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00:00:01
Why John School Doesn’t Work — A Radical New Approach to Stopping Sex Buying
77 Plays27 days ago
In this powerful episode of the Trafficking Free America podcast, we dive deep into the controversial topic of "John School"—a court-mandated educational program for men caught purchasing sex. Our panel discusses why the traditional approach falls short and introduces an innovative alternative: John University, a trauma-informed, addiction recovery-based solution designed to address the root causes of sex buying. We explore the science of sex addiction, brain scans of porn addicts, and the stories of recovery that show true change is possible. This episode is a must-listen for anyone passionate about ending sexual exploitation and finding real solutions for human trafficking prevention.
🔗 Learn more and become an abolitionist: https://usiaht.org/abolitionists
⏱️ Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro: What is John School?
01:07 - Understanding “Demand” and Its Role in Human Trafficking
02:00 - Why Addressing Sexual Addiction Is Crucial
03:15 - What Actually Happens in John School
05:25 - Introducing John University: A Trauma-Informed Solution
07:20 - Hearing from Survivors: Why Shame Doesn’t Work
09:00 - Brain Scans: The Impact of Porn Addiction on Decision-Making
11:21 - Most Sex Buyers Are Addicts—Here’s the Data
13:07 - Why Education Alone Isn’t Enough
15:27 - How John University Works and Why It Matters
18:22 - Challenges Getting Court Recognition and Funding
25:11 - How Lawyers, Judges & Citizens Can Help Advocate for Change
Recommended
Transcript
Critique of John's School Approach
00:00:10
Speaker
Hey everyone, and thanks for joining me on today's episode of the Trafficking Free America podcast. In our episode today, we talk about John's school. Have you ever heard of it? In a nutshell, it's an educational course someone has to take after being caught purchasing commercial sex.
00:00:27
Speaker
We're going to give you the full introduction to it, but what we address in this podcast is the desire for a better way to address sex buying within our judicial system. Because the truth is that John's School doesn't really work.
00:00:40
Speaker
it's so it's It's a lame slap on the wrist system. Knowing how our system works will truly help us as a society work to prevent abuse, trafficking, trauma, and sexual addiction in this country, which is what this podcast is all about.
00:01:05
Speaker
Alright guys, well welcome back to our podcast today. We are going to be discussing John's schools. What they are, what really goes on, and the and and really the question is, are they helping with the problem?
00:01:21
Speaker
The problem of demand. um So as we i like to always reiterate when I say demand, um the demand for commercial sex, which obviously um it fuels this the the human trafficking industry, the sex trafficking and industry.
00:01:40
Speaker
um The demand is simply like, oh, there's people to buy. And so if you have buyers, you have a market. If we don't have buyers, there is no market and trafficking goes away, theoretically, right? Ultimately, if we can stop the buying from happening, that's gonna be a major impact.
00:02:00
Speaker
the only way to stop the demand is to address sexual addiction sexual um ah dependency um ultimately and when i say dependency not the wanting of it but rather the i feel like i need it and start driving compulsions toward pornography toward um ill actions and understanding that these are ill actions and how the church can get involved in helping out with this. So this is everything that we're tackling.
00:02:28
Speaker
And part of that is to understand how is understand how things are seemingly being tackled right now to help with demand and
Comparing Education vs. Rehabilitation
00:02:38
Speaker
how they're not. So first, let me just go and open the floor to say, what do you believe? I'll ask you first, Christy, because I know that Alan is more the expert in this.
00:02:46
Speaker
um What do you believe John's school is? My understanding is that John's School is a program for men who have been caught um purchasing women on the street and they've been arrested and convicted.
00:03:06
Speaker
And it plays into their rehabilitation. That's my understanding. Yeah, my understanding is basically the same thing as almost like traffic school. Yeah. Right? That's very good analogy. Yeah. So, yeah.
