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What are some other treatments for porn addiction when the standard methods aren’t working? Is there hope for Christians who are stuck in the cycle of addiction and guilt? My Guest Isaiah Cruz is going to offer up some alternatives, sound advice and grace for a very common stronghold in today’s world. Join us for a very informative conversation.
Transcription included below!
BIO:
I am a board certified psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, specialized in addiction medicine. I have experience with depression, anxiety, bipolar, schizophrenia, heroin addiction, cocaine, meth, food and porn addictions.
No-X.net treats pornography addiction with medication via telemedicine in all 50 states. With 91% of men watching porn in the last month. Listeners will be given an opportunity to seek anonymous treatment.
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DIANA98825
TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:27] Hello? Hello. How are you guys doing? [00:00:31] Diana Winkler: Are you having a good day? It has been a weird day so far. It’s never boring in this place. I went outside to water all the plants and make sure that the birds and the cat was watered and fed. And I heard the sounds of a horse whinnying. Now, [00:01:00] I know that none of my neighbors have horses, none of them that I know of have horses. So I’m on top of a hill so I can see the valley below me. [00:01:13] And I see that my Northern neighbor has somebody on the side of the house with a truck and a horse trailer. And there was a horse in the trailer. And I thought, oh, okay, somebody’s visiting with their horse for a few minutes. And I went back into the house and eating my breakfast and all of a sudden I hear [00:01:39] the horse winnying pretty loud. I could hear it from inside the house. I ran outside and [00:01:46] I had walked over to my neighbor’s wall and I peeked over the wall and my neighbor does not have any kind of set up for horses. [00:02:00] If you are familiar with Sanford and Son, that’s pretty much what his backyard looks like. And I almost didn’t see the horse when I saw the horse’s behind. Oh, there is a horse over here! [00:02:16] I’m not losing my mind. Oh. And the horse is so pretty. Beautiful horse. It was like a gray, speckled horse. I could not see if it was a male or female. And the horse was tied to the tree, big Mesquite tree in the back of the yard. That’s pretty much the only shade in the yard. And I looked around to make sure that horse had water. I would’ve had a fit if there was no water out there in this 115 degree heat. And yes, there was a big, large bucket of water. The [00:03:00] horse looked well cared for. [00:03:01] I talked to the horse and in my sing-songy voice, hey pretty Horsey! And his ears picked up and let out this huge whinney! [00:03:16] Loud as can be. I don’t know if he didn’t like me there or he didn’t like being tied to a tree. I don’t know. [00:03:27] He just kind of looked at me like I was from Mars. And I went back in the house. I’m gonna go get some carrots for this horse. [00:03:40] So I’m like going around different parts of the wall to try and figure out how to throw the carrot over the wall. It’s crazy. Nobody came out to check on the horse. So I was like throwing the carrots . The carrots went near his [00:04:00] water bucket. He didn’t seem to be interested in the carrots. [00:04:06] Or it was too hot to have carrots. I don’t know. I came in here to do my podcast. Anyway, it was a beautiful horse. While we were interviewing my guest today, I heard the horse making whinny sounds again, and I heard a lot of banging around. [00:04:25] So I’m assuming that the horse is going back into the trailer and hopefully back home where he belongs. [00:04:34] It may have been a show horse because his hair in the front was braided and his main was groomed. It was well groomed. But yeah, that was the excitement today at my house. [00:04:52] I was getting to see a horse. [00:04:56] Anyway, we’re gonna have a great show today. [00:05:00] It’s going to be a bit different than what we usually have. The subject is on treatments for p*rnography. [00:05:12] Now we have had people on the show that talked about p*rnography, men and women. This time, it’s going to be a little different twist to the treatment. Now, one that I have not heard before, even being in the pharmacy industry for 15 years. So if you have a p*rn addiction of any kind, man or women, or maybe you have a loved one that has this problem. [00:05:48] I encourage you to listen to the episode. It’s very helpful. We talk about besides p*rn addiction, we talk about other things about addiction and [00:06:00] child safety. [00:06:03] We mentioned the prison system. We talk about some controversial treatments, [00:06:11] so it’s gonna be valuable for a lot of people. It’s an uncomfortable subject. I understand that, but we are adults. We can talk about these things. We have to! That’s just part of our world right now, and we need solutions. We don’t need anymore judgements. We need solutions. Let me read you a little bit about his bio here, because he’s got some terrific experience. [00:06:49] My guest’s name is Isaiah Cruz. He says, I am a board certified psychiatric mental health nurse [00:07:00] practitioner, specializing in addiction. I have experience with depression, anxiety, bipolar, schizophrenia, heroin addiction, cocaine, meth, food, and p*rn addictions. So he has this website called No X.net that treats p*rnography addiction with medication [00:07:31] via telemedicine in all 50 states. And he goes on to say with 91% of men watching p*rn in the last month, listeners will be given an opportunity to seek anonymous treatment. [00:07:48] So as you can see on that list, there’s a lot of things. [00:07:52] I mean they mentioned heroin and meth. I have family members that have had those kind of addictions.