How to Quit Pornography for Good: Jacob Valk

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How to Quit Pornography for Good: Jacob Valk

Guest:Jacob Valk

From the series:Protecting Your Family From the Dangers of Pornography

(Day 2 of 3)

Air date:August 4, 2026

Ann (00:00):

Hey, we just wanted to give you a heads up before you listen to this next program because today’s conversation on FamilyLife covers some pretty sensitive but really important subjects that may not be suitable for younger ears. So just use some discretion when listening to this next broadcast.

Dave (00:19):

And let me add this, and if you do listen with your kids, talk about it after with them.

Ann (00:24):

Right. This is an important conversation to have with maybe older kids just depending on what you’re thinking, but we just wanted to give you a heads up.

Jacob (00:36):

A good core group, whether it’s alcohol, meth, whatever it was, who were really fighting to stay sober. And I’ll tell you, I’ve also done a lot of accountability, and they’re scarily similar. The guy’s trying to get off meth and the guy’s trying to get off porn.

Dave (01:00):

Welcome to FamilyLife Today where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Dave Wilson.

Ann (01:06):

And I’m Ann Wilson and you can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

We have Jacob Valk back with us today. He’s the co-executive director and co-founder of Into the Light Ministries and this conversation is going to go deep. It’s going to be so helpful.

Dave (01:30):

We’re going to talk about porn. We’re going to talk about your kids and how to protect them and you don’t want to miss it and you’re going to want to share it with people. So let’s go.

Ann (01:43):

I talk to wives often and they say, “Oh, my husband would never look at porn. I’ve never struggled. And my kids would never.” I’m like, “Oh, you don’t know what’s going on in the world. You need to open your eyes because it could be your husband, your child, your daughter, it could be you.” And so just to open our eyes to say, “Yeah, it’s our flesh. There’s a battle going on and Satan is wanting to win.”

Jacob (02:12):

I helped a little bit or, at least, was on the end of a research with Barna. So if you don’t believe me, you can go look at the research that Barna has put out. I think it’s with Pure Life on the state of pornography in the church right now. They raised it.

Ann (02:26):

They just quoted this at our church a couple Sundays ago.

Dave (02:30):

I just did. Am I right? Tell me the number.

Jacob (02:32):

It’s terrifying. So the average age of exposure is about seven or eight years old for average. And average, that’s across homeschooling, Christian schools, public schools. A massive portion of pastors are struggling on even a weekly or monthly basis. The statistics are there, but it’s really easy to ignore statistics, honestly, because they don’t ring for us. I’ll tell you in my experience, I’ve worked in college ministry, I’ve worked at seminary ministry. Every guy I’ve talked to, bar one or two, has said “Yeah, probably about eight, nine, ten maybe, when I first discovered it. And yeah, I was watching weekly for years and years and years.” I talked to one, I have one friend of mine, he has a little sister who’s in high school and his little sister was interested in a guy and so my friend started sleuthing this guy. Just want to understand a little bit about him.

(03:23):

Good older brother.

Dave (03:24):

Good brother.

Jacob (03:25):

And he found this guy’s TikTok and the people that this guy was following on TikTok, and they were all softcore pornography. So he goes to his little sister and says, Christian high school and says, “Hey sis, listen, this is not the kind of guy you want.” And she looked at him, and I’m quoting, “All the guys in my class watch pornography; who really cares.”

(03:47):

Now you could say that’s a unique situation. Fair enough. But this is a really conservative Christian high school.

Ann (03:52):

I don’t think that’s unusual. Do you?

Dave:

It’s not unusual.

Jacob (03:53):

From her point of view, maybe more pessimistic, but I’ll trust her perspective from the trenches out. From her, she would look around and say, “All the guys in my class, this is them.” So parents at least specifically, don’t be naive, because if it’s not, it might be active watching, but it also might be stumbling on it, curiosity, a second look, a third look. And we totally underestimate how addictive pornography is. Gary Wilson has an amazing book called Your Brain on Porn. It’s pretty graphic.

