← Dr. Trish Leigh Podcast
Dr. Trish Leigh Podcast
#Episode 151: Are the Holidays Fueling Your Porn Habit? w/ Dr. Trish Leigh
00:37:19
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Are you worried about relapsing at holiday time? You've been doing such a good job staying away from explicit matter, whether that be pornography, sexual media, or anything else that qualifies. You've been staying away from compulsive masturbation or unwanted sexual behaviors. And the holiday time is upon us. And you know you're at risk for relapse. Well, you are not alone. And I'm going to share with you all the reasons why. Why the holidays might be a time to really buckle down to prevent relapse. I'm Dr. Trish Leigh. Welcome back for another episode of Porn Brain Rewire, the podcast. This is an episode where I am definitely going to divulge TMI too much information. So if you want to know too much about me, stick around and get a cup of coffee or a cup of tea because we are going to dig in. I'm going to give you all the reasons why holiday season might be a time of increased relapse and more important importantly, what you can do about every single reason. And I'm gonna share too much about myself when I do it. So let's dive into the idea of all the stressors behind the holidays that you might not know are weighing on your brain, your nervous system and your psyche. So before we do that, I just wanna remind you that this podcast is part of my outreach program for the nonprofit organization that I founded for pornbrain, prevention.org so if you want to pay it forward and go upstream to help kids never get addicted to pornography, which they are all at risk for, please consider donating @porn brain prevention.org Together we can make a huge difference. Thank you for that. Okay, now let's dive in. If you watched a video that I made that just came out two days ago, I included some statistics about how porn use goes up during the holiday time. I'm just going to reiterate it here really quickly to just let you know, scientifically speaking, this is what is known to happen. More porn use during the holidays. So one specific statistic is from the largest porn site in the world, pornhub. They have the report that comes out annually and they report more than a 10% uptick in porn use on Christmas Day day. Christmas Day. Why is that happening? I'm going to tell you why, but I want you to know that means you're at risk for more chance that you're going to use porn explicit matter or go back to the screen on Christmas Day. That's why we're doing it. The holiday times in General can be very stressful. So the first thing that I want to talk about is holiday events. When we move towards holiday season, there's more and more events. Now it really does depend on kind of how you interact with holiday events. You may have too many, which many people do, or you may have none or too few. What we're going for here is the sweet spot. So if you're packing holiday events into your schedule, I would caution you to take pause. I'm going to give the brain hacks as we go through each one of these. So your brain hack strategy for holiday events is, is to remember that when you're at risk of going back into the screen for explicit matter, it's because of dopamine. And just to remind you what pornography does to your brain is it links you to the screen or high amounts of dopamine fast. That's what I call artificial neutral. It slides your brain into artificial neutral to offset that fast speed of stress and anxiety. So if you put more events on your schedule and now you're feeling more stressed out about it, and the strange thing about stress is it's so low key, you don't even feel it stressing you out until it's too late, you may be at risk to go back to get lots of dopamine to offset that stress. Keeping in mind, if you do go back to porn, it actually creates more stressful feelings by a dopamine deficit in your life. So now you're at your increased number of holiday events feeling more stressed out than ever. So here is what the brain hack strategy for holiday events are. To pause and to think, is this going to bring me pleasure? Because where the problem lies, so does the solution. Your brain's looking for pleasure. You want to make sure you're adding holiday events that are going to bring you joy and pleasure. And let's be real here, at some of the holiday events, you're an extra, right? You're a, you're a body, you're a person taking up space. So that holiday event has 25 to 40 people at it. So call a spade a spade and think to yourself, do you want to go to that event? Is it going to bring you joy and pleasure and connection? So that's joy. That is serotonin, healthy neurotransmitter for joy and happiness, pleasure. Dopamine, healthy source, healthy level, and it's oxytocin for connection. Are you going to go and connect with people having fun and pleasure doing so? If not, maybe that's an event to skip Making sure you keep your schedule flexibly balanced. Now, let me give you an example. Too much information, number one coming up. And this one's low key. We're going to. We're going to ease into the too much information. So we're invited to a bunch of holiday parties already. And you know, I really like to have some downtime. So does the Hubs. We. It's a busy life. We recognize it's a busy life. So we are invited to Christmas parties two weekends in a row. And actually