Finding Balance in a Pornified World: A Conversation With Matt Fradd

Everybody. Welcome back to the Covenant Eyes Podcast. So glad to be here with you. I've got Rob Stoddard sitting shotgun today. How are you, Rob? Good, good. Well, we're glad to have you. So it's exciting to to be on today because we have one of our favorite guests joining us. Matt Fradd welcome to the Covenant Eyes Podcast. How are you? I'm good. I'm just now realizing that the two of you have lovely, subtle headphones and I have this monstrosity alone, but this is what I've decided to go with. I love it. It's like the rock star headphones. I like it. Well, it's so good to have you. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about paint with the quietness and some of the work that you you're doing out there in the world? I know you're a super busy guy. Yeah, not terribly busy, but I do run a podcast called Pints with Aquinas, which is a long form discussion show in which we talk about philosophical and theological issues. That's that's it. And then I've got four beautiful children, lovely wife, and we live in Steubenville, Ohio. Nice. Ohio's. You're getting ready for winter like we are in Michigan. Yes. Here comes. Here it comes. Well, good. Well, we're glad you're here today. We we'd love to have you on because you are kind of an expert in our space. You've talked about the issue of pornography and how it's impacting men specifically for a long, long time. And you're actually the creator of this Strive 21 program that Covenant Eyes has available to all the guys out there. Do you want to talk a little bit about your inspiration behind that program? Absolutely, yeah. Well, I've been speaking and writing on the topic of pornography for about ten or 15 years, and so decided to kind of distill all that I learned into a 21 day course. Each day is about a five or 3 to 5 minute video where I kind of lead you, you know, in the steps to overcome pornography. I think most fellows know that porn's bad. They don't need to kind of be convinced of that, but they do need a battle plan and so, yes, very highly produced. It's not an isolated program that men go through. I think we've had 60 something thousand men go through the course, if I'm not mistaken, and it's also 100% free, which is just awesome. So, yeah, I'm pretty happy with it. Yeah, as a matter of fact, Matt, that that number is about 68,000 guys that have gone through that. So, yeah, kudos to you for for producing. That's been a wonderful resource for us. And you know, one of the things that we do always run into though is once you guys have completed the 21 days, it really is a start to get them some help beginning, you know, begin that process of healing. But we're constantly running into, well, what's next? Do you have some ideas of what you've seen? What really works well as a next step after after strive? Yeah, I'd like to think of freedom, not so much as a destination that we reach after we, you know, submit to this program and pay $21 to something. I don't know. It's it's really a daily choice, right, that I have to make by my actions. And there's really no secret magical cure to this. I remember living in Georgia and I got something in the mail that was accidentally delivered to me and of my next door neighbor who I didn't know. And so I opened it up accidentally. And it was it was like weight loss pills or something with how awkward. Now I have to go like, but it's like, we all want like this quick fix. But I think usually it says like time tested things that we've heard repeated a lot that we need to continue to implement. I guess if I could sum it up though, I would say the three things that I see that work really well in unison would be, you know, being accountable to somebody. I think maybe finding a certified sex addiction therapist or a good therapist to work through some of the stuff and and, you know, sort of well, as a Christian, I would say a spiritual direction to have someone kind of helping you in your journey. Those three things would be would be important. And then and then just patient perseverance, you know, like, bloody hell, we've been born into a porn ified culture. This stuff has been foisted on us. It was on me. I was eight years old. I didn't ask for that and learned to turn to it whenever I felt kind of emotionally turbulent. And that's how I was raised, you know, since the time of eight. And so I, I know that we live in a society that doesn't want to take more responsible leave for things. And so because of that, we can tend, I think, to be too hard on ourselves. But I do think it is important to be like, you know, some of this wasn't my fault. I mean, some of it was they chose to actively engage in things that were damaging to me and other people. But some of this was foisted on me. These were habits I learned as a child, you know, this and this, this, whatever you want to call it, whether you want to call it an addiction or whatever, obsession, habit thing, you can't seem to stop even though you want to. This didn't develop overnight and it's not going to go away overnight either. And so I think just having patience with ourselves is a much, much better thing than just kind of getting angry with ourselves, which only aggravates the issue more. That makes sense. Good advice. You know, I think you brought up a good point. A lot of people are exposed at such a young age. And as a mom, that's heart wrenching to me because our kids are literally not asking for this and it's being delivered to them on technology. So, Matt, you're a dad, right? And what do you do to help protect your