[00:08:00] [00:08:00] I don’t personally know anybody in my family who has p*rn addictions, but I know that it exists, especially in the church. And that is one thing that I always wanna talk about it in the church, because it seems to be pushed under the rug. So Isaiah is a very personable fellow, very knowledgeable, and we had a fascinating conversation about all kinds of stuff today. [00:08:33] I know that you’ll get a benefit out of this podcast. So here is my conversation today with Isaiah Cruz. [00:08:43] All right, please. Welcome Isaiah Cruz to the show. Thanks for coming on today. [00:08:50] Isaiah Cruz: Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to talk with you today. [00:08:54] Diana Winkler: I was really intrigued by your approach to p*rn [00:09:00] addiction. It’s a bit unique than, the conventional way we treat p*rn addiction. And I’ve been in the pharmacy industry a long time. [00:09:09] And so it just might get a little geeky around here. Some of the stuff we’re gonna talk about today, but this is gonna be great. So we do like to start out the podcast with something fun about yourself or what you like to do when you’re not doing your work, that kind of thing. [00:09:30] Isaiah Cruz: Yeah, so I’m married. [00:09:32] My wife is a nurse. So there’s a lot of medical talk around the house. I have four daughters age, 2 to 11, and they’re pretty active. As a family, we do jujitsu. Two or three days a week. We do that. Other than that, like playing like Nintendo with them, we play Mario Cart with the girls. [00:09:47] And my oldest is in drum lessons doing a band. So pretty involved just at the age where the kids are the center of the focus. [00:09:55] Diana Winkler: Yeah. Oh, we have some things in common. I’ve been a martial artist [00:10:00] for 22 years and my husband’s a professional drummer, so [00:10:05] Isaiah Cruz: oh, wow. [00:10:07] Diana Winkler: Yeah. You see the drum sets. Behind me over here. [00:10:09] That’s a fun age when they’re like in all kinds of activities. It’s fun to at least have things to do as a family. [00:10:17] So now we’ve had guests on the show to talk about p*rn addiction before, and it’s really difficult topic. [00:10:31] We’re Christians and that’s like taboo, kind of just shove it under the rug and think, that’s not the church’s problem. It’s not our problem. We’re not supposed to be addicted to p*rn. That’s not what God wants for us. So why do you think the p*rn addiction is so prevalent today in the church? [00:10:52] What’s going on here? [00:10:55] Isaiah Cruz: It’s. Yeah, that’s a good question. Because p*rn addiction is prevalent everywhere [00:11:00] and it’s in the church because I call ’em the three A’s: anonymity, access, and affordability. That makes the perfect storm, cuz it’s completely free. Nobody knows you’re doing it, and you have access anywhere. [00:11:14] You go from your phone, from your computer. So that just makes a perfect storm that, nobody can catch you. It’s not they see you going to the liquor store or going to buy drugs or anything like that. Going to the casino to gamble. It’s completely hidden. And so people can go to church, watch p*rn on Saturday night, go to church on Sunday and people are none the wiser. [00:11:35] Diana Winkler: Yeah, that’s kind of, kind of disturbing, but even divorce is like at 50% in the church too, just like out in the world. [00:11:44] Isaiah Cruz: Yeah. I’m sure p*rn plays a lot, a big role into a lot of that which changing people’s expectations for sex and all kinds of stuff. [00:11:52] I do have some statistics on Christians and p*rn that might be interesting. Of Christians age 18 to 24, 76% actively [00:12:00] search for p*rn. And 21% of Christian men and 2% of Christian women say they might be addicted to p*rn. 21% of youth pastors and 14% of pastors say they currently struggle with p*rnography use. [00:12:15] And let’s see for Christian men, age 18 to 30, 77% look at p*rn at least monthly. 36% look at p*rn on a daily basis. But marriage isn’t necessarily the cure all because approximately 55% of married Christian men say they look at p*rn at least once a month. [00:12:37] Diana Winkler: And I’ve heard this said by other guests that [00:12:40] they were already addicted to p*rn before they entered the marriage. Most cases. [00:12:46] Isaiah Cruz: Yeah. Most likely. The average age of first exposure is 11 years old and 94% of children exposed to p*rn by age 14. So it’s not hard, especially nowadays that, that you have [00:13:00] internet access everywhere for that to become a quick habit. [00:13:05] Diana Winkler: So do you think a lot of this problem with the church, do you think it’s, they accidentally fell on it? They Googled the wrong thing or they intentionally have a problem where they have unmet needs or they have marriage problems or