“The more successful you are in life, the more driven you are, the more sophisticated your ways of throwing dirt on this issue are.”
In this episode, Nick speaks with J.K Emezi, the founder of Elevated Recovery, and discusses his journey through addiction recovery, specializing in helping high-performing men with sexually compulsive behaviors and pornography addiction. They discuss the importance of addressing shame associated with addiction, and J.K. shares personal experiences, including the impact of early exposure to pornography and the challenges he faced in his addiction.
“Long story short, at eight years old, looking at exaggerated illustrations of human genitals and sex scared the crap out of me. But it also changed my emotional state.”
“I also gave myself permission to slip and relapse. And that was very important.”
“It’s very hard and very scary to show up and ask for help and realize that, Oh my God, if I am to face this, the abandonments, the neglect, whatever the trauma may be, I might lose my edge. I might lose my success.”
J.K Emezi is a Certified Addiction Coach, Sex & Pornography Addiction Recovery Coach, and the CEO of Elevated Recovery, an online addiction recovery agency. With personal triumph over his decade-long battle with porn addiction, J.K created The Porn Reboot System, a refined method to regain control of sexual behavior. His diverse clientele includes top-performing professionals from various industries in over 20 countries, recognizing his expertise and effective approach. Through The Porn Reboot System, J.K empowers individuals to overcome addiction, alleviate anxiety, improve relationships, and lead fulfilling lives. His unwavering dedication to lasting recovery and personal growth supports individuals on their transformative journey to break free from addiction.
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Hello and welcome to the mindset and self mastery show. I’m your host Nick McGowan and today on the show I have JK Amazee. JK, how you doing today, man?
Dude, I am honored to be here. I’m just stoked and excited to have this conversation with you.
me too. You kind of yelled at me for a quick second where you’re like, man, we just need to hit record, like start with this thing. And that’s always a good sign to me that if we’re shooting the ship before we hit record talking about what this could be, it’s just going to be a great conversation. And for the audience, you know that I only have great guests that are on here and we try to get as deep as possible. And I think JK is going to be one of those people we’re going to get really deep with. So man, why don’t you start us off? Tell us what you do for a living. And what’s one thing that most people don’t know about you? It’s maybe a little odd or bizarre.
Awesome. I run an addiction recovery company called Elevated Recovery, and we specialize in helping high performing men who struggle with secret, sexually out of control behavior, sexually compulsive behaviors. And our area of a specialization is pornography addiction. That might sound strange, but I think, uh, once Nick dives into it with me, it’s not going to be so strange. One thing people do not know about it. So just to give you guys a visual, if you’re not watching this, I’m a six foot one.
200 pound black guy with long dreadlocks down my butt and I’m jacked. And everything about the location I’m in is like dark and neon, but I love swing dance, like Lindy hop, 1920s, like bopping stuff. I love it. I love it. And nobody guesses. And I just geek out when I hear music from the 20s, 30s and 40s, you just be like, that is.
We, that is strange. This dude is wearing black on black with long dreads and I did not expect him to just bust out in this huge smile and start Lindy hopping around. Ha ha ha.
Well, there are reasons for all of this, you know, as weird as it may be, there’s something that ties back to that. Uh, and I, I’m always interested in the story because if you randomly said that, like at a bar, somebody was like, what’s the random thing about you? And you’re like, I’m really into 20 swing. They’ll be like, well, if the fuck, all right, I’ll take another shot or whatever. That’s the end of that. But being able to actually figure out like, how did you get to that point? I have things from childhood where even my partner had said to me, like, why do you like this? And I was like,
specifically because when I was five years old, my grandparents would take me here and we would do this thing and it’s locked in and that’s how I feel and that’s what I think of now. So what was the catalyst for your swing addiction?
It was an anime I watched once and this anime was called Metropolis. Um, older, older anime, older style. And, uh, this is when I first discovered weed. I would smoke a lot and I was just like, wow, this allows me to be very cultured. And you know, everyone goes through that phase, not everyone. Some people go through that phase where you start watching like old Bruce Lee movies and the Godfather when you’re high, just like that. I was going through that phase. I was just going to watch everything retro. I was only retro when I was high. I was like.
shit so cool. I can appreciate it. And I watched this. And the last the final score at the end of this anime was a swing song. And I just the emotions that it brought up were great that the anime itself, but just the score alone brought up something in me that I was like, there was a movement to it. And I searched it and I found people dancing to it.
And I was like, you know what? I always thought this was some weird white people stuff. You know, interestingly enough, it was black people stuff, right? And I saw this and I was just like, I like this. And I was like, it all, it all, it all came together. So I became a card carrying member of the Wichita Swing Dance Society. And I’ve been a member ever since for 20 years.
Well, the fact that you thought this must be weird white people shit up front, like, I appreciate you be honest. Can I assume that you’re the only non white person in that group in Wichita?
Oh, so I’ll tell you this. So I showed up to the group and I thought they, they had a salsa class that day, but they didn’t. So I was like, damn it. I, I’ll show it was his nerdy church kids. Everyone had side partings. There was just dudes are wearing shorts and I was like, God, everyone here looks does not look cool. They don’t look cool, but you know, they’re like the churchy.
types of digits, like, oh, welcome, like, come on in, like, get comfortable. And we all started dancing and it was an easy dance to learn. And this does connect to my pornography addiction. I can tell you about it later, but it was my way of getting out of my shell. I didn’t know how to be social. And it was a great way to be able to lead women physically and go through something challenging while being social. And that helped me rewire my brain, but it was a very easy way to get.
to get myself being social and out of isolation. Interesting fact, Nick, most of my clients have become in the past 12 years I’ve been doing it, have become very good swing dancers simply because it was a recommendation and dude was just like, well, I don’t know how to be social and I’m not a club guy, what can I do? I was like, well, just look up swing dancing in your area. He’s like, what’s that? I’m just, just go. They’re good people for the most part, yeah.