00:03:17
Speaker
So, Alan, are we right? Yeah, I mean, that's a great, really great um synopsis of what John's school is. And, you know, unfortunately, it does function like driver's school in the sense that, and I'm sure nobody in this room has ever gotten a ticket, but if you had, you know, you'll get offers in the mail to go to John's school and, you know, maybe half a dozen or a dozen different John, I'm im sorry, you're driving schools and
00:03:50
Speaker
You know, obviously, people are going to take the path of least resistance. They're going to pick the cheapest one, the one that's the fewest number of hours to satisfy this requirement, and and maybe online versus in person for convenience, right?
00:04:06
Speaker
Well, John School functions sort of the same way. And there may be only a few offerings in one particular community, but, you know, the person who's facing the need to go to one is going to pick the ones that that's cheapest and easiest and shortest and online if he can do that.
00:04:29
Speaker
Yeah. Now this wouldn't ordinarily be a problem except for the fact that, and this is the real issue with John Schools, they they tend to take an education approach to what we now know no and understand to be an addiction and trauma related problem.
00:04:50
Speaker
So that just doesn't line up well.
00:04:55
Speaker
And because it is an addiction and trauma problem, we need a lot more depth and scope and time and work to start the process of educating and inspiring these guys to take on a real healing journey to overcome their problem.
00:05:15
Speaker
And John's school is uniquely positioned to help us do that. which is why we developed the first trauma-informed, addiction-centered John School.
Introduction of John University
00:05:28
Speaker
it just is approved only in the 13th Circuit here in Florida, which is Hillsborough County, where Tampa is. um But it's a it's the largest and most robust and in-depth in the world, as far as we know. It's 24 hours, 12 two-hour meetings over three months.
00:05:50
Speaker
That's what John School is? No, I call it John University. John School is typically four to six hours for around three or four hundred dollars. And they go in person like an hour a week for six weeks or for four weeks.
00:06:02
Speaker
So sorry what is the difference between John School and John University? Well, John University is my term for this trauma-informed approach that goes a lot deeper and focuses on addiction and addiction recovery.
00:06:15
Speaker
That is not your typical John School. It's a new invention of the Sexual Integrity Project because we really feel that's what's needed.
00:06:26
Speaker
What we have now in your typical John School is a curricula you know that focuses on... um what it's like to be a trafficked person.
00:06:38
Speaker
You know, they want to explain to these guys the impact that their actions are having on other human beings, um which is good. That's not a bad thing. It's good for them to understand that.
00:06:51
Speaker
It will run through the sanctions that exist for sex buying, especially if you get caught a second or a third time. It will talk about other consequences like STDs.
00:07:04
Speaker
And they usually have a survivor come out. And um at the John School I attended, which was up in Minnesota, that was not a pleasant experience because...
00:07:16
Speaker
She flat out told the men in that room that they needed to stop, and this was her word, raping the women.
00:07:27
Speaker
You know, I can't speak for the other men, but, you know, that That kind of hurt me. It hurt my feelings at the time because I was just trying to step into my own recovery.
00:07:38
Speaker
And in my experience, the women that I had been with had um presented themselves as consenting adults, and I never would have thought of my actions as rape.
00:07:50
Speaker
Now that survivor, she might be right. But if you understand how addiction works, if you're going to shame somebody and just try to hurt them, where do you think they go to self-medicate that pain you just fit just visited on them?
00:08:06
Speaker
you know So it's like throwing gasoline on the fire and it was making, i think, the problem worse for her audience than solving it. But I certainly understand where she was coming from.
00:08:19
Speaker
So you get a survivor's perspective in a good John school. did Did you understand it during John school? Not to the level that I understand it now. you know i was very compromised at that time.
00:08:34
Speaker
intellectually, you know, because I had been acting out um for years with pornography and then later with other people. These are scans of
Impact of Porn Addiction on the Brain
00:08:44
Speaker
a healthy brain on the left, a heroin addict's brain in the middle, and a poor porn addict's brain on the right. It's the most atrophied of the three brains.
