The Porndemic

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Doctor Trish Lee, thank you again so much for joining me today. I really, really appreciate it. I reached out to you because this is a topic that I think is really important for us to continue to have conversations around porn addiction. [00:00:16] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:00:16] Speaker A: Absolutely, absolutely. Porn addiction is something that doesn't get talked about enough and is incredibly insidious, not just to individuals, but to our culture as a whole. So I think having more and more dialogue around it is important. And before we started, you said you were on a mission. I would love to understand where the motivation behind that mission is and kind of what inspired you to get into this line of work. [00:00:43] Speaker B: Yeah, of course, it's. Well, first of all, thank you for having me here. And I love that you use the word insidious because I would love for that to kind of be an anchoring theme for us. You know, this is off the cuff because you're absolutely right. Like, it is very sneaky and people don't how it's impacting them. And of course, the way that I got into this was the good old fashioned way that it landed right in my lap with someone in my life that I personally care about. Where I watched his basically, you know, cognitive function, his ability to relate with other people, then his relationship with his wife and his with his kids. Everything deteriorate without having any idea that porn was involved at all. And when I learned that, it literally lit my brain on fire. I had always, for a very long time, been working in the realm of neuroscience and using neuroscience clinically to help people improve the way they feel and perform. So it was in my wheelhouse, but porn wasn't on my radar. I dove into it and very long story short, which I wrote about the story in my book. My book's called Mind Over Explicit Matter. I refer to my friend as Sam in the book, and you know it. Once I figured it out, I felt like I had this burning secret that nobody knew and I had to tell people. But, you know, I. I empathize with people when they struggle with porn. I struggled with even talking about porn. You know what I mean? So, like, I literally had to sit in the blue chairs behind me and I'm like, am I doing this? I'm gonna start talking about porn And. And then I'm like, you know what? All my credentials, all of my life experience was one big arrow into helping people with porn addiction. I was perfectly prepared and 1000% motivated. So the good old fashioned way. I think most people step into this because they care so much, because their life has been Impacted. [00:02:40] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I. That's great. And I really appreciate you sharing that story. I think it's really interesting. I'm 35 years old and I grew up in an era where technology was kind of on the up and up. Before my era, I know porn was you go to your dad's closet and you find the Hustler or the Playboy magazine, and it was pretty much that's it. And now we've seen an eruption in content. It's something that almost feels like it's becoming normalized, which is kind of scary in a sense. Why do you think the culture has kind of shifted towards the normalization of pornography? [00:03:29] Speaker B: Well, sex has always sold, right? Sex sells. That's the saying. So sex sells. First of all, one thing I want you and everybody who's listening to know is that, you know, going back to that insidious nature that the algorithm is not on accident, right? You know, we are being fed and we are being validated externally for what pops, basically. So when people put hypersexualized content out, that's what's getting validated, which leads them to put more hypersexualized content out. Porn proper, when it transitioned in the early 90s from Playboy magazines to being online, that is a major transition in terms of dopamine dependency. So at the core, we're talking about people's brains getting drips and hits and spikes and floods of dopamine from porn proper and explicit matter in general. And then that continues down to social media, dating apps, even short form and long form video. So it's a dopamine dependency which is being reinforced through reinforcement. Inhabit loops. But this is not on accident. This is on purpose in terms of the, the sales behind it. You know, the porn industry is a multibillion dollar empire really, but it's being, you know, it's capitalizing on hooking people in and keeping them there. [00:05:01] Speaker A: Yeah, no, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. I think that this has just been. I, I am a believer in free capital society, but there's also to be a downside to that. And unfortunately, these companies have hijacked our dopamine in a very negative way. So let's maybe dive into some of the neuroscience behind what's happening in our brain and some of the negative side effects. I know that this is really detrimental to rewiring our reward system. Can you maybe explain a little bit more about how that works? [00:05:35] Speaker B: Sure, absolutely. And I've been trying to really be clear about my language lately in talking about what porn or only fans or social media hypersexualized content. What it does as miswiring. Miswiring is the problem. Rewiring is the solution. Just to make it, you know, easy for us to have a distinction there. So one of the greatest dangers of we'll just call it explicit matter. By the way, my book, Mind Over Explicit Matter, the publisher made me change it. It was originally named Mind over Porn. And I struggled with that for, like, two weeks. I was not happy about that. But now I've really grown to fondly like and the term explicit matter, because it does cover everything that's going on out there, not just porn proper. So I like using the word the term explicit matter now, because if a person's not, you know, hooked into porn proper, but they are on Instagram watching models, even if it's stills of models like this still falls into explicit matter. And what it does is it hijacks the reward center and pathways in the brain. The reward centers in the midbrain, the reward pathways, they feed forward to the prefrontal cortex. Cortex, that area in our brain is responsible for cognition, thinking, executive function, which is basically planning, organization, impulse control, socialization. So what we know from a wealth of scientific literature is that when the brain becomes hijacked by a high need for dopamine, which I will talk about in one second, then what happens is the brain has to consistently go back to the source where it gets that very high levels of dopamine, whatever that thing is that the person has become linked to. Now, what I think is one of the most dangerous things about explicit matter is that children are being exposed to it. So it's kids who are finding porn or, you know, hypersexualized content. These very young, very underdeveloped brains. Brains develop until the age of 28 in young men. So this is 20 years too early for a brain to be exposed to the supernormal stimulus. That's what it's called, supernormal. Much too high levels of dopamine, up to 400% higher than baseline dopamine. These underdeveloped brains are being exposed, and that's how that hijacking happens. And the reason it's so insidious is you'll feel that rush of that in your brain at the moment. But you don't understand. You're becoming hooked on that content that will link your brain to all the dopamine. The real danger is it takes the place of the way that dopamine's supposed to work. Dopamine's supposed to link you in the real world, to your work, your hobbies and your people. And that's what it's doing to an entire generation. [00:08:28] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I was watching one of your videos and you articulated really well like dopamine is the molecule of motivation of more. And so in the real world, we are taking steps necessarily to reach the highest levels of dopamine, whereas porn gives it to you immediately. Right? That is, it's funny because I think that that feeds into a cultural issue that we have in general in terms of instant gratification. And I don't know how we get away from it. But the point being is. [00:09:05] Speaker B: Go ahead, spoiler alert. No, I could talk in a minute. I didn't mean to cut you off. [00:09:10] Speaker A: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I think, I think it's. I think this is really good. This is why I have you on, because you're obviously