stress, and they’re intentionally going, looking for it? [00:13:26] Isaiah Cruz: For married people ? [00:13:26] Diana Winkler: Yeah, married people in general. [00:13:30] Isaiah Cruz: Okay. Yeah. So by the time somebody gets married, most likely they’ve been exposed to p*rn, whether or not they use it regularly. Most people at least been exposed to it. And p*rn is a good stress reducer cause it releases dopamine and it makes you relax and it feels good for at the moment. [00:13:48] So yeah, stressors, stress is a huge trigger. And then whether it’s unmet needs in the marriage sexually which is kind of hard to explain, because if there’s unmet needs [00:14:00] sexually, that means there’s something else going on in the marriage. Yes. So if if the wife isn’t meeting the man’s sexual needs, and it could go opposite either. [00:14:08] But just stereotypically that’s the scenario, the chances are the wife is having some unmet needs as well. So it’s more of a relationship issue, a symptom, I guess, a symptom of a relationship issue. [00:14:18] Diana Winkler: Yeah. I know some women, they actually try to meet their husband’s needs and the guy is still watching p*rn. [00:14:30] Isaiah Cruz: Oh yeah. So that’s the thing with p*rnography and sexual appetite, it’s never gonna get filled. And the more, more you consume, the more you want to consume, and it comes to a point where you just have to be content. I guess find satisfaction in the marriage is a better way to put it. And because it’s just a slippery slope. [00:14:47] If you have every other day, you’re gonna want have sex every day. If you have sex every day, you’re gonna want it twice a day. And with that mentality it’s consumable. You have to find your self-worth and your fulfillment [00:15:00] outside of that, obviously with Christ and then your marital status or your marriage status. [00:15:06] The status of the relationship plays a huge role in that. [00:15:09] Diana Winkler: Yeah. I definitely agree with that. You always hear, watching p*rn doesn’t hurt anybody, but it does. Because it contributes to sexual violence and sex trafficking, right? [00:15:24] Isaiah Cruz: Absolutely. Absolutely. That’s one of my number one concerns. [00:15:28] I was on a podcast of a non-Christian guy, great podcast, but he’s there’s nothing wrong with p*rn. I watch p*rn. And if your faith is telling you not to watch p*rn, maybe you should change your faith. And I pick my jaw up from the ground. It was a live show too. There was no editing. So I was like, oh, okay. [00:15:47] So I had to think quick, but. Yeah, violence against women, a huge study of thousands. I forget the number. It was probably into the tens of thousands of p*rn videos were observed in this study. Nine out of 10 of [00:16:00] them had violence or aggression towards women. And almost all of ’em. Again, almost nine outta 10 of those, the woman received it either in a positive light or neutral light. [00:16:11] So that’s one, promoting violence against women. But as the younger crowd, teenagers and young adults see that, they get a lot of their sexual education from that. So then they view that as normal, that it’s okay to have violence in the sex, and in some worse case scenarios that people enjoy the violence. [00:16:31] and I’m not one to judge but that’s not the norm. And that shouldn’t be, and that shouldn’t be the expectation, whether it’s the giving or the receiving. [00:16:41] Diana Winkler: Doesn’t sound like it’s respectful or loving to me. [00:16:45] Isaiah Cruz: Yeah. And that’s just one aspect. As far as sex trafficking of violence against women, and then you’re hurting your partner, the intimacy is stolen. [00:16:54] Sex is an intimate act, not something that can be taken on casually. you [00:17:00] create unrealistic expectations for yourself or for your partner. And then your partner self-esteem, your partner can’t match what is seen. These are actors and actresses. That’s not real. And then one other reason why it’s so addicting is because a person can have whatever they want. [00:17:17] You can look up somebody with blonde hair, brunette hair, red hair or whatnot, whatever your tastes are for the day. You can just have that. And with a couple of clicks in the button, it’s unrealistic. [00:17:28] Diana Winkler: So your approach. There’s lots of different approaches to p*rn addiction. What’s the typical treatment for it? [00:17:39] Isaiah Cruz: Yeah, so the gold standard is therapy and I support that. I love therapy. Everybody should be in it. Everybody should have a therapist, cuz life is hard and Christians get depressed too. [00:17:49] And that’s okay. But the gold standard is really cognitive behavioral therapy and motivational interviewing is really kind of coming up as a close second, if not taking over that first place position for the type of [00:18:00] therapy to seek out for addictions. And cognitive behavioral therapy, CBT you should have a good therapist who’s experienced with that. [00:18:08] That is the gold standard. I, again, I support that. And medication aspect is just a supplement to that. I always say, medication is a tool. You still have to do all the hard work. It just so happens. Jobs are easier when you have the right tools for the right jobs. [00:18:24] Diana Winkler: Okay. And so now Naltrexone is usually for opioid and alcohol abuse. How does that work for p*rn