Ann (04:23):

I’ve heard of it.

Jacob (04:25):

But he walks through how addictive and he doesn’t use that lightly. He doesn’t just throw addiction around. He goes, “How can I prove or really work through the addictive nature?” And he does a lot. He goes through a lot of sociological stuff and biological stuff.

Dave (04:38):

I went to his seminar.

Ann (04:39):

I was going to ask, Dave, isn’t that him?

Dave (04:41):

Yeah. He sometimes does a workshop at Iron Sharpens Iron’s conferences. I speak at those and I’m the keynote. I do this thing and then I literally hear all the guys come up, here’s their workshops you can pick. And I hear him and I’m like, “I got to get ready for my next talk, but I got to go see what this guy’s doing.” It’s in the back of the room. It was mind blowing. Because he has literal images of your brain.

Ann (05:07):

I wanted to say before, I want you to get into that, Dave, but Dave comes home late from this conference. I’m already in bed. It’s super late.

Dave (05:13):

We got to get him on FamilyLife Today for one thing.

Ann (05:15):

He says, “This thing that I just saw,” and he shows these slides of a brain. Was it a brain scan?

Dave (05:21):

Yeah, he’s showing brain scans on cocaine, on video games. I mean, it’s just amazing what happened that he shows porn and it’s worse than cocaine. It’s worse than alcohol in terms of addictiveness.

Ann (05:33):

Because gray matter or something.

Dave (05:34):

Gray matter and how long it takes to retransform your brain back. Other things can take weeks. This takes months.

Jacob (05:43):

I spent three years on residents on staff at a drug rehab center. So I lived in and among the guys. I went in an apartment. You get the idea, but I’d eat with them.

Dave (05:53):

You’ve had quite the life. You’re not even 30 years old yet, dude.

Jacob (05:55):

It was a lot of fun. This was my single year. I was like, well, I was thinking like, you know what? Redeem the time, do something useful. I’m like, I can go right into the mess. And so I’m like, why don’t I go live at a rehab center and help the guys with their struggles.

Ann (06:11):

Said nobody ever.

Jacob (06:14):

It was a lot of fun, let me tell you. I enjoyed it so much.

Ann:

Wow.

Jacob:

Because these guys, they’re messy people. I met a lot of people who thought they were Jesus, that’s for sure. Or there’s plenty of spies. The CIA was on the roof a lot, let me tell you. But there are a lot of guys, a good core group, whether it’s alcohol, meth, whatever it was, who were really fighting to stay sober. And I’ll tell you, I’ve also done a lot of accountability and they’re mirror images of each other. Everyone’s case is going to be different, but they were scarily similar. The guy’s trying to get off meth and the guys trying to get off porn.

Dave (06:52):

Yeah. Well, it’s interesting. I think the study that I looked at said, and here’s one, you can correct it if I’m wrong. I used the number seven out of ten. I think it might have been eight, but just for being safe, I said to my church a couple weeks ago, seven out of ten church-going men have looked at porn in the last 30 days.

Ann (07:11):

Oh, I thought it was week. It’s 30 days. That’s better.

Dave (07:13):

In the last month. And that’s all you need to hear is like, so everybody’s sitting around the room right now, a lot of them. So in some ways what you’re even saying as a dad stepping into his daughter or son’s life, I think sometimes as dads—well, I’m just thinking of the dad, and this could be the mom, but I think the dad is afraid to step in there because he’s struggling and it’s his little secret and he don’t want to be a hypocrite. So he’s just like, “If I don’t say anything, it’s better than trying to walk in and say, ‘Hey, you should stop this’ when I can’t.” Do you see that?

Jacob (07:46):

I see a lot. I see it from both sides. So I mean, for the man who’s struggling, brother, put your hand to the plow, get after it. Get good accountability in your life. Don’t be afraid to radically cut off access.

