Fight the New Drug (00:00)
Well, Chris, thank you for being here today.
We’d like to start by having you introduce yourself and your background and your current role.

Chris Chandler (00:08)
Yeah, my name is Chris Chandler. I am a CSAT certified sex addiction therapist, licensed clinical counselor in actually 19 states. And I am also a coach. And so I do a lot of group work with men and women in recovery. And then I’m a clinical advisor for the Relay app.

Fight the New Drug (00:27)
Awesome. And for any of our listeners who aren’t familiar with our friends and sponsors at Relay, Relay is an incredible recovery app that matches you with a small supportive group of peers. And so what we love about Relay is that it’s all about empowerment and not shame. So Relay gives you tools and a supportive community all in the palm of your hand so that you can focus on the bigger picture, creating freedom and healthier relationships and more peace in your life.

And actually right now Relay is offering a free 30 day trial for any of our listeners who sign up during the month of November. So if you’ve been thinking about making a change, this is your chance to start today at joinrelay.app slash consider. And please continue listening to hear more about Chris’s work at Relay and some of the amazing Chris’s available to you. So.

Chris Chandler (01:13)
Dude, that’s awesome.

I didn’t know that was a thing, that’s, I would absolutely say to anyone listening to jump on that. that is, yeah, Relay is one of those, is a tool that I came across a couple of years ago. I have tried, I don’t think I’m exaggerating like hundreds of apps specifically in the recovery space, but also like in the health space, like as far as like habit tracking and things like that. for, I mean, I feel like 10 years, I just was like trying to find something for my clients where outside of session they could really like continue to maintain and grow in their work. And just like, there’s just a lot of, I don’t know what language I can use on this podcast, but not very good, let’s just say not very good, you know, products out there. And so when I came across Relay a couple years ago, I was like, my gosh, this is the closest thing I’ve ever seen. And so I kind of went all in of just like, I use it with all of my clients. I have currently 13 groups, kind of just constantly growing, but about 130 people a week in groups. And so all of them are in the Relay app. It’s incredible. What’s been absolutely game changer for their ongoing work.

Fight the New Drug (02:12)
Awesome. Thank you for that. What led you to become so involved with helping people overcome their sexual addictions?

Chris Chandler (02:21)
Yeah, I mean, just like most of my life, just kind of stumbling into it. meaning, well, first of all, I’m, I’m, I’m in recovery. didn’t know that at the time, but you know, the way that I got into even the counseling world was, you know, kind of just fumbling my way through life and, and, kind of finding my finding my way, should say fumbling and finding. And, so one of the, one of the big steps of that was in, in graduate school, I started working at an inpatient psych hospital and they just were really desperate for people to work with addictions because they’re, just, the counselor burnout was so high. It was just, it was hard work. And so they kind of just threw me in and just said, Hey, you know, figure it out. And so I started running inpatient groups, outpatient groups, intensive outpatient groups. And in that process at first, it was just primarily chemical dependency right back in the day. It was just, that’s, we kind of saw it as like drug addiction and then all these other things weren’t really a thing.

But over time in 2014, I came across, sorry 2012, I came across the CSAT credential and training and became CSAT certified. And it was like, oh okay, like this, it just blew my mind as far as like how addiction really happens in the brain, what’s involved and that it’s not. We say a drug is a drug is a drug and so it really doesn’t matter how you’re self-medicating in terms of different chemicals or behaviors, it’s all hitting the brain in a very similar way.

Fight the New Drug (03:40)
Yeah, and for anyone who doesn’t know what CSAT is, can you explain?

Chris Chandler (03:44)
Yeah, certified sex addiction therapist is for Patrick Carnes is kind of the pioneer in the world in this work. And so that is his credential through ITAP, the International Institute of Trauma and Addictions. And yeah, I mean, he’s in his eighties now, but he’s just absolutely laid the groundwork for all of addiction recovery. It really like kind of changed the game. The old school models were like hazel and models and things, which are not bad models, but in some ways I think he’s just really expanded our understanding of how addiction happens in the brain and maybe most importantly how recovery happens in the brain.

Fight the New Drug (04:14)
Yeah, and you spoke a little bit about how you’ve been in this space for over two decades. Your work started with substance addiction, substance abuse, and now involves behavioral addictions as well. From your experience, how have you seen pornography’s impact evolve as it’s become more accessible and normalized online?

Chris Chandler (04:36)
Man, honestly, even as you ask the question, if I’m really honest, I feel like immediate sadness because it is, it’s becoming like such a, it’s so pervasive that, there’s a number of things that come to mind. One, I mean, you know, we know that there’s three A’s that drive addiction. say anonymity, affordability and availability. And so the availability alone, it’s just, it’s, it’s everywhere. Right. And so one of the major impacts is that, you know, people are discovering being exposed to pornographic or erotic images earlier and earlier. It used to be, you know, 13 and 12. think currently it’s 11 or maybe 10 now, as far as how old kind of common exposure is.
So people are being exposed earlier and then, you know, just the super normal stimuli of it. It’s just, it’s more than the brain that was ever designed to handle. so it is, people are becoming, you know, entrenched in that kind of compulsive behavior, much sooner, much more, more deeply. and you know, we kind of, Patrick Carnes used to have like, there’s not really terms for it, but you’ll hear clinicians sometimes describe like a classic addict versus like a, like a newer addict and the classic addict was like you have all this trauma background, you grew up in a family where there was, you know, it was really rigid or chaotic and you had pretty, painful circumstances that you’re coming from. And so you find sexual acting out or substances or porn and you just become kind of preconditioned to reach for those as a form of comfort. But these days, I mean, you see people with pretty reasonable, healthy childhoods, you know, no major massive capital T type traumas. And yet the power of the internet, the power of AI, mean, it’s just pornography is always evolving and it’s hitting the brain in ways that I just are unimaginable.

Fight the New Drug (06:18)
And for any listeners who may not fully understand, can you explain what’s actually happening in the brain when someone views pornography and why it can feel so powerful and even addictive?

Chris Chandler (06:29)
Yeah, how can I do that? Simply? Maybe, maybe if I can give a quick overview of just like kind of the key structures of the brain and then just kind of look at like one where where it’s happening in the brain specifically, most specifically, it’s hitting all parts of the brain. But would that be okay? Okay, we’ll do a quick, we’ll do a quick anatomy class here. So this is my brain before I split it in half that might be kind of worse. This is my my brain model here.