the second weekend, there's parties two nights in a row, which I tend, tend to never do that. That's like one of my rules. I don't go to two parties in a row. These two parties, I have to, they're important and I want to, more importantly. But the party the weekend before, not so much. It's a party we've gone to 10 times, and out of the 10 times, we've only enjoyed it, like maybe two. The times we have enjoyed it, it's because of excessive drinking, which we will get to. Don't get me wrong, there's some funny stories about the Hubs jumping into somebody's minivan, but we won't go there right yet. The too much information also is know how I've recovered from toxic mold poisoning. The place that this party is at is definitely moldy. And I now know from the journey of toxic mold poisoning that every time we go there, I can totally smell it. And I now know that people who have experienced toxic mold poisoning can smell that mold over other people. So the Hubs is really cute because he's respectful. He's like, it has taken you so long and so much effort to get better. I don't want to go there either. He also recognizes the only way we really have fun is if we get our drink on, which we're not doing. We haven't been doing that for a while. We've decided to skip. But you know who's important to me? My precious children who are now young adults. So for this year, holiday season, we planned a family horseback riding adventure. It's a trail ride. I'm so looking forward to that. And I planned one of those candlelight concerts. If you've ever gone to them, they're amazing. I. I had the besties go with me once. We went to see the Coldplay one. This one is Coldplay and Imagine Dragons, which, you know, I like music. I like both of them. And I want my family to experience it because it's really, really cool. So we're Going to that. And it's in a barn, so it's going to be quaint and it's going to be amazing. So I've planned two events that I'm really looking forward to. Serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin. And I've adiost one event for now that I do not want to go to. I encourage you to do that plan, prioritize. Make sure you're getting healthy pleasure from healthy sources. Moving on. Holiday shopping and overspending. This is a major stressor for a lot of people back in the day. I'm sorry to say that we really overspent. There was one year where I bought all the gifts for the kids because that's what I did, you know, back in the day, wink, wink, wink. I won't share anything about that, but it was my job, you know, just in case. It was my job to get all the gifts for the kids, to make sure Christmas morning was pleasurable for them. So I bought all the gifts. And then two days before, my husband just rebought everything that he wanted to effectively double spending. But. But what that does is you move into the new year, especially back then, we had to stay on a tighter budget. No, you move into the new year all stressed out. You're actually stressed out while you're spending. So here's the strategy, and we talk about this in my family, which I think is fun because we all have different strategies for spending and gift giving. So this is my strategy. I think of the person in mind. I think, what would the Hubs really want for Christmas? Don't get me wrong, he wants a golf simulator. He's asked me for it for every single holiday and birthday and Father's Day, but it's like 15 grand. He's going to need to purchase that one himself. So what would he enjoy? I always think of what would bring him enjoyment, what would bring him happiness, what would bring him pleasure, what would. What's a good gift that doesn't require him to do work? Last year, he gave me a gift certificate for a bespoke experience, which sounds amazing. So it's to go to a custom tailor who used to work for Prada and to make me an outfit. Now, the reason I say it sounds amazing is because it is now holiday season 2024. That was my gift in 2023, and I still haven't used it. It was incredibly expensive. But, you know, I was fighting off sickness back then. I wasn't feeling great about having a bespoke experience where a tailor Makes me clothes and I was just lucky to get up and keep doing my thing. So my point about that is my husband's disappointed that I haven't used that gift certificate yet. But like the aim was kind of off. That wasn't a gift for where I was at in my life at that point. You know, I don't even like ordering clothes off of line, never mind going to a tailor. He knows this about me, but this man does it all the time. His gift giving strategy is what does he think I should have? So it's actually kind of cool because he gets me things like to push me outside of my comfort zone, to help me to experience new things, you know, and sometimes he misses the mark. I'm. I have the, the tab pulled up. I'm going to get this experience going this week, so adding to my schedule. But I am so. I appreciate it. But come up with your strategy. Don't overspend. He overspent on that one too. Spend perfectly for the person that you're buying because ultimately you don't have to impress the person with the gift. You want that gift to be something that brings them happiness, pleasure and connection to you. Think of it that way. That's going to be our theme throughout every single one of these brain hack strategies. But come up with a plan, strategize it, don't