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Episode 233
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[00:00:00] Darcy Spafford: Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Thrive Beyond Pornography. I'm your host Darcy and today Zach is with me.

[00:00:07] Zach Spafford: Hey, how you doing?

[00:00:08] Darcy Spafford: So I thought it would be fun to interview Zach kind of speed dating style. I'm going to ask him some questions about his journey with pornography and we'll go from there.

[00:00:19] Darcy Spafford: We hope that this will be a fun episode and you'll get to know us a bit better. All right, let's get started. Can you share a bit about your journey with pornography, including when you first encountered it and how it evolved over time?

[00:00:33] Zach Spafford: Yeah, I found porn for the first time when I was eight.

[00:00:35] Zach Spafford: We were, we were living in a place called Dugway, Utah. I found it on a playground that I was playing on. And then. You know, I, I could, I found it occasionally here and there. We lived in Germany for a little while, so porn was a lot more available there. Then we moved back to the States. There were periods where I never saw porn because it didn't, it wasn't at our home and this was all before the internet, so it wasn't even possible to find it.

[00:00:59] Zach Spafford: Into my teen years, my late teen years, and we finally got the internet when we had moved to Chicago. I still wasn't watching porn on the internet or anything like that. It was just kind of this occasional thing that happened. And I, you know, masturbation was a continual part of my life.

[00:01:13] Zach Spafford: But for the most part, I had about 25 years from the time I was eight till the time I was about where I was viewing pornography and masturbating pretty regularly, but the way that it evolved was that I went from when I was a teen or young adult. It was something that was like interesting to something that really helped me manage my emotional state or manage myself in stressful moments or overwhelm, that sort of thing. So that's probably the way that it evolved the most.

[00:01:41] Darcy Spafford: Okay.

[00:01:42] Darcy Spafford: A lot of people always think that it escalates. Did you experience that? Like it got worse and worse and you needed more and more and more, or what was your experience?

[00:01:50] Zach Spafford: No, it was pretty steady. I mean, I think there was. So if you're talking about escalation in terms of the type of pornography going to like harder and harder stuff that would that never escalated. It was very simple.

[00:02:03] Zach Spafford: I have my preferences didn't change over time if you're talking about volume You know viewing it more and more to manage myself more and more there were periods where I'd used it more to manage myself especially When I was an adult and the internet was more prevalent, but there were periods where it wasn't even really a problem.

[00:02:22] Zach Spafford: So there were these on again, off again, times. But I wouldn't say that it like progressively got worse. No, it was more like, I got more and more fed up with it. That's really the only thing that became more of a problem. It's like I was looking for it to stop and I was like, why doesn't this? And why can't I deal with this?

[00:02:42] Zach Spafford: Why can't I get rid of this?

[00:02:44] Darcy Spafford: Okay. What were some of the biggest challenges you faced in trying to overcome your struggle with pornography?

[00:02:50] Zach Spafford: The biggest challenge was really that I didn't have any tools. It was very much a pray harder, read your scriptures more, use these, um, non scientific ways of dealing with your pornography struggle.

[00:03:06] Zach Spafford: Use these non scientific ways of dealing with your struggle. Mindfulness ways of dealing with your pornography struggle and I'm not saying that those things aren't valuable. It's good to pray. It's good to read your scriptures. It's good to Engage in you know your moral compass in this process. But I also think If somebody had handed me a tool that I could have used to solve this problem, not only would I have been able to be more the person that I expected myself to be, but I would have been able to put porn behind me more quickly.

[00:03:39] Darcy Spafford: Were there any turning points or moments of clarity that helped you on your path?

[00:03:43] Zach Spafford: Yeah, 100%. probably the biggest turning point, the biggest moment of clarity was when I got home from, I had been at work all day and then I went to meet with the bishop and I think I had even seen a counselor and then I went to a later, addiction recovery meeting.

[00:03:59] Zach Spafford: So like a, sex addicts anonymous or they call them ARP. The meeting that I went to was just a bunch of people getting together saying, hey, um, you know, I have a porn problem, right? So, I'd spent Maybe 15 hours of my day away from the home. We had six children, seven and under, and you met me at the door and you're like, "I don't care if you solve this problem, I need help with diapers."

[00:04:25] Zach Spafford: And for me, that was this moment where everything shifted from, I'm solving this problem for Darcy to, it's not about Darcy, it's not about doing it for someone else. It's about me saying, do I really want this in my life? And I did not want porn in my life, but I also didn't know how to solve that. And so I stopped going to all those meetings and I started to dig into what actually is working and what is.