Huh. And what a, what a cool thing. I always appreciate the little recipes and, uh, processes that we go through, even if it’s subconsciously where it’s like trying to do something, get yourself out of your comfort zone or just like, how do you take those little steps? And sometimes it’s like you’d go into a class or somebody going to the grocery store or cafe and just hanging out for a minute and sitting and see if they get into a conversation.
It also goes along with we never know what’s behind somebody’s eyes until we actually talk to them. That’s one of the reasons for this show is to be able to go, what’s the fucking crazy wild shit that you’ve gone through that you’ve learned from that if we were walking down the street past each other, maybe you’d give that man nod sort of thing, but we wouldn’t, we wouldn’t have any idea. Like if you and I cross paths, I’d probably be like, all right, so don’t fuck with him. Um, and I wouldn’t think.
You know, that guy’s probably in the swing dancing. Yeah, yeah, I can see it. You know, but that’s part of the non-judgment of it, but we do need to actually go through and judge ourselves in a sort of way to be able to actually look at those things. Something that comes up a lot on the show is self-awareness. I find it so fucked up, just self-awareness by itself, because the more self-aware you are, the more fucking self-aware you are.
the more you see and the more you do and the more that you work on, the more that you see, work and do and work on. And all that stuff goes along with it. I think what you do, especially with just the category of addiction is a lot that we can get into because we as people often think addictions are like alcohol, drugs, sex, you know, you can just rattle off like the main categories, but the addiction to watching TV
is similar. The addiction to drinking six cups of coffee. The addiction is through and through and being able to break that is a major thing. But man, I know that we’re going to get into something that is kind of taboo for a lot of people, but specifically with men. And I can’t speak from a woman’s perspective because I’m not one. I can’t speak from a man’s perspective. And I know that this is a thing that is kind of pushed on us at an early age. So
I want to get into the porn side of this conversation, but why don’t we take a little bit of a step back and tell us how did you get to this point and why are you doing what you’re doing?
Well, I never obviously never expected that I would be doing something like this. There was an interview I was on a, uh, a channel on YouTube called Jubilee, which had people who are anti pornography versus pro pornography. That like three, 4 million views. And in the comment section, you know, we all have to interview ourself. And there was like, this guy is the perfect example of somebody who has no excuses because he introduced, I introduced myself and I was like, hi, my name is JK and I’m a porn addiction.
recovery coach. They were like, this guy literally created his own, his own title out of nothing. But interesting thing is that it’s not out of nothing. And I think the reason that I’m here is because you realize too, that it’s not out of nothing. I was exposed to pornography when I was eight years old. And it was just a coincidence, someone taking care of us when my parents were not home brought over a pornographic comic book. And
I was determined to find it and I did find it. Long story short, at eight years old, looking at exaggerated illustrations of human genitals and sex scared the crap out of me. But it also changed my emotional state. There was this release of adrenaline, like when you’re a kid and you’re like, I am totally not supposed to see that. I’m not supposed to have this. And what happened was right after that,
Every time that I felt sad, I felt lonely, I felt stressed out, whatever the case may be, I was lacking in intimacy. I knew that I could change my state as a child by looking for nudity. Other kids had the imaginary friend they could talk to. I was like, I’m going to find something naked to look at because it’s going to change my state. And that continued till I hit puberty, learned the wonderful feelings that came from masturbation, got exposed to pornography.
And I just continued that childhood habits of dealing with my states of strong emotions, stress, and a lack of intimacy with pornography, till I crossed some boundaries that made me kind of rethink my coping strategies in life.
Hmm. Any of that you want to share or kind of talk with?
Oh man, that’s, I, I paused there so that you could, you could actually check me because I could go in any direction with that. I’ll share, I’ll share one, uh, that I think you would not, you would resonate with, but I like your vibes. I’ll share this one. I was, um, and why I say I’ll share this one is because for somebody who deals with an addictive behavior, there are many opportunities to wake up. There are many come to God moments and there are many rock bottoms. If you want to call them that. But.
We’re so dumb. And by dumb, I mean, literally your prefrontal cortex does not have enough neural connections that we just don’t learn our lesson and we keep doing it. So that’s why I have many stories at about 20, 21 years old. Um, I realized I didn’t have any game. I was like, I, I can’t get with women. So I would get drunk, go to the local bar and try to grind on women and try to get laid and it just wasn’t working out.
So I’d come back, I’d view pornography, I’d spend money on chat sites with women, video chat. Eventually it escalated to getting on certain sites and trying to meet up with people for anonymous sex. I just didn’t wanna feel like a loser anymore, Nick. I was like, I just, every day I’m waking up and I just feel like I’m ugly, I feel something is wrong with me. And one day this girl hits me up and sends a picture, very pixelated, and says, hey, I’m babysitting.
I’m 19 years old, this is my body. Come and meet me. And I’ve just come back from the club. I’m fucked up, dude. I get in my car, dick hard, and I’m driving to this place. It’s like 30 minutes, dude. I’m like on the highway, swerving, thinking with my dick. I get to the back of this really fucked up neighborhood. I’m already freaking out. But here’s the crazy thing about being an addict. And being an addict like me, in retrospect, I came to find out that that’s
taboo nature of it, the adrenaline, the thrill of doing something bad was also what was driving me. So the more adrenaline I had and the more dangerous it was, the more I got excited. The more aroused I was didn’t realize that then, but now I’m at the back of this bunch of section eight homes and I’m only saying section eight because now I invest in section eight. I didn’t know there was section eight. I just, it was the hood and I’m sitting there texting these, this girl on my Blackberry. That’s how long ago it was. And if you know what a Blackberry is.
