His Parents Divorce Led Him to Alcoholism: Here's How He Broke Free | Scott Weeman: #161

What if your parents’ divorce, or the chaos you grew up in, didn’t just hurt you emotionally but actually wired you to seek relief through addiction?

This might explain why you feel unsafe for no reason, why you keep numbing out when life gets hard, or why you crave control but end up stuck in the same self-destructive cycles.

In this episode, we explore the deep connection between addiction and family dysfunction, especially how growing up in a chaotic or broken home can make substances, screens, or success feel like your only safe place.

My guest is Scott Weeman. He began drinking at 15. By 21, he was spiraling, binge drinking, hiding vodka bottles, waking up in jail, and living a double life.

Today, he’s an author and the founder of Catholic in Recovery, helping thousands find freedom from alcoholism, lust, and more.

If you’ve ever wondered, “Is this just who I am now?” or “Will I always feel stuck?” this episode is for you.

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TRANSCRIPT

Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!

Joey Pontarelli (00:37)

Welcome to the restored podcast. I'm Joey Pannarello. If you come from a divorced or dysfunctional family, this show is for you. We mentor you through the pain and help you heal so you can avoid repeating your family's dysfunction and instead built strong, healthy relationships. What if your parents divorced or the chaos that you grew up with didn't just hurt you emotionally, but actually wired you to seek relief through addiction? Then I might explain why you feel unsafe for no reason, why you keep numbing out when life gets hard or why you crave control, but end up stuck in the same self-destructive.

In this episode we explore the deep connection between addiction and family dysfunction, especially how growing up in a chaotic or broken home can make substances, screens, or even success feel like your only safe place. My guest is Scott Wieman. He began drinking at 15 years old, if you can believe that. By 21, he began spiraling, binge drinking, hiding vodka bottles, waking up in jail, and living a double life. Today he's an author and founder of Catholic in Recovery, helping thousands find freedom from alcoholism, lust, and so much more.

If you've ever wondered, is this just who I am or will I always feel this stuck, this episode is for you. Now in this episode, we do talk about God and faith and if you don't believe in God, you're totally welcome here. Everyone knows that this is not a strictly religious podcast. Wherever you're at, I'm glad you're here. If you don't believe in God, just listen with an open mind. Even if you take out or skip the God part, you're still going to get a lot from this episode. With that, here's our conversation.

Scott, great to have you in the show, man. Welcome. If you would take me to that moment when you hit rock bottom.

Scott Weeman (02:03)

Thanks Joey, thanks for having me.

Yeah, you know, I recall sitting on a cliff, not like I was going to jump off the cliff, but there was a moment before I got sober in 2011, my girlfriend wanted no more to do with me. She broke up with me in August. My roommate wanted no more to do with me. He had changed the locks on the door and, you know, I was manipulating, deceiving, lying to most people in my life to try to manage consequences. And so I was essentially homeless for a couple of like

like a week or two and was staying at someone's house who I was working with but remember I got a six pack of beer and walked over to the cliffs, lived by Sunset Cliffs in Ocean Beach, San Diego and sitting there with this six pack and thinking to myself that this is gonna run out soon and the only thing that I'm gonna care about when this six pack runs out is that I want more and I don't have the resources to get more and

I don't have a home to live in and I have lost every single relationship that was important to me. And I don't think I'm going to ever find help. And I don't know how I'm going to enjoy life. I know that alcohol and drugs are my problem, but I also kind of, couldn't say this at the time, but they were also the only solution that I had. They were the only way to effectively kind of relieve my mind from the insanity and the chaos and the darkness of the life that was created. Pursuit of alcohol and drugs was ⁓ really at the heart of this.

This, you I mentioned my ex-girlfriend no longer wanted anything to do with me, which was fair. I mean, I was right for her. She was doing what she had to do for herself. And in many ways, that was the best thing that anyone ever did for me. I was, of course, committed to trying to win her back, telling her the right things, but not doing any of right things. And there was this moment, it was on October 8th, 2011, when we had a very codependent relationship. I hadn't graduated college yet, but she was completing a master's degree in social work.

And I was doing whatever I could to stay in her good graces. She asked if I would edit one of her papers. I was happy to oblige. And before I dove into that, I lit up a joint of marijuana and smoked it in my little studio apartment that I had borrowed money from my uncle to get into. And she swang by to say hello as she was going for a run while I was doing some editing. Hadn't even cracked open my laptop, but she had opened up the door, saw me, was almost.

eager to see me for a moment until she smelled the marijuana and then from there she just her face turned to this look of disgust and she looked me in the eyes and said Scott you are absolutely hopeless you're never gonna change and she was saying exactly what I was feeling and thinking at the time and you know by the grace of God the rebound happened two days later where I knew I needed help and then on October well October 9th I made my way to Mission Bay to push my

bike through the heavy sand to the beach cruiser bike, one of the few things I had left in my possession. Called a few close friends from back home, great friends from school, elementary, middle school and high school. And then called my mom and my dad and told them what they already knew, which was that I needed help and that I had a problem with drinking. the next day, October 10th, 2011, I walked into a 12-step recovery meeting, bunch of people who had a recovering from spiritual disease of alcoholism, and they had a solution to my problem.

