Unhooked: Breaking Porn Addiction Podcast

🔹 Want to break free? Join Unhooked Academy now:
https://www.unhookedacademy.com/

This rebroadcast from Jonah Primo’s The Overexamined Life features Jeremy Lipkowitz (former Buddhist monk, meditation teacher, executive coach, and host of the Unhooked podcast) discussing pornography as a lens for addiction, shame, and compulsive behavior. They cover how widespread porn use is among men and increasingly women, early exposure in childhood, and how porn’s normalization alongside taboo can fuel addiction. Lipkowitz argues porn is often used for emotional regulation (boredom, loneliness, anxiety), can distort expectations of intimacy, train novelty-seeking dopamine patterns, and contribute to a shame-driven double life. They address ethical concerns about performer exploitation, whether moderate use is defensible, the distinction between porn and masturbation, and rising risks from AI-generated porn, non-consensual deepfakes, and related technologies. Treatment emphasizes mindfulness, men’s groups, integrity, and Viktor Frankl’s “space between stimulus and response” over reliance on blockers; Lipkowitz recommends abstinence first if moderation is attempted.
00:00 Rebroadcast Introduction
01:34 Meet Jeremy Lipkowitz
04:19 Who Watches Porn
05:28 Taboo Meets Normalized
07:04 Kids And Early Exposure
12:49 Porn Scripts And Consent
15:47 Porn As Emotional Coping
20:11 Shame Fuels Addiction
26:52 Making It Less Shameful
28:01 Men's Groups Explained
33:44 Performers And Exploitation
39:36 Is Any Use Safe
42:55 Subtle Long Term Effects
47:11 Hungry Ghost Origin Story
48:43 From Catalogs to Tube Sites
49:30 When Lust Becomes Suffering
50:46 Hungry Ghosts Explained
52:26 Pros and Cons of Quitting
54:59 Masturbation Without Porn
56:50 Engineered to Be Addictive
59:52 AI Porn Pandora Box
01:05:15 Skillful vs Unskillful Desire
01:07:55 Life After Porn Benefits
01:12:54 Relapse and the Three As
01:15:58 Mindfulness Space to Choose
01:20:01 Abstinence vs Moderation
01:22:13 Rapid Fire and Farewell

🔹 Want to break free? Join Unhooked Academy now:
https://www.unhookedacademy.com/

Piers Cross on Trauma, Addiction, and Self-Compassion
Most men walk around with stones in their shoes their whole lives. They don't know the stones are there. They just know something hurts, and they've learned to keep walking anyway.
That's one of the most powerful things Piers Cross said in this conversation. And it captures something I see all the time in the men I work with — unprocessed trauma quietly running the show, showing up as compulsive behavior, isolation, a relentless inner critic that won't let them rest.
Piers's own story is one of the more remarkable ones I've encountered. He grew up with an alcoholic father, ran away to boarding school, watched a friend die by suicide, and was then sexually abused by the priest the school sent them to for support. He suppressed all of it, built a successful career in finance, and slowly fell apart. At his lowest point he was homeless, struggling with drugs and alcohol, and tried to take his own life. What turned it around was ending up at a Buddhist monastery — where he stayed for over 1,000 days. He's been sober for 24 years.
In this episode we talk about:
How suppressed childhood trauma shows up in adult addiction, even when the connection isn't obvious
Why going back to touch trauma can re-traumatize you — and what to do instead
What EFT tapping is, how it works neurologically, and why Piers uses it with every client
The three ingredients Robert Moore says are required for real initiation to happen
Why the monastery was a rite of passage from boy to man — and what that has to do with recovery
The inner critic loop that keeps men stuck, and how to step out of it
Why alcohol and porn relapse are more connected than most people realize
A five-minute safety meditation practice you can start today
What Piers wants every man struggling with addiction to hear before anything else
The self-compassion piece in this one is worth the whole conversation. The image Piers uses — of picking a child up 100 times when they fall — is the kind of thing that stays with you.
Connect with Piers Cross:
Coaching: piers-cross.com
Leadership work: compassionateleadersglobal.com
Podcast: An Evolving Man
Documentary: Boarding on Insanity
Resources from Jeremy:
Unhooked Academy: unhookedacademy.com
14-Day Slip Reset: unhookedacademy.com/reset

🔹 Want to break free?

Join Unhooked Academy now:
https://www.unhookedacademy.com/

This week's episode is a conversation I had on the Enter the Lionheart podcast with host Lawrence Dunling. Lawrence was kind enough to let us reshare it here on Unhooked.
We get into my own unusual path: leaving a PhD program at Duke, training as a Buddhist monk in Myanmar, and eventually building my coaching practice in Thailand. From there we dig into the trap almost all of us fall into, the belief that the next zero in the bank account, the next win, the next relationship will finally make us happy, and why that chase never actually delivers.
We talk through some core Buddhist concepts and how they apply to everyday life: the bliss of blamelessness, the eight worldly winds, and the middle path between renouncing everything and chasing pleasure. And we spend real time on porn and compulsive behavior specifically: why the consequences are often subtle and easy to miss, how it rewires your brain's relationship to novelty and intimacy, and the Rat Park experiment, one of the clearest illustrations out there of why addiction is about an unmet need, not a moral failing.
We also get into modern dating, OnlyFans, the loneliness underneath a lot of it, and why community and close male friendships matter more than most guys realize.

