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

Interested in the Unhooked App? Join the waitlist here: 
https://unhookedapp.co/

Jeremy Lipkowitz hosts Brannon and Tyler Patrick on Unhooked to discuss why sobriety and recovery are not the same thing. The brothers are licensed clinicians with about forty years of combined experience treating porn addiction and betrayal trauma, and they host The Therapy Brothers podcast. They explain why a heavy emphasis on sobriety is a prelude to relapse, why focusing on inputs beats chasing a streak, and why recovery worked for a spouse always collapses. Tyler breaks down their trust equation for rebuilding trust after betrayal: shame resiliency on both sides plus rigorous honesty, empathy, and consistent action over time. They also cover what real humility is, the hero's journey framework behind their men's program, healthy disclosure versus probation officer check-ins, and what a betrayed partner is really asking underneath the questions about details.

Chapters:

00:00:00 The energy that actually sustains recovery 

00:01:01 The cave you fear to enter 

00:01:50 Episode intro and the Unhooked app waitlist 

00:04:35 Welcome Tyler and Brannon Patrick 

00:05:42 Taking men from untrustworthy to trustworthy 

00:06:55 What twenty years changed about their approach 

00:10:32 How each brother found this work 

00:14:08 Sobriety versus recovery 

00:17:31 The paradox: does that mean relapse is fine? 

00:20:28 Guys who do not know their sobriety date 

00:22:17 When sobriety becomes a weapon 

00:23:38 Trap one: getting humility backwards 

00:24:54 Trap two: recovering for your spouse 

00:28:31 Resentment, and turning your partner into your god 

00:28:57 Why the instinct to perform makes sense 

00:30:39 Corrective experiences and the challenges they run 

00:35:30 The hero's journey 

00:36:25 Tyler's map of energies, from coercion to love 

00:39:05 When a man will not step over the threshold 

00:42:26 The parable of the snake and the apples 

00:44:53 Where rebuilding trust starts: rigorous honesty 

00:46:11 When your partner draws a hard line 

00:48:39 Disclosure, lines of defense, and check ins that work 

00:49:03 The trust equation 

00:51:43 What a betrayed partner is really asking 

00:52:58 What actually needs to be disclosed 

00:56:35 Harnessing sexuality instead of killing it 

00:58:30 What they want couples to hear 

01:03:03 Where to find Tyler and Brannon 

01:03:45 Closing

The Therapy Brothers, for Unhooked listeners: therapybrothers.org/unhooked 

Unhooked Academy: unhookedacademy.com 

Unhooked app waitlist: unhookedapp.co

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

Jeremy Lipkowitz hosts Alessandro on Unhooked to discuss his mission of helping men become husbands, fathers, and human beings they admire, inspired by what he lacked in role models and his marriage. Alessandro explains Dr. Arne Rubenstein’s boy-to-man framework, contrasting boy traits like self-centered power, emotional reactivity, blame, and wanting a “mother” with mature ideals such as service to the team, emotional humility, integrity and ownership, and equanimity in relating to the feminine. They explore how Western culture lacks rites of passage, and Alessandro outlines four initiation components: shared stories, challenge, honoring, and vision for the future. The conversation also covers why men avoid ownership, how men’s circles help disclose porn struggles, distinguishing ownership from shame, stream-of-consciousness journaling, and why being a better husband often means reconnecting with oneself while nourishing the household.

00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro

00:32 Mission Beyond Alpha

03:21 Conscious Masculinity Basics

04:22 Boy to Man Framework

10:54 Applying Traits to Marriage

14:11 Understanding the Feminine

17:19 What Initiation Means

19:41 Rites of Passage Four Parts

27:12 Why Ownership Is Hard

30:34 Handyman Trigger Origins

31:54 Owning Your Feelings

32:36 Recovery Check Ins

35:23 Beyond Performative Apologies

36:24 Resistance And Hard Talks

39:16 Mens Circle Confession

41:37 Ownership Versus Shame

42:22 Shoveling The Shit

48:53 Morning Pages Practice

51:29 Stop Appeasing Your Wife

54:51 Mission Nourish Household

58:34 Lightness Without Excuses

01:01:14 Walking Forward Balance

01:04:29 Final Takeaways And Outro

Connect with Alessandro on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alessandro_frosali

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

In this episode, Jeremy Lipkowitz—former genetics researcher, ordained Buddhist monk, mindfulness teacher, executive coach, and founder of Unhooked Academy—shares his personal journey from early exposure to pornography through daily use in college and into recovery. He discusses how porn’s accessibility, affordability, and anonymity fuel addiction, while underlying drivers often include boredom, loneliness, disconnection, and emotional avoidance. The conversation explores how novelty and endless scrolling train dissatisfaction, how porn can reshape intimacy and create secrecy and shame, and why sobriety alone isn’t the same as recovery—unaddressed roots can lead to cross-addictions. Jeremy highlights the role of community, mindfulness, self-compassion, and present-moment awareness to create choice between stimulus and response, and warns that AI-generated porn and AI companions are already accelerating these risks. He also points to porn’s exploitative underbelly and invites listeners to assess whether harms outweigh perceived benefits.