Joey Pontarelli (05:24)

What a story man. have so many questions, but the first one that comes to mind is like, was driving all that? what gave us a little bit of the backstory that led you to that rock bottom point.

Scott Weeman (05:34)

had

a good childhood, other than the fact that my parents divorced when I was about 10 years old. And, you know, the constant back and forth every week between mom's dad and mom's house and dad's house, which had very different rules and expectations at each and step siblings at each as well. My parents got remarried about two years afterwards. But beyond that, my parents loved me. They did the best they could.

Certainly growing up in northeast Wisconsin, if you do a Google search of the 10 drunkest counties in the United States, you'll see exactly what part of the country I grew up in. Outer Gamy County, Door County, Brown County, etc. Alcohol was just a way that people locally, my family particularly, celebrated or dealt with challenging situations. I really refrained from drinking until I was a junior in high school towards the end of my junior year, 17, was like May of 2002.

Joey Pontarelli (06:05)

Interesting.

Okay, wow.

Scott Weeman (06:25)

and a friend was back home from college. He went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison and two years older than me and invited me to go to a party with him and I was eager to be ingratiated by these older kids who I thought were cool and we walked to the party and had stuffed our cargo shorts with lukewarm beers and I recall walking on the railroad tracks, lived in kind of a rural community in Wisconsin, 30 minutes south of Green Bay and pulling out a

lukewarm bud light, said, Scott, don't think so much about what this is gonna taste like, because it's not gonna taste great at first, but just think about how good it's gonna make you feel. And I enjoyed the way that made me feel. I didn't become an alcoholic after that first sip. I think there were some, certainly some circumstances and situations that were, made it much more likely that I would be an alcoholic, some of that being familial, some of that being just kind of cultural. And ⁓ yeah, I started drinking towards the end.

It's kind of between my junior and senior year. It escalated a little bit into my senior year of high school. I do recall actually bringing a couple of times where I would, or a friend would bring like a Sprite bottle that was half drank and then filled with vodka in it. And maybe that would happen once or twice during my senior year in high school. But I was in sports, played baseball, was in policy debate, very active, very successful in policy debate. Got a full tuition scholarship to a school in New York City, downtown Manhattan, Pace University.

And that was a big change from small town Wisconsin to downtown Manhattan. And immediately even on the orientation visit that took that summer before school started and it connected with people and found those social connections through drinking and drugs. And I don't know that we, maybe someone had some pot or something like that with them that time too. But once I got into school, it was on. I mean, a lot of my friends were very, a bit different from me and just had different kind of growing up experiences.

My roommate was a transfer from Seton Hall University and he immediately began to get into his fake ID selling business and essentially sold fake IDs to most college students living in Manhattan. so getting access to alcohol was not a problem. others who were opportunity to buy and sell drugs was made available and engaged in that. Drinking every day, smoking weed every day became, quickly happened.

was still active in debate school was much less of a priority but you know i began really drinking or getting high every single day multiple times a day and it was really during that freshman year of college that you know i also felt this kind of escape i like i was away from my family i was away from the trying to navigate manage family relationships particularly around my parents you know different lifestyles in different households and things of that nature and i you know i thought that i had this newfound freedom

Unfortunately, I was just becoming a slave to the pursuit of feeling good. I think, you know, whatever made me feel good, alcohol, a variety of different drugs, the online poker boom was happening at the time. I was doing that quite a bit. And, you know, so certainly lustful pursuits as well. And, you know, I was really just losing myself, losing this sense of who I was. Three semesters later, I lost my debate scholarship, moved back home to Wisconsin, really kind of tail between my legs. I had put a lot of

really emphasis, really my identity and how people felt about me and, you know, carried with pride this, you being voted most likely to succeed or most likely to become president and I was failing and I had a hard time didn't know how to how to deal with that. I got two DUIs early on as well. I think when I was 19 and 20 after that second DUI went to treatment for 15 days at a treatment center in ⁓ Northwest Wisconsin.

And that was largely kind of to get my parents off my back. wasn't convinced that I was an alcoholic. I didn't even know that term. Talking to me about alcoholism was like talking to a fish about water. And it was just all around me. I didn't know anybody who was sober, certainly. yeah, just thought I was also too young to be an addict or an alcoholic. I was comparing myself to other people who were my age, who were drinking like I was. Of course, they were able to go to school on Mondays or to work. And I just chased it on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and just...

couldn't deal with the reality today. Every day I told myself, tomorrow's gonna be a different day. Tomorrow's gonna be the day I do something new. Of course, tomorrow never came. yeah, ⁓ so things got progressively worse. After treatment, I stayed sober for about eight months. Really just white-knuckling it though, not really any kind of spiritual alternative or program. I saw a therapist a couple of times. I went to a couple of AA meetings, but thought that it was dark and depressing and just it wasn't for me.