Fight the New Drug (06:47)
That would be amazing. Yeah, thank you.

Chris Chandler (06:59)
And so I’ll often, I don’t know if listeners can see the video here hopefully, but kind of three main building blocks of the brain. the brain wires electrically from the bottom to the top. So structurally it’s there in utero, but really where the electrical wiring comes online, six, seven, eight weeks is where it really starts. And it really wires from the bottom up. So we’re starting in the spinal cord and the brain stem and it wires up, especially zero to 10 roughly. mean, this is all very like oversimplified, but is primarily in the lowest part of the brain. So you can kind of think of this as like the infant and child brain, zero to nine, zero to 10 years old, mostly controls body functions, heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, that kind of thing. I gotta be careful, because I could spend an hour on this.

Chris Chandler (07:45)
The teenage brain will call it the limbic system in particular. This is coming online primarily. And when I say it like it just it means it’s wiring most robustly from like nine, 10 to about 16, 17 years old. This is really kind of taken over. And this is where pornography, you know, really all addictions, the pleasure reward center is happening in the brain. It’s also where the amygdala is housed. So the emotional center of the brain. And then you’ve got the adult brain, kind of the prefrontal cortex coming online, roughly 16, 17 years old, really kind of again, most robustly wiring that a four-year-old has no prefrontal activity but primarily like you’re not seeing a lot of electrical activity until later on.

And so this is kind of the, this is the driver seat of the brain. This is the adult brain, the executive functioning part of the brain. And so this is in some ways, if we were just to simplify it to answer your question, you can think of like the limbic system as like the gas pedal of the brain and the prefrontal cortex, like the brake pedal of the brain. So this is the part that gives us like Dan Siegel talks a lot about this, kind of the eight domains of the prefrontal cortex, but really the ability to kind of slow down, think about our thinking, metacognition, it’s the empathy, you know, it’s where we have, you know, social attunement and empathy, judgment and reasoning. So it’s the ability to kind of slow down and go, okay, you know, it does feel fun to drive 120 miles down the freeway, right? But it may not be the best idea, right? I got things to do tomorrow. So I should probably like, you know, keep it down a little bit. So that’s kind of the regulator of the brain.

So, to your question, a lot of times, again, especially from the earlier models, you know, as pain happens in the lower brain and development and attachment, you know, cause life is life, right? We all have attachment wounds and we all experienced, you know, not necessarily neglect, but just misattunement and ruptures in terms of attachment and bonding in relationship. And so, you know, in some ways we’re all primed to look for something to feel better, right? That’s a human thing. It’s not, not an addiction thing.

And so when the teenage brain starts coming online and we start getting exposed again earlier and earlier to some of these powerful experiences and substances, it’s like that lights up the limbic system, that middle part of the brain, right? That teenage brain. And one of the most interesting things. There’s a book, gentleman named Mark Lewis, a book called biology desire. And he shows in the spec scans of the brain that the more you fire the limbic system, right, the more overactive hyperactive this gets. When this is lit up like a Christmas tree, what they observe is that basically the prefrontal cortex, the top part of the brain goes dark, meaning we kind of create this limiting effect where, you know, now I’m kind of looping in my limbic system and I don’t have the brake pedal that I need to slow myself down. And so you do that for, you know, years and years, decades and decades, it’s like we are in many ways underdeveloping our adult brain, our ability to slow down and regulate and connect with others, and we’re just lighting up that teenage brain like a Christmas tree. And so in some ways it’s a form of like brain damage, arguably.

Fight the New Drug (10:28)
Yeah, that’s super helpful. And for any listeners listening to audio only, go check this out on YouTube so that you can see this brain model as a helpful way to understand that. But basically coming back to it, that system, the limbic system, is what lights up with substances as well as with these behavioral addictions. Is that correct?

Chris Chandler (10:49)
Yeah, 100%. And again, a drug is a drug is a drug. So one of the challenges with that is that, you know, even if people are not reaching for pornography, for instance, they might switch to something else, right? We kind of have that whack-a-mole thing. And so you’ll see like some of these binge purge patterns where, okay, I’m not going to do this for a time, but then I’m still lighting up my brain in another way with something else. And then I wonder why, like, I can’t seem to break free, right? Cause I’m always kind of finding something to substitute for that.

Fight the New Drug (11:14)
And then when that prefrontal cortex goes offline and you no longer have that breaking system to help regulate that, that’s where we see things escalate.

Chris Chandler (11:23)
Yeah, without question. mean, there can be a number of drivers, but that’s absolutely without question one of the things that’s happening.

Fight the New Drug (11:30)
Yeah. So you’ve treated a wide range of compulsive behaviors or addictive behaviors over the years. And how does porn addiction compare to things like substance abuse, gambling, or compulsive eating in the brain in the way that it affects the brain and behavior?

Chris Chandler (11:45)
Yeah, again, mean, a drug is a drug is a drug, right? We say so like, you know, when I, when I went through grad school and then, you know, I was working in the career early on, I worked at a nonprofit for a while that literally had two sections in the building, a chemical dependency section and a mental health section. And even within the chemical dependency section, we had, you know, people had to go to like, you know, well, even in 12 steps, say you go to AA or NA or GA for gambling anonymous. It’s like we silo these things into things. And that’s not bad because I think the more we can kind of specifically relate to people with our struggles, the more safe and connected we can feel. But the truth is they’re all hitting the brain in a very similar way. And so one thing that I think is really important in that regard is that I had a guy one time in group talk about, you know, heroin addict saying to a porn addict, know for me, know having a being in a pharmacy by myself is like you having an open internet connection by yourself, right and so recognizing which which is really beautiful to just side note like I mean that’s the power of group and having people that are having different experiences because you know that that’s the heart of empathy, right? I don’t have to relate to everything that you struggle with but I can find that feeling in my body and connect with you and that so that’s maybe for another question I suppose but Actually, what was your first question?

Fight the New Drug (12:58)
No, you’re okay. Just the similarities between substance abuse gambling compulsive behaviors like eating compulsive eating and how those things affect the brain and behavior in similar ways to pornography Or how pornography compares to those things?