children from accidental exposure and how do you prepare them for this porn ified world? Well, I'm happy to share what I do, but I don't want people to think that I'm imposing what we do on them as if to say this is the only way. But we decided to homeschool our kids at a young age and decided that they would have very limited access to the Internet. Almost none really. My son got a what's called a gab phone, which is like a smart looking, dumb phone when he was when he was 14, I guess. And my daughter is now 14. And we've decided, yeah, we're not going to get her a phone until she's about 16. We didn't like the way that the phone, even a dumb phone, would take them out of the family. They'd be engaging in other conversations that just like being, you know, together. And I think homeschooling really helped with that. I think if I did send my children to a Catholic school or a public school or an early age, they would have been social lepers by the time they were ten. And I suppose the the peer pressure would have been such that they would have talked me into getting them. So that was one thing we did. We still we would do like we thought we'd have family movie night once a week, you know, or I'd allow my son to play for an hour on the Nintendo Switch on the weekend, those sorts of things. So I guess that's one thing we did. And honestly, it wasn't even just because of pornography, it was just because the internet is a hellscape and social media is wicked. And I didn't want them having to battle that. Like I wanted my beautiful daughter to, like, learn how to journal and not worry about what filter made her face look better on Instagram. It just wasn't something I wanted to impose on her. So we did that. I don't know. So we also I spoke very openly to my children about pornography and sex. From the age of six. I guess. And so and then whenever we would kind of open up a new vista in the Internet space, you know, like, then I would have that conversation again in a more age appropriate way as they got older. And it was, you know, very much like if you see pornography, please tell me, look, I love you so much and I wouldn't be angry, but I've seen what it's done in my own life and the lives of other people. And yeah, that that kind of stuff. I don't really Good. Yeah. Matt, speaking of the Internet, I caught one of your older podcasts where you talked about your one month kind of stay from the Internet and you know how you did that. Tell us a little bit about that, because I want to I want to explore that a little bit in relationship to what we do. And there are ways to help people, but let's start there. So are you still doing that now, by the way? Yes. So about three, three, four years ago, I just started realizing that the Internet was like eating into my brain, eating into my time. I would find myself playing Lego with my kids and wondering who responded to the tweet I just put out and what I would say back and I got an email and it was just continually interrupting me and I didn't like that. And so I began by what I would do on Friday, and I just put my laptop and my phone in a bag, zip it up and give it to a friend and say, I'm going to come back on Monday morning to get this. And I remember sometimes backing out of the driveway and then touching my leg as if all the world needs to hear this brilliant tweet. Clearly, I need to do this now and then remembering I don't have that anymore. So almost like going without your arm or something. And I really enjoyed those weekends. They were just slower. I found that I was able to think more clearly, concentrate for longer periods of time or get reading done, you know, and so I said, I'm going to try to do this for a month now. I'm blessed, right? I have the well, I am blessed, but I don't want to let other people off the hook too easily because my job involves YouTube. That's what I do. I'm a YouTuber, so I do work on the Internet. But what I decided to do one July is bank a bunch of episodes and then at the end of July, I gave away my phone. I gave away my computer for the entire month of August, and I have been doing that every year. This year I have not done it because we're planning a sabbatical overseas starting in January, so I suspect I'll take it then instead. And it's great. The analogy I would use is there's so many analogies. Here's one I remember when I was about, I don't know, like I don't know, maybe maybe ten years ago I went back to Australia to visit my folks, live in a very small country town, and nothing ever happens in this country except for this one day where there was a police raid taking place on a house across the road from us. And when my dad let me look. Come in, come look at this. And so, like, we're standing looking through the door, wondering what's happening. And it was quite dramatic. And this for I don't know what was going on, drugs or something, but the standoff or whatever it was lasted all day. And so our whole day revolved around looking through this screen at something that really was none of our business and added nothing to our day anyway. You know, we'd go get lunch, come back, and nothing happened. Like, what have I done? And I thought, like, the phone's like that, you know, it just sort of distracts me from more beautiful things I could be doing. So that's what I, that's what I did. I always choose like a book to read for that entire month. I'll even, like, schedule out like the pages. I'll read that particular day. Usually a bigger book. And anyway. That's incredible. That's good. And it's funny that it's incredible, right? Because like, well, old enough to remember the time without the internet. But I think today, if you said to like a Gen Z, would you rather have no food on Mondays or no Internet on Mondays? Like, I think it'd be a hard decision for folks. It's right here. It's wild. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny because we were with my son. He is a Gen Z or so. We were out doing some shopping and we were just like having a day in a little Christmas town that's near our home. It's all Christmas, everything is Christmas. And he was on his phone. It was like, Could you get set up for the whole day? And he gave us his phone and he did not use it for the entire day. And he's like, Yeah, I'm totally fine with that. I hate my phone. I was like, bless him. Fabulous. Yeah. One day, though. You give me an idea because see, my eldest is now nearly 16, so he has an iPhone, but it's lockdown. Like there's no app store. The Covenant Eyes is the app he uses. It turns off at ten or so. But I might actually I might stop bribing him with cash like give up every every day you go your phone. I'm going to give you $10. I think he'd do it. Hey, you're on to something. We could start an online petition of parents that join the movement, right? Yeah, Our kids to get off the phone. Yeah, but when we. You know, when we talk with so many men and women, they're just frustrated, you know, with that device, because that's, you know, that's where they're struggling the hardest. But yet, just like you said, you know, it's pretty hard to give that up. I think there's some really some some meat in here to start talking about. What can you start to do? You started small and I think that's probably the key. But, you know, for for those men and women who are struggling with those devices, what is maybe some steps that you'd recommend to start with just to dip a toe into this and see where they can go with it? Well, one thing, first of all, it's kind of the recognition that you don't have as much control over this thing than you think you do, I guess I think most of us were defensive when somebody questions us, you know, like, you know, like I'm not on it too much. I just I was just took it. What? I was just doing this. I was just doing this one thing. I had to reply. Yeah, it's the point. Isn't that what you were doing was frivolous? The point is that it distracts human interaction and and you know, even just the idea that you walk around your house and you cannot clean your kitchen unless you have a podcast like, how the hell am I going to clean? I don't know how to claim a kitchen. I can't work out unless I'm lost. How would I possibly do that? Like, I think you're correct, recognizing the way like that and then being like, okay, that might not be the best thing. And then so one thing I will I'll often do is I'll leave my I'm in my office right now. It's about a five minute drive from my house. I'll leave my phone and my computer at the office and just go home for the weekend. Go go home for the night. You know, like realize that you actually I mean, look, maybe people do have way more control than I'm willing to give them. Maybe I'm just speaking to myself here. But like, you don't actually have as much control as you think you do. Yes, of course. You could turn it off and leave it in the front hallway, but you'll go turn it on again because you've become a slave. So like knowing yourself is half the battle. And so that it in a place that you can't easily access, it might be a good idea. That's a great that's a great first step. I think for a lot of people. We just we need to take breaks from technology because then it helps us to assess how addicted we actually have become. Because I know for myself, you you get so accustomed because our job is on computers all day. We help people and, you know, we talk to them via email all day long. We don't realize that technology is pretty much embedded into our day to day life. 24 seven and we've got to take breaks from it or we will be succumb to all of the addictions that are related to pornography or just, you know, addictions to technology in general. I call my wife's phone, Greg, like, is there a reason you're talking to Greg right now? Like, what the hell was Greg here? Can can we send Greg away, please? So just that, you know, to passively, aggressively shame your wife that I found that's really useful to. We do not endorse that No. Okay. It is funny though. Like if you did think of your phone as like this other person is like what? Like, you know, you could imagine yourself in a conversation with somebody or on a road trip and they're checking their phone and you're like, What? Like, can we just talk? And then you feel, I've got to somehow be as interesting as the phone is, which is impossible. So no, I, I, I'm very conflicted. I, I, I like everybody both love and hate it. It's like, it's like a bowl of Skittles, you know, like you're always eating them and it's always exciting, but you're not satisfied ever. You're like, What am I doing? What I keep refreshing, What do I keep bouncing from? App to app to app? I hate that I'm like this. So that beats me. And my wife said to me once, by the way, I'm a huge fan of my wife, so if it sounds like I'm making of I, she's a much better human being than me. She's my best friend. I love her. But what did she say? She said, Well, why do you think it makes you feel so anxious as if it was my fault? And I say, I said, No, I'm pretty sure this is the actual human way to respond. Like, if you don't feel that way, like, I don't think you're in touch with your heart. I think, like, maybe there's something that you