And yeah, so then fell in love with a girl who was from a great Catholic family as well. And she had, she was one of five kids, family, her parents were just a model of what a Catholic family looks like. And this attracted me, of course, coming from a family full of uncertainty and divorce and all the challenges that that involved. I, of course, wasn't willing to do anything that she was doing to get what she had, but I thought that if I just stuck close enough to her and her family, that maybe some spiritual osmosis would take place and I'd

I'd catch what they had and yeah, I'd say that the prayers of her family and her mom were very instrumental and perhaps later one day, you know, me getting sober and returning to our faith. Unfortunately, she and the family didn't get to bear any of that fruit is that, you know, most of the belligerent, dishonest, manipulative behavior ⁓ she was a victim of. And yeah, so when I got sober, I really wanted to win her back. That didn't happen. Spoiler alert.

but it at least drew me into the church and had me doing things that I maybe otherwise wouldn't have done if I didn't have these very human motivations. So that's kind of skipping around a little bit, but yeah, there's nine years from starting to drink at 17 years old to when I got sober at 26 years old. Really lost a lot of my self-esteem, my sense of self, full of shame, fear, resentment. I was a victim. If I had published a book while I was active in my alcoholism, it probably would have.

entitled something like, if you had my life, you'd be an alcoholic too. I was just full of resentment and also just as addicted to playing the victim as I was to any kind of substance or behavior.

Joey Pontarelli (12:34)

What was attractive about playing the victim? why was that something that you gravitated towards? Especially having the success you had. Because you have to fight for those things too. So you had like the hero or the protagonist in you as well. But why did you gravitate towards the victim?

Scott Weeman (12:47)

Yeah, well I found that, I mean, for a long time, and I think this may be the oldest child of D'Vore's parents, I felt that my achievement, like achievement was my way into relationships. And so if I could show you that I was achieving things and ⁓ worthy, I needed to kind of prove my worth. That inherent worth and dignity, I think, was somewhat lost. I think there certainly, I was learning from my parents as well about that maybe...

playing the victim would create some kind of pity from others. Now, I think really at the heart of it was being the victim was my way to rationalize my need for alcohol and drugs. And so I used that as kind of like this self justification that allowed me to kind of maintain or perpetuate my own selfish and unhealthy behavior.

Joey Pontarelli (13:37)

appreciate your honesty there. I know everyone's wondering it. We don't have to talk about this if you don't want to, but did you ever get to make amends or reconcile at all with that past girlfriend or family?

Scott Weeman (13:46)

I did. Yes, the 12 Steps provides a really wonderful pathway toward healing and, you know, internal healing first and coming to form a relationship with God as we refer to Him in 12-step, secular 12-step recovery groups, or higher powers, God as we understood Him. Of course, I came to know that God as being God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and got to know Him through Scripture and sacraments and my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who were helping really carry me during these moments of

renewal. But yes, about a year after I got sober, perhaps just a touch over a year after I got sober, did, was finally at the ninth step where we make amends. In step eight, we made a list of all persons we had harmed and become willing to make amends to them all. And in step nine, made direct amends to such people where, except when to do so would injure them or others. So I had really even, you questioned and with the help of an awesome sponsor who had about 25 years of sobriety and recovery himself.

walked, know, really looked at all of the amends that needed to be made. It kind of made some of the easier amends first and some of the more challenging amends after getting some experience. She was certainly on the challenging amend side. And there's a lot of preparation that went into this as well, recognizing that I was going to need to get honest and asking, you how honest do I be? How much detail should I provide? What was advised to me was that I, you know, share in a general way, but be very open and willing to answer specifics if she asks.

And we even went through the process of preparation. At first, writing a do not send letter, I did this for most of my amends. Like, what do I want to say to this person? Write it in a letter form first, even if I'm making amends face to face with them. And that way I could share that letter with my sponsor, and then he would take out a red pen or a red marker and cross out all the places where I was trying to either justify my bad behavior or blame others or not take responsibility.

and rationalize and all that kind of stuff and that was a really healthy process as well. We even role played what that would look like, know, getting face to face, he playing her and me just kind of practicing. And so we were very thorough about this. And then when the day came where I made amends to her, I wasn't fully honest. And she had asked me a follow up question asking if I had ever cheated on her. And the answer was clearly yes. And the answer that I spoke was no.