[00:04:50] Zach Spafford: And I started to do experiments even before I knew about any of the literature that was available or any of the scientific information that was available. I started to do experiments on my own and that started to make the changes.

[00:05:02] Darcy Spafford: What strategies did you find most helpful in those early years of making progress?

[00:05:07] Darcy Spafford: I should say. Cause I feel like in the beginning it was very much like you were just fighting with it all the time.

[00:05:15] Zach Spafford: Yeah. One thing I did is I stopped fighting. Right? When my brain was offering me porn, it was like, okay, stop with the battle. All that battle language, all that fighting language, all that war language that we have around pornography.

[00:05:29] Zach Spafford: The only thing you're fighting with is your own brain. And that's a lose lose because if you fight with your own brain and you lose, Meaning you choose porn after you've fought with your brain. You're number one, you're exhausted. Number two, you feel like so much more of a failure that you can never really get, like you never really get to a place where you feel like you want to address it because the more you do it, the more you don't solve it, the more you fall behind.

[00:05:56] Zach Spafford: The less good you feel about anything that you're doing in it. So you feel like addressing it is more problematic than just saying, well, screw it. I give up. I've worked with so many people who are there like, yeah, I eventually just got to a place where I'm like, I give up.

[00:06:10] Zach Spafford: I don't care. And that really shifted for me when I started to look at, okay, what is my brain actually trying to do here? Why is it offering me porn? So number one strategy was like getting really, really clear about what was going on for me mentally and emotionally before my brain offered me porn.

[00:06:33] Zach Spafford: Number two was learning how to deal with that. Problem that my brain was trying to avoid before my brain offered me porn. Number three was really getting open and honest and integrated with the person I was sharing with you so that when I had a struggle, I could hold on to my sense of self in the face of your discomfort around this problem. Because there still was quite a bit of discomfort around.

[00:07:02] Zach Spafford: And another thing that really helped me was just getting really solid and like, Hey, I'm going to not let this be about her in any way. I'm going to not let my struggle, my biggest struggle be her problem. And that was twofold, right?

[00:07:18] Zach Spafford: So it was like, I'm not going to put this on you to solve it. So it's like, I'm not going to have you managing my passwords. But the other thing was I was not going to let you make what was going on for me about you. And that changed. Enormously a lot of the things that we did and we, we worked to refine those over time, but I think those are probably, those are probably the four biggest things that changed for us.

[00:07:40] Darcy Spafford: What advice would you give to someone who is currently struggling with pornography?

[00:07:45] Zach Spafford: I would start with this. Use every single time that you view pornography as a data point, not as a failure. If you can use every single time that you have chosen pornography as a data point instead of a failure, you'll start to see patterns and you'll start to see clues as to what you can actually deal with.

[00:08:05] Zach Spafford: And when you do that, you'll start to solve for porn. Most men are really great at problem solving. That's what we do at work. That's what we do at home. Use that space, use that capacity to make your mistakes or make your choices to view porn something that you can look at and dissect and deal with.

[00:08:26] Darcy Spafford: All right, can you discuss the role of shame and guilt in your experience with pornography and how you were able to overcome those feelings?

[00:08:36] Zach Spafford: I felt so ashamed of masturbation and pornography from the beginning. I was very ashamed of my sexuality. It was, I was very ashamed of how I was approaching my sexuality because I felt like that was the message I was given.

[00:08:50] Zach Spafford: That was what I was supposed to think. I was supposed to think that these things were bad. And You know, I think a lot of people would argue that porn is bad, and I think a lot of people would argue that masturbation is bad. But, I don't think that argument holds enough water to make a difference for anyone.

[00:09:09] Zach Spafford: You know, a lot of people out there are like, sugar is bad, and a lot of people out there are like, too much sun is bad. But, telling people something is bad It's not as effective as asking people, how do you want to be in relation with this? How do you want to deal with this in your life? Do you want this to be a part of your life?

[00:09:29] Zach Spafford: And the more we could, I was able to move away from porn= bad. And here's, I think, one of the things that everybody has to understand about this, right? So, if I view pornography, and I think porn is bad, and everybody around me is telling me that porn is bad, but I like it because it makes me feel good when I'm stressed, or frustrated, or lonely, or depressed, or tired.

[00:09:52] Zach Spafford: Then the logical conclusion is that if porn is bad, and I like porn, then I am bad. And that's not a very helpful framework to live your life in. So instead of worrying about whether porn is bad, like we don't have to hate something or think that it's bad to not do it or have it in our lives. Like for instance, you're a vegetarian, you don't think meat's bad, right?