an expert in this. But my point being is the instant gratification in of itself is something that I think that as critical thinkers we need to start being much more intentional about and we need to start approaching our day to day lives, trying to rewire the way in which our dopamine levels are set. And so, and so you just, you. [00:09:45] Speaker B: Touched upon what the problem, the real problem is. You said as critical thinkers, we need to rewire our brains. Now the real issue is that people become unable to critically think because of the high levels of dopamine that are flooding their brains. And they become. You know, the way I talk about it in the videos that I make on YouTube is that the limbic center in your brain is like a thousand pound gorill. And the prefrontal cortex that I just explained is like the captain of a ship, that gorilla's in the belly of the hull and all the gorilla wants is bananas. But now if the, if the captain's been tranked, because that's what porn does, it tranquilizes the prefrontal cortex. You have the gorilla who only has one goal of instant gratification, of bananas. Basically, you know, not really steering the ship, but just that's what the gorilla wants. It's the captain's job and duty to steer the ship, to figure out where it's going, to set the course, and then to make sure all those steps that to take to implement to get to that destination happen. But people's prefrontal cortices are not operating like they should. So now we have a negative feedback loop. And that's the real issue. So now instead of delayed gratification, which is executive function Small steps to a larger go. Now it's just that gorilla instant gratification. And the culture we live in feeds that right doordash Amazon. My son, who's 21, calls me from his apartment this morning. He's like, I don't feel well. Can I order a cold compress? And of course, I'm a mom, so I'm like, sure. And then he's like, I also need one more purchase so I can get same day delivery on Amazon. So like, he needed to order something to get to the $25 for the same day. I mean, but he knows how to work me. I don't feel well. I need a cold compress for my headache. Well, of course, babe. You know? [00:11:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:44] Speaker B: Then I'm like this man. I'm like, do what everybody else does. Order toilet paper. Like, I'm like, don't order cold compress you're never going to use. Do what the whole world does or order toilet paper. But anyways, you see what the problem is? You know what I mean? Like, that is the problem. It's a negative feedback loop. My work is to help people break that feedback loop, which is the downward spiral, and start taking the steps towards the upward spiral of the positive feedback loop. And before I throw it back to you, I just want to share one thing, is that in my work, I use something called qeeg, Quantitative electroencephalogram. It's called a brain map. I can see how people's brains perform using technology. So I'm not guessing at this. I've seen over 50,000 brain maps. Like, I can see how digital overstimulation has changed people's brains. But then I also use technology to be able to help people rewire their brains. So this isn't theoretical. This is happening in real time. [00:12:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Do you. This is. That's really fascinating, by the way, and we can definitely get into that. I want to ask you, do you think that this, this culture of instant gratification, to put it simply, is making us dumber? [00:13:02] Speaker B: It. It is. I don't even think that. Like, I don't want to even give you opinions. I want to be the messenger of the science. So just, you know, to be really clear, this isn't me saying people are dumber. No, what it is, you know, it's the science or science that shows that we can talk about masculinity, men in general. I think masculinity is, is vitally in trouble. And that's from a position that I care, not that, you know, I don't Want to go into like men versus women type of thing. I think that it has the potential to have a collapse or a fragmentation of society for couples, for people in relationships, for families, just for individuals happiness. And then that cognition piece that I already shared with you, we know definitively prefrontal, you know, dysfunction is happening to the vast majority of people, all the people who are using screens consistently and especially compulsively, and that affects their ability to attend, to focus, attention spans down to the shortest ever. Right. Just to name some of the things. This is the first time in history ever that the younger generation is worse off in mental and physical health than the generation before. Like, you know, the data speaks for itself. [00:14:29] Speaker A: Yeah, that's alarming to say the least. Yeah, I, we could probably go on and on and on about this topic. I'm very passionate about it. I'm very much into self growth and into fitness and health and wellness. I wake up every day, 4:30 in the morning, I go to the gym, I get in cold plunges, I do the whole, the whole gamut. And it's really kind of disturbing to think that we're headed down the opposite direction, you know? [00:14:59] Speaker B: Yeah, it really is. I, and I've posed, I've posed the question to people before. Sorry to interrupt, but I posed the question, what direction do you think this leads? Like, if you look at the threads of how this can play out, you know, I really think there's only two directions it can play out, which, you know, there might be more in between them. It will play out in, you know, collapse, like I've talked about. Or my hope, which is a solution that I was alluding to earlier, is that people start waking up to this and they stop passively allowing the algorithm to take them in that direction. They, they learn and they get very intentional on how they use their screens and you have to know how to do it and then you do have to break the feedback loop to be able to do it. [00:15:53] Speaker A: Totally. I want to get into that, but I, I want to touch on something that you mentioned a minute ago about masculinity and how we're losing masculinity. Do you think that there is a direct correlation between porn use and the diminishing of masculinity? How so? [00:16:08] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So first of all, we know that body image in men is at an all time high of men having poor body image because they compare themselves to the male performers in porn. This is new, historically speaking, because basically it's the first time where men are consistently watching an unfair Litmus test of what masculinity should look like. They're actors, they're performers. And I was recently on Jubilee Media, where I debated porn performers. And I really enjoyed the conversation with the one male performer where he's basically like, it's all fake. And that was one of the things. It was the middle ground. I'm like, we can all agree porn's totally fake, and it is, but then the people who are watching it have their brains linked through dopamine, and there's very much a comparison that happens there. But then also primarily from this dopamine dependency, we know that more men than ever are staying at home, living with their parents, because they can't find gainful employment, which is directly related to less men than ever getting into college and out of college. And, you know, I work with clients. I work with thousands of clients. I hear the stories. They can't study. I talked to a young man two days ago. He has to study for exams, but he can't. And then he was telling me he was on a 27 day, like, basically streak of not watching porn. And he could feel himself being able to think and to study and to be able to attend more than five minutes. This is what's happening. And there's a critical mass of it. And then masculinity, too. Like, that's the cognitive piece in terms of, you know, productivity and, you know, high performance. But when it comes to relationships, porn use decreases empathy. It makes men objectify women. And an emotionally healthy and neurologically healthy man doesn't want to see women as pieces of meat. He wants to find a woman who he can have fun with and have healthy sexuality to experience, not to consume. So it's taking men away from the relationships they truly want that they can't show up in anymore because lack of empathy, that inability to relate, you know, in social relationships, we know, even just building friendships, there's not enough dopamine in hanging out with