He Wrote The Bible On PUA. Then Went to Rehab for Sex Addiction.
Neil Strauss wrote the bible on pickup artistry.
Yet, in an interview in 2015 with Slate he stated he has renounced that way of living.
Here's why he changed and what many men in PUA don't ever realize is at the root of their desire to seduce women ⬇️
Strauss didn’t start out as a pickup artist. He was a music journalist for most of his life.
His entry into PUA was part intrigue and part research to see if he could figure out the issue behind his sexual frustrations with women (more on that later).
Strauss succeeded. He seduced women. Added to his notch count.
He then went on to write "The Game" where he documents his experiences & teaches PUA tactics.
For all intents and purposes, he made it. So why did he change his beat?
Infidelity.
His then girlfriend (now ex-wife) asked that he get professional help for his sex addiction.
Beyond his alter ego "Style" and suave game was a deeply fearful and insecure man.
In his Slate interview, Strauss stated in his new book the truth:
“The biggest belief behind The Truth is ‘I’m afraid of intimacy, because if I’m vulnerable with someone, I’ll lose myself and not be safe.’ People engage in a lot of self-destructive and damaging behaviors just to avoid that simple thing. Myself included.”
Fear & shame.
That was at the root of all the game, all the cheating, all the sex addiction.
Strauss was desperate to find a way to defend against fear and shame.
A lot of these revelations came to Strauss after he entered into therapy and rehab for sex addiction.
Strauss discovered what most men today are still unaware of: he had an emotionally incestuous relationship with his mother growing up.
If you had/have this kind of mother-son relationship, you likely experienced:
Being your mother’s emotional confidant responsible for keeping her secrets
Needing to make your mother happy or else she’d withdraw her love and attention
Inappropriate amounts of sexual tension with your mother (which excited and terrified you)
I can tell you with almost absolute certainty that all his interactions with women - seducing and then discarding - were rooted in an attempt to resolve his mother complex.
Your relationship to your mother forms the blueprint by which you relate to all other women.
If you’re a man who seduces women only to discard them,
OR
You’re a man who gets heartbroken in the same pattern of relationships with women, you have an unresolved mother complex.
You’ll be doomed to repeat this pattern until you address it at the root. I put together a FREE guide that teaches you how to:
1) demystify your mother complex
2) turn your breakup into your great breakthrough.
It was only after Strauss addressed his deeper psychological conflicts that he was able to form a committed relationship and become a father.
In this journey Strauss learned something that many men in the PUA community never do:
You can learn all the tactics, sub-communication, and whatever other strategies you want.
But there will be a particular caliber of woman who will see right through it.
She isn't impressed by your show in the same way other women are.
She might enjoy it and even be attracted to it, but she wants a man connected to his heart, not a man hiding behind a smooth performance.
At some point men realize this, but usually it is pain that has to awaken them first.
This could be a sudden realization one morning that he’s just been acting.
He can get the women, but has no idea what to do after he has done so. He's still a boy, not a man.
Or, like many men, his awakening comes in the form of a bad breakup.He realizes that she was the one who got away.
She wasn’t like any other woman he had seduced.
She had far more depth and wisdom.
But he sabotaged it because he’s still stuck in boy psychology.
By all means learn from PUA, but understand it’s not the endgame.
Strauss stated in his own words: “I look back on The Game and cringe.”
Now as a father, Strauss has a whole new perspective on what truly matters:
Thanks for reading.
If you're a man who truly wants to do the work like Strauss did and a bad breakup has been your painful awakening, start HERE.
This is how you finally stop the cycle and step into the kind of man (and relationships) you actually want.