00:08:54
Speaker
and Well, what are we looking at here? And for any of our audience who's seeing a video... So this top-down view, and so you're looking from the top of the head down. That's the vantage point for the brain scan.
00:09:08
Speaker
What we're looking at at the top of the image is what's the front of the brain. that's the frontal cortex and most importantly the prefrontal cortex. That's where all of our executive functioning is, our capacity for judgment is in that section.
00:09:24
Speaker
And as you can see, it's highly scalloped and atrophied and and there's actual holes where we're supposed to be exercising judgment. So a man who's deep in sex addiction, he's not capable of making good decisions.
00:09:39
Speaker
Physiologically, not capable. Yeah, so help help any first of all, I still kind of confused what I'm looking at are you ah but what is the scientific thing? have Because ah what you have written here is what starts as a moral problem very quickly becomes a medical problem.
00:09:54
Speaker
Yeah, what is the medical? So the medical problem is neuroplasticity. You start viewing pornography or having sex with multiple partners and your brain changes to accommodate that new behavior.
00:10:08
Speaker
So you can't see it in this scan, but the eyes, which are at the top but below where we're looking, the visual cortex, which is at the back, the vision centers, and all of the material in between gets very robust and you become like a pornography-consuming machine.
00:10:26
Speaker
And that comes at the expense of these other areas where we see gaps and holes missing. Your brain just kind of morphs to help you watch more porn. um
00:10:38
Speaker
So ah you know things like having empathy for another human being, being able to put yourself in someone else's situation, being even able to do something as simple as project the impact of your actions and their consequences just become increasingly more difficult the deeper into this you go.
00:10:59
Speaker
So the deal is that John's school seems to be approaching someone who they feel should feel empathy. They feel should feel. Yeah, well, they're this arere talking to someone who's sick who can't.
00:11:10
Speaker
Right. There's someone who's sick who who can't. And they they think if they just educate them that their behavior will change. And I'm sure that it does for some whose behavior wasn't motivated by addiction.
00:11:22
Speaker
But we know that the majority, it is motivated by addiction. World Without Exploitation came out with a report in 2022 where they estimated that percent of sex buyers are sex addicts.
00:11:37
Speaker
There's another study by demandabolition.org where they studied the data of sex buyers and found found it to be very bimodal. So 25% of the men were buying what they called high frequency, which is once a month or more often than that.
00:11:56
Speaker
The remaining 75% low frequency. And they went on to suggest that these high frequency buyers are motivated by addictions.
00:12:07
Speaker
I actually think that some of the 75% are motivated by addiction. When I look at that, you know you talk about when crime analytics means, mode motive, and opportunity. right So these 75% may not have the means or the opportunity every time they want to buy sex.
00:12:28
Speaker
but I still believe a good portion of them is motivated by addiction. We have data at the Sexual Integrity Project from 13 recovered sex buyers, and when you study that data, it pretty much shows that well over 90% of the sex purchases we've displaced by helping those 13 men come to a place of healing were previously motivated by addiction.
00:12:50
Speaker
Yet the John School curricula take this education approach. So um I just really think that misses the mark because the sad truth is what happens after you educate that addicted John is you've just increased his shame because he can't stop his behavior.
00:13:08
Speaker
He just feels worse about it than he did before. So let me ask this question. what let Let's back up a little bit. What is ah what is the sexual addiction, sorry, the the John School curriculum?
Education vs. Rehabilitation: In-depth
00:13:21
Speaker
Well, it was like what I was walking through before. They'll have some statistics and information about what it's like for these victims that he's hiring, you know, that she has a pimp, that that guy is not nice, withholds all kinds of necessities from her, keeps her money. So even though she's working very hard and getting traumatized in the process, she doesn't even get to keep the fruits of her labor. It's absconded with by others.
00:13:48
Speaker
they You know, they teach you all of that. They teach you about, you know, the sanctions that are in place in your state, what you're consequences are for getting caught and what they would be and how they would increase if you get caught again for a second and third time. They obviously escalate.
