I Can’t Stop Watching Porn. What Can I Do?

Hey Coach Shawn,

I just wanted to pause and honor you. Your trauma care work has been more helpful to me than you probably realize. You’re not just teaching tools, you’re helping me see my heart with clarity, compassion, and truth instead of shame. I’m leaning to, as you say, live in logic rather than feelings. That is such a gift.

The way you connect regulation, faith, and real-life struggle is rare. You make this stuff feel both grounded and deeply spiritual, and that’s exactly what I need. I’m beginning to understand my patterns not as proof I’m broken, but as clues to what my heart is hungry for, and that shift is already changing how I show up before God and others.

Thank you for your patience and willingness to go beneath the surface. You’re doing holy work, and it’s bearing real fruit in my life. You were made for this, bro! I’m so grateful for you.

So I realized I was coming up on two years of sobriety. Just wanted to say thank you for being there, man.

Shawn, I cannot tell you enough how transforming this was for me. It gave me so much clarity. Just this one exercise alone has helped me beyond measure. It helped me see how I was hurting myself and stopping myself from getting what I longed for without even knowing. And it made me aware of how easy it is to get my “heart’s longings” met on a regular basis.

Hey Shawn, just wanted to share some great updates.

I took a good several hours doing the soul ties script, and man…it was really powerful. I felt so much lighter and feel like I’m hearing the voice of God and entering into communion with Him so much easier than before, and I felt so much fear and shame drop almost immediately. Spiritual warfare stuff going on in my apartment quieted down a lot as well.

I’ve been reading Wild at Heart by John Eldredge at the same time as going through this program, and I feel like I have so much more clarity on how I’m actually wired and built as a man, and I’ve started making more proactive steps day by day to try to live as an actual man in my relationships and in my decision-making instead of as a wounded little boy.

My wife has noticed this and said recently, “You know, I’ve really seen a great change in you the last couple of weeks. You just seem like you’re way more emotionally present with me, and so much more stable as a person. You really respond to situations differently than you used to.” Obviously she isn’t the measure of my progress, but she’s really feeling the positive changes and transformation taking place.

I just got off the weekly Trauma Care call with Shawn Bonnetteau. Shawn has an amazing knack for breaking down the issues into smaller steps and walking you through the process gently.

From past things I’ve picked up on these calls, I’ve come to realize that “comfort” is a huge driver in my porn, masturbation, and sexually acting out. We’re told by all the “authorities” that you just need to find a healthy outlet to fill that need, but it doesn’t always work out that way.

In this morning’s trauma care call, I came to realize that every time I went to my parents for comfort, what I received instead was rejection or punishment for bringing more problems to them. They were absorbed in their own problems and the last thing they wanted to deal with was a little boy crying because of something that happened to him.

This led to the belief that I am the only one who can comfort myself.

Once I discovered masturbating before bed gave me that comfort, it became my nightly ritual. That ritual lasted for decades almost every night. Eventually there wasn’t even anything sexual about it. It was just what I did.

So as an adult, when I feel the need for comfort, I don’t turn to my loving wife, my friends and family, or my communities. I turn to something that is solitary and isolating. I turn to porn and masturbation.

The insights from the Trauma Care calls have been game changers for my recovery. It’s well worth the price of getting up a little earlier.