Resources:
Unhooked Academy: unhookedacademy.com
14-Day Slip Reset: unhookedacademy.com/reset

Connect with Jeremy:

🌍 Website: JeremyLipkowitz.com

📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeremylipkowitz/

🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JeremyLipkowitz

📩 Email: jeremy@unhookedacademy.com

Jeremy’s Online Course: Unhooked – Step-by-Step Guide to Quitting Porn: https://www.unhookedacademy.com/

🔹 Want to break free?

Join Unhooked Academy now:
https://www.unhookedacademy.com/

This week, I'm bringing back one of my favorite episodes because its message is just as relevant today as when I first recorded it.

In this episode, I share the Five Wise Daily Reflections from Buddhist teachings and explore how they can help you overcome addiction, let go of attachment, take ownership of your actions, and live with greater purpose. These simple reflections have profoundly shaped the way I approach recovery and continue to remind me what truly matters.

What would change if you spent just a few minutes each day reflecting on what really matters most?

If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who could benefit from it, and subscribe for more conversations on recovery, mindfulness, and building a life you don't want to escape from.
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
02:01 The Five Wise Daily Reflections
03:06 Aging, Illness, and Death
07:29 Letting Go of Attachment
09:23 Why Your Actions Shape Your Future
12:03 How to Practice These Reflections
12:35 Living Beyond Addiction

Resources:
Unhooked Academy: unhookedacademy.com
14-Day Slip Reset: unhookedacademy.com/reset

Connect with Jeremy:

🌍 Website: JeremyLipkowitz.com

📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeremylipkowitz/

🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JeremyLipkowitz

📩 Email: jeremy@unhookedacademy.com

Jeremy’s Online Course: Unhooked – Step-by-Step Guide to Quitting Porn: https://www.unhookedacademy.com/

🔹 Want to break free?

Join Unhooked Academy now:
https://www.unhookedacademy.com/

This episode is a rebroadcast of a conversation I had with Todd Rennebohm on the Bunny Hugs podcast. Todd runs a mental health show that isn't afraid to go into the territory most podcasts avoid, and this conversation went deep.
We covered my personal story from the beginning. How it started innocent enough, looking at lingerie catalogs as a kid, and slowly escalated over years into a daily habit that was quietly rewiring my brain. By college, I was logging on every night for an hour, sometimes two. And even though my life looked great on paper, I felt completely empty inside.
In this episode we talk about:
The moment I realized I was a slave to lust, and what it actually felt like from the inside
How porn hijacks the dopamine system and why the "hunt" is more addictive than the content itself
The realm of hungry ghosts, a Buddhist concept that perfectly describes what addiction feels like
Why porn addiction is uniquely hard to break free from compared to alcohol or substances
How I went from PhD student at Duke to Buddhist monk to meditation teacher to recovery coach
Why the shame-based, willpower-driven approach almost always backfires
What neuroplasticity actually means for your recovery, and why it's good news
How to meditate without falling asleep (and why falling asleep isn't actually the problem)
AI companions, escalation, and where all of this is headed
This is one of the more wide-ranging conversations I've had. If you're new to this work, it's a good place to start. If you've been around for a while, I think you'll still find something in it.

00:00 Empty Chase
00:50 Meet Jeremy
01:37 How It Started
03:15 Daily Habit
04:59 Control And Coping
06:07 Brain Rewiring
07:15 Novelty Escalation
09:20 Seeing The Future
11:10 Hungry Ghosts
13:33 Neuroplasticity Lust
15:10 Gratitude Training
18:29 Desire Vs Craving
20:31 Meditation Skills
23:11 Tech And AI Risks
24:57 Is It Ever Good
27:14 AI Companions Dystopia
28:30 Moderation Debate
28:37 Moderation vs Abstinence
30:11 Ethics of Porn Industry
33:02 Why Porn Hooks Dopamine
37:15 Rock Bottom Realization
42:43 Finding Happiness Through Mindfulness
46:09 Non Shame Recovery Approach
50:11 Meditation Basics That Work
54:02 Grounded Not Woo Woo
54:49 Where to Find Jeremy
55:26 Final Wrap and Support

Check out Todd's show, Bunny Hugs, at bunnyhugspodcast.com
Resources mentioned:
Unhooked Academy: unhookedacademy.com
14-Day Slip Reset: unhookedacademy.com/reset

Connect with Jeremy:

🌍 Website: JeremyLipkowitz.com

📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeremylipkowitz/

🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JeremyLipkowitz

📩 Email: jeremy@unhookedacademy.com

Jeremy’s Online Course: Unhooked – Step-by-Step Guide to Quitting Porn: https://www.unhookedacademy.com/