overspend. And make sure when you give it to the person, it's supposed to be a token of showing them that you love them. Keep it in that space. Okay. Stressful family dynamics. Let's move on to that one. This is the holiday killer. And you know, it can be really stressful. Reconnecting with family of origin. That's what we call it in the business. You might have a thing with your in laws, you might have a thing with your own family. You might have a thing with your friend's friends. I want you to really think about who do you have stressful dynamics with? Do that. Write that down in your journal and do it when you have more time. This necessitates thinking about. We want to use this time to increase your emotional intelligence and maturity so you can move into interactions that maybe you don't want to avoid, which I totally get because I interact with people who stress me out all the time. But I interact with people who stress me out much less than now than I did in the past because I'm taking care of myself too. So the idea is, you know, if your mom stresses you out, find a way to happiness, joy, pleasure and connection to Connect with your mom, but not putting you over the edge. So think about this. Who do you have stressful dynamics with? What is a recipe for success? Healthy boundaries for yourself, but also compassion and empathy and grace. And it is good for you to connect with the important people in your life, even if you don't really. You know, if you have stressful dynamics with them, especially your parents and your siblings, you know, there's a lot of animosity when it comes to family of origin stuff. But you'll find if you can connect with them for the right amount in the right way that you leave feeling glad that you did it, you maybe didn't resonate with them. You know, coming from the black sheep of the family, whenever I'm with my family, you know, I definitely get the sense that I'm the black sheep. But every time I leave them because it's the perfect amount and in a good way because that's how I've designed it now for me and ultimately for them. Then when I leave them, I'm so glad I'm staying connected to them. In the past, I wasn't as connected to them back when I couldn't handle it as well as I can handle it now. I encourage you to be able to handle it so that you can feed your soul, joy, pleasure, connection. But figure out how to make it happen without putting yourself over the edge now. Some of these stressful dynamics come out of old wounds. Here comes some tmi. One of the most traumatic experiences for me and my precious children happened on Christmas Eve. And it was at a family Christmas party. Some stuff went down that really never got resolved, but not because of me, because of the other players. And it was Christmas Eve at my parents house. I was out of there within two minutes. That's flight mode. Just to remind you of our stress responses. Fight, flight, freeze and fawn. One of my precious children was in freeze mode. That put this girl into flight mode and we were out of there. Ultimately, I was blamed for the experience even though I wasn't even in the room. But what happens is that can make it so that if you're emotionally immature, it can make it so that Christmas Eve equals trauma to you for the rest of your life. It's imperative that if there's old wounds with anybody or if there's old wounds because of a time or a place, you've got to put your big boy pants on or put your big girl pants on and address that trauma so it doesn't stay in your nervous system. I've taught myself to do this, that was one of the biggest traumatic experiences for me. It's not one of the only traumatic experiences for me, though. I've taught myself. You have to approach and engage and resolve it for you. You don't even need any of the other players. Even though I will tell you, it took me a long time to resolve it without the other players coming on board. I did spend years trying to get the other players to resolve this with me. But then finally I came to a place where the other players, they're never going to resolve this. But that can't keep me stuck in a place where I never resolve it. And that's when I had the epiphany of I can use this experience to grow even though they can't do it with me. And actually, because they can't do it with me, I can learn to have compassion and understanding for their positions so that I can move beyond it. This is something that's called theory of mind. And I remember this from when I was younger. I. I've always done different. I've always done things differently. My whole life, like black sheep, has just been me. I didn't even know it while all this stuff was. I still don't know it while it's unfolding. I can only see it when I look back. When I went to grad school, I didn't take a typical course of classes. I ended up taking. I have to think of what the word word is. But I worked with just one professor. Oh, it's going to bug me now. But anyways, I worked with one professor and I basically made the classes up and it was amazing. So I took a class on theory of mind, meaning that all I did was research theory of mind for the entire class. And it was amazing. I did research projects on it. I was mostly focusing on kids on the autistic spectrum. That's a neurodevelopmental disorder that I've always helped people with. But it really taught me to understand that every single person has their