00:14:04
Speaker
ah They talk about STDs and unwanted pregnancies and everything that can come from you know the illicit sex market, and they're just... trying to educate.
00:14:17
Speaker
So that works on a guy who's not motivated by addiction and who doesn't have an addiction or a dependency type problem with sex.
00:14:29
Speaker
You know, if he's got a good moral compass, if you if you allow it that somebody with a reasonably good moral compass would ever do this and you educate him, then he can come and fall back into line.
00:14:41
Speaker
But that's not the majority of the activity. So I really think there's a need for a trauma-informed addiction recovery approach ah to these men when they get caught. And my hope would be if we could receive a flow of men from the legal system here in Tampa, Florida, Florida's 13th district, um we could make an impact because I think in those 12 two-hour weekly sessions, we could get through to a guy enough that if he really...
00:15:16
Speaker
has a desire to overcome the problem and just didn't know how, he would know how. And he could extra judiciously step into one of our recovery groups or therapy groups and spend the time necessary to reach lifelong healing, which in the previous episode we mentioned that's a two to a five year process.
00:15:36
Speaker
And, you know the court's not going to sentence anybody to a John School that long, what you're really talking about is using our system as outpatient long-term rehab, which we're happy to do. We do that with diversion programs through the Department of Corrections.
00:15:51
Speaker
But um I would really like to see a flow of men into our John School, John University program in the future, because I think we could um really do a lot of to turn the tide of this issue here locally in our community.
00:16:10
Speaker
If you have anything, feel feel free to jump in. No, i I just think it's wonderful. that i think i agree with um Alan. The important part is the trauma-informed. it's it's It's asking the men, how did you get here?
00:16:24
Speaker
There's a whole story in your background on how you ended up here. and And once you relieve that, settle that, heal that, then all of this will go away.
00:16:37
Speaker
So I'm in complete agreement. The trauma-informed piece is the crucial piece. Otherwise, we're just looking at bad men saying, you're a bad man. You're doing bad things. Stop doing bad things. I agree. i don't think education makes someone stop doing something. i think education possibly keeps them from doing something. Right.
00:16:54
Speaker
And just so I can... make it clear the curriculum we have at John University does not really take away anything they were doing at John's school. We still educate them about all those things.
00:17:08
Speaker
We still want to bring in a survivor to tell her story and try to engender the beginning seeds of some empathy with these men. We just simply adding yeah the trauma informed piece, running them through a good introductory program like Sexual Integrity 101 from Pure Desire Ministries. Another good one is Conquer series from Kingdom Works Studios.
00:17:31
Speaker
Those are about 10 lessons. And they come with workbooks, and we do the recovery group model right there in the John University and try to get the guys to open up and start sharing. And, um you know, that's the model. And it's unfortunate we only get 12 meetings because we know they need more. But, you know, that's the most that the court system would approve. Well, where is that where is a John University occurring versus a John School right now?
00:17:58
Speaker
It's not. It's not. so Sorry, so maybe I must assume. No, it's it's approved. and they receive it when i said Oh, so it's approved. It's approved, okay and we don't have the budget to rent or buy a suitable place to hold it um The other problem we have is that the court is not recognizing the difference between our program and the others.
00:18:22
Speaker
So they're classifying it as a John School, even though it's a whole lot more than that. And then the judges run into the problem that they're not allowed to order a specific John School.
00:18:36
Speaker
They just have to order the umbrella John School. And then we're left, it's up to the perpetrator to pick their John School, and they don't pick ours because it's the hardest and the most expensive and the longest.
00:18:49
Speaker
They pick one of the ones that isn't very effective. So yeah we're kind of stuck in the mud. Traffic school. Yeah. so What, yeah four hours, two hours, half an hour? one One of the things I pray for is a way out of this quagmire, but if we could get the court system to recognize the difference,
00:19:05
Speaker
One way to do that is by becoming accredited as outpatient rehab, but um it would take a lot of money to do that. My understanding is you have to have a physician on staff to even be considered, and we can't afford that yet.