And ⁓ she kind of knew that was insincere. I, of course, knew it was insincere. She left that day feeling probably worse than when she had come. I called my sponsor shortly after that as well, told her, I know we had practiced this all, and I just couldn't bring myself to be honest with her and really motivated to win her back. just, yeah. So I had to then call her, scheduled some time to see her the next morning to make amends for the amends that I had made. This was not, this was like the worst.

I did not come through well in this situation. She just made it clear, like, Scott, there's this voice that you have that where you start to rationalize, and I can't stand that voice. I am totally done hearing that voice. And I came clean and told her that I had lied to her the day before and that I'm committed to being honest. And I was devastated, totally devastated when I left there, but I had at least gotten honest.

called my sponsor to tell him that I had completed that and how it went and it didn't go so well. And I was kind of questioning the whole process of recovery. And he just very clearly said, Scott, I hear that you're hurting. And I want to just ask you a few questions. Do you believe in God? Yeah. Do you believe in a God that is all knowing, all loving, and all powerful? Yeah. So what are you worried about? God's going to take care of this and things will work out. Now, I had a really hard time seeing

or even envisioning a happy life without this person who had really become my idol. You know, as a result of pursuing alcohol, drugs, lust, other compulsive behaviors, I had lost a relationship with God and it really empowered her to be my God, my idol. And that's an impossible burden to put on anyone. And just, yeah, it was not long, it wasn't long lasting, so.

but i still had a deep relationship with jesus through the church and i met some great people in the church and really wonderful people in recovery and i'm you even over was able to overcome that's really kind of low moment in my recovery even though i was sober i still felt like i wasn't really living up to what i was called to be.

Joey Pontarelli (18:13)

So good. I appreciate that vulnerability. think sometimes when people hear of the 12 sub programs or being in recovery, there's a lot of misconceptions. I think one of them is probably that once you kind of make that decision, then everything gets better in your life. And it's refreshing to hear that like, no, you still have like crappy days or, you still have struggles. You have conversations that don't go like you want, like this one. And so I think, I think that's refreshing to hear.

I think another barrier I've heard from people I've walked with who've, you know, struggling with addiction saying things like this step of the process of like kind of making amends is probably the biggest barrier for them personally. And so you mentioned that, well, maybe talk about that a little bit. And I'm curious, like that last phrase you mentioned about how the situation where it would maybe cause injury. Yeah. yeah, cause except when doing so would injure them or others.

Scott Weeman (19:03)

So would injure them or others.

Joey Pontarelli (19:06)

I think this is a huge barrier for a lot of people. Let's talk about this a little bit and then that scenario when you make that decision. If you're from a divorced or broken family, the holidays can be so stressful and challenging. You know that. Pressure to choose between parents, being reminded of your family's brokenness, especially if you've been living out of the house or at school, and just feeling a bit lost and alone and navigating it all. Thankfully, you're not alone. Our free guide, Five Tips to Navigate the Holidays in a Broken Family, offers really practical advice that you won't hear anywhere else.

a worksheet to plan out your time with your parents, super helpful, and even a copy paste template you can edit for communicating with your parents through messages or even a call. Most of all, the guide helps you feel less alone and more in control when the holidays hit. You can get the free guide at restoredministry.com slash holidays, or just click the link in the show notes.

Scott Weeman (19:53)

All of this is not done in isolation. mean, I one of greatest gifts of 12-step recovery is having a sponsor who can walk us through the 12 steps and place our hands in the hands of God. I had some awesome sponsors and have awesome sponsors. And they've been very different and have provided what I needed in very different times. So he helped me to really discern what, you know, how to go about doing all this. And trying to do so, trying to do all this by yourself is a fool's errand. It would be

Because like I mentioned, we try to make amends and either don't do it at the right time or don't do it with the thorough honesty that's required. It can do more harm than good. so, first what we did was we made a list of all the persons that I had harmed and this was somewhat easier to do. just took a few weeks prior completed steps four and five. In step four, we make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves and that's really an inventory of the resentments that we're holding.

the fears that we have been guided by and sexual conduct. And the most important part of all that is not just the list of people toward whom we're resentful. Then in the fourth column, we recognize what's my part in either starting or maintaining this resentment. What have I done? And that's really the most important part to look at. So that can create almost the template for that amends list when we get into steps eight and nine. yeah, there were some amends that just weren't appropriate to make.

old girlfriends and things, whereas to ⁓ initiate like a conversation might also do more harm than good. There might be some self-motivation in that. And it's not just to like relieve the monkey off of my back, but the intention is to restore and reconcile relationships. I think of it like the sacrament of confession, where we do a thorough preparation and then make the act of confessing, which in recovery is kind of like step five.

Asking God to remove whatever defects of character stand in the way of serving Him and others, Step 6 and 7. And then doing a penance, as we would call in the church. In recovery, we would refer to that as an amends. But really taking ownership and responsibility for the actions that we've engaged in that have hurt relationships or hurt other people. And also being honest with ourselves that if, you know, is it really, is this for me or is this for the other person if I'm going to pursue to make amends with them?