Ann (08:01):

What about the guy, or the woman’s like, “I’ve tried. I’ve tried. I just keep falling, falling. I ask for forgiveness, repentance. I can’t get free.”

Jacob (08:12):

I resonate with that. I understand that feeling. I get it. It’s also a lie. Because we don’t serve a God who is content with us sitting in our sin. So we serve a God who paints us a picture with the Bible that’s realistic. So James says, “If anyone says he is without sin, he’s a liar.” So sin will be a part of our lives till kingdom come, but God does not leave us just to wallow in sin and stay there. There is a pathway out. Garrett Kell has a great line where he says, “The Christian life is more about direction than perfection.” That’s a really great way of saying two steps forward, one step back is still two steps forward. And the guys who I’ve known who have got hooked very early and struggled very long, what their struggle often looked like was forward a lot, falling back, wrestling, but it was characterized by a pattern of moving forward.

Ann:

Pursuit.

Jacob:

Pursuit. Find new ways.

(09:11):

I’ve guys who’ve started with one device, got a dumber device, got a dumber device and eventually just abandoned the device altogether because they were serious and they said to themselves, “You know what? Is it worth it?” Jesus had really harsh words about what happens in Matthew 5 about—

Dave (09:27):

Cut it off.

Jacob (09:27):

Cut it off, gouge it out. Why? Because hellfire is reserved for those who don’t. And we have to speak with compassion and love because Jesus also says that for those who are weary and downtrodden, “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench.” And He also says, “Put your sin to death.” And I think for the person who feels discouraged, I would say like, “Go read the sermon on the mount again because it will give you a lot of the best kick in the pants you could get.” And it shows Jesus’ heart for those who are broken and downtrodden. So He’s with you in the battle.

Ann (10:04):

And I would add this too, I think we forget that when we are in Christ, when His Spirit lives within us, that is the power of the resurrection is within us. And so He’s not going to just say, “Oh, it’s too bad you can’t make it.” We’ve got the power of God in us, and He wants to bring us victory. He wants us to be free. He says, “I came so that you could be free.”

One of the questions we get most often this time of year is, “What study should we do with our small group?”

Dave (10:40):

I thought you were going to say, who’s going to win the Super Bowl?

Ann (10:41):

No, I wasn’t going to say that. And honestly, if you haven’t done the new Art of Marriage, and I said it’s a new Art of Marriage.

Dave (10:50):

It’s been like refreshed, redone, and it is awesome.

Ann (10:54):

You should do it. Give it a shot.

Dave (10:55):

Yeah, you can do the Art of Marriage. And if you want, maybe you want to do a parenting study. We have the Art of Parenting or Vertical Marriage. They’re all video studies and workbooks and they’re on sale right now through the end of August, 25% off. So go to FamilyLife.com/shop, pick out whichever small group study you want to do and go watch God work in your life and even more importantly in the lives of those that you’re leading, FamilyLife.com/shop.

How much do you, even in the doc or in your own personal journey with men, especially and I know women struggle as well, but how much do you dive into not just to fight it and accountability but the underneath—

Ann:

The root.

Dave (11:43):

—root of there’s something that’s triggered maybe in your family history or something. Jay Stringer will dive into that. Obviously, author and a counselor in this area and he’s always like—well, he even gets into, what kind of porn are you drawn to? There’s a connection to, I’m like, “What?” You could get too psychobabble about it, but there’s also, there’s something there that sometimes if you do all the right things, you get the restrictions and everything, but you never get to what’s driving it.

Jacob:

Totally.

Dave:

You’ll win for a while. He calls it splurge and purge. You’ll purge for a while and then three months later, “Oh, just went through three days or a week and I’m good for six months.” Boom. And most guys I talk to, that’s their story. “I’m winning. I’m winning.” And then you see them—

Ann (12:27):

Slip

Dave (12:27):

—and they had a night or a day and then they’ll go three more months and he’s like, “Is that the pattern you want or do you want to win?” And he’s like, “They haven’t got to that.” There’s something driving that. Do you do that at all?