00:19:18
Speaker
um But that is one way, and then they could just order rehab. And those guys could go to one of the places like Dave talked about that's inpatient, 30-day, 45-day intensive. Most of those are out of state and very expensive, so this in-town person,
00:19:33
Speaker
outpatient rehab that will allow a guy to keep his job and his family and his finances intact, it would become very attractive. um But like I said, we we don't have a credation for that yet.
00:19:45
Speaker
So I'm just hoping we can find a way to get the court system to recognize the difference. Some of them have. It's been ordered for one individual um who lives in the Mount Dora area of central Florida but got caught attempting to buy sex in a sting here in Hillsborough County.
00:20:02
Speaker
So we have one guy that needs to complete by October, and so we're working with him. And then we have another man that was just ordered into recovery in our recovery group process for two years of rehab as part of his prison sentence. So that's the beginning of something that could be big. He was facing...
00:20:23
Speaker
five years in prison, followed by ten years ofrubation of probation, and then a lifetime as a sex offender on the official registry for sex offenders. And in the end, the judge ordered two and a half years of incarceration, dismissed all of the probation, dismissed all of the sex offender registry, and ordered two years of recovery in our program after the incarceration was satisfied.
00:20:52
Speaker
So that saves the state a ton of money. In this man's case, it made a lot more sense for him to get some rehabilitation instead of a lot of incarceration.
00:21:03
Speaker
And you know the program's just not that well known yet, but as it becomes more commonplace and more judges learn about it, this could be an avenue to bring rehabilitation to these men.
00:21:17
Speaker
is that Would you say that, I know that you're in the beginning of this and you're trying to start it, which we greatly encourage. um Thinking about John's school, and it's it's funny, I just did a quick Google search. Yeah, what come success of John's school.
00:21:34
Speaker
um They all seem to say the same thing, um which is there's no sound evidence of it being successful. Not yet. Wow. Of John. No, this is of John's. I know. Not yet. But I think if we can put in John University well i mean and get some data around the recovery. John's.
00:21:53
Speaker
No, it's not. It's a separate thing. but We know something's not successful. Right. right So why are we still banging our heads against it? We've been doing this for years. Yeah. Yeah. does It doesn't. It's not. This is not new. Yeah. It's you know, I'm not saying it's bad, but it's not effective.
00:22:08
Speaker
So. Sure. um I think if we paired John University, if we got it started and, you know, follow these men in a longitudinal study, I've got a couple of people at USF Trafficking in Persons Laboratory and the UCF Anti-Trafficking Department ah who are just bona fide scientists that would love to follow these people with real data and, you know, write peer-reviewed papers
Advocacy for Innovative Rehabilitation
00:22:38
Speaker
on it. You know, I think...
00:22:41
Speaker
down the road, you know, we could prove the effectiveness. I know it's effective. I just need to show everybody. So, I mean, and my and what I would say is how we take action steps with something like this is we need to advocate that we no longer um just only require John's school.
00:23:03
Speaker
That's silly. It's not successful. It's a good start. Great start. John University may not be successful, but it's the next step in trying something.
00:23:14
Speaker
I mean, i think one of the things that um aggravate me, and every time I go deeper into, what okay, what is what is causing human trafficking? whats What's causing this is this? Okay, dive deeper into that, and discover some things.
00:23:30
Speaker
Isn't it annoying how often we're seeing like someone say like, all right, so I started this thing. I've washed my hands of it. I'm done. It's I just I just imagine, you know, fine, crucify Christ. I washed my hands of it.
00:23:44
Speaker
It's it's just like, what are we doing? We we can if we know we can do better, why are we being so lazy about it? So when I think about the state's approach, the country's approach to this,
00:23:57
Speaker
We can do so much better. Yeah, I don't know if that statement's correct, though, that we know we can do better. Certainly there are new thought leaders who know that we can do better, and there's people like Christy and me and Dave who know that we can do better.