own theory of mind. Theory of mind is I can use my perspective to understand your perspective. It's more involved than that, but I can do that now, too, which allows me to have compassion and empathy, especially for people who can't resolve the trauma. So the next year, Christmas Eve wasn't traumatic for me. I actually made a very conscientious plan to have a wonderful Christmas Eve the next year. Know what? It was in a different way. It was in a different way than I had done Christmas Eve my whole life, because that Traumatic experience happened at the Christmas Eve party that I had done for the 35 years of my entire life. But then that next year, I made a new tradition. I made a beautiful tradition. Now I have to tell you one more thing, and then we'll move on, is that that was a very traumatic experience for my whole family. And part of Family Secrets, as John Bradshaw, the author, would, would talk about it, is not discussing these traumatic experiences, sweeping them under the rug. If you come from a family that couldn't handle conflict like my family, the propensity is just pretend that didn't happen. Let's just sweep that under the rug. I have always talked about that experience with my children. I helped move them through that experience, Honestly absorbed a lot of it and then I had to offload it, which makes me very glad to be able to do that. But we don't keep that secret. We don't talk about it all the time, but if it comes up, it's not a family secret. It's an experience that we had and that we learned from and that we grew from. That's what keeps the shame at bay. We have no shame about it. Shit happens, right? But you have to be able to look at it, approach and engage, not isolate. That's where we're going here. When you feel overwhelmed by stressful dynamics, and especially if something big happens, you want to run and isolate and make those feelings go away. That's what you've taught your brain to do through porn and explicit matter. Emotional intelligence means you don't do that. You fight that propensity. You approach and engage, even if the players won't do it with you. You got this. All right, moving on to alcohol related family traditions. Now, we have a saying in my friend group. Just add alcohol when all the big bad stuff goes down. Mostly it's involved a lot of alcohol. Now, of course, all the big good, funny stuff also happens because alcohol is the great inhibitor and it's an amplifier. So what I mean by that is it, it's a disinhibitor, uninhibits you. And now the stuff you would never say, you start saying. So if it's how much you love a person and you're feeling on the inside, you love that person so much alcohol will amplify that and that love comes out. Now, if you're mad and you're at your family party and your grandpa's really frustrating you and you get your drink on, all that anger comes out amplification. So remember this. Alcohol will disinhibit you and what's on the inside will start coming out, and it will amplify it so we know that it also makes it so that when you're disinhibited, you will start sliding that slippery slope back into porn. Porn relapse is usually behind alcohol disinhibition, and many hijackers in the brain have set it up. That way. They'll convince you to have a drink because they know they can't convince you. This is the hijacker in your brain. The hijacker knows he won't be able to convince you to watch porn. But if he convinces you to drink and then smoke a little weed and then play some video games, it's just a matter of time before you're watching porn. You are smarter than the hijacker in your brain. Don't forget that. Stay the course. Keep the alcohol limited. Okay, Too much information. The story of the time where. And honestly, I wasn't even drinking that much. This is a really long time ago, and I know it's not going to be as funny in the retail, but it is one of mine and my husband's funniest stories. And actually, my son Declan has been talking about, quote, unquote, dad Laura lately. He keeps saying that he should start doing some stuff, which is difficult to do, totally weird stuff, but he should start doing some stuff. So he has dad lore. Even though he did almost set my husband's Maserati on fire this weekend, changing the brake fluid, I think. So that could have been some dad lore. But a long time ago, when all five of my kids were babies, those were rough years. Talk about dysregulated. Absolute exhausted. And I really hardly ever drank because I had five babies. So we went to a family party on my husband's side. And, you know, when we had that many kids, we would go for a little while, but then we would leave. And this particular party, the hubs wanted to stay. He did not want to leave. He was drinking with his brothers and sisters. We both come from families of six siblings, three boys, three girls. So when there's a family party, it's a big one, it's never a small one. This particular time, he did not want to go. So I ended up having a couple drinks, which back then I would never do. And on our way to this party, we heard this news story on the radio. It was a long time ago, before streaming about. I don't even know what it was on, but it was something about the average size of penises. I could only say it on this podcast. I couldn't say it on any other podcast. And something about I don't even remember the story now, but there was something about a 4 