need. You know, I really think it's so like, we've become cyborgs with I don't have one of those phones and I'm not sorry. The watches, the eye watches and I'm not, you know, whatever. People people seem like they love them and but it's like, okay, now I'm literally tethered myself to the Internet. I don't. And so every day I contemplate abandoning Catholicism and becoming Amish. So me and my family talked about that, too. We're like progressive Amish, though, because we want to have the Internet. You know, I just I don't. I just get it. You know, as you say that I'm, like, wearing my face watch. I know. And, you know, it's funny because I try to take it off at night, so at least I don't sleep with it because I want all the metrics, right? I want to know how much sleep did I get? I want to know how many beats my heart had. Like we are just very much addicted to the convenience of technology. Go ahead. I think a question to ask is what level of inconvenience am I willing to embrace to live a more peaceful life? You know, because it is inconvenient to not have a smartwatch. It's inconvenient not to have a phone. And it's it's like extremely annoying. You go to a store and now you've got to scan the QR code because they won't bring you a menu and all this sort of stuff. So it is it is annoying, but it's the price you got to pay, I guess, to deliver live an inconvenient life in some regards so that your life can be slower and more at ease. And others, I don't know. I'm just thinking this through. It is, you know, the internet is so subtle, You know, things like reading the newspaper or reading, you know, a book. Now we do that on our phones in our our technology. So replacing things that we did anyway, which isn't necessarily bad. But I think the real danger is that social media, right? I mean, once we start down that path, all those algorithms in there just keep feeding us and feeding us and feeding us. And, you know, when you talk about somebody who's struggling with, you know, sexual addictions or things of that nature, you know, we're just continually fed more and more and more. And in it's so subtle that people just don't realize the damage it's doing and so, you know, that's certainly where I think accountability a good you know, certainly a filter block. But that accountability is is really key to have in place. So how do you help somebody that is just not sensing, not aware of just all of that that's being fed to them and kind of dragging them down that that slippery slope? Well, I guess like if I don't know them, I guess I don't care that much, Right? Like, I I'm really more interested in the people who I interact with on a daily basis, like especially the people in my in my family. Like those things would bother me because I might see how it interrupts, like what would otherwise be a beautiful night where like, I'm reading fairytales to the kids and this and bloody Greg shows up and whoever else, you know, my son has a phone I should give his, his, his phone as a name as well. But I, you know, I guess if what I'm saying is not resonating, good for you. Like maybe you live a super balanced life and this this is all coming from me because I, I don't have an audience relationship and I'm fully. Well, I'm really okay I think, you know, accepting that. But if I'm with what if what we're saying here like I Yeah I know then I don't know man. I think there's going to be some personal revolutions that take place. We think of Revolution America. It's always like activist and sexy and loud and but I think there's going to be more people who just choose to remove themselves from the teat of Apple and Amazon and begin living, you know, local, quiet, more restful lives. And we'll never hear about them because they're not posting about it. And yeah, I don't know that didn't answer your question. But no, it's good though. The ordinary life. There's something beautiful about that. So, Matt, I was thinking as you were talking about that a little bit, I'm just wondering, you know, you talk that you jokingly said becoming Amish and all of these other things. But I think the biggest thing here at Covenant Eyes we want to help people have healthy God honoring relationships with technology. And we we really try to help them find that balance. So, you know, now everybody can become Amish, but there can be balance, Right. And so what are some good strategies for specifically helping men protect themselves from pornography on their devices? Do you have any recommendations as it relates to that? Well, I like to talk to fellows about what I call a sobriety plan. I didn't come up with that name. And so the idea is not just avoiding what's evil, but actively engaging with what's true, good and beautiful. And so if you think of a circle and two other concentric circles within it, the middle circle you might think of as a sexual fall, and men or women might fall in all sorts of ways fornication, adultery, pornography, that sort of thing. And then the the the inner circles of the second circle might have to do with when I engage in these behaviors, I end up in that middle circle. And that might be and I talk about this in in strife that, you know, it might be things like just cruising social media or whatever, not eating well or, you know, having more than one drink, something like that. But that outer circle should be filled with those behaviors. I want to engage in that actually make my life more beautiful, more, you know, more enjoyable. And and so I think it's important that fellows talk to each other in that way. Like, okay, I want to go to the gym three times a