00:24:12
Speaker
But if we want to make a blanket statement across the whole nation, just your average Joe on the street, I don't think we know that we can do better. I think a lot of people accept the status quo because they don't know.
00:24:25
Speaker
that there is better out there. And so part of raising awareness is to, you know, sound the trumpets about this, that we we have a better solution and we need to, you know, all get in line and try this new idea. Or in the very, I mean, i agree with you.
00:24:40
Speaker
um But in the very least, if you see that there's no, if you've done something for years, and the data doesn't show anything, it's time to shift.
00:24:51
Speaker
I don't care who you are or where your moral compass is. That's just – you're being lazy and you're ignoring it. So you're right. ma You know what?
00:25:03
Speaker
Let's just use that argument for a second. Maybe we can't do better. Does that mean we shouldn't try? Yeah, even if you can't do better, you should still ah try something different yeah to see if you can learn if there's a better way.
00:25:15
Speaker
Now, why why do you believe that something like John University will work so well? I know you've kind touched on it. Yeah, well, I think I got over my skis a little bit there because I said it would work well. And the truth is I don't think that it will work well by itself.
00:25:29
Speaker
um You can't fix this problem in 24 hours. Sure. You can't. But what you can do in 24 hours is you can inspire somebody to step into a recovery group and take on their own healing journey. They can come into our system of recovery.
00:25:44
Speaker
of recovery groups, find one that's convenient to them in terms of where it is the day of the week. And um that is what works. Spending those two to five years being accountable to other men, going through the workbooks, going to one-on-one therapy to resolve the deep traumas that have been driving the behavior, that's what works. And I cannot give that in a John School or a John University.
00:26:11
Speaker
But I think if I touch on it in John University, and bring in testimonials not just from survivors but from men who have overcome sex addiction, recovered sex buyers.
00:26:23
Speaker
And it's my plan that they will teach the class and and we'll also have others come in and, you know, give a ah talk about what life was like for them when they were in the life and broken and and addicted and what it's like for them today after going through the process.
00:26:39
Speaker
Man, I think we could really inspire at least a good portion of the men that get ordered to John University to step into the real work and turn their life around.
00:26:51
Speaker
So what's an action step we should take to to make our voices known? Hey, John's school is not working. Let's try to do
Legal Recognition Challenges
00:27:00
Speaker
something better. Let's try to do so like there you caught them.
00:27:05
Speaker
The only way they're the only reason why they're going to John's school is because you caught them buying sex. How can we start advocating a better approach for this?
00:27:17
Speaker
I you know, how do you get better traction through the judicial session system system? Yeah. Local, state, federal. That's what I need to do. um You know, and it's tough. You know, if if talking to a church about putting in a group is tough, talking to a judge you know judges about ordering John University, that's going to be tough, too.
00:27:38
Speaker
um Some of the folks that have brought this to the forefront and said, hey, you know, this particular defendant really could benefit from this program have been the probation officers, Hillsborough County Sheriff's Department.
00:27:52
Speaker
They're the ones that have inserted themselves into this whole process.
00:27:58
Speaker
The judge that presented our program, I'm sorry, the lawyer, the defense attorney that presented our program to the judge that ordered it as rehab for the first time in that scenario I just went over where the gentleman had his prison sentence cut in half and probation and SO taken away, but in its place, rehab.
00:28:22
Speaker
He learned about it from one of the female probation officers. And then there are other men who have charges pending that are in our recovery groups because that was their rock bottom, was getting caught and having charges.
00:28:39
Speaker
And they're already working on their permanent healing in a recovery group. But, you know, we've shared that ruling as precedent with their defense attorney in the hopes that they can advocate for another judge to order it in their case as well.
00:28:55
Speaker
And we don't know if that's going to work. Is it safe to say that the starting point is to encourage any lawyer, whether it's prosecution or I guess more so on the defense side to say like, I want them to get this training specifically.