addiction? That’s kind of fascinating to me. [00:18:37] Isaiah Cruz: Yeah, it is. So I’ve been doing addiction medicine for the last six years and treating opiate and alcohol addiction, also food addiction. I’ve had a handful of guys come up for refills and they’re like, oh, I don’t use this for alcohol addiction anymore. [00:18:49] It keeps me away from p*rn. And I thought that was very fascinating. And I thought, how many guys, and that takes the guts to say that it’s kind of p*rn, addictions, embarrassing. It’s shameful, [00:19:00] it’s taboo. So if they told me that how many guys have, are taken it for this who didn’t tell me. So then I looked up some medical research on it and naltrexone has been tested and found pretty efficacious for treating internet sex addiction, p*rnography addiction. [00:19:16] So how naltrexone works specifically? It works in three ways. One, it makes a person less impulsive. Overall two, it helps to reduce intrusive thoughts about p*rn and then three and its biggest component. Is it limits the endorphin from external stimuli so anything from outside the body. And then the follow up question I always get: [00:19:40] Is it going to limit the endorphin releases from the good things in life? Like having sex, hugging my family, love my loved ones. Short answer is no, it won’t. It’s from the external simuli kinda like the Pavlovian response. When somebody knows they’re gonna watch porn, they open their computer. [00:19:55] Before even pouring comes up, their brain is already releasing those endorphins cuz they know it’s [00:20:00] coming. Oh wow. And that’s, and then that’s the snowball effect. Even though the voice in the back of their head is saying, Nope, you shouldn’t do this. But that endorphin release just takes over. And that the executive function part of the brain kind of shuts down and the middle brain takes over. [00:20:14] So naltrexone comes on, board stops the snowball before it gets started. Not only does it make, ’em less impulsive, reduces intrusive thoughts for porn, but when they do have to get on their computer for work or whatever, that endorphin release isn’t kicking in. So that those thoughts aren’t flooding into your brain. [00:20:31] Maybe I have an extra 15 minutes. Maybe I can go to that site and before work or whatnot, that’s how the naltrexone works , and we use it for p*rn. Other medication we use is citalopram. If someone’s allergic, we use Sertraline, really any SSRI antidepressant. So we use it for two reasons. [00:20:51] One, it reduces anxiety related to p*rnography cessation. Now is p*rnography really addiction? Addicting alcohol, you go through alcohol withdrawals, [00:21:00] right? Same with opiates. Does p*rnography really have withdrawals? Not really, but maybe, kind of some anxiety. Some is a biggest withdrawal symptoms, so that SSRI will cover the anxiety. [00:21:11] But. It also causes sexual dysfunction, decrease in libido. So oftentimes it’s the single people who aren’t in a relationship, who aren’t sexually active, who will choose the citalopram to have decreased in libido. And that’s how it’ll help with p*rnography addiction. [00:21:31] Diana Winkler: Wow. And does it have any side effects? [00:21:34] There any, bad things about using treatment? [00:21:39] Isaiah Cruz: Yeah. So medicine isn’t for everybody. But, and I’ll get into the side effects here in a second, but one of the other podcasts I was on, they couldn’t believe that people watch p*rnography every day and like all day, every day can’t leave your house. [00:21:51] Those are the extreme cases, the illegal stuff. Can’t leave my house, watch p*rn all day, every day. Then you have the people who like we talked about, who are Christians who watch [00:22:00] p*rn once or twice a year. And then they hate themselves and they feel like a hypocrite and they just, they swear they’ll never do it again. [00:22:05] And then three months later, or six months later, they do it again. Depending on how you define addiction, that person is also addicted. I define addiction as doing something that’s harmful to yourself, not wanting to do it and continuing to do it. And according to that definition, there’s still an addict, even though they consume p*rn once a year or twice a year. [00:22:26] But if they’ve doing that for 10 years and they still can’t get over that. It’s been five years, 10 years, medication might be an option for them. And so as far as the side effects go, there’s nothing without a side effect. Water has a side effect. You drink water, you go pee. To say it, but Naltrexone can be tolerated by most people. [00:22:47] Most common when you start naltrexone, you get an upset stomach, abdominal cramping. So that comes from, to nerd out on you, just a little bit, naltrexone is attaches to the immune receptors, much like [00:23:00] opiates does. And those immune receptors much like opiates cause constipation, cuz there’s new receptors in your intestines. [00:23:05] Naltrexone attaches to those intestine new receptors in your intestines. And that’s what causes the abdominal cramping. But that’s neither here or nor there. So abdominal cramping first day or two fairly normal drinking, lots of water will help to minimize that. Then for the most part, most people can tolerate that medication fairly well. [00:23:23] Now there are a handful of people who medication just won’t work for. And there’s a handful of people who will have side effects. If that falls into them, it’s typically headache, dizziness, or cognitive impairment, kinda like a brain fog. Yeah. But again, very very few people have that. And then citalopram almost half the population is already on a antidepressant. [00:23:44] So most people either know somebody on it or have tried it. Side effects of that include everything from the GI upset, loose stools, abdominal cramping to again, brain fog cognitive impairment, things like that. [00:23:57] Diana Winkler: Now can a teenager take naltrexone?