The porn industry wants you to "quit" porn for New Years

Every year, millions of men make the New Year’s resolution to quit porn.

But the porn industry is fine with that.

They know how it works. You resolve to quit on January 1. You white-knuckle it for a few weeks or months. You relapse. You feel crushing shame. And that shame drives you to more porn use.

This is part of a well-studied phenomenon called a “shame spiral” that the porn industry relies on.

And the solution (no surprise) is the Catholic understanding of sin and human desires.

The Shame Spiral

A 2015 study found that shame leads people to “ruminate and feel stuck and unmotivated to change.” Another study published in found that shame actually predicts increased pornography consumption, not decreased.

Neuroscience proves that willpower alone doesn’t work.

The neural pathway between the rational part of your brain and the desire-driven part weakens over time. In moments of relapse, men report feeling like they “weren’t thinking” or “just didn’t care.” The part of your brain that could tell you to stop isn’t connected to the part creating the desire.

So when you fail your resolution and feel like garbage, you reach for the thing that numbs the pain. Which is the thing you were trying to quit.

And the porn industry benefits from this cycle, keeping you hooked. They benefit from you using pornography AND from your reliance on your own willpower.

The Catholic Understanding

Here’s where Catholic anthropology gets it right.

The Church doesn’t expect you to white-knuckle your way to holiness. It never has. The Church’s understanding of sin accounts for the fact that your will is weakened and that wanting to stop isn’t enough.

St. Paul said, “For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.” (Rom 7:19).

Resolution culture and over-reliance on willpower is essentially Pelagian. It assumes you can fix yourself by merely deciding to. But the Catholic understanding says you need grace to build virtue through your efforts. And grace builds virtue in the soul gradually, not instantaneously.

Virtue is built over time through repeated acts.

You don’t just decide to be free of pornography on December 31 and wake up free on January 1. You build the virtue of temperance through practice, through failure, through getting back up.

This is why we have the sacrament of confession. It forgives our sins AND gives us the grace to overcome temptation in the future. It’s supposed to be part of the virtue loop.

Unfortunately, some treat confession like part of the shame loop. So what else do we do?

What Actually Works

I have two friends who run a program called The Freedom Group. They’ve worked with thousands of men to get them free of pornography.

They look at pornography use differently than most. Most people look at it as a desire for sex. That’s part of it, but it’s not the whole picture. There’s something you desire (or want to avoid) and it’s not merely sex. Its hunger, anger, tiredness, stress, etc.

These things wear down your resilienc,e and you need actual virtue to overcome them.

The Freedom Group’s approach addresses those root cravings and helps build real virtue. What are you actually looking for when you reach for porn?

So before you make another January 1 resolution, understand what you’re up against. The shame spiral is real, and willpower alone won’t cut it.

You need a system to deal with cravings, not just a decision to stop a behavior.

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And if you’re serious about finally getting free, check out The Freedom Group. They’ve helped thousands of men do exactly that.

The Freedom Group sponsors my podcast Bropostles, but not my Substack. So, this is not a paid ad. I just really like these guys.

And since they’ve started their sponsorship, almost 20 of our listeners have started working with them and have started to see progress.

I like these guys because they have a guarantee. If you’re not free from the craving for porn use in a year, they work with you for free until you are.