00:29:10
Speaker
um You know, if if you are a lawyer who's maybe listening to this or know somebody and can start advocating for a better rehabilitation, um you know, i believe in defense attorneys by all means.
00:29:25
Speaker
So that defense should still lead to restoration, not just like you get off. you Yeah, that kind of it's case by case. Yeah. You know, and and I've never advocated for sanctions to be removed. Yeah. You know, there is consequences to your actions, even if you have a potmarked brain like that sex addict brain and you can't make good decisions. They're still your decisions.
00:29:46
Speaker
You're responsible for your actions. That never goes away. I'm just asking to add rehabilitation that guys don't stay stuck. um You know, 10 years ago, I was buying 100 times a year.
00:30:03
Speaker
I don't do that anymore. And I really think that the world should be very curious about how I was able to do that. People should be super interested on how was that possible.
00:30:16
Speaker
And it's not just me. I could get half a dozen guys into this room who would be willing to tell you that it's true for them too. And dozens others that are still too scared.
00:30:27
Speaker
what was What was the ultimate difference that made a difference between, because you said you've been to John's school. Yeah, the John's school didn't help me. You know what's so funny is I walked out of that John's school in St. Paul, Minnesota in May of 2018. And I said to myself, that was so stupid.
00:30:48
Speaker
Somebody should make a John's school that actually deals with the root cause of what I'm dealing with. And I didn't realize it at the time, but it looks like that person is turning out to be me.
00:31:00
Speaker
So we'll see. We'll see what happens. What was the true, and just so our audience understands, who hasn't listened to your story and stuff like that, help us understand the difference between rehabilit being educated, John's school, or being rehabilitated, which is the John University you're talking about. What is the true difference in that?
00:31:23
Speaker
Well, ah rehabilitated means to me that somebody was dealing with an addiction or at the minimum like a sex dependency and just, you know, stepped into sex buying ah before full-blown addiction took root.
00:31:39
Speaker
But, you know, did the work and got the individual therapy to find out what in their life was really driving that behavior. Yeah. Typically, there have been decades before a guy gets into actual sex buying, where he was self-medicating his unresolved trauma with pornography-assisted masturbation.
00:32:04
Speaker
That's typically what's been going on. And in those 20 years or so, you know, his brain has changed to look like the one that scan we looked at, and he's just very compromised.
00:32:15
Speaker
So when I hear the word rehabilitation, you know I hear about a guy who went into a recovery group, got the support of other men started learning all about the brain, all about addiction, went through a multitude of recovery workbooks, did a ton of homework, found sobriety,
00:32:35
Speaker
allowed his brain the time it needed to heal, you know, that same neuroplasticity that diminished his brain when he was consuming porn, it works in reverse. It can be fully restored.
00:32:46
Speaker
You know, the example Dave got gave about a pristine field that's walked over the same way every day, the path forms, that was the first brain scan we looked at, the one on the right.
00:32:57
Speaker
But if you can find sobriety and stop for a meaningful period of time, you know, we're talking about many, many months for it to heal, but your brain can look like the healthy brain on the left again. And, you know, that's just a miracle that that can happen, but, you know, it can happen.
00:33:16
Speaker
So these are the things, the ingredients that are swimming in my head when I hear the word rehabilitated.
00:33:26
Speaker
Educated just means, you know, you listen to the presentation and, you know, you learn some facts about human trafficking that you didn't know when you walked in.
00:33:35
Speaker
One is very much on the surface and the other goes quite a bit deeper. And it's that second one where we go deeper that's really needed.
00:33:47
Speaker
Thanks for listening to our episode. If you have not subscribed to our podcast, please do so. If you want to look into further educational resources to prevent human trafficking in your area and learn how to better assist direct service providers of commercial sex victims, please visit usiahd.org slash abolitionist to become an abolitionist.
00:34:10
Speaker
Our Abolitionist subscribers receive access to all of our resources, emails, and action plans to make America a trafficking-free zone. That's usiahd.org slash abolitionist.