Bad Habit Intervention

Episode 115

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Zach Spafford: [: 00:00:00

is going on for most people. And, essentially, every book on habits has a three step process that governs, you know, the start to finish of most habits. It's the cue, the response, and the reward. And so the way that this works is, uh, you get a cue, and in our lives, we have lots of cues. When it comes to pornography, there are a lot of cues that a lot of people have.

And these cues are the start to finish. of a process. So the Q might look something like I'm frustrated or I'm lonely, I'm sad, or I'm just alone. Right? So I have, uh, I have one client who he's a young man and whenever he's alone at home, his brain's like, now's your chance. Now is the moment that you can go and look at pornography.

Right? So that's the cue. His brain says, you're alone, now we can look at porn. And this cue process So one of the things about the cues is that they never go away. You never stop having cues because you're never going to stop having stress or loneliness or frustration or, you know, just simple things that happen in your life that keep you, um, that keep your brain engaged, right?

Uh, this is the way that life is. We have cues and, you know, you're going to have all kinds of cues and, and hopefully, um, not hopefully, but really the, the goal is to set up a response. process that allows you to get the reward that you want. Um, and, and in some of these books, they talk about how, you know, you're really not looking for a different response, or sorry, a re uh, different reward because you want the reward to remain the same at even if you as you change the response because your brain wants that good re that That particular reward and I, I have a little bit of a beef with that, not a lot, but a little bit of a beef where, um, I've noticed that as I talk to my clients and as I look at my own experience with this, the reward is not, well, I guess it depends, depends on how you define the reward, right?

So if, if the reward is, you know, if you're looking at pornography and you feel good for a moment, if that's what the reward is, then we're not going to have the same reward. As we change the, the response after the cue, right, we're going to have a different reward, which is a long term happiness. So they kind of live in the same realm, but they're not exactly the same.

So when we talk about, you know, okay, what's the response that I'm giving and how is that response going to create the reward that I'm looking for? This is the place where all of our habits. Actually adjust, you know, you look at, um, you look at any response process that you have in your life and if you adjust it, um, to engage your life differently.

Then you're probably going to have a reward that's more satisfying, a reward that's more complete than, say, what would happen if you just took the easiest process, the easiest way through this process. And as your capacity to improve your response and refine your response increases, that creates a, a better longterm.

Reward for you, right? So, um, when I talk to clients, and we talk about, okay, what's the response look like? Right now, usually what the response looks like for most people who aren't doing this work is I, I get a cue from my brain that it's time to look at porn. There's a, a reason, whatever that reason is.

And you can insert your own reason right here. Right? Whatever reason it is that your brain says, Hey, go look at porn. That's the Q portion of this. I'm stressed, I'm lonely, I'm frustrated, I'm hungry, I'm tired. Um, any of those things, right? And then we have this response process. Now, right now, a lot of people are in this response regime of No, I cannot do this.

es when it has minimized the [: 00:05:00

The problem with it is, is that that's usually based on a willpower subset. Once that willpower subset goes away, right, so if you have enough willpower to fight it off and then eventually you stop having enough willpower to fight it off because willpower is a finite resource, then your brain goes to its second response, which is to engage in pornography in some way.

So, um, a lot of times what this looks like is a three step process that our brain will engage in. It's the truth The justification and the lie, and I think I've talked about this on the podcast before, but what this is is it's a response set that allows your brain to turn to pornography. Even though it's morally against your character, so it's not really who you want to be, but it, what it does is it creates ambivalence or ambiguity, right?

So, in, in this process, the, the truth, the justification, and the lie, your brain starts to create Ambiguity around what is good for you right now, right? And when you create ambiguity, you, you're, what, what actually kicks in is your lower brain. It kicks in in this way that says, well, if we don't have a real certain.

answer here. We're going to go with what feels good now versus what might, you know, maybe feel good in the long run. Okay, so what does this look like? This looks like when my brain says, Hey, it's time to look at porn. Uh, my immediate next thought is something like Oh, um, yeah, I deserve a break. Let me, I was just going to take a break and I don't think there's anybody out there that would argue, yeah, you don't deserve a break, right?