It was not easy to text in that bad boy. It was like a full keyboard. That’s like this fucking size. And I’m like texting on it, messaging her and somebody, and she says, Hey, just put your car, just park your car and pull up. I’m like, I’m here. But I was so scared. I didn’t put my, my car in park. I left it in drive as I’m sitting there. Somebody smashes the side mirror, the driver mirror of not mirrored glass, um, windshield it smashes. I feel.
all the glass going on my face. So I just instinct, I just hit the accelerator and I drive through this yard. I’m packed, parked behind. I remember driving to like a small pool. They were like kids, plastic shit flying all over the place. I drive to the front of the home and I’m speeding down the road, driving the hell out of there. And here’s the thing I remember. I remember just squeezing my steering wheel. And I’m saying this as I’m shaking, driving all the way home.
You weren’t raised like this. You weren’t. And getting home, that’s when I realized I had a problem because I was raised in a Christian conservative home. I wasn’t a Christian as I grew up. I found my own path. But that, what would your parents think if you were to be on newspaper tomorrow? Or if you were to get murdered at the back of some whatever. Like what would your friends think? Like we never knew. We just thought he was this weird nerdy
skinny black kid, but we didn’t know he was into these things. And that’s when I started seeking help. Um, unfortunately, like 12 steps didn’t work for me. Traditional therapy didn’t work for me. And by didn’t work for me, it meant that I kept relapsing. And there was this expectation that I was going to be a porn addict forever. And there was no way that I could accept living with that shame and that limitation mentally.
for the rest of my life. I had big goals and I was like, I can’t have these big goals and be a functional person who wants to accomplish all these things when secretly I have to go to these meetings and talk about, hi, my name is JK and I’m a sex addict, day by day and one step at a time and all this shit. I was not built for that. I knew that. And so I had to start finding a different path. And I’ll pause there for a second because I could go off on this, but I want you to steer the.
Like a, like a true vet. Yeah. Somebody who’s been on podcasts before. Well done, man. There, there’s obviously a lot to that. I think one of the big things that has come to my mind as you were talking about it, and you just said it was the shame. So if you think of the religious system that people are raised in, specifically, or just even looking at Christianity, there is an immense amount of shame that goes along with anything sexual. Anything.
The storm that’s taking off.
I think that can also couple with an addiction and kind of fuel into that taboo in a sense. It sounds like you were close to like, if you kept going and kept going and kept going, it could have gotten to the point where it could have gotten really, really dark. Like you could have gotten to the point where you needed the, or you needed to kill somebody to actually have the arousal that you needed because that was so taboo and thank God it didn’t get to that point. Hopefully you never get to that point.
But thinking about the shame that’s involved with that, you have your shame of this isn’t who I am, this is not how I was raised. And as you had said that, I thought there could be somebody that listens to this that goes, but fuck, my parents were shitty. That was how I was raised. I don’t wanna be like that. I wanna get out of that. But no matter what we look at, I still think there’s a ton of shame that revolves around that. So how did you manage and how did you work through the religious shame?
the shame of like, this is not how I should be. And also find your own ground with it.
Yeah, dude, I’m first of all, I’m glad that you brought up the concept of shame, because that’s the one thing that keeps people from seeking help. Um, even as a business, there are a lot of individuals in the rehab community that refuse to work with individuals who have addictions to pornography. Because they say it’s very hard to get, if we were to put you as a prospect in a business term, to get people to admit it. And that’s because
The shame in this country is so pervasive. There are different ways of approaching it. As a coach, I would approach it very differently, but you asked about myself. And in my case, I separated religion from everything. I realized that if we were speaking about it from a Christian perspective, I had been raised to believe that I was originally sinful and that I would always be sinning. So I had to just go back and really understand.
what sin means, which it simply means to miss the mark. Right, that alone on a very logical and rational level allowed me to be very accepting of that. I also gave myself permission to slip and relapse. And that was very important. Like anything else in life, I was like, in everything else in life, we understand that we learn from our failures, right? In fact, some of us have gotten to a point where we are successful only because we expect failures. The failures happen and we’re just like,
It’s a failure, it’s a setback. Well, it’s just an opportunity. And I’m like that. I just don’t see failures. I only see if something happens in the company and my team is like, Oh my God, this happens. I’m just like, all right, awesome. Like they’re like, why do you always say that? I’m like, because maybe it’s time. It’s the opportunity to let go of three people in the company that maybe we need to create this. Hey, we needed to buy that software like three years ago, and now we’re paying the price. It’s not a failure, but we don’t do that with addictive behavior in this country.
If you slip and relapse, it doesn’t matter how many years you were sober. Oh, he lapsed and he’s got to start from the beginning. All the lessons you learned, all the neural reprogramming that happened and rewiring that happened is discounted in one fell swoop and we refuse to acknowledge that. Why? Because one of the reasons is because the recovery industry in the West
is dependent on shame. It is your shame that will keep you going. I’ve told people, I was like, elevated recovery is already, we’re popular, we do very well, and we are very popular with a certain type of high performer. But other programs can only survive by bringing God into it, by bringing the fear of eternal damnation and hell into it. I don’t want to do that because I’m not helping people with their shame, right? The shame piece of this for myself was
It caused me to hide so much and I wasted most of my early 20s, Nick. And for anybody who’s listening, who might be struggling with this, unable to speak up because I was always hiding. I had this fear when I would walk out in public, I couldn’t look a woman in the eye. I couldn’t speak up because there was this secret fear, irrational, that I would be discovered. I was like, Oh my God, they’re going to find out that I’m a dirty pervert who watches XYZ kind of genre pornography. And if they find out I’m screwed.