And yeah, think some people don't get to that point because there is a lot of honesty that's necessary. It can be challenging, but it's also necessary so that I can look other people in the eye and look myself in the eye and just know that I have done what I needed to do to take responsibility and accountability for the things that I've done wrong.

Joey Pontarelli (22:31)

Beautiful. Okay. No, sounds so it sounds like a deeply personal and kind of case by case discernment. And that's why going through a program having a sponsor is so helpful to have

Scott Weeman (22:41)

Also really important not to use that like as rationalization to not make the amends, know, just So so important to be consulting with another person throughout all this the man who saved my life told me that working through the 12 Steps is kind of like kung fu It's like teaching you're doing this on your own would be like teaching yourself kung fu you might get some of like the the moves and such but you're not gonna get the essence of it and You know really need someone to be guiding you through it. I found that to be incredibly beneficial and food

Joey Pontarelli (23:11)

Beautiful. You mentioned the man who saved your life. Who is that?

Scott Weeman (23:15)

His name is Michael Todd and ⁓ he was at the meeting so I mentioned, know, October 8th I had this encounter with my ex-girlfriend. October 9th I made the calls to tell people that I had a problem. Of course, drank myself to bed those two nights. That's just what I did. The next morning, October 10th, I came to this early morning, 7 a.m. AA meeting held at an Episcopal church about two blocks from the beach in Pacific Beach, San Diego. And I recall I got there maybe two minutes before the meeting started.

I was usually sleeping through hangovers at this time, working evening dinner shifts and such at a restaurant. I heard, you know, the meeting was taking place in the second floor of an Episcopal church and kind of an open stairwell to get up to those stairs. And I could hear laughter and camaraderie above in the meeting. And I thought, I've got to be in the wrong place. If these people have any idea what I'm going through, there's no reason for anybody to be laughing. But I hesitantly made my way up there and kind of sat in the back corner where I wouldn't be seen or heard from.

shared during the course of that meeting. Afterwards, we got around in a circle, put our arms around each other's shoulders, and prayed the Lord's Prayer. One of the few prayers that I had remembered from my childhood, growing up nominally Catholic, I didn't have, you know, kind of felt like that prayer is, this feeling of feeling like I was at home, like I had found my people. I didn't have a ton of time to sit with that and process that as immediately afterwards, a man darted across the room, looked me in the eye, and said, I know exactly how you feel. You don't ever have to drink again.

And he invited me to go get coffee with him, not, what's your schedule look like later this week or ⁓ next weekend look like. like right now, let's go get coffee. The stranger who I just met said, let's go, let's go get coffee and talk about this. And so we did. And we sat at the coffee shop for about two hours and share with him what was going on in my life. And he said, all right, well, let's do this again tomorrow. Meet me back at the meeting at seven o'clock. We'll go at seven AM. We'll go.

to the meeting and then we'll get coffee afterwards. And if you've got a big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, bring that with you. and if you've got a Bible, bring that with you as well. And if you ⁓ feel the urge to drink between now and then, give me a call and I'll be happy to help. And so we did that. We made that a routine every morning, 7 a.m. AA meeting and then sat at the coffee shop for a couple hours. He kind of learned quickly that he had me held hostage because I had burned most bridges in my life. ⁓ we would read through the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and it's also

referred to different scripture verses in the Bible. One day he held up both, the big book in one hand, the Bible in the other. He said, this book, the Bible, is for people who don't want to go to hell, and this book, the big book, is for people who have been there and have no interest in ever going back. And that really, for me, opened the gateway to this life of faith and kind of got me into the church. Of course, some of that motivation was to win back my ex-girlfriend, but, you know, I

was very blessed also that there was a local young adult community that was very active meeting on Wednesday nights. We had dipped our toes there in there, the Lent prior, while I was still with my ex-girlfriend. So I had met a couple of people. Actually, I called the guy who was leading this, guy named Brock, who's today one of my best friends, because I had gotten his number. And I said, hey, Brock, I don't know if you remember me, but my name's Scott. was at the Bible study during Lent. So you're still leading that Bible study on Wednesday nights? This was like Wednesday morning.

day three of sobriety for me. And he said, yeah, come on by. You know, we're here every Wednesday. So he made my way there. I felt like a total imposter and phony, full of shame and assuming that all these people here have it all figured out. They're walking saints that have not made any mistakes. And I was soon wrong about that. I was a little nervous about some social awkwardness, which in any kind of Catholic young adult group, you're going to have a little bit of that.