Chris Chandler (13:11)
Yeah, I mean, they’re all hitting the dopaminergic system. so, mean, porn, you know, when they look at like how food hits dopamine versus, you know, cocaine or methamphetamine, porn is on that level, right? With like cocaine and methamphetamine, it is intense. but they’re all basically hitting the same region of the brain, same neural pathways in the brain. And so very similar effects, very similar outcomes. Patrick Carnes actually one time observed that when people go through recovery, a lot of times what he sees

Chris Chandler (13:42)
is that people will most often come in for drugs and alcohol first. Now that’s changing over time with pornography, but back in the day, drugs and alcohol was often what killed people the fastest and it had the most external consequences. So it’s what brought people into treatment most often early on. Again, now I think people are seeing the impacts of pornography in their relationships and life. so praise God, like they’re getting into to get help sooner and specific for that.

So he would say, treat drugs and alcohol first and foremost because that’s what’s going to have the most consequence and kill people the fastest. So when people get sober from that though, often underneath that, they would find is that people were acting out sexually the whole time. Sometimes they weren’t and they would go to sex, but most often they would then, you know, it reveals that pornography was there all along. so we, so we go through drugs and alcohol, substances of all kinds, then pornography and sex. Then he found that people went to food most commonly next as a way of comfort and soothing. Then spending, then online activity in general, things like video games, gambling, doom scrolling, social media, that whole bucket. Then workaholism and then codependency. So he kind of lays out this progression of, know, that really is, again, it’s not like those things were probably all there all along, but they become more evident the more sober and healthy we get.

Fight the New Drug (14:57)
Yeah, and I love that you pointed that out because speaking about in your group with a heroin addict and a porn addict, noting that they have a shared experience in that the urge may be the same and the dopamine spike may be the same, but also the consequences of the two things are different. And that’s something we always, you know, we’re called fight the new drug. We’ve been around for 16 years now and pornography is certainly not new, but new in the way that it’s always evolving and in the way that it’s targeting people younger and younger, how accessible, affordable, available, and anonymous it is. And so that’s always something we want to have some nuance with in these conversations is just noting the differences between these different, the consequences of these types of addictions.

Chris Chandler (15:39)
My gosh, yeah. And to that point, I so appreciate Russell Brand’s book Recovery, where he said, again, he went into treatment for methamphetamine and heroin. And then he says, but getting sober from pornography and sexual acting out, heroin and meth, he said, paled in comparison to trying to master this beast of sexual addiction.

Fight the New Drug (15:57)
Yeah. We talked a little bit about a young person’s brain, the teen brain, a younger child’s brain. We know the porn industry is targeting individuals younger and younger on a variety of different platforms. And so many people are being exposed, whether accidental or intentional, younger and younger. What makes that young brain, a teen brain, a child brain, especially vulnerable to porn use compared to an adult’s brain who maybe is exposed for the first time as an adult.

Chris Chandler (16:29)
Yeah, mean, so a lot of the things I was saying earlier, I mean, it’s just they’re really, they’re really underdeveloped, you know, just developmentally, like in terms of like their adult brain. so, you know, there’s Dan Siegel has a book called Brainstorm where he describes the teenage brain. And he basically says that in the limbic system, you know, everything in adolescence feels more exciting. It’s like 10 X compared to an adult brain. Right. So he was, I used the driving example earlier. He also uses that where he says if, if I go into a car, we go into a new Tesla with a 14 year old kid and I let him drive and I say, okay buddy, hit the gas and let’s just see how we do. he’s, if we’re going 120 down the freeway, if we did a spec scan of his brain and looked at that limbic part of the brain, it is lit up like a Christmas tree, right? And it’s just like all reward, very little consequence or pain. But for an adult brain, right, that’s been through some pleasure and pain and we have a prefrontal cortex that regulates and says, whoa, whoa, whoa, Let’s slow this down a little bit. My limbic system is not going to be as bright as his. Does that make sense? Largely because my prefrontal cortex is helping kind of limit some of

Fight the New Drug (17:37)
I think that’s so important to note, just as a reminder when we’re having conversations about these topics for two reasons. One, for parents or ⁓ caregivers who are trying to have conversations with young people about this or who have children who’ve been exposed. It’s so important to recognize that the way they are experiencing this issue is different from the way that your adult brain is thinking about this issue. And then also for individuals who are struggling with a compulsive habit or addiction to note that if they were exposed when they were really young, often we hear from people that they experience a lot of shame because their adult brain is thinking about things, but their younger self experienced it so differently. And so I think it’s so important to note that nuance and a reminder for all of us in these conversations of how differently adults and young people are experiencing these issues.

Chris Chandler (18:25)
Yeah. And it’s like, of course you found, you found something that feels good. It’s like, and you’re, you’re wired for that. So it’s not, that’s the difficult thing is that I always tell, you know, I work with mostly men, so I’ll say the word guys a lot, but I work with men and women. And so, you know, it’s like, you found something that felt good and it’s not bad. always say, you don’t have a porn problem, you have a pain problem. And that’s the thing. It’s like, you know, we all want to feel good. We all want to feel better. And when we find something that electric, it’s like, well, of course you reach for that, right? You found a solution to a problem, obviously.

Fight the New Drug (18:30)
Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Chandler (18:55)
Thee solution has become a problem but it’s like when you found it, it made all the sense in the world.

Fight the New Drug (19:00)
Yeah, absolutely. You’ve talked a little bit about how porn can interrupt development of the prefrontal cortex, noting it essentially could be seen as a type of brain damage ⁓ a moment ago. The prefrontal cortex is also tied to empathy, decision making, and connection. So how does that show up in real life and in relationships?

Chris Chandler (19:22)
Yeah, I mean, just a couple of weeks ago I was showing the guys in group like the spec scans of a porn addict’s prefrontal cortex and just the under, you know, it looks like there’s holes in the brain. It’s not really holes, right? It’s just, it’s it’s a lack of electrical firing. And yeah, I mean, we have an income, you know, a deficit. It’s not that we’re incapacitated, but we have a deficit of ability to really be able to attune, connect empathy. I mean, this is one of the hardest things that men and women, but particularly men come in and it’s already not our first language of emotional connection and empathy and attunement and relational intimacy. then you stack decades of porn use on top of that and an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex and it’s just an absolute bonfire. So a lot of this work is getting containment around that forest fire first and foremost by taking porn off the pile, so to speak. But even then, it’s like, okay, now, and this is where recovery is really challenging and painful, is that you’re not medicated anymore.