The moment I let this shame go, and here’s how you let the shame go, you gotta talk about it, right? When we talk about shame, what are some of the words we use? I just wanted the ground to open up and swallow me. I just wanted to hide. I just wanted to disappear at that moment. I felt so small. And we really think we can compartmentalize this? No.
If you feel small and you want the ground to swallow you up, well, that’s conditioning your subconscious mind. You will show up at work in your career, in your relationship, in every domain of your life as small. And some men, as you already know, from the sort of people who listen to your podcast, Nick, are really good at playing the game upfront. Like they can speak a good game, charismatic, they can impose their will on others, but they’re small on the inside. You gotta talk to people about it. And that’s what I started doing, Nick.
It was very difficult, but I sought help. And it was really just about being able to express that I was watching these fucked up things. I felt small, I felt dirty, but most importantly, I did not feel worthy of being loved because I felt that I was a filthy individual. I felt I was just not worthy of that.
What a wild thing when you start to open up, being able to have that conversation just by itself outside of your own being, I think can even just alleviate some of that pressure, even if you’re just of being able to share it with somebody. Yeah. It’s, it’s funny. Cause I actually, um, you’re pulling the questions out of me now. Um, I was going to say, yeah, well, there was, there was a time where somebody, um,
Yeah, have you had that experience? Yeah, yeah, just, yeah.
I’m actually curious, yeah.
There’s a little story, I’ll share that in a second. I did have conversations with people before and being able to have conversations with therapists when I was younger, I had pretty much a breakdown when I was like, I think I was 19 or 20. I overdosed on heroin a little bit before that. I started to actually see all the abuse that I went through, all the traumas that happened as a kid. And I…
I started to lose my mind. I thought I was going crazy. When I was in high school, I considered myself a misanthrope that I just hated people. Like I remember somebody telling me the word and I was like, that sounds on brand for me. Fuck all of you. Because I had shame and I had all this pain and my core wounding is that I don’t wanna be abandoned and I’m afraid of being unlovable. So being able to start to have those conversations, I remember having a conversation with a therapist when I was 19 or 20 and sharing.
different things that had happened. And one of those was my sex addiction. When I was younger, you said you realize that you didn’t have game when you’re 20 or 21. I realized I had game when I was like 13. Because I could manipulate. And I thought it was game. And I think I was just a douchebag that could manipulate talk a good game, but I would never want to be in anything longer because I want to fuck your friend really, you know, that sort of deal. And I
was doing that because of the shit that happened to me when I was a kid, the sexual stuff that happened to me when I was a kid, the physical, verbal, emotional abuse that happened to me as a kid, like I, in the same way like you figured out that, oh, I could turn this on and off, I can turn me on and off, I can elevate the way that I am, I can change my way of being just by viewing this or
going out and getting drunk and trying to figure out, am I gonna fuck you, your friend, or together, or whatever that’s gonna be. And I feel even gross saying that at this point, because that’s not who I am remotely, but I can look at, it was tough to have that conversation, but I do remember having a conversation. I like to always call out the shit that somebody could say that’s listening to this, it’s like, ah, fuck you people, you don’t know me, you don’t know my problems, you don’t know the stuff that I deal with. I had my best friend.
Literally the guy that I met first day of ninth grade, just we became best friends from that point on. We are still best friends today. We had a few years where we didn’t talk, but we had a few years where we were also business partners. And he and I would go to different conferences like Tony Robbins events and stuff like that, like all these personal development. And we were doing a lot of work, but really weren’t doing subconscious work. We weren’t getting as deep. And that’s fine, cause that’s just where we were. But I…
I remember there was a point we were at some conference and you needed to share something that was really dark. And I remember saying to him, I was like, Hey, I can’t stop masturbating. And I think I have a problem. And my friend looked at me and went, what the fuck? Stop like, get out of here. And I don’t remember what else he said, but it was just like, no, I don’t, we’re not going to talk about that. Basically I took it as like, he was like, I don’t want to think about you like that. We all have this sort of stuff.
But I remember I internalized that of like, oh, when I share, I feel shame and I can’t talk about these things with somebody who I feel safe with. And that pulled me away from that person. And it took me years to be able to actually even have that conversation with them. It wasn’t, I mean, I think that happened in like, I think I had a blackberry at that point when that happened. So mid 2000s.
And he and I actually talked about that maybe four or five years ago. I was like, I need to tell you this thing. This came up and he was like, Hey man, I didn’t mean that at all. You know, he’s we’re like brothers. I love you. And I, I’m sorry that I did that. And understanding it from his perspective, he was like, that was just a bit jarring because it was real deep and, uh, I had my own stuff. So I say this because.
I think it’s important for us to talk, but it’s also important for us to understand that other people are going to have their own reactions. People may be triggered by what you say. Therapists or somebody who’s a professional in that sort of way shouldn’t show their cards, but they may. You know, you may open up to somebody and they may go, Oh my God, what the fuck? You sort of pervert blah, blah. But then you find out that they love to have pearls in their ass or something random. You know what I mean? You’re like, how the fuck did you call me a pervert when whatever.
