There's a moment in every man's life where he realizes the thing he thought was helping him cope is actually keeping him trapped. I just got off an episode of Melanie Curtin's show, Dear Men, where Luke Adler and I dove into what we call the trifecta: weed, porn, and masturbation. Yeah, we went there, because these aren't just habits, they're the invisible chains that keep so many of us from showing up as the men we're meant to be.
Look, I'll be straight with you. I was a porn addict from a pretty young age. Got broadband Internet in high school and that became my primary relationship for over a decade. Not something I'm proud of, but it's real. And the thing I've learned, both from my own journey and from working with hundreds of men, is that almost every guy is using one of these tools to self-regulate. Maybe it's not porn. Maybe it's weed numbing you out, or alcohol "taking the edge off," or just compulsive jerking off to fall asleep at night.
We talked about why men reach for these things. It's not just horniness or boredom. There's something deeper underneath that urge. It's a longing for connection, for freedom from tension, for some kind of relief from the loneliness so many men are drowning in. The problem is these quick hits don't actually address what's really going on. They just cover it up for a few hours, and then you wake up the next day feeling worse than before.
What really landed for me in this conversation was talking about how isolated men have become. We're not designed to do life alone, but our culture has stripped away most of the structures that used to connect us. No public squares, no third places, just screens and delivered groceries and the illusion that we don't need other people. And when men don't have real connection, real places to be vulnerable and transparent without getting crucified for it, we turn to these substances and behaviors.
If any of this is resonating, that's exactly why Luke and I created the Heart of Shadow program. It's a container where men can actually feel their shit, name what's really happening, and be held without judgment. Not theory, not self-help fluff. Real embodied work that gets to the root.
You can learn more at evolutionarymen.com.