their friends. So men start choosing just to stay home and watch more porn. They stop, you know, all their hobbies where they used to go to pickleball. But that gives you a. A tiny dab of dopamine. And porn gives you the rush your brain needs. [00:18:46] Speaker A: Yeah, I. I think you're spot on with that. There was. I'm gonna. I'm gonna go back to referencing one of your videos. You laid out something that I thought was really interesting and I had never thought about before. And you talked about in scripted porn, it. There is an element where the woman is inherently interested in the man. And that, that warps the perception of what real life relationships are. In my experience, you have to earn it and you have to go out there and you have to do the right things. You have to be able to pick up on social cues. You have to be able to understand when to engage, when to pull back, how to, you know, how to, you know, impress your, your aggression or reduce your aggression or whatever the case is. And as men, we need to be able to learn and understand those skills to have a healthy relationship with people. And porn kind of rips that away from you in a lot of ways. [00:19:45] Speaker B: It does, yeah, it does. Fundamentally, at a neurological level, neurological regulation is what my work is regulating your brain in terms of using the electrical energy pattern for calm focus. Not the stressed out one, not the fatigued one. No, what happens is if you're not neurologically regulated, you cannot self regulate or emotionally regulate. So now something happens, you know, where a lot of the men I work with, they feel rejected, and that's their perception because of the, the performance pattern or the functioning of their brain. I'm like, if a person, if you approach a person and they're not interested, you don't have to perceive it as rejection. Like, that person just might not think it's a good fit. But again, like you were just saying, the script is they approach a woman and that woman immediately wants to have sex with them. So now this rejection comes from that, but it also comes from not being able to emotionally regulate, not being able to self regulate, getting mad, getting offended, not being able to pump the brakes. And you're absolutely right about skill building too. In my work, I use technology to help people regulate their brain. And then it's funny because I have a couple clients who've been with me for a while and they'll be like, do I need to do more sessions? And I'm like, no, we are skill building now. And they're like, I don't know what you mean by that. And I'm like, yes, you do. This is where you need to use new, emotionally healthy skills in the world to reinforce the brain pattern that we've created. That's the way it's sustainable. That's the hardwiring. [00:21:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Without practical application, you're just never going to learn. Right. And that's the sad part about it. [00:21:26] Speaker B: So, yep, practice makes progress, as my daughter says. Right. I love that. Practice makes progress. I love that. [00:21:35] Speaker A: That's great. [00:21:36] Speaker B: Right? [00:21:36] Speaker A: Yeah. I thought you were gonna go with perfect on that one, but progress. No, me too. [00:21:39] Speaker B: I know, I know. She started saying that a little while ago. I have five children too. I don't know if you know, I have five young adult kids. So, like, I have to help grow these kids up in this way too. Like, I'm doing it for myself, but I'm also co regulating all these young adults in all different ways with their technology. So I know how important it is. I know how difficult it is, like, on so many different levels. [00:22:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I was gonna save this question till the end, but I, we're on it now. I, I. You have a, a few sons and how many. How many sons and how many daughters you have? [00:22:12] Speaker B: Yeah, I have a stepson who's almost your age, and actually he is your age. So including him, we have three boys and three girls. [00:22:18] Speaker A: Gotcha. Are the conversation. Do you have open dialogue and conversations with your sons specifically to these topics? [00:22:27] Speaker B: Yeah, and not recently because we had so many of them. That an interesting thing, you know, now it's just we in the house, like, even this morning, we were having discussion and I will use the word porn. I will use the word masturbation like I wouldn't have 15 years ago. So when, when there's just such open conversation about it in not a, not a shameful way. It's changed my parenting a lot too. Like, because, you know, my sons will pursue girlfriends, and now in my mind, I want them to have healthy sexuality more than anything than to be digitally connected to sexuality. So the answer is, yeah, we talk about it openly, but I actually never really had to be like, don't watch porn. Because as they were growing up, my work already involved this. My son Declan, he put his own blockers on. And the only reason I even knew is because I sent him a video of somebody else who was talking about porn. And then I ran down. My office is on the top floor. I ran down to like, show him it on his computer and it was blocked. I'm like, that's awesome. Good for me. Totally awesome. And then he uses Screen Zen is the app that he uses so that he can only go on social media in five minute increments three times a day. Like, he did this for himself. You know what I mean? Just from the open discussions and the modeling. I model very healthy screen behaviors too. [00:23:53] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think that obviously, you know, leading by example is the best way to parent, in my opinion. I was a little bit of a troublemaker, and whatever my parents told me not to do, I went and did, but subconsciously I looked at them as role Models. And, you know, I kind of emulated the way that I behaved based off of what I saw from them. So I think that's the best way to parent, in my opinion. And, you know, if you. [00:24:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:16] Speaker A: And you're not. Yeah. [00:24:19] Speaker B: I'm sorry, what? This journey has, like, changed me completely, which is. I wrote about it in the book, too. It's a surprising silver lining, you know, because it was really stressful at the beginning, but because I dove into it and I realized the ramifications on emotional regulation and emotional intelligence. I've always been into personal transformation, like, from a very young age, but it really, like, solidified my desire to show up in all the difficult things that life hands me in an emotionally regulated way. It upped my game so much so that when something challenging happens, I just want to be able to get through it really well. Emotionally, emotionally regulated. So, you know, that's the idea. That's what I model for them, too. And I love the way that because I've shown up in that way, they have said to me, like, first of all, they can tell me anything. I wouldn't tell my parents anything. I still don't. Hi, mom and dad. How are you? Rainbows and unicorns where I live. How about there? Oh, I just saw another unicorn go by, you know, so. But with my kids, they'll call and be like, this thing just happened, because they know I'm not gonna freak out. I'm not gonna shame them. I am going to hold real world boundaries of how they need to clean up their mess. But I will also love them and be there with them through it. I'm not gonna clean it up for them. I'm just gonna be there with them. And we've done that over and over, and that's been a silver lining of really stepping up my game in terms of getting my brain and my skills in check. [00:25:52] Speaker A: That's wonderful. The growth goes two ways, and I think that's awesome. And I know these conversations can be really uncomfortable, but it's how we get better as individuals. It's how we learn, it's how we grow, it's how we develop. It's how we build connections. So I love that you have those conversations with your. And again, I know that it's uncomfortable. [00:26:13] Speaker B: And my husband, to his dismay, by the way, because, you know, and I do think in most relationships, there is, you know, one partner who might be a little bit more or a lot more emotionally intelligent. And on any given moment, that can change, too, because of stress levels. But, you know, When I feel like I need to have healthy conflict in my life, I have now learned to approach it. And an interesting thing happened that my husband would kill me if he knows I share all this stuff. But he still doesn't listen, love, it is like, you know, a few weeks ago he said to me, you're attacking everybody. And that gave me pause, you know, cause I'm like, I'm not an attack type of person. And then, you know, I've learned the skills. Please tell me what you mean by that. Where do you see that? That's what I said to him. Like, where do you see that in my behavior? And he, he listed three things. The three things were not me attacking. They were me not allowing people to abuse my good nature. Basically. They were healthy boundaries where I set a no and accountability. But that's new for me because I'm no conflict girl. I'm bred to be no conflict. But I've just taught myself when that comes at me like I, if I'm always going to get the same thing if I don't learn how to show up in these discussions and really figure out what I want my life to look like moving forward. And then I show up in these relationships in a stronger. And what he was perceiving as attack was actually just confidence. [00:27:42] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:42] Speaker B: And when I, when I shared that with him, you know, I could see the wheels turning that, yeah, I didn't attack anybody. But yeah, it's new watching me do this. You know what I mean? [00:27:54] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely. No, absolutely. I, I'm an Aries, so I'm very, I do not like getting any sort of critical feedback immediately. But if you give me some time to think about it, then, you know, I'll come to my senses and we can have an objective conversation about, you know, what happened in that moment. But we can go on a tangent for days on that. I have a question for you. In terms of going back to the porn addiction thing. In your experience, is there any sort of emotional void that people are using porn to fill? Anything that they're trying to validate in their own lives that you see reoccurring over and over again? [00:28:36] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. And you know how I said, you know, I know what the solution is? The solution is purpose. It's purpose. People are self soothing in general. Like the lack of the authentic life that they want for themselves, that they're not allowing themselves to have. Don't get me wrong, it's difficult. And that's what I'm talking with you about. Like the conversation with my Husband. Part of that was that our four kids are in college. Our four older ones. Our younger daughter is a freshman in high school. So our life has kind of changed, just with our fourth going off to college. And I'm like, I have this vision of how I want my life to be for the next four years, and then maybe the four years after that, you know, because we'll have four years with just her at home, and then. Then it'll be everybody at college. So, you know, I shared that with my husband, and I'm like, I don't think you have the same vision for your life, and that doesn't mean we have to break up. But I said we need to, like, figure that out, because this is my vision, and I don't want to not be able to do these things because you don't like them. [00:29:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:39] Speaker B: But, you know, so that takes a lot of courage. I was a tenured professor. I had just received a very large promotion, and I left before I saw one second of tenure or got $1 of that promotion. And my father almost died. He's still around, but my dad's like, what are you doing? And I'm like, I now have security in a job I don't want to stay in. I was great, too. I had five stars across the board. I got. Got promoted and tenured early. Not a thing they do in the university. But I'm like, you know what? It's like a shadow career. If you know Steven Pressfield's work, he talks about your shadow version of yourself, where it's, like, a few degrees off from your true, authentic version. And, you know, even though it's presented a lot of challenges and ups and downs, I just want to make sure on my deathbed, like, I took this life out for the spin that it should be. It should be fun. People don't do that, though. They. You know, I talk to thousands of people, too. I know this is a core issue. They'll get into a job and do that job because of the security. Don't get me wrong. Financial security is very important, but most of us are living at levels we don't have to to keep up with. The Joneses. Many people are in relationships where they cannot communicate with their partner. And I know, like, I'm sharing with you how difficult it is, you know, with the hubs, but I'm. And I said to him recently, too, like, I don't want to have a relationship where I've got to make you talk to me about this stuff all the time. You're going to have to step up and talk to me first or sometimes, you know, independently. And he's thinking about that and he's like, I see that. You know, and all these things lead us to the growth. But you know, not, not knowing what a person wants in their life and then not having the courage to go do that thing, that's the ultimate problem inside. [00:31:22] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I. Look, you're speaking my language. I worked as a sales rep for six years. I made really good money. I lived in San Diego. I was living an awesome life. I quit my job to pursue what I'm doing today. I'm literally in my parents basement. So I'm living out what I think is my ultimate purpose. And I haven't looked back since. And I'm really, really grateful for the opportunities that I have. [00:31:48] Speaker B: Yeah, and they all, they all lead you where you, where you're going. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, I have one, I have one daughter who just left, didn't go to college. She moved to New York City with her boyfriend, living with, you know, six people in a thousand square foot. But I didn't stop her. I'm like, girl, like, you know what, did I want that for her? Like, no. But you know what she's doing now? She's going to college. It's been three years. So she's on her journey of figuring it out. I support them all in like, you go do what you have to. There's going to be bumps, there's going to be ups and downs, but it'll get you where you need to go. [00:32:22] Speaker A: No, absolutely. I think a lot of people turn to porn because it's easy and because they want to avoid the hard things. I was speaking to a friend of mine who was talking about his porn use and him using it to validate his self worth. Do you see that often in people? And if so, how can we reframe our way of thinking? How do we train our minds to appreciate who we are and we can validate ourselves without having to look at a screen, without having to use porn. [00:32:53] Speaker B: So what I know from recent research is that identity formation, I've already said identity gets fragmented, but identity formation is at risk, meaning that a person isn't given the opportunity because of all the noise and the escaping. Like you said, porn's an escape. Yeah, it's not the problem. It's a symptom of a greater problem, which is what we're talking about. But you need to sit in that space of feeling the uncomfortable emotions, you know, like I Said sitting in the blue chair, like, am I gonna do this? I had to sit there in quiet and like, feel how uncomfortable I felt about it and make my own decision if I'm going forward or not. But if you're always escaping into a dopamine flood because it's not about the sex at all. It's about the flood of dopamine that numbs you out and keeps you in that space of decreased prefrontal function. That decreased function makes it so you don't feel as much as you would. It's dysregulated emotional regulation. That's why people are using it. Mood regulation. We know it scientifically speaking. So you know, that is inherently the problem. So figuring out what your self worth is, one thing I would like people to know is that you know and I know it's difficult to hear is that. And I've had to tell myself this one million times. You know, our self worth isn't derived by anything we do. Like, it's just not. We are worthy in and of itself. But I think when you figure out who you are and what you want and you feel comfortable doing it and confident, that's when your self worth goes up. But you cannot do that with the noise. And just one more thing too, is that porn proper is definitely falls into the category of what I'm about to say. But like OnlyFans and where there's more interaction, they create what is known as parasocial relationships, transactional relationships. So what happens for many people is they really relate to. They feel like they're in a relationship with the performers that they watch. And then especially if they get the opportunity to interact, this forms a transactional relationship. So people really feel connected. But it's a very distorted way. It's not a true relationship, like you've already explained. But if your brain's linked to a fake relationship, there's no room for the linking to a real one. You're already connected to something or someone and it's taking people away from their marriages and their girlfriends. I've talked to so many men whose girlfriends leave them, and it's because, first of all, they're not present in the relationship. And secondarily, let's. Let's move on to the elephant in the room. It is giving this generation of men erectile dysfunction. [00:35:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:35:39] Speaker B: So now men can't, you know, I was going to say perform. That's their word. They can't experience a healthy sexual relationship with a partner. Partners wait and they try to be in the, you know, in the relationship with a person. But first of all, it stresses the man out so much that it changes everything too. And those relationships are dissolving back to that collapse. [00:36:02] Speaker A: I. There's so many things that you just mentioned that I want to touch on, so maybe we can pick this part a little bit. Let's. Let's just stick to the, the theme of erectile dysfunction because I think this is really important. It wasn't something that really came to my mind until I started to study this topic. I am interested in this because in watching your videos, this comes from having a high level of. The high baseline of dopamine. [00:36:29] Speaker B: Right. [00:36:29] Speaker A: Where you're just constantly ch. Next thing, if you're in a relationship and you use porn to masturbate, the porn that you're usually watching isn't what you're doing with your partner. It's usually much more extreme. So that when you're in that situation with a partner, you're not going to have that same experience that you're expecting, so to speak. But here's my, here's my curiosity, okay? And not to get too explicit here, when I'm with a partner, it's not just the, the visual arousal. There is the touching, there's the, the, the aroma of a woman that is very arousing. How does that, how does that not stimulate an erection? I, I'm just really, really fascinated. How does that not play into it? And maybe you can shed some light on it, but it's just something that's hard for me to wrap my mind around. [00:37:24] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, and a healthy sexual experience is supposed to be multi sensory. [00:37:29] Speaker A: Right. [00:37:29] Speaker B: And I always joke with men in recovery that will eventually they will no longer have erectile dysfunction. There's nothing more arousing to a man than a woman who's aroused. Right. Like that's part of the formula of recovery, right? It is, but it's. You've already touched upon it. It's because baseline dopamine levels have changed so much. They've inflated so much, they inflate, then they deflate. So they're known as tonic baseline tonic levels of dopamine that has changed. So then the phasic spikes have to be much higher for a man to become aroused enough to achieve an erection. Many men think that that's a problem with their sexual organ. It's not. It comes from the brain performance pattern. The easiest way that I talk about it, and I've seen it thousands and thousands of times, is I talk about it as two different brain patterns. The first one I call strained brain. It is a brain that's functioning much too fast and much too slow simultaneously. This tends to be the brain that is still caught in the cycle of highs and lows, of dopamine that's still fluctuating a lot. Like, you know, you watch porn, you get a flood of dopamine. Those levels go up, up, they stay up for a while, then we know they come back down and they crash. So you have to watch porn again to get that level of dopamine again. That's what I call strained brain. It feels like you're stressed out and you're fatigued and you're caught in the urges and cravings to watch porn. That's what strained brain feels like. But you can also have erectile dysfunction because basically if your brain's performing out in the extremes, it's very far away from a regulated brain of calm focus. [00:39:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:39:15] Speaker B: The other pattern which is worse in my mind, which I've studied extensively, it comes out of chronic use of strain brain is, I call it strain brain on purpose. It puts a lot of tension on the brain and the nervous system and then there'll be a burnout factor. And what happens in drain brain is basically the brain gets stuck in those very high levels of baseline dopamine so that that arousal changes. That's when a person can basically never get an erection because they, they need such high levels of dopamine now to get that spike, they kind of stop fluctuating. Those might be people who consistently, you know, consume porn all the time, or they're getting dopamine hits in many different ways throughout the day. Like even these micro surges, people who use edging, which is, you know, they've got, got 15 tabs up and they're looking for the perfect thing and they'll let the dopamine flood for a very long time. That tends to be the most damaging. Drain brain can be reversed also. But drain brain is like a person, they feel unmotivated. They may feel depressed more so than like stress. They feel depressed and unmotivated. General malaise and baseline arousal. So low. Like they're just, I call it couch mode or neutral. They're stuck in neutral now. So now they're get up and go, got up and went. And there's no way they can be sexual aroused, no matter who's in front of them. Unless, like you said, unless it's a three, a sexual three ring circus is in the bedroom with them. That's the best hope. And just one more thing before I throw it back to you is that many men try to do that with their partners. They'll try to get their partner to on accident, they'll choke their partner. They'll, you know, do things to their partner their partner doesn't want. This is when partners go, what is happening right now? And it's basically the dopamine chase place. Or tragically, many men will pay for sex outside of their relationship because they need someone who they can do those things to. [00:41:15] Speaker A: Yeah. I would also imagine that performance anxiety adds to it too. If you're watching porn and you have an expectation of how you should perform, so to speak, and you're nervous about being able to do the things that you watch these other men do, that probably adds to it. Were you gonna add, were you gonna add to that? [00:41:33] Speaker B: Yeah, that's why I qualified my use of performance, saying that it's their word. Everybody forgets sex isn't supposed to be a performance. Who are you performing for? Your partner wants a fun, awesome experience. They want an experience with you. They don't want a performance if it's an emotionally healthy partner. They want an experience. So now porn locks a person into the idea of performing. And when it comes to women, they have learned to be objectified. We know this scientifically speaking, self objectification women learn to perform for the arousal of men. Men are worried about their performance looking like what they see in, in pornography. And that's not at all what a healthy sexual relationship could be. [00:42:23] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Another thing that you touched on that I kind of want to piggyback off of is when you're with your partner and you're trying these new things based on what you've seen in pornography. I can imagine that this creates such a disconnect because you're, you're no longer having sex with your partner to please them. Right. I, I think that sex should be something where you're, you're not focused on yourself. Like the way that I think about it, not to get too crazy, I know what I'm gonna get. I ain't that hard. I'm pretty easy to satisfy. So when I'm in, when I'm in the middle of the it, I'm thinking about her. I'm thinking about what's gonna make her happy. If I'm in there and I'm thinking about, oh, well, I'm gonna choke her because that's what I'm into. What a turn off. If she's not into it, what a way to spoil the mood. Right. And that is just gonna Continue to bridge the gap between you and your