And it’s not a tit for tat sort of thing, full pun intended, I guess, but it’s really trying to make sure that we as people can at least look at what it is. I think shame is the biggest part of this episode really, because shame is the core of where addictions come from, not just sexual addictions, it’s anything. Anything that shifts the way that you are and allows you to step outside of that moment and feel like you have some sort of sense of control and you really don’t.
As you know, there are times where you are totally out of control. But I think, like you had said, it’s important for us to be able to talk, but it’s really important for us to understand that the only thing that we can control in those moments is that we are actively talking about it and we can interpret when somebody goes, Oh, what? Oh, I want to think about that. We shouldn’t take interpretations, but it’s easier said than done. I know I did. And then I went, Oh, no, it’s self. Yeah. I didn’t say it.
Verbally in my head, but I was like, oh, I can’t actually have this conversation and share a dark thing Without thinking that I can’t do any of this with somebody who’s even safe So how am I supposed to talk to anybody else like that and this stuff still happens, you know Where we still have these deep conversations should I had a conversation recently with my partner? about anxiety that I have and She was like have you ever looked into? Medication I was like it’s interesting because the fact that you even say that
reminds me that it’s okay to talk about what are other options that are outside of this because I, I was an addict for a long time. I stopped drinking last October and I’ve been sober since then alcohol wise, and I don’t see myself ever going back to that, but that coupled with pills and thinking of anxiety meds and it’s easy for us to kind of bridge these things together and go, Oh, well, shit. If I, if I’m an addict here, I would be an addict here. And if I can’t.
all the way back to the shame. So there’s a lot to it, but I do think there’s a lot of, it’s just shame at the core and being able to actually look at the fucking shame, figuring out where it’s come from and deep processing work with it to be able to work through it. What do you think?
Dude, I’m so glad I asked you that question. I’m so glad I asked you because I rarely, I do a lot of interviews, I’m invited for a lot, but I rarely find people who are willing to open up. And I think for the audience that’s listening, what you shared about shame is important because I think that is a fear of a lot of people. There are a lot of men struggling with this and they would seek help.
if they just had certainty that they wouldn’t be judged. And there’s so many people who show up and we’re having a first conversation, I can just see them shifting. They’re just looking for the cue in my face on the camera that shows that they’re being judged. They’re always looking. They’re just like, I’m just looking as I talk about these things. And I always tell them, I’m just like, well, listen, we’re just meeting. Maybe you listen to my podcast and binged it and you’re excited to speak to me. But I was like, the trust is earned.
I want you to spend time with us and the other men in our community and slowly start feeling safe and just going like, holy crap. That dude’s the CEO of like an eight, nine figure company and he just revealed that he got HIV because he was having sex with a transgender individual. And we all know who he is, but he just told us that’s the group. The respect that comes from that, just the respect from knowing that he exposed himself here and all 18, 19 of us in this elite group.
We are go, he can trust us with that. And what that means is so powerful. Like there’s already an energy here that I was already feeling. So I was just like, when I talked about worthy of love, there was something in Nick’s eye. And I was just like, I can’t move forward with this unless I hear his story. Just when I said, and I didn’t feel worthy of love, there’s something changed in you. And I was just like, I see that in clients sometimes. I gotta ask. And here we are, you know? So, no, I’m glad I asked that question.
Yeah, well, so much. Me too, man. And I mean, it makes me think of so much of the core of this is the shame, but we all need to be aware of what our core wounding is as well. Uh, something that has totally fucked my mind up in a beautiful way over this past year has been learning about the winning strategies, the subconscious winning strategies that we create.
And when I first thought about the winning strategy, I thought, Oh, that makes sense. Like you figure out a way to win and you fucking go win. Like it’s your winning strategy, but really it’s your, how do I stay safe? How do I stay away from my core wounding? What do I do? And I’ve learned ways. Like I learned when I was younger. Oh, I had some game. I could talk. I could make a girl laugh. I could get into her pants. I could do whatever. And like, okay, cool. I could do that. And I could do that as an activity to get me away from the other things.
So that only compounded the way that my winning strategy was because if I showed up in a certain way, I wouldn’t have to look at my shame. I wouldn’t have to look at the addictions. I wouldn’t have to deal with any of it. I would just have fun playing the game and I’ll let future Nick deal with it. Cause next day when I’m hung over thinking, what the fuck did I do? What happened? Then I would deal with the shame, but then I would figure out some other way to be able to go, oh, well musician. So I’ll go play some music or I’ll go do this or I’ll go do that and step away from it. And we as people,
are great at being able to talk ourselves in and out of things, no matter what intellect you have, no matter what level of that. So I think for us to be able to actually look at it, again, it’s the self awareness of it, but looking at that thing and being open. You’re right, people are afraid of being open, especially men. I don’t know what age range this is, but I’m just going to assume it’s for the most part, everybody that’s still alive, that they’ve had that thought of like, well, just put dirt on it, get the fuck back in the game.
because my dad told me when I was younger, we don’t cry or we don’t do this or we don’t do that. And I would like to think that our generations are starting to break that. We’ll see what generation Z and alpha will do from here. But there are some changes that are happening with that. Like I even look back to my father and my grandfather and go, wow, there was trauma that happened. There’s stuff that I have with my own mom that I’ve had conversations with that’s like, man, there was a lot of historical trauma.
that was just continued to be siphoned through you into me that became shame, that showed me I was unlovable, on my core wounding just became gross and big and just repulsive to me, which feel the shame. So for everybody that’s listening that you feel that, even if you don’t know how to put it into words, we can put it into words because one, JK you do this.
to, I, this is what I do and what we do as part of our company and helping people figure out what they’re here to do. But we need to take the time as people to be able to actually sit and look at it and fucking do something with it. So I guess that’s my challenge to people that are listening. And I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Not only do you need to do something with it, you need to show yourself grace, but you also need to hold yourself accountable.
