“He Just Wanted to Feel Like a Man Again”

I remember sitting across from Brian in our first session.

He was 30. Handsome. Fit. Sharp. The kind of guy who could make you laugh in one breath and speak his mind in the next.

But behind his steady tone, he was unraveling.

“I just want to feel like a man again.”

He said it quietly. No drama. Just raw truth.
And it cracked something open in me.

Because I’ve heard it before. Not in those exact words, but in the way men carry their stories like bricks in their chest. The way they talk around the real wound until their body forces them to stop.

For Brian, that stop came in the form of erectile dysfunction. Premature ejaculation. Intimacy that once felt like connection now triggered anxiety, self-doubt, and shame.

He wasn’t “broken.”
But he was scared.
Scared he had lost something essential.
Scared he couldn’t get it back.

Brian had been using alcohol and weed since college.
Nothing wild. Nothing he thought was a “problem.”
A few drinks before going out. A bowl before heading to a date. It was part of the social rhythm — a quiet buffer that made things easier.

“I can’t approach women sober,” he told me.

“I don’t even know who I am without it.”

And it wasn’t just about sex.
It was about the part of him that needed to perform, impress, lead, be “on.”
It was about the fear of not being enough if he didn’t have the right kind of confidence… the kind that came from outside himself.

Sound familiar?

I work with women every day who numb out before intimacy.

But here’s the part people don’t talk about:
Men do too.

They reach for the drink, the joint, the pill — not because they don’t care, but because they care too much.

Because they’re scared of rejection.
Scared of failure.
Scared they’ll be seen, and it still won’t be enough.

Brian’s body wasn’t failing him.
His nervous system was.

He’d never been taught how to stay present in his body, in a moment of vulnerability. No one showed him how to breathe through awkwardness. No one told him it was okay to feel shaky, to fumble, to ask, “Can we slow down?”

So instead, he got high.
He got drunk.
He disconnected — and then blamed himself when his body didn’t cooperate.

That’s the story too many men are carrying.

We teach boys to push through discomfort, to act like they’ve got it together, to “man up” instead of ask for help.

And then we wonder why they go quiet.
Why they disappear during intimacy.
Why they feel disconnected even when someone’s holding them.

The thing is, Brian didn’t want to be numb anymore.

He didn’t want to fake his way through sex.
He didn’t want to rely on something outside of himself just to feel confident.

“I want to be present. I just don’t know how.”

That’s where we began.

We didn’t start with techniques or bedroom performance.
We started with his breath.
With his shame.
With the years of pressure that had built up around being “a real man” — and the quiet war he was fighting with his own reflection.

Healing doesn’t happen in performance.

It happens in presence.

In the small moments where you pause instead of push.
In the inhale you take before trying to impress.
In the decision to stay — not just in the room, but in your own skin.

Brian learned to speak his fear before it hijacked him.
He learned to feel the flutter in his stomach and not shame it.
He learned to touch without needing to prove anything — and to be touched without bracing for judgment.

And the most beautiful part?

His body came back online.
Not because he forced it.
But because he finally made it feel safe enough to show up.

This book — Sober Sex — isn’t just for women.

It’s for men like Brian.
For the husbands who want to show up fully.
For the boyfriends who hate that they can’t feel.
For the men who secretly wonder if they’re the only ones who’ve needed a drink to get close.

You’re not.

You’re human.

We all learned to hide — some of us in silence, some of us in seduction, some of us in substances.

But we don’t have to stay hidden.

Not in our partnerships.
Not in our beds.
Not in our own hearts.

If you’re reading this and you’re a man who’s felt that quiet shame, I want you to know something:

You’re not weak.
You’re not broken.
You just haven’t been taught how to stay.

But you can learn.
You can return.
You can rebuild presence — one breath, one boundary, one honest moment at a time.

And if you’re the partner of someone like Brian…
Know this isn’t just about performance.
It’s about trust.
Safety.
And years of cultural pressure finally meeting a softer truth.

We’re all healing something.

Sober Sex launches July 1
For men. For women. For the truth beneath the performance.

Read. Share. Send this to someone who needs it.
The quiet ones are listening.

Watch today’s reel on IG/FB: “He Just Wanted to Feel Like a Man Again.”
Comment, save, and share.
Let’s change the way we talk about sex — for everyone.

As always loving you from here,

Rene’ Schooler

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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