Jacob (12:39):

Yep. And this is why these kinds of conversations take a lot of time because you have to cover the theology of it all, both the sin and the design, which we could talk about.

Ann (12:49):

I want to hit that too.

Jacob (12:51):

And then you have practical steps and that’s the cutting off of the access, that’s devices, that’s the nitty gritty of accountability. There’s all that discussion. And then there’s also the, all right, let’s not pretend we can, like you said, we can’t white knuckle through this. So what he’s getting at, and this has been so helpful. In the documentary, a guy named Heath Lambert talks a lot about this. So he really gets into understanding your heart and I found it so helpful with guys. So let’s say

(13:18):

There’s a—I’ll just use a guy, put girl in there too, right? You’re at work and just the project is not going well, and you don’t feel respected or appreciated. So there’s that good need there. It’s good to want to feel respected and appreciated. That’s a whole and you’re not getting that. Then you leave it, and you end up kind of forgetting about your day. You just feel down and then evening comes and, all of a sudden, you’re hit with radical temptation, but you don’t really have a game plan and eventually you fight it a bit and then you just watch porn and you just feel awful and you call it a night. Well, what we can do, if I was in an accountability group with that guy—

Dave (13:53):

Right there, by the way, you know that is so many men’s stories.

Jacob (13:56):

Oh my goodness, right.

Dave (13:57):

And I’m guessing women too.

Ann (13:58):

Well, I usually just eat something, but it’s the same idea.

Jacob (14:02):

It’s the same kind of thing.

Ann (14:03):

Yes.

Jacob (14:03):

So you can reverse engineer that and say, all right, all right. So you don’t feel respect and appreciate it at work. A couple things you could say. First of all, where are you finding the core of your identity? There’s a lot of thinking you could do about like, “Hey, you’re treasured and valued by the king of all creation.”

(14:20):

Meditate on that. That should put a little bit of a spring in your step, but let’s not pretend it isn’t real to be hurt at work, right? If you’re going to carry that, knowing beforehand, looking at yourself and knowing beforehand saying, “You know what I do when I feel this way, I usually end up going to porn.” Have that in your mind four or five hours before that’s likelihood at two or three in the afternoon instead of nine or 10 at night and go, “You know what I’m going to do? I’ve got to get a game plan for this. I’m going to put on. ” So what does that mean? I’m going to text my buddy and see if we can go play some ultimate Frisbee because I know I’m going to get a good old, healthy, God glorifying endorphin hit from going to play ultimate Frisbee which are-

Ann:

I’m going to get a sweat on.

Jacob (HYPERLINK “https://www.rev.com/transcript-editor/shared/dZc3Uo77dHs1riBXgfMLgZsoxQ6HOtuGpgJwxXyhSLe4MhjRameXB5GTJMdKHGc54tAC6dP5TnE4j33JVtaxG2rpGHo?loadFrom=DocumentDeeplink&ts=900.65″15:00):

Right. And it’s good. It helps. Or you’re going to say, “You know what? I’m going to crack up in my Bible and I’m going to start reading through the Psalms and re-root my identity in Christ.” That’s the putting on and then the cutting off is, all right, it’s usually my phone and it’s usually as I’m doom scrolling Instagram. So I’m going to lock that thing in the kitchen cupboards at about eight o’clock and go read Lord of the Rings or something and get me away from that device in a better head space. Thinking through these things beforehand gives you a game plan anticipating that temptation will come, waiting till temptation hits and then going, “Oh, what’s happening?” See, the thing is, and this is so helpful, having a good spiritual warfare cap is really helpful. The devil intentionally wants to keep us ignorant to these things, doesn’t want us to be wise and mature and thoughtful about it because what it does is we just start coming up with very clear, logical steps to take to fight sin.

(15:54):

That’s a simple observation. I think Jay Stringer would point out some very helpful things where it can be years, and much deeper hurt and then certain professionals can be really helpful.

Dave (16:05):

Yeah.