Yeah, so I've made my way to the church through this really active and great young adult community, then became an usher, volunteered to become an usher at Sunday Mass, 9 a.m. Mass every Sunday. was partly I was learning from recovery the value and importance of service and commitment, and I thought this would help me just to be accountable to getting to Mass every weekend, which was not a routine of mine ever in life. And so, ⁓ yeah, I tried to apply what I was learning in 12-step recovery groups to my life in the church, and that was quite fruitful.

Joey Pontarelli (27:29)

Beautiful. again, thanks for sharing so fondly. I think for anyone listening right now who maybe is in that spot where they know they need help, but there's a lot of fears, there's a lot holding them back from, for example, reaching out to someone like you or your organization, getting in a meeting, a program. What are some of maybe those most common fears and therefore the mistakes that they make that keep them stuck longer?

Scott Weeman (27:54)

Yeah, would, I mean, boil that down in general to, I think it's a fear of suffering. Father Jacques Philippe in his book, Interior Freedom, does a really great job of contrasting the difference between actual suffering and the fear of suffering, whereas he notes the actual suffering can be redemptive. It has, you know, it can humble us, it can make us more reliant upon God and the people who are close to us, and however fear of suffering, there are no redemptive qualities. It just...

puts us into a place where our options are often forgotten, we make very irrational decisions, and really close ourself up to God. And so I think a lot of that is just for, and this is my experience as well, fear of suffering. I had learned early on that certain, that behaviors and substances could keep me from suffering. I mean, they were also the source of my suffering, but for a little while they were also the solution to my fear of suffering. So drinking or getting high.

or using pornography and masturbation or gambling or even eating behaviors can be a way to kind of numb my feelings so that I don't feel those feelings. And I was running from feelings for ⁓ several years. And alcohol and drugs were very effective at that. Whereas I would wake up with all sorts of feelings and then kind of begin just the day. I mean, a typical day for me would look like I wake up in the morning. This was before I...

lost my day job, but I would wake up in the morning and tell myself, today's gonna be a new day. You know, I'm gonna do something different today and, you know, get up, get dressed, feel like crap, drive to work. Then by about 10 or noon, I would be caffeinated and hydrated enough where I would then in some way tell myself, ⁓ maybe that was a little bit of an overreaction this morning. And I just, you then I was just obsessed, the mental obsession.

I couldn't wait to get that ⁓ feeling, get that drink, that first drink of the day, because that would be my escape from all of the fears that were in my head, the anxiety, the depression, the negative thoughts that I had about myself and the world. That was really the only solution that I had to relieve myself from the insanity that was going on in here. And so then I would, on my way home, stop at a liquor store, buy a bottle of Gatorade and a bottle of vodka.

Chug about half the Gatorade sitting in my car in the parking lot. Poured a bunch of the vodka into the Gatorade bottle so that I would have a drink for my drive home. Because I couldn't wait the eight minutes that it took me to get home before having that first drink. That's how powerful it was and how attached I was to it. And it was my source of relief. Of course, it was a very bad source of relief. I needed to find more different sources. So I would just say that the person who is suffering today...

If you're honest with yourself, if you allow yourself to be honest with yourself, which I struggled with, it was really hard for me to be honest with myself. My problems were everybody else's problems. My solution was found in alcohol and drugs and other compulsive behaviors and substances. But I also couldn't see how, I couldn't envision a different life. I was so afraid of the suffering that would come, the suffering that was taking place in my mind that I was trying to escape from it every single day.

And I just want to inform the person that is struggling today and is running from those obsessive thoughts, ⁓ maybe even those core negative beliefs that we that we think about ourselves and about the world and our relationship with God and others. You know, sometimes the worst thing that can happen to us can end up being the best thing that could happen to us. ⁓ And we usually it's you know, we were usually entering recovery on a losing streak. I've yet to find really one person who has gotten started their recovery.

on a winning streak, but they just thought, well, you know, I think today's gonna be the right day to get sober. Usually it's by ⁓ experiencing the natural consequences of our actions. And you know, a lot of times in families and in other relationships, it can be hard for the ⁓ person who is the quote unquote identified patient in the family to experience the natural consequences of their behaviors because others, parents, spouse, kids,

siblings are kind of going in and ⁓ softening that ⁓ blow. you ⁓ know, so therefore it's oftentimes family members who are most eager for this person to get sober because they have experienced a lot of the consequences and have in fact kind of shielded others, ⁓ shielded the person who is struggling from realizing the natural consequences of their behavior. So

I think it's a very nuanced and challenging thing, but oftentimes family members, if a listener has a parent or a spouse or a sibling or a child who is struggling with addiction, that's oftentimes the pathway toward help is let's, you you've experienced these consequences, but it's not your battle to fight. You need to learn how to take care of yourself so that the person who you love can be empowered to make positive changes in their lives with the help of God and others.

maybe family members, sometimes there's a humility required to maybe recognize that the person who's gonna help this loved one of mine is gonna be some stranger, some anonymous stranger, like Michael was to me and others have been to me as well.