[00:10:12] Zach Spafford: So instead of saying porn's bad, Say, I have chosen porn in the past. How do I want to deal with it going forward? Who do I want to be and how do I want to relate with this? Because it's a part of the landscape I live in.

[00:10:27] Darcy Spafford: Alright,

[00:10:27] Darcy Spafford: so this is just going to be totally squirrel moment because that's how my ADD brain operates.

[00:10:34] Darcy Spafford: We're off. We're off. And also, and also this is just my public service announcement, but when you were talking about like the sun's bad, it just made me think of how I've had melanoma and when our kids come to us and I say, Hey, let's get your sunscreen on. They're always like, do I have to? And I'm always like, no.

[00:10:56] Darcy Spafford: You don't have to, like you don't have to, but let me tell you some of the reasons why you might want to. And I go into the reasons why they want to, and then I'm like, you get to decide here. And then they typically make the choice to put on the sunscreen. This is also your notice that if you have moles you should go to the dermatologist once a year to get them checked to make sure that you're not going to die.

[00:11:23] Zach Spafford: I think that's a really great analogy in that you could use that your experience with melanoma as an opportunity to shame your children and make them fear the sun and tell them all of the horrible things that are going to happen to them, but instead helping them make a choice that helps them move towards their values, helping them love themselves in the face of maybe a tedious task that is coming along to put on more sunscreen.

[00:11:51] Zach Spafford: That is a really helpful way to think about the way that looking at dealing with porn can be dealt with, dealing with overeating can be dealt with, dealing with excessive scrolling, doom scrolling on your phone, all kinds of behaviors that they may not be in our value structure, but they are a part of the landscape that we live in.

[00:12:11] Darcy Spafford: Mm hmm.

[00:12:12] Darcy Spafford: . How has your life changed since you stopped viewing porn?

[00:12:18] Zach Spafford: Yeah, so that's a really good question. In a lot of ways, it hasn't changed much. It's not like, all of a sudden, porn stopped being a part of my life, and everything was sunshine and roses.

[00:12:30] Zach Spafford: Like, there's still disagreements between you and I, there's still dealing with kids, there's still doing work, there's still all the things that you have to do in life, and there's still all of the emotions that I was avoiding with porn, they're all still there. However, What I do think I have more of is, one, I have more self confidence.

[00:12:53] Zach Spafford: I am doing the things I say I will. That's a big difference. So many of us, when we're dealing with porn, we're not doing what we say we will with it. We say, oh, I'm going to quit or this is the last time.

[00:13:03] Darcy Spafford: Or even what we want Children to do, right? Like we don't want our kids viewing porn, but then we are secretly doing it.

[00:13:10] Zach Spafford: Yeah, right. So in that sense, there's a whole lot more self confidence There's a confidence that I am a good human and that I'm being the person that I expect myself to be and I think that that's probably the biggest shift for me if I think about everything else that's going on in life, nothing became so easy that porn like solved everything.

[00:13:29] Zach Spafford: I do think that because of this trial, you and I were able to grow so much more than we may have done otherwise. And I don't know, everybody has their trials. This one's ours. I don't think I would want someone else's trials. I'm not picking anything else. Mm hmm. And this has been a really great catalyst for us to learn and grow together and do the work that we needed to do to become the couple that we are now, who really enjoy each other.

[00:13:58] Darcy Spafford: I agree.

[00:13:59] Zach Spafford: Yeah, that's her ascent that she introduced me.

[00:14:02] Darcy Spafford: I'm like, Amen.

[00:14:05] Darcy Spafford: Okay. So just a few more, uh, what ongoing practices or habits do you maintain to support your life from going back to pornography?

[00:14:15] Zach Spafford: Yeah, how do I keep from going back to pornography? Well, I think, I always tell this to my clients, I tell this to people whenever they're talking about, okay, how do I make this stop?

[00:14:25] Zach Spafford: What you have to do, what I had to do, was I had to make my responses to my brain habitual. Every single thing that we do in this world. Our brain does one of two things with it. It's either learning it fresh, so it's creating a habit, or it's running a habit. So if you think about your very first day driving to work, you've got to figure out where to turn, you've got to figure out where to park, you've got to figure out which part of the building to go in, where your desk is, all of those things.

[00:14:55] Zach Spafford: By, you know, day 200, it's a habit. Everything that you do, you get in your car from the time you leave your house to the time you sit down at your desk, you think about whatever you want to think about, you don't think about that journey. And this is key to anybody who wants to put porn behind them in a permanent way. Its habitually addressing the story and the negative feelings that are coming up before your brain starts to offer you porn.