Jacob (16:05):

Really taking time to untangle that.

Dave (16:07):

Get underneath it a little bit.

Jacob:

Really get underneath it.

Dave:

I mean, everything you just described is what an alcoholic would do.

Ann:

Anyone with an addiction.

Dave:

I can’t have alcohol in the home, I can’t go to a bar, but here’s what we do. We’re like, “Oh, I’m not that bad.”

Jacob (16:17):

Yeah, exactly.

Dave (16:18):

But we have to look in the mirror and go, “I am.” If I’m going to it once every three months or whatever it is, you got to look in the mirror and go, “It’s an issue.” I don’t want to call myself a pornaholic or whatever their word is, but I have to be that vigilant and if I’m not ready to name it and be that honest about it, a little sin here and there is not that big a deal. Yeah, it is. Especially if you’re married and it’s going to be a legacy, it’s like you got to vigilante put on a camo and say, “I’m winning this sucker.”

Ann (16:50):

Well, how important is it to bring it into the light to tell somebody?

Jacob (16:54):

Totally. And what I think you said is so good about that is I don’t want to be more—this is going to sound weird—I don’t want to be more spiritual than Jesus because—

Dave (17:02):

Impossible.

Jacob (17:03):

When he came to the question of sexual sin, one of the major passages, Matthew 5, that’s about adultery in the heart, what did he say? He didn’t say, “Go look at your history of origin.” He didn’t say all this stuff. Weirdly, he didn’t even give more spiritual advice, like make sure you meditate on God. He said, “Start cutting things off. Take radical measures.” Now, all those other things are good. I’m a big God theology guy. Get your big God theology. But what’s actually, what I’ve learned over the years is what’s so brilliant about Jesus’ advice is that one of the most clear ways you tell yourself what you value is by radical steps. So here’s a story about that, which is to what you were saying. I have this buddy of mine, really dear friend, but I hadn’t caught up with him in a long time, just by distance and time.

(17:56):

So I was going for a walk with him, and I asked him about where he was at with pornography and he’s like, “Yeah, it’s kind of rough. It’s not too bad. It’s probably—” We started talking about it and it turns out he was about once a month and, in his mind, it was bad, but it wasn’t a disaster. And I told him, I said, “Brother,”—once I kind of really tried to get the story and he was being honest, I said, “Dude, your wife has a license to leave you, maybe not divorce, but

(18:28):

If you’re every month for years now and she’s putting up with that, she could totally take a break. And this is bad, dude. You’re a porn addict.” And he kind of took a step back. And I’m like, “A pattern of repeated use, that’s addiction.” So he thought about it. We just kept talking. He was great. He was like, “Dude”—it’s an hour-long conversation, but he said, “Dude, this is a Rubicon moment for me. I have never put it as starkly as this before.” So I got really amped about it. I’m like, “Dude, you got to cut things off. You got to put your phone. You got to smash your phone.” So we had this big conversation. It was great. About a week later, he sends me a video on Facebook Messenger, and he wrote on the top, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend.” It’s a Proverb and it was a video of him placing his phone on a block of cedar and blasting a nail through it.

(19:24):

And to this day that phone, that block hangs over top of his dresser in his bedroom. Last time he ever watched porn.

Dave (19:32):

He just got to the point—

Jacob (19:33):

He was—but what I love about that is it says so many things. He started seeing his sin clearly. He saw that in relation to his wife who’s hurting clearly. We talked a lot about God and how God views us and he started seeing God’s love for him and God’s judgment towards sin clearly and that is good to be frightened to that. And he put that in action steps. So he told himself to the cost of a phone, I’m going to tell myself something seriously, an embodied real way. And he blew a nail through that phone destroying it. And now every single night he can look at that thing and go, yeah, I’m serious about this.

Dave (20:09):

And every single night his wife can look at that.

Jacob (20:11):

As a testament, yeah.

Dave (20:12):

And say you love me. And again, I’m not saying that you’re never going to struggle again or anything, but you have put to death one of the things that is the bridge to sin.

Jacob (20:22):

Amen.

Ann:

Well, let me ask you guys because both of you have shared your struggle, what’s been different about your walk with God? When you see people like your friend that just nailed it, his phone, what happens in your walk with God when you’re free?

Jacob (20:37):

A guilty conscience weighs on every atom of your being.

(20:42):

It weighs. It drags. It’s hard to laugh. It’s hard to sing when a guilty conscience just nags you. Now that’s not to say, James, if we say we have no sin, we always have sin. We’ll always have struggles, but there’s something about a continual, repeated, and the knowledge that you’ll probably do it again that weighs on you. And so having a clean conscience, the freedom and deep breathedness I’ve seen in guys when they’re two, three, four months free and they just go, “Dude, I can go to church and like sing and not feel like I’m a hypocrite.” It’s amazing. It’s so wonderful. Even the guys who, yeah, they’ve watched pornography last week, but it was only one time, and you know what? Two, three weeks ago, it was almost every day. And then you can say glory to God because one time is a lot less mocking and insulting God’s design for sexuality and that’s worth celebrating and worth getting really excited over.

Ann (21:41):

And the thing I was thinking about you, Dave, like Dave just talked about this briefly in a sermon at church and I’m looking around our church. There’re a lot of men at our church and I’m watching these guys wiping tears off of their faces and they feel the guilt, the shame, they know it and they want to be used by God, but they feel so unworthy and women and men. But I’m listening to you, Jacob, like, man, there’s hope.

Dave (22:07):

Yeah. And I also think it’s like that reaching for what I know I can have and I’ve had before, but I’m just sort of blocked from it because I’m holding onto porn or whatever it is, I think the same thing happens right here in your marriage.

Ann (22:20):

Oh.

Dave (22:21):

It’s like the intimacy, not just sexual or physical, but the intimacy that she longs for is not attainable when you’re hiding this secret from your spouse, but it’s like, we have a good marriage, but we don’t have the marriage we could have if I would just deal with my porn thing.

Ann (22:38):

Well, and I can attest to that because when we were first married, Dave was struggling, but he never told me. I could feel something going on. It feels like we’re not together. What’s going on?

Dave (22:49):

And I’d lie. We’re good. And the second she said it, I’m like, “It’s this. ”

Ann (22:52):

Hiding.

Dave (22:52):

But there’s no way I’m telling her.

Ann (22:54):

But I could feel it.

Dave (22:55):

I’m going to win this battle all by myself.

Ann (22:57):

I bet I’ve asked you 20 times, “Is there something I’ve done? What’s happening? I can feel a separation between us.” And that’s what happens when you have a secret between you. There’s a separation. You’re one and especially there’s one of you that can a lot of times feel that.

Jacob (23:13):

Well, you guys with your story can say something so much more powerful that I could. I’m very newly married in that for the person who’s struggling right now, and they haven’t told their wife or their husband and they’re like, “I’m just going to vaguely muscle through it.” You guys can say, “Hey, there’s hope on the other side of this and there’s a vision for a really great marriage, but it’s not going to be easy. You don’t get the easy way through this. You have to be honest and start muscling through and take the pain that goes with honesty, but I have so many friends who have gone through this and their marriages are amazing on the other side of some difficult conversations.

Dave (23:57):

This is so helpful.

Ann (23:59):

Oh, this conversation with Jacob Valk, I was taking notes during that whole thing because I feel like I want to know it. I want my kids to know how to access this to help their kids, but also friends. This is an area that everyone struggles with.

Dave (24:14):

Yeah. And I think God’s speaking to all of us and the conversation doesn’t need to end here. Go to our website, FamilyLifeToday.com, click on the link and get his resources, which will help you as a parent navigate this with your kids.

Ann (24:30):

We would love to pray for you. I would personally love to pray for you, and we even have a team of FamilyLife that can pray for you. Just go to FamilyLife.com/Prayforme.

Dave (24:45):

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