Joey Pontarelli (33:02)

So good. No, it's such a powerful lesson that it's a hard thing to just face yourself. That's what I hear you saying. Then the first part, it's like that alone takes an act of courage. It's a difficult thing to do. You know, I remember when I was stuck just in lust and similar to, you know, pornography, masturbation, acting out in that way. It was, yeah, like you, lie to other people, you deceive other people, but you lie to yourself and you deceive yourself just like you said so well. And so.

you know, maybe that's like a great challenge. Like just be honest to yourself, like tell the truth, even if it's ugly, even if it's something that's really difficult to do. I think that's a powerful lesson and a difficult.

Scott Weeman (33:38)

Yeah, there's a saying in 12-Step Recovery that we're as sick as our secrets. And so the raw honesty that we engage in in a 12-Step Recovery meeting is very inspiring to hear of really what's going on in other people's lives and for them just to be honest about this and really an outlet to find once we share it, the burden of it is lightened.

I was bottling everything in, you know, from all of the ways that I felt about my parents' divorce to the challenges that I was having in life and, of course, trying to present myself as though I've got it all together. But yeah, I was lying to myself just more than I was lying to anyone else. In fact, you know, when I had pushed my bike through the heavy sand in Mission Bay and called my best friends and my parents about what was really going on, that wasn't even so much for them to hear it.

But it was for me to say it. Like that was, you know, there was so much power in that. And even in recovery meetings, you know, as we're sharing stuff, it's kind of like, you know, we're sharing it for others to hear, but it's also just really important for me to hear. It's important for me to hear, my name is Scott and I'm an alcoholic. I have a friend, dear friend, who I met in the young adult community in San Diego a couple of years after I'd gotten sober. So he didn't see any of the wreckage, but he just knew me in recovery. And I remember a phone call we had at one time and he asked me, said, Scott, I know people who are alcoholics.

I don't think you're one of them. Are you sure? Are you sure you're an alcoholic? And so we'll dust and you probably know, you know, those people are probably active in their alcoholism. You've never seen me take a drink, but I'm very capable of it. And, and I really just kind of said, you know, the, the only person that I need to convince that I'm an alcoholic is myself. As long as I am convinced that I'm an alcoholic, then we're going to be okay. I don't need to convince anyone else. spent a lot of time convincing other people and myself that I wasn't one. And that didn't do me a whole lot of good. And ⁓ yeah, so.

I think it's just important that we are honest with ourselves, with God, with other people. it takes, you know, we got to learn how to do that. I had to relearn how to be honest, of course, as evidenced by the failed attempt at making amends with my ex-girlfriend.

Joey Pontarelli (35:39)

Wow, so good. I wanna go to the situation described where someone's trying to help someone else who's going through this and they could see so clearly that they're struggling. But I think you hit on an important point. How does someone know they're an alcoholic or an addict of some sort, whether it's with sex, gambling, other substances? How do you, and I hear the whole subjective part of it, that totally makes sense, but I'm curious if there's any signs or symptoms that someone could use to maybe say, huh.

I thought I just enjoyed drinking a lot or I thought that this was normal behavior, but now I'm thinking maybe it's not.

Scott Weeman (36:11)

something

that everybody needs to come to on their own and there are a variety of ways. I'll give you a clinical definition here in a moment. I'll also note that we have assessments on our website, CatholicinRecovery.com, where if you're struggling with alcohol, drugs, lust, food, or a family member impacted by a loved one's addiction, we have some kind of questions and assessments that will help to...

I'm going to say diagnosed, but that's not really a diagnosis. It's just to assess, do I have a problem? Do I need to take a deeper look at this? For the most part, if someone is taking an assessment asking if they need help, they probably need help, or if alcohol is a problem. Normal drinkers or users of substances and behaviors aren't taking assessments about whether they have a problem. I have taken plenty in my life. clinically, would say that oftentimes the traits of addiction.

And I don't care really if you'd use the term addiction. Some people don't like that term. And I should also note, I was meaning to note this too. You know, I say my name is, if I'm in a meeting, I'll say, my name's Scott, I'm an alcoholic. Or, my name's Scott, I'm an addict and an alcoholic. Should be very clear, I do not define myself by my alcoholism or my addiction, but rather I define myself as a beloved son of God. I find my identity in that. And that is at the foundation of everything in my life, is being a beloved son of God.

And also, when I say my name is Scott, I'm an addict and an alcoholic, that can be a means that first it's important for me to hear it because I need to hear it on a regular basis and not forget. I've got this built-in forgetter that can recall the euphoric memories but can oftentimes forget the painful things that have happened. you know, Michael who saved my life would say, you know, that it's a blessing. It's why women have more than one children or more than one child, that built-in forgetter.