A mentor of mine used to say, the good news is you’re more aware, the bad news is you’re more aware. It’s like now I see what I’m feeling now, but I don’t know how to really feel these kind of feelings because again, my brain is kind of developmentally stuck at like a 12 year old, 13 year old. And so I don’t know how to relate to human beings, my wife particularly, in genuine, empathic, attuned ways. side note, just quick plug on groups. That’s why for me groups are critical for any kind of healing and recovery process because, you know, individual therapy does some of that, right? Where I can build some of that. But man, the power of being in a relational community of other people that are struggling in similar ways and we’re walking together through that. I mean, it’s literally like every time it’s so many more repetitions in the prefrontal cortex of connection and empathy and attunement, all the things that are antidote. I mean, they’re like the opposite. They help us get out of that limbic collapse of our old addictive patterns and get more into connection.

Fight the New Drug (21:12)
Right. No, no, that was great. And so helpful to note. Basically, it sounds like the way that that’s showing up in relationships for people is that because that’s an underdeveloped part of the brain, they can’t truly connect in relationships a lot of the time because there’s not capacity to do that. There’s not a model for them to experience an emotion other than to self-soothe with pornography or something similar. Yeah.

Chris Chandler (21:12)
Yeah, the other thing that think is important to know, I don’t think there’s a couple of things that don’t get spoken to enough, I think from my experience in the pornography, especially in the pornography literature. One is that, you know, in healthy brain development and function, oxytocin and dopamine are supposed to fire together, right? They’re paired and bond. So the way the mechanism is supposed to hit the limbic is that, you know, I have this prefrontal connection with, know, oxytocin is actually in the hypothalamus, but you know, the way that it’s experienced in terms of empathy and attunement is often fired in the prefrontal cortex and so what it’s supposed to do is I have an intimate, a close connection. And by intimate, I don’t mean sexual or romantic. I mean like just a close encounter with another human being. And that feels good to the nervous system because we’re social creatures. We’re meant to be in relationship and attachment. So dopamine and oxytocin are supposed to go together and do go together in a human relationship. The problem is that a lot of times we redirect it, when we redirect dopamine to images and synthetic connection, right, just screens basically, oxytocin is still often released, but we become bonded to screens rather than to people. And so you think of like a young child, it’s in the prime of attachment and having mirror neurons and trying to connect, learning how to attach to other human beings and their peer group and adult figures. And instead they’re attaching to screens. It’s like, they’re just, they’re literally wiring their nervous system from the earliest age in that form of synthetic connection.

Fight the New Drug (23:00)
Right, which is then fueling in relationships, both romantic and platonic relationships, that desire to connect with inanimate objects, screens, people who are not really fully fleshed out human beings to you, but are more objects and body parts in the way that they’re displayed in pornography, as opposed to the relationships in your life with friends, with family, with romantic partners.

Chris Chandler (23:24)
And it’s like, of course, you have high pleasure, low pain, meaning it’s pretty low risk to like have that kind of experience, that kind of encounter. I don’t have to have a real relationship and you know, the friction, the intimacy always involves in human relationships. And so it’s like, yeah, no, no kidding. You went, you know, to the races on that.

Fight the New Drug (23:41)
Yeah, a lot of people we’ve spoken with over the years or who have written to us describe their porn habits started as a coping mechanism to deal with loneliness or stress or emotional pain. What kinds of underlying wounds or experiences do you often see driving porn addiction?

Chris Chandler (24:00)
Yeah, Carnes had this line one time, I don’t know when I heard him say this, but he said, horniness equals loneliness. And I don’t think it’s always loneliness, but to your point, it’s the acknowledgement again, like if we go back and look at the brain and where the amygdala is and how the limbic system sits in the midbrain.

It’s like your emotions, your amygdala are really coming online. Now, if you have kids, you know that the amygdala’s firing. You have intense emotions, big emotions, all throughout early childhood. But it’s like we have all these emotions and we’re learning how to try and manage those, cope with those, feel those, engage those. And then again, the earlier that some kind of synthetic, self-medicating type behavior or substance enters the picture, it’s like we start turning to those and we really we underdevelop our capacity to feel the full breadth and depth of our feelings. And so then again, I mean, those emotions are there all the time. There’s an undercurrent of emotion that is always there. So a lot of times people just look at the tip of the iceberg of the behavior and the, they’re trying to stop the behavior. But again, like I always say, you don’t have a porn problem, you have a pain problem. So it’s like, we want to, we do want to contain the behavior so that we can get down underneath to really connect with what is the pain.

I find a lot of loneliness, sadness, I think a lot of this really comes down to like we don’t, we have not really developed as a culture a robust way of learning how to grieve well. So I would actually say that for me I think the heart and soul of a lot of this is that I just am terrified to grieve and feel the depth of my pain, which again can show up as loneliness and sadness and anger and hurt and shame. All of those are part of it but I would kind of package it like in a grieving process.

Fight the New Drug (25:40)
It’s a really helpful way, I think, to look at it. And for so many people, again, who are exposed to pornography at a young age, who when everything societally and culturally for them, especially young men, is saying, this is totally normal. And you’re weird if you don’t look at porn because everyone else is doing it. And when it’s normalized in this way, of course you would think, this is what I should be doing. This is normal. And that negates how unhealthy it can be, especially in these ways that it’s, as you said, underdeveloping your ability to really process emotions and develop that emotional capacity and healthy emotional maturity, right? That’s a necessary part of going through life, because life will life, as you also mentioned earlier.

Chris Chandler (26:28)
And I think just to piggyback on that, think Anna Lemke at Stanford with Dopamine Nation has done such an incredible job speaking to that pain pleasure balance and that we just are as a culture, but especially as an adolescent and child population, it’s like we’re ingrained to move towards any kind of pleasure seeking and avoiding a pain at all costs, which is like the exact opposite of what we need to be helping kids learn how to do.

Fight the New Drug (26:50)
Yeah. And research shows that porn use and stress can feed each other in a loop, right? So stress drives the behavior to seek out porn and then engaging in the behavior increases the stress. Can you explain a little bit of what’s happening in that cycle and how someone can begin to break that cycle?