partner. If you're in. If you're in a, you know, just a boyfriend, girlfriend relationship, that's one thing. But in a monogamous, married relationship, it is. I can't imagine how detrimental it is over time. [00:43:25] Speaker B: It is. And we have to go back to that word, insidious. We have to. And I love it that you presented that, because what is happening is really more of a dissociative experience for. We'll just say the man, for the person who is consuming porn, because it's called the narcissistic bubble, basically. So when a brain becomes so flooded with dopamine, all it's looking for is more dopamine. We already set motivation back for more dopamine from where it got it. So in what's supposed to be a sexual experience, men will, like, dissociate. They'll go to euphoric recall of the porn fantasy that they've seen. So many men don't even have to watch porn anymore. They can just pull it right up in their mind's eye in euphoric recall. And then they will accidentally or inadvertently. I'll use the word inadvertently a lot because they don't fully mean to. It's like on a subconscious level, they will go to do the things that they have seen that they know gives them the most amount of dopamine. And it is kind of like a dissociated moment. But the problem with that is twofold in that, first of all, it's happening, and it is creating a disconnect. Secondarily, that man's not present. He can't even be present because he's in this dopamine narcissistic bubble. That's why I always half joke, we need to pop the narcissistic bubble. Narcissism goes back to what I talked about. There is no empathy. There is no, you know, thinking about what the other person wants or needs. Narcissism is, what can I get? What's the highest level of thing I can get for myself in this moment? [00:45:01] Speaker A: Right. [00:45:02] Speaker B: And it distorts it all. [00:45:03] Speaker A: Yeah. Super, super interesting. I was just gonna bring up euphoric recall because I think. I think it's so fascinating because you're. You're spot on. Another thing that I've heard you and many other neuroscientists talk about is. Is our brains don't know how to decipher the. The. The difference between reality and what we imagine. And so. So on that note, do you think that there do you think it's appropriate to masturbate without porn? [00:45:31] Speaker B: I don't. [00:45:32] Speaker A: Okay. [00:45:32] Speaker B: And it's not a matter. It's not a matter of appropriate or not. I try to use the word healthy or unhealthy, but I will give you a couple caveats. I know nobody wants them, but here we go. Is that, but is that. First of all, if porn consumption is in your history, you can't usually masturbate without euphoric recall or the goal of masturbation is to get as much dopamine as possible. So if there's porn use in your history, it basically makes it so that masturbation will be a compulsive act that acts as a high dopamine surge type of activity. Let's say you're the very small percentage of people who don't consume porn because scientifically, scientifically we know the majority of people consume porn even if a little. Most people are concerned consuming a lot. But if you are that, we'll just say 1%, because it is in the 99% range. You're that 1% of people who don't watch porn at all. That person could possibly masturbate as a embodiment activity. So staying with the sensations in your body being present, not dissociating, not trying to get the world's highest amount of dopamine, just staying with, you know, a little bit higher baseline dopamine. Sexual experiences have a hundred percent increase in dopamine. A healthy sexual experience, and we've already talked about the novelty and the intensity of porn takes it up to 400%. So the difference is like, if you're that person who can stay in the hundred percent, then maybe. But again, it's like, what's your goal with masturbation? I always ask people why. Like, you know, if you want a partner and you have a consistent masturbation habit, you're linking your brain to yourself sexually. Like it's not, it's not moving you towards finding a partner. And if you have a partner, most people masturbate more than they're with their partner. So it's taking you away from those partnered experiences. [00:47:29] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, really interesting. And I agree. Just to play devil's advocate here, I want to see how you respond to this. [00:47:39] Speaker B: Sure. [00:47:40] Speaker A: I've heard a few times that ejaculating for a male like 23 times a month helps lower your risk of prostate cancer. And I just want to say I can understand why people are like, like, yes, now I have a reason to do it, because it's good for my health. What is your thoughts on this? [00:48:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I actually have made multiple blog posts and videos on this topic connecting a few different scientific studies and just telling people what I think they inherently know, that that is fake news. First of all, the study that it was based on didn't involve pornography and it wasn't just masturbation. It was, the ejaculation piece included sexual sex with a partner, not just masturbation. So it, in pop culture, it's been linked to masturbation as the reason why it's good for you. There's actually scientific studies that show that there's a higher risk of prostate cancer over time in, in older years if there's more ejaculation. So like that is a, that's a fake news, you know, reason for people to say that they need to masturbate. I've heard it tens of thousands of times. So, you know, that's why I say, you know, people aren't dumb. People know this if their prefrontal cortices are actually working and they think to themselves like 23 times a month, do I really need to masturbate 23 times a month? Like if you're masturbating 23 times a month, you're overworking the system. That's the reality. And that's what I say in the blog post most. You know, you're, you're self soothing. That's like sucking your thumb. You're sucking your thumb 23 times a month. [00:49:29] Speaker A: Okay, awesome. You heard it here, Dr. Trish Lee. It's an infantile way to think and. [00:49:33] Speaker B: Approach your self soothing. It is, it's like, it's, it's a, it's an emotionally immature. And I challenge people in a really positive way, hopefully to like, next time you have the urge to go masturbate, let's like just pause and see why. Why you going? When people work with me or when they find my YouTube channel, they realize they're going to get a hit to get through their workday. That feels daunting to them. They're doing it so they can sleep. It's become their sleep medication. It's not about sexuality. It's about the dopamine flood. To switch their state from how they feel now to being more chilled out. That's unhealthy mood regulation. [00:50:14] Speaker A: Okay. No, I love it. And also the argument that it's good for your prostate health. Look, I, I mentioned this earlier. I'm a health nut. There's a million other things you can do to improve the Health of your prostate. You know what I mean? So sorry, gentlemen who are listening. That's just not the excuse. I love that. I really appreciate you. You sharing that. What was I going to ask you? I. I guess I just want to stay on this one topic and then I have two more questions for you. What is your idea or ideal scenario for a healthy sexual relationship between two monogamous partners? [00:50:53] Speaker B: I think it should be what those two people agree upon. [00:50:57] Speaker A: Yes. [00:50:58] Speaker B: Which I've already told you might be difficult if, you know, and, and it requires conversation. I always joke, you know, I know this is going to terrify you, but talk to your partner. Anybody you can have sex with should be a person you can talk to about sex. But that's not the case for vast majority of people. Many of the men that I work with, they're very unhealthy in their sexual relationship. And it has a lengthy reason, as I'm sure you imagine. But I'll give you the short version is that especially if a woman. We'll just, we'll just say the monogamous partners are men and women, just to make my language easier. So if one partner, if the man's wrapped up in porn addiction, which happens in the vast majority of relationships that I already explained, all the ways it takes the man away from the relationship and it changes the sexual relationship. So now a woman may still want to have the amazing sex they used to have, but now it's become this weird thing that's about dopamine