inch penis. So anyways, as my husband won't leave this party and I want to and now I'm just having drinks because I wanted to leave and I'm all stressed out because I'm managing five babies because he's having a great time. I start yelling at him at this party and I keep screaming at him that he has a 4 inch penis. Yes, that's true. In front of all of his brothers and sisters and his mom who does think I'm an angel. So that's a good thing. But the next day I didn't even remember it. It was literally like blackout. It's probably the only time I only know it in the retail where my husband's telling me that I was going off about the 4 inch penis. It amplifies the feelings inside and it disinhibits you. So the only reason I would ever publicly. I never scream. I'm not a screamer. I don't yell at all. The only time I would actually yell at a person is I would have to be disinhibited. The only time I would yell at my precious husband in front of his entire family is, you know, just add alcohol. And then of course it was the thing I had just heard which was the 4 inch penis thing. You don't understand. When you consume porn, you it is boring itself into your mind. The thing I came amplified about was the thing I had consumed. So think about this. This is what happens. You're amplifying the feelings of the thing that you consume because of the great inhibitor. Just add alcohol. Stay away from it so you don't have a relapse. Okay, moving on. Grief and nostalgia. So let's pivot out of 4 inch penis stories into holidays can be a really rough time. Especially if you've lost someone that care about when it comes to porn. Use you're self soothing. It means you want to take away all the pain and the feelings that you're having because this person isn't in your life. Now tragically I have this experience going as well. I've talked about it here only one time. But I haven't seen my precious daughter, my oldest daughter in three years. She's moved away and she's chosen not to come to any family. Thanks. So you know how. Which I'm going to get to in a second. But you know how I try to meet People where they are. I try to take ownership for my own behaviors. I don't even know what behaviors like, are leading to this. All I know is when the holidays come around and all the rest of my kids are here, it is very sad. So how do I deal with that sadness? I acknowledge it. It's sad, I tell you, because I want you to know. You know, people think my life's perfect because I'm happy and I am getting joy and pleasure and connection from my life. But there's holes in my life too. There's holes in my heart too. There's definitely reasons for me to run and self soothe and to self stimulate. But instead I approach and engage. I look at it. I don't keep it secret. I mean, obviously nobody wants to publicly share that all the time. This is for example, but, you know, that's real. So this year, I bought all the kids pajamas that say forced family fun. They wanted me to. So this goes back to a story of my middle daughter, Fiona. I always said, forced family fun when the kids were young. I mean, they were kids, so they had to do it. So it was forced. But when Fiona was probably around 13, she goes, mom, can we no longer call it forced family fun? Can we just call it family fun? I loved that because I used to call it the triple Fs and now we call it the double Fs. But this is the reality. You know, we have six kids. With my bonus son, Connor, we have six kids, three boys and three girls. I know what you're thinking. Intergenerational trauma and dysfunction, maybe. But I'm making rainbows and unicorns out of it. So here's the idea, is that out of six kids, one doesn't want to participate. Now, of course I want them all to participate, and I want every last one of them to wear their forced family fun pajamas. Connor's going to be with his mom's family, so he's not going to be around. I can accept that. My oldest daughter, she's not going to be here either. Her choice. I can accept that. Do I like it? No. Does it lead to grief and nostalgia? Definitely. But I choose to stay in a place of happiness, but not ignoring it, but making new traditions with the kids who want to be here. And then, you know, that precious daughter of mine, she is me on steroids. And I know what you're thinking, I'm on steroids. So what does that even look like? Yes, it looks like that. And she's gonna work through it. And hopefully she'll make her way back sometime. And of course I will be here with open arms. But in the meantime, I send her love every single day. I hope she has the most beautiful holiday. And I'm going to have a wonderful holiday with the kids that are coming. Don't have to be sad because someone's missing. And just to share with you what I'm talking about, they call it ambiguous grief, which I don't love that because it's not ambiguous. I know exactly what it's about. It's just unsolvable grief. So if you have someone in your life who's not with you, they're still in the world, but they're not with you. That is, you know, considered ambiguous, but you know exactly how it feels. You can send that person love and wish them well and hope that they come back to you. Pragmatic hope. The pragmatic part is you're working on your emotional intelligence and maturity. So when they do come back, you're in a much better place. Now, if you're experiencing grief and you've lost someone to, to death or they've passed on, acknowledging your feelings and acknowledging, you know, the holidays that you've had in the past but that you're not going to have into the future, but being willing to be flexible to create the new future so that you can continue to have happiness. Trauma happens, death happens, separation happens. Life as a human is very challenging, but if you approach and engage it and you resolve as much that you as you can and you accept the other parts, you got this. You're strong, you can do this. So let's move into the next one. Well, first of all, let's put your brain hack strategy there. I already told you, it send people that are not with you this holiday season. Send them love, stay connected to them in a powerful way. You don't realize, but your brain's energy gives off the electromagnetic field around your entire body. Energy is palpable. I want my energy to give off peace. And the only way it's going to give off peace is if I can work on having peace. You can only give what you have, so give peace by having it. And recognize, you know, if someone's not in your life right now, that doesn't mean it's forever. They can come back to you. Be ready when they do. All right, moving on to the next one. Unrealistic holiday expectations. Now, I have a really interesting story about this one and comparative thinking. So what this is is wanting to have the perfect holiday and my family of origin. I already told you, three boys, three girls. I would say to my mom, because my mom wants to have a shiny looking family. And I would always say that, you know, every single episode of the Brady Bunch was about their problems. They weren't shiny looking, you know, and she wants us to look like the Brady Bunch. And mom, if you're listening, which I doubt you are, I love you very much. But this is, this is what it is, is that, you know, we don't have to look shiny and perfect. It's about joy, pleasure and connection. So having a good time doesn't have to look great to other people. This reminded me of growing up. My dad always threw the coolest Christmas party. He would. One time, well, actually a lot of times he would have a hors, horse and carriage ride. And once he had it in the neighborhood, once we, or a bunch of times we went to a place and the whole family, and my extended family is huge. It's over 100 people. I don't even know how many it is now, but it's very large. So he would have a huge party. But now here was the clincher. He would plan this thing for months in advance. And on the day of the party, he would be miserable. He'd be edgy, he wasn't enjoying himself. He'd be irritated that some people didn't show up. He'd be annoyed by how other people were behaving. Importantly, he had resentment that they weren't appreciating how much work he put into those parties. Now, working on those parties and putting them together, that was for him. He got the enjoyment out of doing it. But he wanted that recognized by other people. And even if it was, it couldn't be recognized enough. I didn't know this when I was young, but I know this now. This is part of neuroticism. He was kind of neurotic about making the perfect party, but it could never be perfect because of the human condition. Things go wrong, you know, people don't show up. Some people argue, kids do their thing, they don't look all shiny and perfect. But it doesn't have to be. So this year, have realistic expectations for your holidays. And like I said, already balance it. Go for joy and pleasure. You don't have to go to a party for the whole time if you don't want to stay there. And that might let somebody else down. But they're to work on those unrealistic expectations. Set yourself up for success. Make happiness the priority, not ticking the boxes. Okay, busy schedule. If you followed me in, no vice November you will know that I gave up rushing for no vice. November. Now I'm going to carry this through the holiday season so I can stay the course of not going to anything for self soothing and stimulating. I have named alcohol in that. And you know, like I told you, I don't drink that much. But we know now. Now we remember why that whole 4 inch penis thing. But I am not going to do it at all. I'm not going to need to because I'm not going to be rushing. Watch your schedule. So here's the thing. Most people are too busy rushing around like maniacs. Which means at the end of the night want to take the edge off. One's the perfect way to do that. We already talked about that. Slide you into artificial neutral. But you might also be lonely, you might be isolated, you might not have a lot to do. Fill the holes. If you don't have things going, plan to get together with people, call them now, get it going so that you're looking forward to a horseback ride, you're looking forward to a candlelight concert, looking forward to spending time with people that you care about. That's going to help you have a perfectly busy schedule if you're already busy. Here's the brain hack strategy for this one. I practice this every day of the year, especially during the holidays. If you put something on your plate, you have to take something off. Do you have a plate like mine that's completely full and it's dripping over at all times? Then you have to take something off if you're going to add holiday calendar items to your list. So if you're going to add some stuff, take some stuff off, I've