Chris Chandler (27:07)
Yeah, we do a morning devotion every day in our groups and yesterday said, I act out because I feel bad and I feel bad because I act out. It’s like, yeah, that loop is brutal. It’s vicious.

Chris Chandler (27:20)
From a neurochemical standpoint, what you’re really describing there is that stress in the brain is most often associated, or it’s the result of cortisol in the brain, right? It’s kind of the stress hormone, among others. So, and I’d love to speak to that, like adrenaline and norepinephrine. So there’s quite a cocktail with pornography use.

But yeah, so interestingly, I mean, we experience pain, distress. Again, we, developed that coping mechanism early on before life even got dramatically painful a lot of times for a lot of us. Right. So like, I guess what I would say is that, you know, I think more and more I see people, they’re not necessarily like in this deep trauma and pain and learning to use porn to cope with some, you know, capital T trauma. It’s just that like, it’s really pleasurable. And so even the micro traumas, poor on a test or I feel anxious about a test at school or whatever it’s like these these things that are still pain but on the continuum we would say like okay those are like daily stressors and again that’s part of the problem is I didn’t develop a way of handling distress emotional distress and in reasonable healthy ways and so we learned to start pulling that lever from a young age and just repeatedly.

And then to your point, that pleasure seeking started creating pain. So now we’re, we’re medicating the very pain that we’re actually creating. Right? So, I mean, it’s always a chicken egg and I, yeah, both are always true, I guess is what I’m saying, but once that gets going that cocktail of dopamine and cortisol. Cortisol is highly addictive in the brain, right? That stress hormone, that fear response. And a lot of times people are acting out in, you know, they feel a lot of shame about it. So when they act out, they’re acting out in pretty small windows of time. They’re trying to find times where they’re alone or isolated. And so there’s a lot of stress. I don’t want anyone to find out. I don’t want to get caught. And so almost the anticipation of getting the lust hit, the image, the orgasm, whatever, the pursuit of that becomes more addictive than the actual hit, right? Because it’s the excitement, the adrenaline, the norepinephrine that’s bursting through my system. It’s like a 10X on, porn itself is addictive, but then you add that component to it.

Fight the New Drug (29:20)
Yeah, and often, you know, when people try to quit porn when they’ve experienced maybe this is something that’s negatively impacting my life, they often experience, you know, irritability or anxiety or mood swings, which could lead them to think, well, this can’t be either. This can’t be it. If I’m feeling worse now from a clinical perspective, what’s happening there and what does it reveal about how deeply the brain has adapted to porn?

Chris Chandler (29:46)
Yeah, I mean, in classic addiction, we would call that withdrawal symptoms, right? I mean, you don’t, you’ve trained the brain to function with this substance or experience at a certain level and you take that away and it’s like, it’s like exposing the nerve, you know, that again, it’s been there all along, but yeah, I mean, that’s a big part of recovery is learning how to, you know, slow down, step into some of these uncomfortable places and just simply feel and ride the wave. mean, this is so much of what my work with people is doing is kind of like what unfortunately should have been taught and practiced in like third grade is, you know, we’re doing it like 33, 53, 83 years old. It’s again, that’s where I feel so sad. It’s like porn is just robbing an entire generation of human beings from being able to just have a robust human experience. we’re just, it’s sad.

Fight the New Drug (30:33)
Yeah, so many people, especially who are kind of hooked on pornography at a young age, think, well, you know, when I get married or when I’m in a relationship, it will just naturally help me stop watching porn. And from your perspective, why does that rarely work?

Chris Chandler (30:51)
because it’s different universes. They’re nothing the same. I can’t even think of an analogy off the top of my head.

Chris Chandler (31:00)
Um, we’ll just stick with the driving. I’ve been using that a lot. It’s like, you know, a 12 year old can read about driving a car, but that’s very different than actually getting in a race car and driving a formula one car. I don’t even know how to drive a formula one car. So, um, yeah, I don’t know what the analogy might be, but the, the, synthetic form of, of connection, I don’t know. It’s not even connection with images or online activity or, um, even anonymous sexual acting out is not real relationship. Right? So all the different forms that we go to to medicate you know, particularly sexually, but I would say, you know, again, like medicating in all forms, it moves us away from real relationship and intimacy. Relationship and intimacy, again, is scary. It’s painful. It’s uncomfortable. Like by definition, I think we all think of like these hallmark cards and that love is just supposed to be warm and fuzzy. I guys, you know, they kind of laugh at me because I’m like, you know, I’ll say like some people call it conflict. I call it intimacy. Like the whole nature of intimacy is it’s uncomfortable. It’s painful. And that’s for me beautiful. Like that’s the human experience.

I don’t know if I’m answering your question. I also would say, you know, guys that are looking at porn thinking that that’s somehow going to like, you know, replicate their future relationship. And then by guys, I mean men and women. It’s like a dog chasing a fire truck. They just, they think this is the solution and it’s going to, you know, teach them how to be sexual. And it’s, couldn’t be further from the truth.

Fight the New Drug (32:21)
Yeah. And I think also just to add to that, I think a lot of partners of porn consumers are, you when they come into a relationship and they say, okay, I don’t want porn to be part of my relationship or however that looks. And then their partner is really struggling with pornography. I think it’s difficult for partners to sometimes understand that, that the individual who’s struggling with a compulsive behavior or addiction isn’t associating, you know, that intimacy with their partner that per connection partner connection with the same experience that they’re having with pornography and of course this isn’t always the case but for someone who has experienced pornography as you’ve described so far they really are seeing it as as completely different things and that can be such a difficult thing to navigate within a relationship on both sides I think

Chris Chandler (33:07)
Yeah, without question. I yeah, I so admire, and I’m gonna speak kind of stereotypically. I know that I have women that struggle with pornography. I have men that struggle with pornography. And I have partners that are primarily female and partners that are male. So it goes both directions without question. But.

Fight the New Drug (33:16)
Of course.

Chris Chandler (33:24)
As I, you know, I have a group of women that I work with and I just have so much admiration for partners, and that are willing to stick it out and work through this with a man because, know, they are been traumatized now by not knowing how deep this rabbit hole went. didn’t, they might’ve like known a little bit, but a lot of times they just had no idea how deep that went. and so that’s, that’s overwhelmingly traumatizing to a woman’s brain. and when she can, you know, when we can kind of work through that initial phase of that trauma.