for the man, but he's not seeing it. Because of the narcissistic bubble, the woman doesn't have enough courage to say to her husband, listen. Or her boyfriend, what is going on? You know, and then even if she could, he might not be able to see it. So the conversations are challenging. They're not easy conversations, but if people can get on the same page and, you know, decide. In the book, in my book, I talk about it as. One of my mentors called it the sexual garden, which honestly, I never loved that term, but I think it helps to envision it. Like you have to decide what's in the garden and what's not. Want. [00:52:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:52:29] Speaker B: So, like, we'll just use choking as an example. If choking starts to be planted in the garden by your partner and you don't want that, you have to be able to say what is going on. Yeah. And I don't want that. But originally, you know, this is very complex because love comes in phases too. The first phase of love is lust. So there's Usually a lot of sex at the beginning, but it's not generally sustainable for a relationship. But if we have a hypersexual partner, they will want that level of hypersexual means too much or unhealthy amounts of sex. So that's usually the man's hypersexual if, if he's wrapped up in porn. That leads women to become hyposexual. Some women are hyposexual in the first place, like generally middle age or older women. You know, in today's culture, like I've already said, young women are learning to be self objectified, but they're not enjoying the sexual experience. They're putting on a performance. So everybody's got to get on the same page. It's really that easy to start the conversation and not stop until everybody's enjoying themselves. [00:53:37] Speaker A: Yeah, every relationship there's an ebb and flow. And I think what makes it a little bit challenging for romantic relationships, and I'm not saying this is always the case, but typically the man has to take the lead. But I think what you're saying is you can take the lead, but have a healthy dialogue and conversation with your partner to understand what their emotions are. Because sometimes it's hard to say, no, I'm not interested in that. I don't want to do that. Because you don't want to, you don't want to disrupt the, the connection. You don't want to upset that other individual. So I appreciate that answer. I think it all. Everything starts with a conversation. Right. And, and that's why I appreciate you coming on, because I think that's really, really important. [00:54:17] Speaker B: Yeah. People just to tell you one more thing, like, I'll work with people and they'll, they'll say to me, I haven't had sex in 20 years. And then I say to them, I said, it's time for conversation. And it's about 19 years, 361 days too late. You know what I mean? Like, you can't go 20 years. There's so many sexless relationships out there that have gone far too long because nobody knows how to approach healthy conflicts. So it goes back to these skills, like if you can talk to your partner about what your life goals are for the next four years, that, that is healthy conflict around, you know that. But then it leads to being able to approach your, your sex life too. People are very, you know, guarded and they don't want to create conflict in their relationship. But if you can think about conflict not always as a bad thing, as the Thing that might open the conversation to get to resolution. These are the things we need to do, too. [00:55:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that. I just. That's wonderful. Triggers. We are constantly inundated with triggers that. That spike our arousal. I mentioned earlier, I go to the gym every day. Listen, if a woman wants to wear what she wears, her attire, by all means. I'm. I'm a man of personal sovereignty. You. You do. You. I respect it. But there also comes a point where I have to be disciplined and I have to be intentional. And you mentioned it earlier about the phone and being intentional about what you're viewing on your phone. Well, the algorithm is smart, and it's gonna feed me those hits of dopamine. What tricks, what advice can you give people to help kind of recognize the trigger, but then back off and take control of it? [00:56:02] Speaker B: Okay, two things. [00:56:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:56:04] Speaker B: First is I love this question, because this has been on my mind, and in the upcoming month, I'm doing a series on triggers. So I've really been trying to develop it too. So one thing that most people will not be able to conceptualize is that when your brain is dysregulated and you need more dopamine, you will experience more triggers at higher levels. You will be triggered more. So a very large part of the journey is regulating your brain and yourself so that your brain doesn't need dopamine hits from a person's body part. Right. The only reason those body parts are triggering and they're different for all people. You know, we have your classic ones, but they really can be different for all people because that's where the dopamine is linked. So if you don't keep linking it, those triggers go down. That's first and foremost. And most of the people in my program, they've experienced that. This is why when I meet them, I'm like, I know. You can't even imagine a world where you won't be triggered. Some of my clients live in. Like, I have a client who lives in Hawaii, clients in Australia, and they're like, I live on a beach. Do I have to move? I'm like, don't move until you regulate your brain. If you need to move after you regulate your brain, you know, one person in particular, their wife was going to leave them, so. So he's like, I have to leave this beach area, or she's divorcing me because I can't stop checking people out. His brain became regulated. No more checking people out all the time. But that leads us to number two. You know, then he Put the guardrails on, too. He created, you know, ways that if there are people who are triggering and you're absolutely right, like, you know, the, and I am the mom of three daughters who I have to help go into the world, you know, not, you know, but it is what it is. Like, my daughters still go out, and my youngest daughter in particular, who's absolutely gorgeous, you know, she goes out, but she's not dressed in a triggered way. She's just dressed like everybody else, which is triggering, you know what I mean? So, like, but the idea is, like, when you, when you aren't triggered as much too, then it's much easier to not have to look. And so the solution is get your brain in check. You will feel that you don't need those dopamine hits anymore. And then if there is a person at the gym, don't look. I went to the gym the other day. I have a home gym. I always work out at home. My daughter rides horses, and I have to go, I drive her there multiple times a week. And I'm like, I just sit at the barn. I'm like, I could be working out. So I went to the gym, which is eight minutes away. The lady's giving me the quick tour. I said to her, I'm sure she, I just speak what's on my mind. I'm like, man, I feel like a fresh piece of meat right now. You know what I mean? Because the gyms, there's only one woman who was completely scantily clad, you know, and I was just dressed in normal clothes, but all eyes were on me. You know what I mean? I'm like, I'm like, the gym is such a strange culture that is very much just, you are, you know, a piece of meat sometimes walking in just because of where people's brains are. So, you know, many of the men, I, I, I suggest working out at the lowest attendance time, don't go when you know it's going to be filled with, you know, young women, because that's just, you're putting yourself in a position to be triggered. Go at the lowest attendance time, you know, figure out what works for you. If you really can't go to a gym, build your own home gym, you know? [00:59:28] Speaker A: No, I appreciate that. And we could talk for hours about gym culture and how that works, but in either case, it sounds like, control your brain or it will control you. As one smart person once said, I have one last question for you, and then we'll wrap up here. I am fascinated in kind of in A disturbed way, I should say, with the emergence of only fans and personal porn creation. You said you just had a debate on Jubilee. Super interested to see that. Is that out, by the way? [01:00:00] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It came out a couple months ago with porn performers. It