You can’t just put dirt on it, get back in the game. Because it’s not like you go, ah, it’s totally fine. I’ll just close this box and put it deep inside with all the other fucking crazy nonsense that’s down there that I don’t want to look at. It’s being able to do something with it. But like you had said, allowing yourself to have that relapse instead of being like, oh, well, if I touch myself again, that means I’m gonna go, I’m gonna die and be tortured in hell for all of eternity. And God only knows what they’ll do to me. That only compounds the shame.
No, I love it. I love your view on it. I want to pick on one thing in particular. You talked about throwing dirt on it. And, uh, I want to talk about that for a moment because.
the more successful you are in life, successful, the more driven you are, the more sophisticated your ways of throwing dirt on this issue are. And when it comes to like out of control behaviors, our specialty is specifically driven men. For some reason, I don’t know why.
driven men just show up to me. Maybe because I call them out, maybe because they just don’t think anyone would figure that they were working with me for some reason or the other, but I became very good at working with them. And one thing is that there are a lot of successful high performing individuals who already realize that there is a core wound and they also simultaneously realize that it is that core wound. I love the way you use winning strategy.
I’ve actually never heard that term, which is interesting, but I get the concept. It’s that very avoidance of the core wound that has led to their success. And as they have come to realize that, so there is a fear that seeking help for this behavior, which is causing them to be deeply unhappy, is also the very thing that is responsible for their net worth.
is a thing that allows them to wake up at 4.30 in the morning and go out there, is the thing that makes them listen to all the success gurus and become gurus in their own right. And it’s very hard and very scary to show up and ask for help and realize that, Oh my God, if I am to face this, the abandonments, the neglect, whatever the trauma may be, I might lose my edge. I might lose my success.
That’s something to be afraid of. That’s one thing. The second thing is, there are some individuals who are very insulated from the reality of the out of control behavior. We have a lot of people who think that being an addict means being on the street, making dumb decisions, drinking and all of these things. So when they hear the word, addicted to pornography, it’s not a thing. I hear a lot of people who show up and they’re like, dude, I just thought I had a high sex drive, right? I just had a really high sex drive.
And that’s usually not the case. So changing the perception of what sexual compulsive behavior looks like is important. And then there’s some people who actually have too much to lose. When you realize that, you know, I had a client that, I don’t even say too much about him. Let’s say he’s a very successful individual, respected on-
multiple levels. He’s, he was at a stage he was so successful financially, the only thing left was to get into politics. And he didn’t even have a financial incentive. It was just the next logical step. He was at that level. And he is viewing transgender pornography at home, he’d been acting out with transgender individuals. And he identifies as straight and, you know, part of what I do with some individuals who are in the status to just ask them, would you date a transgender individual? Like, when you imagine
being, and this is for those of you, because there are a lot of men now who are at this point that their behavior has escalated to the point that they’re questioning this. I just wanna address it, even if it might be a niche group. Is that okay, Nick, for your audience? Yeah. If you’ve been watching gay pornography or transgender pornography, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but if you don’t identify with that and you find it distressing.
It’s bringing up thoughts of suicide and it’s really just like, God is messing with me because I’m with this beautiful woman who really thinks I’m straight and I’m hiding this and I’m not sure what’s going on. A simple test is just to get you started. It’s not the solution. It’s just ask yourself, when I listen to romantic music and I have these thoughts, do I imagine myself walking down the beach or going to the Maldives with a dude?
Um, do I mad when I’m on the beach, am I checking out men or women? And when I say that, it’s just like, are you looking at a dude? Because you’re just like, God, that dude’s fit. Like, man, I need to step my game up. Like, how does he do it on vacation? Like that’s 8% body fat or what? That’s different. But if you’re just like, if you’re checking out dudes, um, if you’re not checking out dudes, then you may not have a problem, but long story short, this gentleman was in that situation.
And he was watching transgender pornography. Family comes home. He has a beautiful, um, four or five year old, and she loves watching this show. So wife comes in and says, honey, can you come out and just help me get the groceries in and his daughter runs to his computer and she turns it on. And she screams. And he tells me he’s like, I’m in the garage holding the groceries and my wife is already ahead of me walking in. And he’s like, I realize in that moment.
that my life was going to change forever. He just knew in a split second, he couldn’t make it back there. He could hear the moans and the bumping and everything. And it was over. And even as he told me this, I was like, dude, I felt that. I felt your fear. I was like, dude, my butt just clenched just thinking of the fear of my nuts. I was just like, oh my God, dude, it’s so visceral, the fear of losing it all. And he did. She took.
Yeah. Yeah, they live here now.
everything, everything just started falling like dominoes. My point with this story is that he never thought it was a problem. He felt so safe, even had these scenarios in his mind that if she caught him, that he would have a conversation about her with her about it, he’d just be like, Yeah, I’m not sure if I’m bisexual or whatever, because she was open minded. And maybe the conversation would have been cool. And she would have been like, I’m a little bit upset and confused. But let’s work through it.
And when you’re really successful, charismatic, and sometimes manipulative, you really think you can get, you’re so confident. Like I can talk her through it. We’ll find a way. He didn’t count on his four or six year old being the one he would have to explain something to. Plot twist, huh?
man. Well, I think yeah, plot twist, but I think there are things that happen that are like, this had to happen to make sure that you get the fucking point. And there’s so many pieces that go along with that, where it’s like, we have to get the point. And like, if we don’t, we’ll learn it again. And it’s like, we can bring the, I don’t think of the even the religious side of it.