What’s the word I’m for, like stability, like, you know, just kind of creating some containment around that. And she can start seeing that he’s been in a traumatized brain as well. That’s why he’s going to this mechanism that it’s really not about her. And we can work mutually where she’s in her trauma brain, he’s in his trauma enacting out brain. that’s, and again, now we’re talking about like what likely both of them have been missing all along anyway. So the crazy thing about that is that what I see couples that are willing to work through it have more intimacy than I they would have ever had had this not come up. So it’s crazy and insane to say, but you know couples will say like it was the worst thing that ever could have happened and the best thing that could have ever happened to our relationship. I would not have been able to address some of these wounds that I had from childhood. The partner saying this right like that little girl went through pain that was not addressed and his pornography use actually helped her you know step into some of that work as well. So that’s a little more than what you’re asking.

Fight the New Drug (34:46)
Yeah, I think, yeah, no, it’s great. And I think just to help validate the experience on both sides of this and to know that it can be difficult on both sides and that there is work to be done to process those traumas in different ways. And of course, staying together isn’t the right thing for everyone or isn’t, everyone’s not in a set of circumstances where there is safety for that or whatever that looks like and each person should navigate this on their own. But it is important to note that there are a lot of different ways that people experience this, both individually and in their relationships.

Chris Chandler (35:07)
That’s a great point and I have very much a bias because I’m working with men in particular that are doing the work to get healthy. So if someone is not doing that work, then by all means that’s not going to be safe and healthy, right? That would be inappropriate to stay in a toxic, abusive, unhealthy relationship like that. So I definitely have a bias on that.

Fight the New Drug (35:27)
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for sharing that. For someone who is trying to quit, what does a realistic recovery process actually look like? How long can it take for the brain and body to begin healing? And what does the process tend to feel like?

Chris Chandler (35:53)
Well, I’ll quote Patrick Carnes. This is never news that people like to hear, but know, Carnes and his research looks at the way the brain changes is really a three to five year process. And he really kind of incrementally kind of breaks that down as far as the changes the brain goes through in recovery. And that’s real. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to be in therapy for five years. But it does mean that you have to learn a system. The brain is a habit-forming machine. And you know, I loved James Clear, In Atomic Habits, where he says, know, the question is not how long does it take to, you know, start a new habit. The question is how many, right? How many repetitions? And so it’s really about, it’s all about, you know, stopping the repetition on the acting outside, right? Like I can’t keep going to these mechanisms and think that I’m going to get upstream. So learning how to do that is a whole, is a whole challenge. It’s a whole process. And there’s a lot that goes into it. It’s, you know, I mean, obviously there are some things that can help like accountability software and you having some boundaries and a plan. But it’s also really everything we’ve been talking about. Like I have to be able to, there’s a saying in AA that God is in the pause. And the way that I think about that most often is that between stimulus and response, those milliseconds over and over and over again throughout my day, that is the moment where recovery happens, right? I have to be able to slow down this immediate instant response, right? This reactive, unconscious process of addiction or compulsive behavior. I have to be able to,

To hit the brakes right prefrontal cortex pause breathe and in those milliseconds is all the work I have to learn how to recognize. What am I feeling? What am I actually feeling here? How do I actually like open that up and feel it more deeply? How do I connect? So I know maybe going a little further than what you’re asking but all that to say I mean that Carnes said one time the first year of recovery is like kicking tires It’s so maddening because it’s like I don’t know if you’ve seen the video on YouTube the backward bike But I show this thing all the time because it’s the best depiction I’ve ever seen of like when the brain is ingrained in one system and even though I intellectually know, okay, turn the handlebars the other way and everything will be different. And it’s like, it’s just not that simple though. There’s a whole system in place in this. And so it’s like, I’m trying to learn how to ride this backward bike. I keep falling on my face. It’s so frustrating, but it’s not about this binary like pass or fail. It’s about every time if and when that happens, I study it. I try and figure out like, okay, what happened? Like where, where did I back to that old pathway. Like, why did I go back to that? And so every, you know, unfortunately, say relapse never has to happen, but it oftentimes is a part of the recovery process. Like this is a learning, growing, changing process. And part of learning is failing. It’s falling and it, God willing, it’s not the horrific relapses we used to go to. you know, so I might go to a bikini image on Instagram instead of like this, you know, online partner kind of chat room or something. But the point is that I’m incrementally getting healthier and healthier and I’m learning each time. So that’s just early recovery. That first year I’m just saying it can be pretty frustrating and maddening for both the acting out person as well as if they’re in a relationship the partner is like what the heck is going on.

Chris Chandler (38:59)
But inevitably, if we’re committed to the work and we keep doing that, by year two in particular, he talks about we’re really grieving more deeply the wounds that drove us here in the first place. We’re starting to really repair and grow and get strong and healthy. And does that mean we never struggle again? Of course not. If anyone tells you that they’re lying or they’re just not aware of where they’re now medicating and turning to.

Fight the New Drug (39:20)
Yeah, I think that’s so helpful to hear because I think people often, you know, if they’re hearing, quit porn and it was the best thing that ever happened to me and these are all of the great things I’m experiencing in my life now that I’m no longer hooked on this, but they miss that middle part that is the process of quitting. I think that people can sometimes feel like, you know, they’re doing it wrong or they’re…if they’re still struggling. And I think it’s so important to remind someone that that is the process, right? Is rebuilding those new pathways in your brain in the same way that you’re learning to improve any skill or any hobby. It takes practice and it takes work to build the capacity to move forward. And so I think it’s so important to have a realistic look at what recovery can look like and often does.

Chris Chandler (40:12)
Yep, 100%.

Fight the New Drug (40:14)
For someone who’s in this process, we’ve talked a little bit about a partner’s experience, but when someone discloses porn use to their partner, what advice would you give for beginning to rebuild trust and emotional safety in that relationship if that is something that both partners are wanting to do?

Chris Chandler (40:34)
And that’s such a great question and one that I often miss when I’m like early on talking about this and then there’s so much damage which which it’s like, how did I miss that? So thank you for asking. So I mean, the number one thing is that staggered disclosure is one of the most traumatizing things a partner can go through. as as you know, as much as we want to just get everything on the table and have to get everything on the table, we have to do that in a very structured, supported way. And so in the CSAT process, have a very specific way that we do that called the full amends process, which starts with a full disclosure letter.