was four porn performers. It was me and three other people, but it was basically me. [01:00:09] Speaker A: Okay, I, I'm. I'm gonna watch that because I'm really interested by it. [01:00:13] Speaker B: And then I actually was supposed to debate an only fans performer who backed out at the last minute on a different. Which so I prepared for that extensively because that's what I do. And in doing so, you know, I really dove into the research behind OnlyFans and it again, blew my mind. Like, I thought my mind was blown with porn. That's the whole parasocial. [01:00:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:00:36] Speaker B: The vast majority of people on OnlyFans are married and it is disrupting their relationship. Most people don't spend any money, but the ones who do are spending money on a fake emotional connection, not just sexual. [01:00:51] Speaker A: Absolutely. I, I think my concern obviously for the men, no question, I mean that's, that's. You're hitting on a really important topic. My concern, and I've been looking into the numbers a little bit, is for the women because I think that there's an. I think that there's a distorted perception that you can make all this crazy amount of money. The average girl makes like 150 bucks a month. That's nothing. What do you think the long term ramifications are going to be for these young women that try to go on only fans don't make it it and later on have a family, a husband, kids, the et cetera. What are your thoughts on that? [01:01:28] Speaker B: Yeah, it's significant. So just to back us up for a second, like this idea of going on only fans, where's it coming from? It's coming from social media. Young girls are watching female, quote, unquote, influencers. And I think the word influencer is. We must pause at this because we have, you know, hypersexual young women influencing the next generation of young women, making them hypersexual. And this is happening across social media on Instagram. So then this goes back to what I was saying about identity formation. Like, my daughter rides horses. She's only on Instagram and nothing sexualized. She's part of the horse community and posting her horse pictures so she stays out of this trap of the external validation is for sexuality. But that's what's happening to the vast majority of young women. Then they think they're going to go to OnlyFans. They have informed identity on the inside. But even for the girls who do so. For example, the only fans performer that I was supposed to debate, she had a high level degree. I won't say what it is, but it's a doctorate degree. So she's a doctor for all intents and purposes, but then gets found for hypersexuality and abandons that profession. And she put on her Instagram that she's going into the new year. Owning the Internet by shaking her body like that becomes the external validation so the identity formation. And then yes, it's going to carry over into all Val unless something happens. And that goes back to our two, our fork in the road of what's going to happen here. Unless something happens to Pattern Interrupt. Then we have a generation of young women that don't know who they are from the inside and they are just looking for the hits from the outside, which is related to sexuality, which will play out. I do know that I did a documentary with a former OnlyFans performer and she had a daughter and that snapped her right out of the whole mentality of OnlyFans because she's like, I don't want. She realized she's influencing young people and she's like, I don't want my daughter being influenced by people like me, you know? [01:03:46] Speaker A: No, absolutely. [01:03:47] Speaker B: My hope is that some parents realize this. I'm working on my next book which is primarily on how digital overstimulation, everything we're talking about, not just explicit matter but all of it. How it does distort identity formation. And my hope is that parents can step in and that when they see the signs, first of all they can recognize the signs and when they see those signs they can step in and Pattern Interrupt. And just a real quick story. My middle daughter, she was starting to post a couple years back hypersexual content. You know, like basically the back of her longingly looking off into a meadow. I'm like girlfriend, what are you doing? And I told her, you need to stop posting these or I will take your phone away. And in, in my home it's, it's your, your cars and your technology basically have to be earned. You know, they're, they're privileges, they're not givens. And she couldn't stop because of this transactional relationship that was happening and I had to cancel her phone. She freaked out. It was a three month ordeal. But to this day she thanks me. [01:04:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, the joys of parenthood and being a child who has Parents with Morales and. And principle. [01:05:04] Speaker B: Oh, she thought I was the worst. She told the other kids. A couple of the kids hate, hate, quote, unquote, hated me. But that was rough. I mean, you have to be convicted, too, as a parent. Like, my husband's like, we can't do this. I'm like, oh, yeah, Watch, because I am doing this for them, not. This is not for me, man. The easy route is to give her her phone back and let her post whatever she wants. The hard route is being her prefrontal cortex for her. [01:05:30] Speaker A: Right. [01:05:31] Speaker B: Those were rough days. But then. And, you know, this is. I think it's interesting because she couldn't regulate. She was dysregulated. So we have a generation of dysregulated people validating the younger people into dysregulation from a brain perspective, you know. So that's why she absolutely lost it when I took the phone away, because that was her lifeline to external validation. And I told her I didn't just take it away. I said, you can have your phone back one week after you get your action together. But she never could. [01:06:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:06:03] Speaker B: Then she stalked me for her phone back. That's when I canceled the phone number altogether. Like, if you can't get it together, babe, this is not healthy. This means you're in a really rough spot. [01:06:15] Speaker A: Yeah, well, good for you. I. I really commend you for it. And I think that, you know, look, I'm not a parent myself, but I've. I had a sister who had conflicts with my mother at times, and to this day, she's very grateful that my mom had had the right head on her shoulders at that time. So Kudos to you, Dr. Trishley. You are amazing. I'm so glad you had this conversation. This is. This is everything that I had. I had hope and more. You are a crusader on a mission to really change not just individuals, but our culture. So I commend you for that and. And truly respect you for it. So thank you so much. [01:06:51] Speaker B: Appreciate it. [01:06:51] Speaker A: Before. How can people find you? Tell us all about your. Your publications, everything. Promote yourself, please. [01:06:59] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. I can primarily be found@doctor Trish Lee.com. that's my main website. And basically all roads kind of lead out from there. I do have three YouTube channels. My primary channel is on explicit MA matter. My other channel has had identity crisis for a while, but I'm very excited about it. I've renamed it super Normal. It's a double entendre because supernormal stimuli are what are taking us away from our ability to be fully alive. So I am calling it, you know, a super normal living is what I want people to go for. Intentional living, where you have to balance your screen time, audios, pornography, and really figure out who you are and have the courage to live it. That's a super normal channel. I also have a channel for partners. It's called Sanity After Betrayal. And my goal is to help everybody through this thing so that they can feel strong and confident and have, you know, the relationships that they want on top of having the life that they want. So there's a lot of free content on YouTube if you're struggling with any of those things. [01:07:57] Speaker A: Fantastic. All right, well, thank you again. I really appreciate it, and hopefully we can have another conversation in the future. Otherwise. [01:08:03] Speaker B: Definitely. [01:08:04] Speaker A: I wish you the very, very best. Thank you so much. [01:08:06] Speaker B: Oh, thank you. Yeah, no problem. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. [01:08:09] Speaker A: Bye. [01:08:09] Speaker B: Bye. Bye.