[00:15:22] Zach Spafford: Habitually learning how to do that, habitually learning how to make that part of your brain, so you're going to have to practice off game. And when I say practice off game, what I mean is, if you want to be great at shooting free throws, you have to practice before practice, you have to practice after practice, you have to practice outside of practice, and then when you get to the game, and you've been fouled, and it's time to shoot a free throw, everything's automatic.

[00:15:46] Zach Spafford: Everything happens automatically, and it's habitual. In a free throw, you've got to do that same thing with porn. You gotta do that same thing with what your brain is offering you and why it's offering you porn.

[00:15:58] Darcy Spafford: All right. Last question. If you could go back and give your younger self advice regarding pornography, what would you say?

[00:16:05] Zach Spafford: I mean, the very first thing that I would say is, yep. I mean, this is kind of how we talk to our kids. Yes, that's gonna be interesting to you. And there are gonna be things that happen within your body that make that exciting. There are going to be things that are a part of what you want this to look like.

[00:16:25] Zach Spafford: You also need to recognize that this is not how women really feel when it comes to meaningful sexual interaction. So, you know, the way that people portray themselves within pornography, the way that people choose to interact within pornography, is not how real meaningful relationships actually look. And what you really want to do, and this is again, this is how we talk to our kids.

[00:16:50] Zach Spafford: What you want to do is you want to ask yourself, Do I want something that's fake or do I want something that's real? Is this in my values or is it outside my values? How do I want to approach this so that I can be the person that I expect myself to be? How do I want to approach this so that I can grow into the man that I want to be?

[00:17:10] Zach Spafford: End. I think taking away all that blame and shame and freaking out that I found out that my body feels good. Taking all of that away would have made enormous difference in my life. It would have made it so that I didn't feel ashamed most of the time when I thought about sexuality. I fully recognize that nobody gets out of childhood without trauma.

[00:17:35] Zach Spafford: So, the reality is, I would have probably had some other problem that I had to deal with. So, I'm not discounting that reality, but what I would want me to know is that I'm enough, and that I'm okay, and that seeing these things doesn't make me a terrible human, but it does make me not be the person that I expect myself to be when I'm 40, and I'm living with a beautiful woman who loves me, and really wants me to give myself to her, instead of, going out and seeking something that isn't reciprocal.

[00:18:07] Zach Spafford: It's fake. It's, it's Cheetos. It's not a good ribeye. I don't know if that's a good analogy, but, um, it's not something that's fulfilling. It's just something to do.

[00:18:23] Darcy Spafford: All right. I kind of want to answer that last question.

[00:18:26] Zach Spafford: Yeah, you answer it. You tell me what you would tell me.

[00:18:28] Darcy Spafford: Because I think what I would tell your younger self is that you're going to be okay and you're going to figure it out.

[00:18:35] Darcy Spafford: Because I just imagine, and just hearing lots of men's stories, throughout the years of doing this work and having these conversations with our friends. I think so many men feel like they're never going to be able to figure it out and that it's just always going to plague them?

[00:18:52] Darcy Spafford: And so I think that would be my advice to your younger self is that you're going to figure it out and you're going to be okay.

[00:18:58] Darcy Spafford: And then another thing that came to my mind is, listening to you, like, so much of what could have helped you in those younger years is just healthy sexuality, you know, a conversation about it.

[00:19:10] Zach Spafford: Having an adult who had enough healthy sexuality to have that conversation with me. That's a huge difference. I would say my parents still don't have the sexuality to have this conversation with me. So it's, it's funny that you say that because I think that's a huge difference between the way that we, you and I were raised and the way that our children are being raised.

[00:19:28] Darcy Spafford: Yeah.

[00:19:29] Darcy Spafford: Very much so. All right. Well, we're glad you're here. We hope you enjoyed this episode and next week, Zach is going to ask me questions, so should be exciting. Yeah.

[00:19:43] Zach Spafford: Thanks for this. I appreciate it. And if, if you're out there listening and you're saying, Hey, this is exactly my story or this, this story resonated with me, share it with somebody.

Let somebody know that this doesn't have to be doom and gloom. It doesn't have to be the end of the world. It doesn't have to be the destruction of your relationship that you can survive. And not only can you survive through this trial, you can overcome it and be in a relationship that thrives together with somebody who loves you and who you love.

[00:20:12] Darcy Spafford: Thank you, Zach, for answering these questions. And if you enjoy this podcast, we would love it if you would rate and review it on Apple podcasts or any other place that you listen to your podcast, that always brightens my day.

[00:20:27] Darcy Spafford: I'm like, yay, we're making a difference for someone. Anyways, so we will talk to you guys next week. Bye. Bye.