This is where I don’t see a lot of clients come back because they’re like, yeah, I’m not doing that. So it’s, the, it can be one of the most terrifying things. I’m also not saying that you have to do it, but we’ve Stephanie Carnes is the president of ITAP. She’s done a tremendous amount of research on this and couples that have gone through this have after the fact say it said 94 plus percent said this was one of the best things we did in the process. So, but you know, cause what oftentimes people want to do, the partner wants to know everything yesterday.

The guy wants to share as little as pot as much as is going to appease her or him, right? Their partner without traumatizing that, which it’s like, it’s all traumatizing. There is no, there’s no way to do that. So it ends up being this trickle truth. That’s just terrible. So here’s what we do. We say, yes, I’m committed to, I love you, right? I’m committed to this relationship and I want to be, I want to live different, right? I want to be, all in. And so whatever it takes and what that takes is that we need to do a full disclosure process and to do that. Any questions you have, I’m going to start writing this letter.

I’m gonna contact a CSAT, right? Please, for goodness sakes, do not do this on your own. Find somebody that’s walked the path, because I cannot tell you, like, I’ve done hundreds of these full disclosures.

So find a CSAT, find somebody to help you walk through that. Write that letter. When she has questions, she always will, I would ask the partners, please write down your questions and give them to your therapist or his therapist. And he will answer every question you have, but we want to create a little bit of containment. It’s not about secrecy anymore. It’s about privacy until all of that can be shared in a way that her brain can process that because that is traumatizing. And so we want to contain it and have a clean break, not this ongoing internal bleeding.

Fight the New Drug (42:43)
Right. And I think that’s so important to know because that’s something that we rarely talk about in this space. know, it’s often if someone decides they’re ready to quit porn and maybe they start on their own, but it’s the secret that they’ve been hiding from, then they want to share with their partner, but they also don’t want to hurt their partner. And so I think it is something that people, it’s so daunting for someone to know how to do that. And I think the advice of not doing it on your own and knowing there is a process that’s well researched that that has worked for a lot of people that is available to follow that helps create safety for both people involved is so important.

Chris Chandler (43:20)
So great. And as terrifying as it is on the other side of that, for the acting out person, it is the most freeing and it’s the thing that they’ve wanted their whole lives to be fully seen. Now they don’t, they wouldn’t say that necessarily, but, and because they’re terrified that if I’m fully seen, then you’re going to reject me and I’m going to be alone. Right. And so that keeps them in the, shadows in the dark. And so it’s the, it’s the deepest part of the cave. Carl, sorry, Joseph Campbell said, you know, the cave you feared to enter holds the treasure you seek, and this is like the darkest part of the cave for for anyone that struggles with any kind of sexual acting out compulsive behavior but it’s we all know you know in recovery that it’s the step that we have to take.

Fight the New Drug (43:59)
Yeah, and as you mentioned earlier, that’s kind of the piece of, you know, not developing the part of the brain that lets you sit with emotions or sit with unpredictable things. This is the messiness of being human and the complicated portion of relationships is that you might be rejected, right? It’s the fear of that rejection that often keeps people in this shame or in the secrecy.

Chris Chandler (44:20)
Yes.

Fight the New Drug (44:26)
And so it’s a difficult thing to confront, you know, that is a possible outcome of disclosing. And I think that’s part of why so many people avoid disclosure. But as you mentioned, for so many couples who have gone through that process in a way that’s healthy for both partners or in the best way that they can, that disclosure is often what creates the space for intimacy because there is, you know, truth and transparency there.

Chris Chandler (44:51)
That’s so beautifully said. Yeah, Dr. Carnes said one time, our pain pushes us, most often pushes us into recovery and our hope pulls us. you know, so a lot of times people will come into recovery because they were discovered. Most people don’t disclose. They don’t just on their own say, hey, I want, I really want a deeper relationship with you I’ve been hiding this from you. So that is almost never happens.

But so our pain pushes us into this process. But the moment when I see a human being get to that place where it’s like, you know what, I’m done. Like no matter what, even if he or she leaves, like I’m doing this for myself. Like I want to live in full transparency and integrity, as scary and as painful as that may be. Like I am committed to that, to being healthy and whole. That is such a game changer.

Fight the New Drug (45:28)
Yeah. In addition to that, you know, freedom from secrecy, what are some of the most important daily habits or mindset shifts that support long term recovery to help both, you know, reduce both porn and the stress that fuels it?

Chris Chandler (45:45)
Gosh, that’s such a great question. I don’t know if you have another hour, but let me try and boil that down as much as I can. Well, yeah, so rigorous honesty without question is critical, which means I have to have people, Brene Brown calls them marble jar friends. I need other people that I can trust. I’m not gonna go tell some random person at church or at work. So I have to find communities where that’s happening. So 12 step communities, therapeutic recovery groups. So I think you cannot do this alone.

I don’t know how to pitch that hard enough, but I think you need to find other people that are walking this path to walk with you. And then in that context, you can practice more and more rigorous honesty with those people. Again, it may not be as much of a value, core value of recovery as rigorous honesty is. It may not be completely appropriate for…with your partner, right? Because that’s just going to be re-traumatizing. having some boundaries there. So community, rigorous honesty. There’s a lot of behavioral reps. mean, we just got to get some, again, some protective measures in place. It’s not that, you know, like accountability software saves you, but I do think that like having full transparency, again, the intervention for all three A’s, like if availability, affordability and anonymity drive addiction, then recovery has to be driven by community and transparency, right? Accountability, authenticity,

So I need as much of my life to be open to as many are appropriate around me. so, and then just learning the tools of again, like I have one of my bread and butter tools in early recovery. call it the heart flex. And it’s just, it’s literally like we describe it, like emotional weightlifting. it’s opening up two to five minutes of just recognizing what I’m feeling, but not like the classic therapy thing of like, okay, like, I mean, getting the feelings we allow and being able to identify as important, but that’s a left brain activity. And what we need because porn is a right brain synthetic. It is a hijacker of our right brain, which if you want a brief overview on that, Jill Bolt has a book and a Ted Talk called Stroke of Insight that is just beautiful. But we’re talking about a nonverbal side of the brain primarily that is very experiential. Porn lights that part of the brain up. It’s like a, as do all drugs. But what I’m trying to say is that because of that, right brain, we are very left brain dominant.