They're not going to argue against that. What they would say is, yeah, of course you deserve a break. That's there's no problem with that. Then your brain says something like, um, Oh, I'll only. You know, scroll through good videos on TikTok. I won't go, I won't do anything bad on TikTok, right? So that's the justification.

And right there, you know, that if you said that to your mom or to your dad or to your Bishop or whoever it is, it's, you know, that you're sharing this or your wife, they would be like, uh, you know, that's where the slope starts. You know, that's where you begin to lose the capacity to walk away from a bad decision.

Right? They would call you on that, but maybe, you know, uh, somebody who isn't read in on the situation might be like, Yeah, I, I guess that's probably fine. Uh, and then, finally, there comes this lie. And the lie almost invariably looks something like this. It sounds like, Oh, I've come this far, I might as well keep going.

Right, and we all, like, if you say that out loud to anybody, uh, except for maybe a poker player who, who's like, Oh yeah, pot committed, I get it. Um, and if you don't know what pot committed is, you can go look it up, it has nothing to do with weed. But, the idea is, essentially, That once you commit a certain amount of chips to, uh, a hand, you have to play that hand all the way out, otherwise you, it's a waste, right?

But when it comes to pornography and walking away from pornography, your brain's gonna offer you this idea, and there's, I think there's some debate in the poker community as to whether pot, being pot committed is, uh, is even a valid, uh, argument for putting more money into a, into a pot. But the idea that your brain is offering you is essentially the same, which is, Oh, I've already gotten to this point.

I'm already bad. I'm already in trouble. I'm already going to have to, you know, confess this to my wife or my bishop or whatever. And so I might as well at least enjoy the moment because. Then I've, you know, I've, I've gone all the way and it, if I, if I stop now, I'm going to have to face all that frustration and I haven't even, you know, done the, done the thing that's really the bad thing.

Okay. So that's, which is like living on both sides of the fence right there. So that's kind of what your brain does is it goes down this path and that's the, that's the response portion of the Q response reward that your brain does to go down a habit. And then the reward of course is I feel good right now.

And that feel good right now. Ends up in the long run being something that doesn't feel good because you lose self confidence, you lose your capacity to trust in yourself, you lose your ability to believe. What you say you will do, uh, which is, which is really hard, right? And, and there's lots of consequences, we can talk about those on another time, but when it comes to adjusting this, it's really important to recognize the cues aren't going away, we're gonna always have the same cues.

[: 00:10:00

One of the first things that you want to do is you want to ask your brain, is that true? Is that really true? And I would highly recommend that anytime your brain offers you, Hey, let's look at porn, you start writing everything else that it starts saying to you. If it says to you, Hey, let's look at porn, write that down, right?

Put it out on a piece of paper, put it out in the world and say, Um, okay, I'm just going to write this down and I'm going to look at it objectively. And that alone is going to start to create a little bit of distance between what is going on in your head. And what is real? Um, and, and I say that knowing that some of you are like, Well, what goes on in my head is real.

Um, have you, uh, uh, So this is an analogy I like to use with my clients, which is, Have you ever, like, written a paper, And as you were preparing to write this paper, you thought, Oh yeah, I got this all planned out. I know everything that I'm going to say. I know everything that's going to be good. If I, this is perfect.

I know exactly what I'm going to do. And you write it all out, And you go back and you read through it, And you're like, this is, It's garbage. This makes no sense. I'm going to have to redo this whole thing. This is absolutely nuts. Um, I think the reason that it is, or the reason that that exists is thoughts inside of our head.

They have color and lights and music and sound and all kinds of amazing things inside our brain. to make that story real and fun and interesting. I think this is why dreams are amazing and imagination is fantastic. Because inside our heads, anything can be anything. You know, you say it's blue and it's really green and it doesn't matter because your brain just wants to go with it and tell a story that's magical.

