What I learned about addiction, neuroplasticity, and peace
The moment I realized I wasn’t broken, just trained
Hi I’m Jeremy, a former Buddhist monk, meditation teacher, and ICF-certified executive coach. I help men break free from compulsive behaviors, especially porn addiction, and build lives rooted in integrity, purpose, and inner peace. This newsletter is for those on that journey and for the loved ones who want to understand it more deeply. If you’re ready to stop the cycle and start living with clarity and intention, let’s talk here
If you read Part 1, you know that I had reached a low point. It was a moment outside a Peet’s Coffee shop where I saw, with uncomfortable clarity, that I was no longer in control of my mind.
What began as childhood curiosity had become a daily compulsion. On the outside, I looked accomplished but inside, I felt empty, and broken.
When I walked away from that sidewalk, I didn’t have a plan.
But I knew this, I couldn’t keep living the way I was. The voice that had been whispering for years, "this isn’t who you want to be", had turned into a roar.
Up to that point, I had tried to fix things with willpower, distraction, even denial. I had built my identity on intellect and success.
But when it came to emotional awareness, I was a novice.
A few days later, I wandered into a bookstore, tired, ashamed, and desperate for anything that might help. I wasn’t looking for answers. I just didn’t want to feel so lost.
And then I found a book that would change the entire direction of my life: Happiness by Matthieu Ricard.
Ricard’s story gripped me immediately. A molecular biologist who became a Buddhist monk, he spoke a language I could understand, science and spirituality woven together.
One concept in the book hit me: neuroplasticity. The idea that what we focus on, what we repeatedly do, literally reshapes the structure and function of the brain.
In other words, neurons that fire together, wire together.
Suddenly, it all made sense.
All those nights scrolling through videos, the endless search for stimulation, the compulsion to escape discomfort, these weren’t isolated choices. They were training sessions. I had been rewiring my brain, day after day, to crave novelty and reject stillness.
The implications were terrifying, and empowering. If my brain had learned those patterns, it could unlearn them. It could be rewired for something else.
That realization changed everything.
Within a few weeks, I made a radical decision: I would leave the familiar behind, and embark on a journey of understanding my mind.
Eventually, I found my way to India and took a break from my academic life. I didn’t have a plan. I had a calling, to stop numbing and start healing.
For three months, I lived simply. I meditated daily. I studied ancient teachings. I walked unfamiliar roads, not to escape, but to meet myself.
It wasn’t easy.
My mind resisted. My body ached. My old habits screamed for attention. But amid the discomfort, I began to glimpse something I hadn’t felt in years:
Not the thrill of pleasure, but the quiet of inner peace.
And that peace wasn’t coming from achievement or stimulation, it was arising from presence, and a different way of being.
The Neuroscience of Rewiring the Mind
Here’s what I came to understand through both study and experience:
Dopamine drives behavior. Each hit of novelty or reward strengthens a neural loop.
Repetition rewires reality. What we practice, consciously or not,becomes how we live.
Mindfulness interrupts compulsion. By observing our urges without acting on them, we re-engage the prefrontal cortex and make space for intentional choice.
Over time, mindfulness gave me a new superpower, not the absence of urges, but the ability to sit with them without being ruled by them.
I wasn’t just trying to quit porn. I was trying to reclaim my life.
And in many ways, that journey was just beginning.
In Part 3, I’ll take you inside the monastery walls, the practices that changed everything, the challenges I faced as a monk, and the moment I realized that the key to freedom wasn’t control. It was connection.
But for now, I’ll leave you with this:
Transformation doesn’t begin with mastering something, it begins with honesty.
And if you’ve made it this far, maybe you’re ready to start being honest, with yourself.
With you,
Jeremy