A lot of recovery is learning how to get into our right brain in a healthy, clean way. And so, you know, the heart flex is opening up an emotion like loneliness and saying, okay, for two minutes, I’m just going to experience loneliness. I’m not going to analyze it, think about it. I’m just going to like hold this emotion, not as good or bad, just like it is what it is. And I’m going to let myself feel the discomfort of this and feel the weight of that. It’s just like physical weightlifting on our emotional muscles.

Fight the New Drug (48:16)
Yeah. And for someone who is experiencing that repetition with connection. So we’ve spoken about how the opposite of addiction is connection. You need those healthy relationships and healthy connection as you disengage from pornography. What does healthy connection look like in practice for someone who’s just learning to reconnect both with themselves and with others?

Chris Chandler (48:38)
Yeah, that’s such a great question. I mean, the hardest part of that is simply reaching out and asking for help, you know? And so whatever it takes to have that initial contact, connection, finding that person…

I did individual therapy for 20 years and I also ran groups for 20 years. I found that over time, men and women that were in groups always got better, faster for longer periods of time than people in individual therapy without question, like hands down. So I’ve gone all in on groups the past several years and in that everyone that I encountered, they all reach out to me for individual therapy thinking that’s what we know, right? That’s the solution. When I pitch a group to them, their face changes, right? It’s like, no, I wasn’t signing up for that because we’re so terrified that we’re so terrified of connection. was hard enough for them to reach out to a therapist, let alone like, you know, a group of potential peers. But that is that is where healing and change happens. So a long winded way of saying you’ve got to be able to find that person, even if it’s just one person to say, look, I’m struggling with this and learn how to start building some repetitions of just being honest and asking for help. That is what the little boy and little girl really struggled to ever learn how to do growing up. Right. It was just so much easier to go to our device than to a person. So asking for help, naming things, I always say like, you gotta name the last 1%. And this takes some time to learn how to do, but not learn how to do, just be willing to do, have the courage to do. But we oftentimes wanna name like 10%, 20%, but it’s all of it and the last 1%. We say we’re as sick as our secrets, so I’ve gotta learn how to name these things.

And then ultimately, again, it’s just being willing to sit in the presence of another human being and learn how to be present, which I guess is a whole other skill set.

Fight the New Drug (50:25)
And I love that you mentioned the power of groups because I think it can be so intimidating for people to think, well, I don’t want to disclose this to anyone. And now I have to disclose this to a group of people. But such an important reminder that that’s a group of people who also experienced that same thing at some point most of the time, right? That fear of disclosure. And they’re people who understand what you’re going through more than anyone else. is there anything you can speak to about your work at Relay that can kind of help someone maybe feel encouraged to test out a resource like that or a group resource.

Chris Chandler (50:58)
That’s actually a increment, maybe a more manageable or less scary increment than coming into a live group of people. Relay has been fantastic as far as people finding community that is actually kind of like a great stepping stone from their digital online acting out communities. It’s a beginning step away from that, still safe and familiar in some ways. But man, those communities are, to your point, these are people that are all seeking

you know health connection care and so the one of the most beautiful thing moments I see and it’s something I wish I’m gonna create a montage video of these moments when when you have a newcomer to group a first-time person and the response is over I mean I get emotional just thinking about like you you said you have somebody come in and what one a lot of times they start breaking down before anyone else because they’ve never seen communities of I don’t introduce them on the front end I let them just sit and listen to how and and feel the connection from the group. And so when they share it, like a lot of times they can’t even get words out because they’re like, I didn’t know that this existed. Right. And then of course, the group is just full of people that love others and especially those that are in pain and they can relate to. And so it’s just overwhelming, you know, welcome and love and care. And so it’s all the things that we’ve been looking for for so long, we just didn’t know where to find it. So Relay has that in spades and it’s a really like easy, easy to access community and connection. So I would that’s a great place to start.

Fight the New Drug (52:25)
Yeah, thank you. For any of our listeners who maybe feel stuck or hopeless or they’ve tried to quit many, times and keep relapsing, what would you want them to know about the possibility of real recovery?

Chris Chandler (52:40)
That it’s real. know, like this is not, you know, if I didn’t experience my own life transforming and the lives of people around me, then I would go drive a bread truck or something. Like I’m not, I don’t want to be a used car salesman telling people, come change. then if change wasn’t happening, there’s no reward in that. So changes, you know, there are like, I mean, at this point, like hundreds of thousands of people, millions of people, right, walking the path of recovery in all forms. And so at this point, as, as much of a tsunami as pornography and sexual acting out is there is a tsunami of people in recovery walking this out day in and day out that are genuinely living, you know, healthy, happy and free. And it’s like, so there’s really less and less excuse to not find resources. One thing I always joke about is like, dude, you were really resourceful in your acting out. You found ways to get your drug when you wanted it, right? So you can find recovery if you want it. And I think people do. It’s just that, you know, it’s, it’s scary and it’s new and different. So I get it. But if, and when you’re willing to take the step, man. There’s tremendous resources. And honestly, thank you for being a resource. I’m so thankful for your platform and what you guys are doing.

Fight the New Drug (53:44)
Thank you so much. I always love getting to talk with you and I have so many questions I could ask you for hours. So I’d love to have you back on the podcast again in the future, but is there anything we haven’t spoken about yet today that you want to share with our listeners?

Chris Chandler (53:59)
Not that I can think of, just keep coming back. That’s what we say at the end of meetings, right? So.

Fight the New Drug (54:04)
Yeah, I think that’s incredible encouragement and just one more reminder for those listening, if you’re struggling, if you’re a partner of someone struggling, there are resources out there for you. There are groups out there who can help you. We have many resources listed on our site. We’d encourage you to check out Relay know that there is hope. Chris is a great example of someone who has seen hundreds of people overcome? Is that an accurate number?

Chris Chandler (54:32)
I think I’m in the thousands now. It’s been, it’s been, yeah, yeah.

Fight the New Drug (54:34)
Thousands of people overcome this successfully and live happy, healthy, beautiful lives on the other side.

Chris Chandler (54:43)
Let’s be honest, painful. Yes, beautifully.

Fight the New Drug (54:48)
So know that there is painful lives because that is better said. And know that there is absolutely hope for you to do the same as well.