[00:24:00] [00:24:01] Isaiah Cruz: That’s a good question. [00:24:02] Diana Winkler: The reason why I ask that is because you may have heard of Josh Dugger. who , he’s in the Fundamental Baptist circle and he raped his sister and some of her friends and, nobody got him treatment for it. They just gave him Christian counseling. And then later in life, got into p*rn. [00:24:29] I forget what the name of the software is, but you probably know about it, but the software they put on his computer and his phone, so he could not access the p*rn. And he had some accountability. He, on purpose, figured out a way to get around those controls. And he was watching not just p*rn but kiddie p*rn. [00:24:52] Could the naltrexone, would that have helped him? [00:24:57] Isaiah Cruz: Short answer is yes. Obviously. [00:25:00] I can’t know for sure, but several medical studies that says p*rnography is a reasonable treatment for internet sex addiction, and compulsive p*rnography use. So short answer is yes. [00:25:11] So my company, No X.net , which we, right now, we treat 18 and up. And that’s because we’re a telemedicine that treats all 50 states, but I’m just one person. I have one, one other partner. Who’s also a nurse practitioner, but we can’t be licensed in all the states. So we hired a third party telemedicine agency to do that for us. [00:25:29] And they, as part of their rules, they only treat adults. There’s a huge legal risk and malpractice risk for treating minors. And that’s one of the hurdles that we have with treating individuals under 18. [00:25:44] Diana Winkler: Yeah. That was, a tragic story. That whole thing. [00:25:48] Isaiah Cruz: It is! [00:25:49] Diana Winkler: It makes me angry that nobody gave him any real help. So the problem just got worse. [00:25:56] Isaiah Cruz: Right? So he was, young teens. Obviously you’re accountable, but at [00:26:00] that age you’re also a kid still and it’s up to the parents to get aggressive. That’s a serious offense. They needed aggressive treatment that has evidence based outcomes and that could have helped as well. [00:26:17] Diana Winkler: Yeah. Unfortunately, that religious group does not believe in actual licensed counselors or psychiatry or anything like that. It’s, they only have biblical counseling or pastoral counseling. That’s why I asked if it was safe for teenagers. [00:26:37] Yeah, he’s going to prison. [00:26:38] Isaiah Cruz: Yeah, I saw. That’s outrageous. Deserved. I’m not defending them but, the whole situation is outrageous. [00:26:44] Diana Winkler: Yeah. We need some other solutions. We need, like you say, evidence based solutions for this problem. Because yeah, as a child, you are innocent in some ways, but in other ways you’re not. Right? [00:26:59] Yeah. Like [00:27:00] you say it’s up to the parents and if the parents don’t have access to these options, then we’re gonna have another repeat of this sort of thing. A lot of that particular culture is they don’t tell their kids about sex. [00:27:16] There’s no sex ed. They don’t teach them about body parts. And they don’t tell the girls about their own bodies or how to say no, that kind of thing. So that kind of contributed to the whole, that whole mess. [00:27:30] Isaiah Cruz: Absolutely. [00:27:31] Diana Winkler: Now I was listening to Theology Raw podcast. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of that one. It’s an apologetics podcast. And they had a guest on the show that talked about the ethics of using what they call now sex robots to treat p*rn addiction. [00:27:52] What are your thoughts on that? If you’ve even heard of that? [00:27:55] Isaiah Cruz: Yes I have, and I don’t know enough to give a [00:28:00] solid statement on where I stand. So I come from the addiction world. I started treating opiate addiction, heroin addicts, cocaine addicts, meth addicts. So the hardcore drugs, and we did what we call harm reduction. [00:28:12] So basically. We wanna keep you alive today. So that way a year from now, you can be completely sober. So I was kind of drilled into harm reduction. And at first I was like, okay, AI porn where it’s not a real person or robotic sex whatevers, I was like, okay, that’s harm reduction. [00:28:30] There’s no sex trafficking. There’s no violence against the people actually being in the videos. But then the more I sat on it, the more I chew on now, it’s man, it just doesn’t sit right with me either. Like it, it’s not wrong. I think it’s not as bad as using real victims. [00:28:46] but it’s also not right. It doesn’t sit well. So again, I don’t have a stance on it yet. I’m still learning more. I have heard of it. And again it’s kind of a step in the right direction, but not, it’s a step out of the p*rn, but it’s also not right.