I was raised Catholic and I was Christian and I still identify as Christian, but it’s not a religious thing. Like I believe there’s a creator and I have a relationship with that creator. And I believe that there are things that are shown through my intuition that will open up those opportunities, uh, or at least show the opportunities. And that was probably the thing like, I’ve tried to get you to stop different ways, tried to help you understand how to look at this different ways, but now it’s got to be the five year old.
Uh, and I don’t, that’s almost like personifying God in a sense, but I think there are times where stuff like that will happen. The really interesting thing is I talk to people about traumas and about, uh, your calling and purpose in life. And one of the things that will come up at times when people get really, really close to that edge of the void of like, I’m about to jump over into a realm that I don’t know what’s going to happen because this is where the real me is.
I’ll have either with coaching clients or even people that are on the show. There’s the thought of like, well, fuck what if everything needs to change? And what if I lose everything? And if we step outside of that, and that could be easy for us to say, granted, I understand, but yes, what if you actually do, what if everything does need to change, what if you do need to fucking lose everything because that’s how you can then start to rebuild? I will ask the question from that point of. Well,
Would you rather live a lie or would you rather live in truth? And even if the truth is really painful and you have to reconfigure, would you rather live with that? And I think most people, even if they’re like, I would live with the lie because the other stuff really sounds painful. If you really get to the bottom of it, they don’t want to live with that. They don’t want to live with that at all. So being able to understand how do you interact with that as, as somebody, no matter if you have a eight, nine figure company,
or you’re a barista. Like, it does not matter. If things have to change, they have to change. But I think this is where the power play within ourselves comes in. Power play in the sense of like, we get to be accountable. We get to actually look at it. So if somebody’s listening to this podcast episode and they choose to go jerk off immediately after the episode, that’s a decision you make. If somebody listens to this and goes, maybe I do need to do something a little different, even if they do it within themselves.
there’s something that’s starting to happen at that point. What sort of advice would you give to somebody that’s on their path towards self mastery and trying to figure out what do I do with this and how do I keep taking those steps and allow myself to have grace, have the relapse, but also change the difficult things that need to change?
I’m going to take it back to the name of our company. Our company is called Porn Reboots. So our company is called Elevated Recovery now, but our flagship program is called Reboots. And this is for all of you who are just like, I just, I hear you guys. I hear y’all. I have this problem in some way, shape or form. And I’ll be honest with y’all. It sounds good. And I do a lot of mental masturbation, but I just don’t know how to take the first step.
I was that way for so many years. And I’ve always viewed recovery as I went through the process as recovering that which we lost to this addictive behavior. But we must also acknowledge another thing. If we were, if our addiction began at an early age and progressed over time due to trauma, we kept finding different things to soothe and medicate the way we felt.
We are no longer that age. If you’re 41 or you’re 39 or you’re 35 right now and you’re trying to recover that which you lost at 21, you’re never going to get it back because we don’t know what it would have been like for you. And that was a huge realization for me. Some of you are still trying to go back to some mythical golden age, instead of really accepting the reality of your mind, body and growth at this moment. And that’s where rebooting came from.
It was literally from self-awareness and realizing that I can only start from where I’m from. And that was to hit the reset button right where I was and be okay with starting everything right over. Which means it is perfectly fine and healthy to rebuild your self-image from the ground up at whatever stage you’re at. So if you find yourself unable to take the first step, that’s the first thing I’ll say.
except that it’s okay to hit the reset button. How would I put it? A lot of people go like, fine, because I deal with the arguments all day long. I think I’ve done something like that in the past and it didn’t work out. I was really committed. Commitment being doing the thing you said you were going to do long after the emotion, when you originally said you were going to do it, has passed. That’s commitment. But a lot of people don’t have resolve.
And this may sound cliche, because we hear resolve all the time. Resolve means after you have committed to do that thing, even when your emotion changes, you take a moment to think of all the obstacles that are going to come up in your way. All the obstacles. What are the obstacles? I don’t know, maybe I get, no, what are the obstacles? I might run out of money. Okay, cool, you might run out of money trying to fix this thing, right? Well.
my sex life might suck as I start treating this, I might realize that I actually don’t enjoy sex as much. It’s no longer colorful. It’s black and white. I’m like, okay, I might have to change my image and not be such a fun, charismatic dude. Like I’m no longer fun. I’m like, yes, that’s an obstacle. Prepare for those obstacles and tell yourself that I’m already climbing the fricking mountain. There’s a certain point when you get, that you get to if you’re climbing.
You can’t come down. You just look down and you’re just like, Oh shit, I’m ready to piss myself up here. I’m so scared. Uh, I can only keep going up and you tell yourself when I get to that point. I can’t let go and it’s having resolve. Now there are a whole bunch of other things that I can add to it. We don’t have the time for it, but just remember you don’t have to do it alone. You could be up there about to piss yourself on the mountain going like I’m going to die. I don’t know if I can make it up there.
But it’s also helpful if there’s someone who’s just a little bit more experienced and you watch that son of a bitch, he just keeps going and you’re just like, bro, how? And he’s like, you’re not going to die. And he’s calm. He’s collected and he just keeps fucking going. And you’re just like, God, this is not the place to be a little bitch. Okay. Just, that was a bitch moment. Let’s keep going. I’m going to, if he can do it, I can, those little moments, they count. It sounds cliche now, but when you’re on that mountain, you don’t have time to be a smart ass.