week. You know, I want to start eating well, I shouldn't be eating all this refined sugar. I drink soda too much. I'd really like to cut that out of my life. And now here, I'm reminded of Jordan Peterson's excellent line. He says, What's something you could do that you would do that would make your life better? So that middle part's very important. It's not something it's not like, what could you do to make your life better? Because there's all sorts of things you could do, but you wouldn't because you're pathetic, right? So what's something you could do that even you like? Wretched, flabby you would do that would make your life better and okay, like so baby steps, you know, and to start doing those things, I want to pray every single morning when I wake up and I have a specific lot of prayers I want to do. I want to pray at the end of the night. I want to, you know, go on a date once a week. You know, like I think, though, that kind of more holistic picture is is cool, too, because then your accountability relationship isn't just, hey, I fell I'm so sorry. I'll pray for you. Thank you. Which is that's something. But it's it's it's more like, hey, how's you know, you said you're going to eat more paleo. How's that going? Or you said you want to exercise more. How's that going? You said you want to read more beautiful books. You know what's going on there? Yeah. That's awesome. No good advice. I think a lot of our listeners can. There's a book called Atomic Habits that kind of talks about that little incremental changes over time amount to huge impacts. And I think that's kind of similar to what you're saying. It's like you've got to commit, you've got to make little changes and then have an accountability partner that can hold you accountable for what you said you were going to do. Right. Because we all make promises to ourselves and don't always follow through. So we need that person. We need that accountability in that community. Yeah. And to confess laziness, you know, like, yeah, because it's like, well, why don't I want to be as happy as I can be in this life? We can't be perfectly happy ever in this life I don't think we've made for God will only be happy before him, you know? But it's like if I, if I say to myself, you know, it's really important that I eat well and then I just go to McDonald's and it's the questions like, why? Why don't I want to be happy? It's like, well, I do, but I'm lazy and I should repent of that or I'm slothful or I'm, you know, those things. We should acknowledge those sins. I think as a Christian and repent manfully of those and not not make excuses for them to. Absolutely in through all that or I guess overarching all of this you know is is really that walk with the Lord. I mean all of these things we're doing you know they pale in comparison is as we move closer to Christ, you know, as we start understanding more of how he wants us to walk and seeking him throughout the day just brings us into the more of those right circles, you know, in life. And and, you know, certainly having somebody to walk alongside disciple disciples in that area, keep us accountable in that area, is going to be a huge dividends in in our walk and struggles in other areas for sure. So that's definitely. Key. Amen. I've been reading the Psalms a lot lately and I'm kind of surprised at how often God is referred to as a refuge. And it's so important. I think, because it says so much like if God's a refuge, then it means that a couple of things. It means it means he wants to shelter me and protect me and that he can, like no one seeks a refuge that they don't think is going to last or protect them. So like, he wants to protect me and he can. And there's something that's against me, you know? And I just think I think one of the reasons our lives don't make sense so often is we forget that we live in a spiritual battle. It's not like a rom com. It's not survivor. It's not you know, it's like there is a vicious war for our hearts. And I think when we forget that our lives stop making sense. But the Lord is the refuge. And so, yeah, turning to him, you know. my gosh, Father, thank you for loving me. I give you my, my wounded knee. I just fell again. My selfishness. Lord, I find that I'm. I am duplicitous, you know, like I say one thing and I do another. And yet, apparently you love me anyway. So here I am again and now. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think that's an important kind of word of closing. I think that'll kind of bring our show to a close today. Matt, I think it's beautiful to remind people that the Lord is with us every day in every way, and sometimes we forget that. And I think if we keep our mind focused on him at all times, it will change our perspective and it'll also help us prioritize better what's important in life. So I'm just so grateful for your time today. Matt, Thank you so much for being here. And we appreciate everything you do to help people overcome pornography and then the spiritual wisdom that you provide them as well on your show. Thank you. Yeah. How can people connect with you? Can you give them a couple of ways that they can get connected with your ministry? Yeah, I think you type my name into YouTube and they'll they'll, they'll find the stuff that I do there. That's pretty much the only place I hang out. Okay. Yeah. Or in the local Amish community, perhaps. Yeah. Just like looking through their windows, you know? I love it. Well, thank you so much. And to all of our listeners, thanks for tuning in to the Covenant Eyes Podcast. We'll see you next time. Thank you. Take care. God bless.