[00:29:00] [00:29:00] Diana Winkler: My thinking is that would feed the addiction rather than satisfy. [00:29:04] Because it’s like the two dogs, you got two dogs fighting and who’s going to win? The dog that you feed. So my thinking was when I heard that, I was like, we’re not treating the underlying problem, we’re still thinking about the p*rn. We’re still doing the p*rn. [00:29:21] So it’s kind of a gray area. [00:29:24] Isaiah Cruz: It is. The people who are for it argue that, nobody’s getting hurt. It’s a victimless crime. Not necessarily, because a person’s hurting themselves. And a person’s decreasing their expectations for sex with their partner. [00:29:38] They’re having the sex without the intimacy, which is also separating sex from intimacy sex, and masturbating contributes to a premature ejaculation, erectile dysfunction. And then are those robots and or AI sex having violence in it? And then in that case, are those violent acts being. Reproduced with your partner? [00:29:58] So it may not be the [00:30:00] victimless crime that people say. [00:30:01] Diana Winkler: I agree with you on that. I’m gonna ask a controversial kind of a question. Going back to the chemical side of this, the medication side of it. Are you familiar with a book called Enigma. There’s also a movie called The Imitation Game. [00:30:21] Benedict Cumberbatch? [00:30:22] No, I’m not familiar. [00:30:23] Oh, Benedict Cumberbatch played Alan Turing. Now, he was the one who cracked the Nazi code during World War II. And he was instrumental in winning the war for the Allies. Now he was a gay man. That was very clear in the movie. I never read the book. I just watched the movie, and he hid it from everybody. [00:30:49] Of course, in the forties, you could not be openly gay. So at the end of the movie, He was forced to endure government mandated hormone therapy, like [00:31:00] chemical castration. Yeah. And then of course he got the medication and he did it for a year and then he committed suicide after a year. [00:31:10] He couldn’t deal with it. So I didn’t know if you had heard of him before. I’m a huge World War II fanatic. So I watch every World War II movie out there. I thought it was really well done, but it was really sad at the end for me. Yeah. That the UK, he was British, that they would do this to him. [00:31:33] Because he was gay. [00:31:34] Isaiah Cruz: Yeah. When I tell people I treat p*rnography with medication I will sometimes get that. Oh, like chemical castration? No, that’s not what I do. But that is interesting, and yeah, it is kind of controversial. My thoughts on it. Again, I haven’t necessarily given it enough thought to make a reasonable stand. [00:31:52] I don’t know how to say it, but like… [00:31:54] Diana Winkler: An educated opinion? [00:31:57] Isaiah Cruz: Yeah. I guess in the educated stance on it. [00:32:00] But if this person is a convicted child abuser is in regards to sex then that’s putting children at risk. [00:32:08] And at that point, I think the benefits may outweigh the risk. [00:32:13] Diana Winkler: There wasn’t any of that with Alan Turing that he was abusing anybody, but of course, Being gay that was illegal and right. That he had a choice of either going to prison or taking the medication . And yeah, that was my roundabout way of asking if there were any controversy about this type of therapy with Naloxone. [00:32:34] Isaiah Cruz: I get the most pushback from the Christian crowds. I reach out to a lot of different people and I get a lot of pushback. The whole premise is either p*rn not a real addiction or it shouldn’t use medication, just need to pray more. And it’s kind of sad because it’s so rampant. [00:32:53] And if it if that would’ve worked, it would’ve worked already. Let’s try something that, has been shown to work, evidence based, like we said before. [00:33:00] So I get the most pushback from the Christian crowds. [00:33:03] Diana Winkler: Yeah, it doesn’t surprise me. [00:33:05] I read just yesterday, couple days ago about the prisoners in Alabama. They just passed some sort of a law about using medroxyprogesterone acetate for sexual deviance, like child rapist and exhibitionist and stuff. And that’s in the Alabama prison system. I’m wondering, I didn’t look this up, but are they using it in other prisons too? [00:33:35] Isaiah Cruz: Yeah, that’s a good question. I have no idea. [00:33:39] Diana Winkler: You’re not you’re not involved much in the prison in the prison community. I’m assuming. [00:33:45] Isaiah Cruz: No, not yet. But that is a good, that is a good interesting topic ,that whether naltrexone could be used in substitution for chemical castration. [00:33:57] Diana Winkler: Yeah, I’ll tell you one of my [00:34:00] friends, Jimmy Hinton, who’s been on the show. He’s a pastor. Now, his father was a pastor, and abused, raped all these children, like hundreds of children in their church, and even his own children. And he got caught because his daughter was talking to one of her friends who was a victim of her father’s sexual abuse. [00:34:27] And so Jimmy’s sister remembered all of this abuse. And this was when she was a very young child. And she turned her father in. They all did. Jimmy, his sister and Jimmy’s mother, they all turned him into the police and he went to prison. He’s in prison now for raping all these children. [00:34:48] And I always thought that, okay, you go to prison as a child rapist. And usually you don’t last long in