00:00 Meet Jeremy Lipkowitz

00:26 His Recovery Journey

01:27 Triggers and Three As

03:17 When It Became a Problem

07:01 Sobriety Versus Recovery

08:14 Compulsion or Addiction

10:02 Why Porn Hooks You

13:48 Roots of Addiction

17:10 Connection and Environment

18:41 Men Versus Women

20:23 Slow Burn Consequences

23:06 Signs You Have a Problem

25:28 Porn Warps Intimacy

27:47 Shame and Taboo

28:13 Courage to Reach Out

28:45 Wedding Trigger Story

30:53 Self Deception Narratives

32:33 Powerless vs Powerful

34:56 Beliefs Shape Outcomes

36:13 Stress Anxiety Reframe

37:37 AI Porn Future Risks

40:49 Recovery Community Work

43:31 Presence and Choice Space

46:07 Equanimity with Discomfort

48:30 Porn Industry Reality Check

51:18 OnlyFans Dopamine Escalation

53:39 Cost Benefit Clarity

54:45 Where to Find Jeremy

55:36 Final Wrap Up

Connect with Darren Magee here:

https://www.youtube.com/c/DarrenFMagee

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

Jeremy Lipkowitz joins Piers Cross on An Evolving Man to discuss how porn addiction is driven and worsened by craving, shame, and avoidance of unpleasant emotions like boredom, loneliness, anxiety, and lack of purpose. Jeremy shares his own history of early porn exposure, how Buddhism and Matthieu Ricard’s book Happiness helped him understand neuroplasticity (“neurons that fire together, wire together”) and craving as suffering, and why recovery requires more than willpower. They explore why modern porn is uniquely addictive through affordability, accessibility, anonymity, and infinite novelty, and why taking distance from porn reveals impacts on clarity, confidence, and integrity. The conversation emphasizes mindfulness as awareness across the “six sense doors,” community and men’s groups to dissolve isolation and shame, skillful moral shame/dread (hiri and ottappa), and how the attention economy and tech design mimic slot machines to capture attention.

00:00 Shame And Escape

01:18 Rebroadcast And Themes

02:40 Meet Jeremy Lipkowitz

03:54 Porn Habit Origins

06:41 Buddhism Changes Everything

08:46 Neuroplasticity And Craving

12:29 Beyond Meditation Recovery

14:17 Porn Culture And Taboo

16:57 Smartphone Porn Explosion

21:04 Why Porn Hooks Us

24:50 Reclaiming Healthy Sexuality

26:49 Triggers And Emotional Avoidance

29:33 Feeling Emotions In The Body

31:56 Slow Down The Urge

32:59 Mindful Smoking Insight

33:48 Mindfulness In Recovery

35:21 Shame And Community

39:40 Porn Shame Stigma

42:39 Healthy Moral Shame

47:42 Four Truths Reflection

49:31 Attention Economy Trap

55:24 Reclaiming Your Attention

57:31 What Mindfulness Means

59:28 Six Sense Doors Practice

01:01:22 Closing And Resources

🔹 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: [email protected]


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: [email protected]


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: [email protected]


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

🔹 Want to break free?

Get my FREE 14-day slip reset here:
https://unhookedacademy.com/reset

This week, I'm resharing a conversation I had with Breanne Wilson on the Adventures in Adversity podcast because I think this message is more important than ever.

We talk about my journey from porn addiction to recovery, how addiction rewires the brain, why shame keeps so many people trapped, and what it really takes to build a life of integrity, purpose, and freedom. We also explore mindfulness, neuroplasticity, healthy masculinity, and why lasting recovery isn't about willpower, it's about creating a life you no longer want to escape from.

Whether you're struggling with porn, another compulsive habit, or simply searching for deeper fulfillment, I hope this conversation reminds you that change is possible.

What's one area of your life where you're ready to stop escaping and start healing?

If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who could benefit from it, and subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss future conversations on recovery, self-mastery, and living with purpose.

🔹 Want to break free?

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



Connect with Jeremy:

🌍 Website: JeremyLipkowitz.com

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

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

📩 Email: [email protected]


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



Connect with Breanne Wilson

🌍 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adventuresinadversitypodcast/
🎙️ Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/adventures-in-adversity-an-inspirational-podcast/id1727019294



Timestamps: