Candeo Can – Overcoming Pornography Addiction - Summary and Review

Click here, if you want to skip the summary and go straight to the reviews.

In this article, I am going to show you why the Candeo Can online program has completely revolutionized my personal recovery. I have learned more from this program in two months than over a year of one-on-one counseling. I am now a year and a half free from compulsive masturbation, and 6 months free from purposely looking at any form of pornographic material. 

Let me give you a brief overview of how Candeo Can training course is organized, and then later provide a detailed summary of all the material included in the course.

Course Review

Candeo Can has two main modules that you work from: your dashboard and the training room. But your browser will show many more compartments as popup windows, as can be seen on the image below. (Click on the image to see it in high resolution.)

The dashboard is where you first land on the site. From there, you can communicate with your coach and Candeo Can support people. You can also use it to write your journal, review your personal motives, access your emergency lifelines, and enter the training room. The training room is where you spend most of your time.

Candeo Can consists of 10 levels, each one taking approximately 1-2 hours to complete. Each level has exercises that you must complete in order to proceed forward, as well as homework assignments that must be done over a defined period of time ranging from 1 day to 1 week.

The best part about Candeo Can is that you receive the most updated information from three of the leading experts in the field of pornography addiction: Dr. Randall F. Hyde, Bernell L. Christensen, Ph.D., and Mark B. Kastleman.

In addition, all information is presented as video lectures, which makes learning fun and an efficient process.

Below is the summary of the material covered in the Candeo Can program. This serves two purposes: as a good preview for interested people and a way for people who have already completed the program to refresh their knowledge—a good review. A large portion of this material is from the lesson summary provided at the end of each level, but I have added my own comments wherever I felt it was necessary.

If you have a question about the program or any of the techniques covered below, please post it in the comment area below, and I would love to get back to you on that. Meanwhile, take a look at the summary below.

Summary of the Included Material

Week 1: Your Brain and Addiction

• How your brain forms habits and addictions.
• The M.A.P. (Motive Awareness Practice) process to change any habit and break out of addiction.
  
• How a powerful motive (WHY?) is the fuel for changing any behavior.
  
• How distorted thinking—overpredicting pleasure, forgetting the pain, minimizing consequences (i.e., it is not that bad), complacency after a period of abstinence—gets in the way of positive change.
  
• How a clear picture of what will happen if you don’t change, can help you. How a vivid vision of your wonderful life free of pornography is the most powerful motive of all.
  
• How the daily review of your Dream Board and Life Creed is essential to your recovery.

Week 2: Why is Pornography Addictive?

• The typical profile of someone who gets caught up in pornography and other sexual addictions. (Intelligent, sensitive, spiritual, weakness = strength)
  
• The most common falsehoods and myths about sexual addiction.
  
• A clear understanding of how you developed your sexual addiction—How did I get here?
  
• The differences between “healthy sexual intimacy” and sexual addiction.
  
• Replacement for real intimacy (shyness, social phobia) – acts of kindness
  
• Evolution stages of addiction (excitement and pleasure, self medication, replacement for real intimacy, control and release phase)
  
• How the Funnel of Sexual Process operates inside a healthy marriage relationship vs. the viewing of pornography and other sexual addiction behaviors.
  
• Why pornography use is a “drug addiction” and the motivations for using this drug.
  
• Triggers
  
  • BOREDOM
    
  • LONELINESS
  • ANGER
  • FEAR
  • STRESS
  • FATIGUE (being tired or burned out)
    
• Identify how your addiction started
  
• Acts of Kindness

Week 3: What is Driving Your Addiction?

• Fear and avoidance are at the heart of your sexual addiction.
  
• The more you fear, fight and avoid sexual thoughts, the more intense and intrusive they become, quickly evolving into an obsession that dominates your mind.
  
• Seeking relief from being at war with incessant, intrusive sexual thoughts, you act out your compulsion (pornography, masturbation and other sexual addiction behaviors).
  
• After acting out, you feel intense guilt, shame, regret and the like, which increase your fear and avoidance of sexual thoughts, starting the cycle all over again. This is called the Obsessive Compulsive Cycle or OCD.
  
• With each attempt and failure to shut out intrusive sexual thoughts, the cycle deepens until you are trapped in the OCD Cycle.
  
• Avoidance, mental extremes and exaggeration are emotional, psychological and spiritual death! It is the extreme that entraps.
  
• The advice to “just quit thinking about it,” “avoid it,” or “get it out of your mind” has actually deepened your addiction! This is the worst advice there is!
  
• Rather than being afraid, avoiding and running from sexual temptation—face it and deal with it reasonably, realistically and normally. You will have to “think” your way out of your addiction.
  
• Just like other “drugs,” as you stop using pornography and engaging in other sexual addiction behaviors, you may experience withdrawal symptoms. Don’t worry. Once your nervous system calms down, you will find that normal life is exciting and stimulating again—you will be “high on life” again.

Week 4: How to Break Free

• Running from your fears only intensifies them—you must face your fears to overcome them.
  
• To break out of your OCD Cycle, use “Face-it (Recognize you are entering the cycle through addictive behavior), Replace-it (Acknowledge the true meaning of what is happening and what you really want to do in your life), Connect (Talk to a live person to bring you back to reality).”
  
• Consistently use Scheduled and Real-Life Practice to rebuild your brain and create new healthy circuitry.
  
• Record your Temptations and Statements of Truth in your own voice and then listen to them every chance you have.
  
• Adding “Connect” as a third step to your Real-Life Practice will greatly accelerate your journey to freedom from addiction.

Week 5: Re-Create Your Healthy Brain

• Every time you practice, you are following the Success M.A.P. that changes any behavior, habit or addiction.
  
• Your recovery success depends on your ability to “raise your level of awareness”.
  
• Brain cravings for stimulation can only be sustained for so long; you just have to seek relief at a certain point.
  
• Set reminders
  
• Practicing works because it follows the “ABCD Model” and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. (A – activating event, stimulus; B – believe, how should I respond, habit; C – Consequence, result of your beliefs = feelings and emotions. B is what happens between A and C, it determines your quality of life. D – Debate, logical, truthful debate with yourself to form a new belief, which will begin to bring positive consequences)
  
• PRACTICE
  
• Veto power over automatic processes (Debate). You have mastered many skills over your lifetime, and you will master your recovery skills.
  
• Use it or lose it, your old brain circuitry atrophy (but it will always be there, and can re-grow back)
  
• Once an addict, always an addict is a lie!
  
• Consistent simple choices will set you free.
  
• You can only break free by creating a new brain, not using your old one. Do it through practice.

Week 6: Be Ready Next Time Craving Hits

• If you are overwhelmed by “the wave,” you need to take emergency action immediately!
  
• It can be easy to forget the pain and consequences of your addiction and keep taking the “limbic leap”.
  
• To “reconnect” your frontal lobes where logic and reason reside, “play the movie to the bitter end.”
  
• Mental error, imagining how exciting it would be to do ...
  
• A highly effective Emergency Lifeline is “My letter to myself.” You can use this to keep yourself from going into the funnel.
  
• Use powerful Lifeline Symbols to override the pleasure center of your brain and connect to the people and things that really matter to you.
  
• Identify and invite two Emergency Lifeline People to be available when you are in a crisis.
  
• Practice calling these individuals each week so you will be prepared when the “real thing” happens.
  
• When you find yourself overwhelmed by the urge to act out your addiction, follow the 4 Steps for Emergency Action!
  1. Get your body moving.
  2. Gratitude Breath (Breathe and think about things in life that you are thankful for)
  3. Call your emergency lifeline person and review your lifeline symbols.
  4. Go connect to real people, move out of isolation.
  
• If you have a slip, don’t waste one minute on shame and self-flogging. Assess, make adjustments and immediately begin moving forward again.
  
• You are not perfect. Learning evolves in steps. Work, practice commitment and persistence.
  
• Be a battle strategist: learn, adjust and move on.

Week 7: Healthy Sexuality in Your Life

• If you interpret women as “erotic,” it’s because you’ve made them that way through repetitive thinking. You can make them different by altering your thoughts.
  
• Knowing the “whole truth” about the women of pornography forever changes your perception of it.
  
• You can be a great “brother” to all girls and women.
  
• Sexual arousal is “creative power” manifesting itself in you. You can direct it for tremendous good!
  
• Making love or having sex should be re-labeled to “Expressing Full Commitment,” which is only possible in committed relationship.
  
• You can move sexuality to a much higher level.

Week 8: Developing Healthy Relationships

• We all crave intimacy—we need to love and be loved—we need deep connection.
  
• People often use sexual addiction to fill the “intimacy void”.
  
• Trying to fill the need for human intimacy with pornography is like trying to continually fill a bucket with holes in it.
  
• You’ve got to be your own “best friend” and stop self-betrayal.
  
• Love yourself unconditionally first, and watch your capacity to love others blossom!
  
• You must become very aware of your “self-talk”.
  
• You can connect with others in simple ways that make all the difference to you and them.
  
• You can start to heal damaged relationships just by directing your thoughts about others.

Week 9: Get Addicted to Healthy Life!

• Simple Addiction is about stimulating the brain’s pleasure centers.
  
• Dopamine and Endorphins can be used in healthy and destructive ways.
  
• Taking the Limbic Leap into the Funnel disconnects the Frontal Lobes of the brain and puts the Limbic System in control—pleasure over logic and reason.
  
• The brain quickly habituates and needs greater stimulation to achieve the same level of pleasure.
  
• Certain situations or emotions can trigger your sexual addiction behaviors.
  
• The key is to recognize your triggers early, before you are in a crisis.

Week 10: Back to the Basics

• Internet pornography and other sexual addiction behaviors are powerful eroto-toxins. Your brain needs time to “re-sensitize” to the simple pleasures of life.
  
• Healthy pleasure outlets should be an essential and regular part of your daily life.
  
• Recognize the “early signs” that you’re BLASTed (Bored, Burned Out, Lonely, Anxious, Afraid, Angry, Stressed, Tired) and implement healthy outlets.

Once again, thank you for reading and I hope this information was helpful. To learn more about the program and to join thousands of others who have found new freedom from their addiction, sign up for a free mini course at CandeoCan.com .