prison. [00:35:00] They beat you up or something. But Jimmy had said. “No, my dad, he’s a celebrity in the prison. They think, he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. And when I go to visit him, then, they all treat me like I’m some special person.” And he talks to his father, and his father tells him horrible, these horrible stories of how he lured all these kids to trust him, and the parents to trust him. And he’s never gonna get out. He’s not gonna get parole if anybody else has anything to do with it. Hundreds of children were abused. I would be up for the prisons using chemical or medication for somebody like that. [00:35:53] He has no remorse. Wow. Has no remorse. He would do it again. And this is what Jimmy has found in [00:36:00] his research that if he ever did get out, or any other child rapist would get out ,a predator would get out, they would go back and do it again. [00:36:10] And what they do is they go back to the churches and, the churches all talk about, you need to forgive. Yeah. You need to forgive and bring them back into the fold. That’s exactly what they want. They wanna get their trust again and they wanna go back to abusing these children. [00:36:31] So I was wondering if it’s ethical to have that kind of therapy in prison for predators like that, for people that are obviously, sick in the head. But I would be all for that. [00:36:46] Isaiah Cruz: And I think most people in our society would. It’d be hard to find somebody who says a child rapist should get a second chance. [00:36:53] But like you said, earlier, in World War II, people was put in jail for being gay [00:37:00] and most people don’t believe that now. And kind of frowned upon that. You’re right. There is some ethics behind it, but I think in our society, I would, I would agree. I have four daughters and I protect my daughters pretty close and I definitely think a child rapist like that would be a decent option for chemical castration. [00:37:19] Diana Winkler: Now we need to have a happy ending. We’ve been talking some about some really dark stuff here and yeah, I’m just kind of throwing a match at a fast ball. Do you have a success story of somebody that’s been through your program that you could tell us about? [00:37:35] Isaiah Cruz: Yeah. And actually I use this guy as an example a lot and cuz I think it’s more common to have the Christian Guy who is an outstanding guy, goes to church volunteers. And then once a month he’s left alone and slips up and watches p*rn. And then he hates himself after, swears he’ll never do it again. [00:37:57] And then six months later, he’s there again. [00:38:00] And that’s a common story we see. And most people wouldn’t say that that person’s a p*rn addict. He just messes up, every once in a while. But medication was a really good option for this guy and it really, it saved them. I think he’s two or three years now, p*rn free. [00:38:17] And that was the longest he’s ever been p*rn free. So it’s a good option. It kind of redefines what a p*rn addict looks like. Cuz you think for p*rn act, you think of the guy who just, like I said sits there all day, every day, watching p*rn, but that’s not the case for most people. It’s the same with drinking. [00:38:34] Diana Winkler: I’m not an alcoholic. I only have a drink once a week, or I only have a drink once a day after work. [00:38:39] Isaiah Cruz: I only drink two drinks a day and that’s normal. And as opposed to the stereotypical alcoholic. Yeah. [00:38:45] Diana Winkler: So was there anything else that you wanted to share that, that we didn’t talk about? We talked about a lot of stuff. Anything else you wanna tell the folks? [00:38:56] Isaiah Cruz: Yeah, I think protecting our kids. We talked, touched a little bit about it. [00:39:00] 94% of kids will be exposed to porn by age of 14. Just have a talk with your kids. Let ’em know this is p*rnography. They may not have the definitions to say what it is. You use that anatomical parts. [00:39:11] There’s no shame in it. Cuz if the parents can’t say penis and vagina without giggling, the kids have no hope. So just have the talk with them. There’s no shame in it. They’ll know this is p*rnography. What do you do when you’re exposed to p*rnography? You identify it. This is pornography and you turn away, you go back about your business and you tell your parents. Say, and even if it’s at your friend’s house, Jim, Bob, Betty, Sue, his brother showed me this, and it was p*rnography. [00:39:40] And as a parent, your job isn’t to freak out completely and call Betty Sue’s mom, yelling and screaming. This is unfortunately in our society. This is what we’re dealing with. So you have to arm your kids with the right tools to handle it. And that starts with the parents and not giving your kids [00:40:00] unlimited or unmonitored access to the internet. [00:40:02] There are adult filters and as kids are young 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 adult filters are the best. Once they hit 13, 14, 15, 16, we usually recommend a transition to an accountability software, meaning they have access, but if they visit a site that is a little questionable. [00:40:20] They’ll send you an email. And that basically the idea is to try to train your kids for accountability and to do, and to be responsible as opposed to completely restricting all adult access. As soon as they turn 18 and move out, they’re