You know your life’s at stake, but that only happens when you make the decision to hit the reset button, make the commitment, and resolve to move forward.
great way to put that man. I mean, you know, of course, there’s a lot more to this, but I’m glad that you ended it with you don’t have to do it alone. And there are a lot of men that are suffering, just straight up suffering. And as Victor Frankl has told us in his wonderful book, there is meaning and suffering. So you continue to suffer, but you can work through that and you can work through that with somebody else. Back to the challenge that I had before it sounds similar to what you’re saying we’re
You don’t have to do this alone, but just step out and start having the conversation. Think through even with yourself and then start to look for resources. JK is a great resource. There are other resources that are out there. There are resources that are right there within your, possibly even your family system, if not your friend’s system, to be able to talk about some of these things. And as I said earlier, if somebody says something weird or they’re triggered or what have you, you can still work through that and you can still heal from it.
So I’m glad that you brought that up as you don’t have to do it alone and to be able to follow somebody like that. So where can people find you? Where can they connect with you? And where can they find more resources to be able to help them on this?
Cool. First thing I want to say is that I would prefer that you connect with me. All right. Do not, please. I just want to make it clear. This might be weird, Nick. I actually don’t like people putting in applications because it really wastes our time. And what I mean by that is there’s a lot of work to be done. Gentlemen, sometimes people hear and, and let’s say you, I borrowed some of Nick’s status and they’re like, man, I trust Nick.
this guy was on there, they sounds like they are vibing, you know what, this is the guy that’s gonna help me. No, that’s not that’s not how it works. You still have shame. Sure, for a brief window, you feel encouraged and you’re like, wow, I love the vibes of this. I want to reach out. Please use our free resources first. My podcast is called the porn reboot podcast. I’d much rather you spend a year listening to all my episodes and
work with a therapist or someone else because you’ve learned a lot, then you put in an application right away and get overwhelmed by your shame and then feel like some sort of failure because you weren’t really ready for this. Okay. If you’re dealing with this addictive behavior, I’m happy to connect. We’ve got a free Facebook group. So you can just add me as a friend on Facebook, J K last name E M E Z I, and just vibe with me in the comments. I like to talk and it’s social media. I’m actually social on social media.
It’s a tool to spread the message, but let’s just chat. And I want you to feel like I’m a human being because I’ll say this, the different between porn reboot and everything out there is we’re not a service. I didn’t share this with you, Nick, but actually I ran a door to door sales company till I was 31 and I had a, I was fortunate to have a very good exit with my partner. So I decided when I decided to actually go in all the way and do this, I decided that yeah, sure. I want it to be profitable.
but I also wanted to be able to tell people to fuck off. I don’t mean to trigger anyone shame. I’m not going to tell you to fuck off. What I meant is we are not a service, we are compliance. It means that you struggle with a behavior you have no control over. And chances are you’re a high performer, got a little bit of an ego, you’re a smart dude, right? You’re just like, oh, I know what you’re doing. But when you show up, we’re going to make sure that you get this done. I’ll cry with you.
but I’ll also fucking yell at you if you drop money and you try to disappear. Like I’ll call your wife if she got on the first call with you and I’m just like, hey, listen, Robert hasn’t been showing up to his fucking call. So he’s asked me to get into my call this afternoon. Oh, but he’s at work. Well, let him get in his car and take the call with me or one of the therapists. I am super invested in this. I get all my energy from this. So vibe with me first. And I’m gonna shout out a website. It’s not mine.
but it belonged to a gentleman I respect a lot, the late great Gary Wilson. And he has a wonderful site where a lot of free materials is called Your Brain on Pornography. It’s donation-based, but there’s so much information on learning about this. And you will learn more about this behavior and yourself from that website. So do that, check me out at elev add me as a friend on Facebook, PornReboot Podcast.
And check out Gary’s stuff, Your Brain on Porn. He spent his life building up that resource, and I owe a lot to him as well.
I appreciate that you put it out there like that. This section at the end of the podcast is always for people to be able to talk about their service, how they make money, how they help people, all of that. I appreciate when people do what you do, where it’s like, look, I get it. We all need to live, we need to eat and all of that, but really we need to fucking help. And that’s what you’re here to do. So men, this is a touchy subject. I get it. We get it. We understand.
Looking at those free resources are something you can do even in incognito, just like you would do other things. So instead of going to those other sites, being able to look at that. And if this pops up in your mind, when you’re about to make that decision to do that thing, take a chance on us. Try that. Try the resources that can actually help you. Um, so JK, this has been an absolute pleasure, man. I appreciate you being on, uh, and thank you so much for doing the work that you’re doing, this is important stuff.
Dude, thank you so much for, for doing what you’re doing, but most importantly, thank you for opening up and sharing and being vulnerable on your own podcast. I it’s, it’s so rare that I’ll have, I’ll be a guest on someone’s show and they’ll just get into it and talk about that. Actually, I got to listen to your podcast now and, uh, I can already tell there’s going to be some deep stuff in there.
I think it’s wild that people don’t like, why the fuck would you have a podcast that talks about mindset or mastery or anything that has to do with things that are outside of that doesn’t make any sense, but to each their own. Yeah. But again, that kind of goes back to what we talked about before. There’s shame there. There’s you look at well, I should be this sort of way. I should be bigger than life when in all reality, we’re two dudes that
Yeah, I get your frustration on that. I’m on the same page with you on that. Like, why would you even do it?
have had problems before and we’ve become successful in different ways, but that doesn’t fucking matter at all. It’s how do you do the things that are actually life giving and not taking it away. So man, I appreciate you being on. Thank you so much, JK.
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