime if the circumstances are right unfortunately we can't force that to happen in 12-step meetings it's kind of like you know you hit your rock bottom and then you change well people are trying to like how do i hit my rock bottom how do i get so and so you know and forcing yourself to do it the hard way i've never seen great results with i don't think we can inflict enough pain on ourselves right i think a more loving patient and soft approach is going to work way better than trying to fight yourself into this yes yeah i i wholeheartedly agree as it happens um but it's just it's interesting thinking about these these things from all these different perspectives so it's one more thing i wanted to just talk about and i i actually i did an episode myself um some time ago about the impacts that technology and social media and um yeah really just technology as a whole really the digital age like how that has impacted our relationship with porn and and why that's such a problem is it's insane that's my first those are my that's my response like when i was growing up and we didn't have you know i'm older than most guys here so we didn't have the internet so you had to go looking for porn and that was hard but and that was better like it was just you know it was a work um it was work so nowadays i mean obviously it's in your pocket 24-7 you can get to point i anybody can get to point within a minute of them right and that's that's what makes it so hard because it's there and then because it's there everybody like a lot of people are sharing it it becomes part of the mainstream especially when you're a young man and you're growing up you know your friends get into it they're showing you and it becomes like hey check this out it's laughing you know having oh check you know i see this whatever and then we start using it like you know to feel better and you know when you're a young man you know unless you've had the perfect life life is pretty hard you know you're trying to figure out who you are you figure out what's going on in the world what am i going to do you know what am i going to do with my life and so it's stressful and when someone comes along and says here look at this thing it's going to make you feel better you know we don't know as young men not what the impact of that is so we say yeah that looks good it feels good i'm going to keep doing that so then we start you know doing it over and over and that's when we get the hooks but getting back to your point here is that like technology has made porn so much more available that we have to adjust like how we live and how we grow and how we learn you know we should be teaching this stuff in schools about the dangers of this because like don't let us figure it on our own teach us that like this is a bad thing or anything that could hurt you how do you manage that how can you get better at like not letting it take over you so that's the that's where i see like the not the problem with technology it's just the issue that we have to face on the other side of it because technology is growing so fast with ai and stuff like that i'm very excited about the possibility of like some ai agent like a chat gbt that can essentially be a coach like i'm not looking to replace myself but i know they're like when you're feeling that shame you can't talk to somebody you could talk to an ai agent that could walk you through basically the same things i walk you through with like getting over shame figuring out what is why you can't stop just some basic like you know psychology we could train these ai agents in so that people who can't get help can at least use those things that's that's what i'm excited about and of course i'm a software engineer so i'm like i want to build yeah that sounds amazing and an amazing vision as well i think that could be hugely helpful i think you know integrating it's very easy to be frightened of technology because of the impacts that it can have and has had um but of course lots of positives have come from it as well and like anything it's just a circumstance it's just something that we get to make mean whatever we want to make it mean and i think sort of being able to use it to our advantage where we can and absolutely that is something that we certainly have the capacity to do and now i even say should do i think yeah i mean we one of the biggest newest things is people getting um using ai chats for sex talks and sort of you know that sort of thing with those ai bot chats can be used to get you out of porn too you know as much as you do porn we can programme that get you out of porn and that's what i'm excited about i want to see that yeah 100 well there's like a million other things i think we could i know you can go on all day for the sake of time um i'd for anybody who is listening to this and and resonates with with everything that matt matt is saying and wants to look at changing their current path from whatever it is at the moment like their relationship with porn your relationship with porn at the moment then then matt how how do people get hold of you how do people get in touch with you and what do they do well i'm on my website is mattsmithcoaching.com so they can start by going there uh that's where i have my blog which is called um how to stop watching porn um it's a project i started where i'm just gonna output write everything i possibly know of my whole experience in different posts to help people so that's where i would start like start reading that start looking at that um outside of that i'm on you know social media matt smith coaching on all the different platforms and there's this different content but mostly my website is where you can reach me the best perfect and obviously i'll pop the links to all of those in the show notes as always thank you so thank you ever so much matt it's been a pleasure to have you on look this was a pleasure it was a lot of fun it was great talking and i you know i keep up the great work brother you are doing amazing work over here this is awesome i love to see it so thank you so much thanks you're welcome well what a fab conversation that was now before we wrap up i really want to speak directly to you yes you the one who sat there and feels betrayed and hurt right now i remember sitting alone in my car after yet another sleepless night and the betrayal just kept playing around my mind like a movie that i just couldn't stop i was continually asking myself why wasn't i enough how didn't i see this coming but here's the truth the betrayal itself was never about me it was never about you it doesn't define our worth you and i are stronger than this moment and there is a way forward look if today's episode resonated with you don't keep those emotions all bottled up i'd really love for you to take the next step in your healing journey come visit lifecoachluke.com and schedule yourself a free 30-minute discovery call where we can help you move forward it's a one-on-one experience designed to help you understand and regain control and start rebuilding your confidence and if you haven't already please subscribe to the podcast and leave a review if you've liked it it really helps us reach more people just like you who are searching for answers and support thank you ever so much again for listening and remember healing is not just possible it's within your reach so until next time take care of yourselves i'll speak to you all next week.