gonna have a heyday kind of thing. So while they’re still under your influence, give them enough rope to slip up a little. [00:40:40] Diana Winkler: I’m glad you brought that up. We don’t wanna go on the other side of the pendulum where you don’t let the kid have any kind of, you don’t let him have a phone. You don’t let him have a computer. You don’t let him do anything. [00:40:52] And also you mentioned, Teach the kids, some sex ed. Yeah. Give them the proper [00:41:00] information. Get over your embarrassment. Because how are they going to know that somebody putting their hand on genitals is wrong? Unless you tell them that. [00:41:11] Nobody should be touching you there. Where is there? [00:41:14] Isaiah Cruz: Exactly. And so yeah. The thing that a lot of parents are embarrassed to talk to their kids about sex. Then that the kids can pick up on that and then they know that’s embarrassing. And so if you’re just open with your kids Hey, this is the society calls it embarrassing. [00:41:28] I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna be embarrassed to talk to you about it. This is life. This is what we deal with. This is what to expect. And you gotta teach your kids that. So for the people I have talked to who have been exposed to porn most common, 10, 11, 12, they know it’s wrong. There’s something inside of ’em that says this isn’t right. [00:41:47] But it’s so good. It feels so good. Oh, wow, this is great. But then at the same, there’s shame in that as well. So if you give your child permission to say, Hey, I was exposed to porn without getting them in trouble [00:42:00] or anything like that, and without an embarrassment attached to it, that will might save a lot of future headaches. [00:42:07] Diana Winkler: Yes. Preventions worth a pound of cure, right? [00:42:12] Isaiah Cruz: Yes. [00:42:13] Diana Winkler: Share with the listeners, the services you provide and how they can connect with you to get help. [00:42:23] Isaiah Cruz: Yeah. So like I said, therapy is a gold standard. And when we started this business, we decided not to do the therapy, cuz there’s a lot of people who do it well already. [00:42:32] We’re not there. There’s nothing groundbreaking that I introduce. But what we do offer medicine and most people, one, don’t know, medicine exists. And even most family doctors, you go to your family doctor and you say I have a problem with p*rn. Most of ’em are just gonna refer to therapy. So we decided just to focus strictly on the medicine. [00:42:48] I do support therapy though. So we offered two medications. We discussed earlier. We do 100% telemedicine in all 50 states and Washington DC. In some states it’s just asynchronous. You just fill out [00:43:00] the survey or the questionnaire and you get approved, you ship it and everything. Some states require video calls. Some states require audio and that’s just the state licenses. [00:43:07] The state by state. So we offer medication on a monthly basis. And you go to the word, No-X.net, and that’s in the U.S. Only. And that will give you access to medication I am available. If you go to the “about us” section. I do offer a free 10 minute phone call with everybody. [00:43:29] If you wanna learn more about this and you’re hesitant to see if it’s right. I’m happy to talk with people about that. You can go there and set up a visit. So that’s an option as well. And you can also find us on social medias as well. [00:43:41] Diana Winkler: Now, I know being in healthcare, being in the pharmacy, everybody wants to know if it’s covered by insurance. [00:43:49] Isaiah Cruz: Yes. Short answer is no. We don’t do the insurance just cuz there’s just so much of a headache. We wanna bypass that, but the medication isn’t terribly expensive. And if our prices [00:44:00] are too much, you can go to your family doctor and and see about [00:44:03] getting it covered with your family doctor, which if that’s a problem, let us know or message us. If you’re struggling with p*rn and can’t afford our option, just send us an email. We’ll see what we can do and make sure everyone gets the help they need. [00:44:16] Diana Winkler: Okay. Yeah, cuz I used to do prior authorizations for medications and if you get a medication and it’s for an off-label reason, sometimes they won’t approve it. [00:44:26] So that was, you probably wouldn’t know the answer to that, huh? [00:44:30] Isaiah Cruz: Yeah. We decided not to go through the insurance route. It’s just so much of a headache. [00:44:35] Diana Winkler: Yeah. If they get a prescription for Naloxone and maybe submit it to their insurance, perhaps they would be able to get covered depending on their plan. [00:44:45] Isaiah Cruz: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. They might be able to cover it. [00:44:48] Diana Winkler: There, is hope, but as you say, it’s not real expensive. This has been fascinating cuz I had no knowledge of using Naloxone for this reason and I wish I would’ve known it [00:45:00] sooner. I’ve got a pharmacist friend I keep in touch with, I used to work with and I’m probably gonna send him the podcast. [00:45:08] Cause I bet he’d be really fascinated with this treatment for the people that come into our pharmacy. [00:45:15] Definitely stay in touch. It’s been awesome having you on this show. [00:45:20] Isaiah Cruz: Yeah, thank you so much [00:45:22] Diana Winkler: God bless you.