already done that so I can have a beautiful holiday season. Okay, traveling. If you're traveling, recognize traveling is very stressful on a nervous system. It inherently makes you want to self stimulate and self soothe. And if you're sitting around the airport, that might be a triggering event. So you can think about triggering events and everything else we've already talked about. But sitting around in the airport, you might find yourself mindlessly scrolling sexual media on, you know social media might not be full fledged porn, but it's dopamine hits you're looking for. Be really careful of traveling because it can tax the nervous system. Give yourself time and I know how difficult it is because traveling stresses me out because I don't have time to get ready well enough so that you can kind of ease into your travel and ease back back out. The smartest way to do it is when you get back home, give yourself a day to re acclimate to your schedule. Make sure there's enough downtime when you're traveling. Rest when you're in the air. Those pressure changes can affect your brain. And especially if you're more stressed out and you need self soothing and stimulation, you'll need it even more when you're on the airplane. Rest instead of scrolling. Take care of yourself during travel. And especially if you're traveling to see family, use everything I've already talked about to guide you. Okay, last one and then we're going to wrap it up for today is isolation during the holidays. There's probably more downtime for you when other people aren't around. That hijacker is going to try to convince you to go back to the screen or to disinhibit so that you're on that slippery slope. So I don't want you to jam pack your schedule because that's just distracting yourself. It doesn't work in the long run. We're going for sustainability. I want you to realize when you get the urge to watch porn or explicit matter or compulsive masturbation, it's about dopamine, not sexuality. So instead, build a toolbox of healthy pleasure sources at healthy levels in your real life. This can be your favorite hobbies. Schedule them. This can be something you've always wanted to do. I almost bought a bread maker, but I'm going to buy it sometime soon because I've always wanted to learn how to make bread. I didn't impulsively buy it last night because I need to find recipes for bread and I'm going to make it during the holiday time because I'm going to have more downtime with my family. And instead of isolating into the things I like to do by myself, I'm going to build time for connection. I'm also going to learn how to make those leaves on top of cappuccinos. Have a cappuccino maker that needs to be dusted off. My son duck and kept saying it. Let's get this bad boy out. We're going to get this bad boy out. We're going to make some leaves. They're probably not going to be that good looking, but we're going to try. So find the things that you want to do. Find the things that the people in your life want to do. The horseback ride is for Saoirse. She's a skilled horseback rider. She does hunter jumper so she knows how to jump her horse pretty high. She wants to experience Horseback riding with our family. I planned it. The candlelight concert? Yes, Guilty as charged. I planned it for myself and the kids need a little culture. But we also are going to. One of my kids wants to go do airsoft, but I don't think it's going to fly with some of the other ones. So we're going to go do laser tag. We've done that before and it's super fun. So I'm going to take us to this arcade around here that has laser tag, go karts, a whole bunch of cool stuff like that so we can have some fun together. That's healthy fantasy that I'm looking forward to and so are they. Create healthy fantasy in your life of the things that you're eager to do for pleasure in the real world. It works. It will offset the unhealthy fantasy at high dopamine levels from porn. You got this. This is about resetting your pleasure pathways back into your life. No longer escaping and isolating into the screen, approaching and engaging all the difficult. They're not going to kill you. They're difficult. And they will challenge you. And through that challenge, you will change and you will grow. No challenge, no growth. That's how it works. That's why every time it happens, I say, here we grow again. But guess what? Every time I grow, I'm getting better at the human condition. And that's what I want for you. So I hope you have an amazing holiday season that's perfectly balanced. Joy, pleasure, connection. You deserve it. I want you to move into the new year, experiencing the world in a new way so that it's a place you want to stay instead of escape from. All right. I hope this helps you out. If you need help on this journey, please go over to drtrishleigh.com I'm doing a Commit to Quit promotion this December. So if you commit to quit and you join the digital program that I offer, it's affordable, accessible and anonymous, just like porn. You can sign up today and get started right away. It will prevent relapse for you. You can use the coupon code commit 100 to get $100 off that program. That's my way. And investing in you because I know you can do it. You just need the right tools, techniques, technologies and support. I got you. All right, until next time, control your brain or it'll control you. I'll see you next time.