Well, I think the same thing is happening for a lot of us when it comes to pornography because we let it stay inside of our head. And it does not really translate into who we want to be out in the real world. And so, this response intervention is designed to really just give us new understanding of what the thought process is that our brain has gone through, right?

And when we put it out on paper, it's not really in our head. We don't own it so much anymore as we can objectively look at it and go, Yeah, that's That's not really it, that's not, that's, sometimes, I don't want to say that's crazy talk, cause, you know, you're not crazy, your brain is offering you stuff that if you were to convey it to somebody you love, like your spouse or your, you know, your mom or your dad or your bishop or whatever, they'd be like, no, that's not true.

And I'm just gonna call you out on that, right? That's what they would say. They'd be like, nope, that's not true, I'm gonna call you out on that. And I'm not gonna let you, you know, maintain that as a sense of reality, because it's just not the reality that you live in, and it's not the reality you want to live in.

Which is another interesting aspect of this. Like, our brain creates this reality That we're, that we're present in that isn't the reality that we want to live in, right? The, the reality that we're present in when our brain is offering us this, um, this truth, justification, and lie. We, we're in that, you know, moment.

We're like, yeah, this is all true and okay, but we don't actually want to live there in the long term. That truth, that justification, that lie, Those aren't places we want to spend any more than basically a certain amount of time to get the short term reward that we've been looking for. Because if that stuff was all true, then, you know, the atonement wouldn't work, and all kinds of other things that, that we want to work, that we want to be real, that we want to be true, wouldn't really work, okay?

So, we take this intervention. And we change the way that we look at it by putting it out on paper, by asking it questions, by being clear with it. And then what that does is it creates a new reward and the reward that it creates is a way better reward. Okay. So I'm going to, I'm going to liken this to, I'm going to compare this to, um, to overeating, right?

Because a lot of, a lot of my clients, we, we work on both overeating and pornography at the same time. And when we overeat, Our brain offers us the same. So the cue, right? I'm tired. I'm hungry. I'm lonely. I'm, you know, whatever. All those cues are basically the same. I've been rejected. Uh, my, my spouse has invalidated my, my perspective, all that stuff.

All those [: 00:15:00

And the reward in that moment is I get lots of dopamine from whatever food I'm eating. But the long term reward, and this is, uh, you know, this is an interesting thing, right? So when we fully integrate our short term rewards and our long term rewards, Um, are aligned, okay? And right now, what's happening is you have a short term reward and a long term reward that is not aligned.

So, the short term reward in that moment is the dopamine. The long term reward of that process that we just went through is that I can't walk up the stairs without getting winded, that I'm uncomfortable in my own clothes. Those are some of the longterm rewards that are created when we believe the truth, the justification and the lie in this particular scenario.

Uh, pornography is the same way, right? Um, when I believe that same truth, justification, a lie that, that we, that I talked about earlier for pornography, the short term reward is I get. Dopamine and arousal out of my pornography viewing, but my long term reward is that I am not the person that I want to be and I feel bad about who I am, okay?

And, and when we have integration, full integration with ourselves, the short term reward is I get a little bit of happiness from, you know, going through this process and knowing that I can succeed. But my longterm reward is I am the person that I want to be right. I can succeed. And I am the person that I want to be.

Those are aligned. Rewards, right? Whereas when it comes to habits that we don't want, our short term and long term rewards are not aligned. And in, in this, in understanding this, you'll now begin to be able to start changing something. Go through this process that I just taught you, write stuff down, just get out a piece of paper.

I mean, obviously if you're, you know, in the middle of like a board meeting, don't do it. If you're, you know, if it's not an appropriate moment to do it, don't do it. Just try it, see if it works for you. I'm not saying that it'll change everything, but it will probably begin to remove you from that, you know, being inside your own head and help you step out so that you can start to own some of the, this process in a way that you've never been able to own it.

And. Intervene in a way that helps you align those long and short term rewards. All right, my friends. Listen, I love you guys. You're amazing. I will talk to you next week.