Also something that we need to be very mindful of, of just being honest. And it's helpful to be around people who are new to recovery to remember what it was like when I got here, not wanting to ever go back. So if there are consequences of our behaviors, and those might come in a variety of ways, they might be emotional consequences, this feeling of shame and guilt and lost esteem, anxiety, depression, jitters, certainly spiritual consequences, trying to fill the...

God-shaped hole in our hearts with all things that are not of God. know, familial consequences, relationship consequences, lost job or education consequences and such. You know, those things, if we're honest with ourselves, if we have a problem, we can usually point back to our alcoholism, drug addiction, food-related addictions, whether it's compulsive overeating or restricted eating, pornography, lust and sexual addiction, whatever it might be. And then also that it takes this, you know, this other component to it is this

idea around tolerance that it requires the more of the same substance to achieve the same desired results or in a behavioral addiction it would be kind of more extreme forms of that behavior in order to achieve the same result we build a tolerance to it and need more in order to in order to meet that i would say also if you're thinking about it now i really like alcoholics anonymous or other groups will really respect one's free will if you walk into an a meeting

They're not going to tell you, sit down, you're an alcoholic, you need to listen to this. And they're not going to try to convince you that you're an alcoholic. In fact, a lot of wisdom, there's a lot of wisdom in this idea that, if you don't think you're an alcoholic, why don't you go out and try some controlled drinking for 30 days? And if you can control yourself and keep to the number of drinks that you're going to tell yourself to and don't drink when you're going to tell yourself not to, then you may not be an alcoholic. But if that's a challenge and you can't...

keep to your limits or control your drinking, then come on back, we'll be here and we're here for you. It's noted in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous that the obsession of every problem drinker is that he or she can both control their drinking or limit their drinking and enjoy their drinking. And for me, those two things were mutually exclusive. If I was controlling my drinking, I wasn't enjoying it. And if I was enjoying my drinking, I was not controlling it.

Yeah, so we gotta come to that conclusion ourselves. If people in your lives are telling you that you might have a problem, they're probably not just saying that for any reason, but ⁓ people who we trust, who are a part of our lives, might be the ones to recognize that maybe there's a problem, maybe this needs to be taken a look at. If you have a problem, you're probably gonna react negatively to that and deny it. Of course, denial is a really ⁓ big aspect. Denial, shame, isolation, fear, resentment, those...

components are typically found in anyone struggling with any kind of either substance or behavior related addiction.

Joey Pontarelli (40:46)

This episode is sponsored by Blackstone Films. They just released a new documentary called Kenny. It's about an ordinary Denver priest who lived like a true father and transformed families and inspired vocations. He would actually wake up at 430 every day to do an hour of adoration. His parishioners would ask him to pray for them and they actually got those prayers answered. Some even call them miracles. He had to shepherd his people through the Columbine shooting, if you guys remember that.

horrible, horrible event. He ate with the families in his parish every night of the week. He hiked with groups of young adults in the Rocky Mountains on Colorado, and he sat with couples on the brink of divorce, even saving a marriage, which they talk about in the documentary. And so if you want a hopeful model of leadership and fatherhood, something worth watching with maybe your spouse or your small group, watch Kenny. The trailer and the full film are now streaming on formed.org. You could just tap the link in the show notes to watch the full documentary.

or just the trailer. Again, thanks to Black Zone Films for sponsoring this episode and for telling such an inspiring story that I myself watched and really appreciate it. I think that just this whole lesson that it's hurting you and you might not even see it is just profound and important. And I heard the quote once that hurt people hurt themselves most. And I think there's like so much truth to that. So it's kind of, you know, we need to see ourselves in this light of like, no, like you're sick, I'm sick, I need help. There's a problem.

it's hurting me to come to that point. And that's a humbling spot to be, but it makes so much sense that that would be the path to freedom. it's so, I mean, yeah, I'm sure it's so scary to even admit that itself and then let alone reach out for help and then go to like a meeting where you're showing your face and people might recognize you. And it's like all these fears that come to the surface when you're trying to change the way you live. And I think one of the things I was going to mention too is I've heard it said that

So many people just repeat the same 30 days or six months of their lives for their entire lifetime. And so, you one of the invitations I would say to anyone listening, watching would be, do you want to try something new? And why might you want to try something new? You could always go back. It's always going to be waiting for you there, but why might you want to try something new?

Scott Weeman (42:57)

I would just add a few things here. think that the magic of what happens in recovery fellowships is, know, we have those which you just outlined, that fear and like, how am I ever going to come to actually talking about this thing that's been killing me that I've been hiding from for so long. And the magic that I found in recovery is that, you know, we bring that thing, that stuff, and we expect it to be received as, you know, judgmental or, you know, shame and

But instead of being met with judgment and shame, we're met with love and mercy and people say, keep coming back. Like that, that for me was incredibly moving and motivating and was very different from the way that I was otherwise being, it was expecting to be received. The man, Michael, would often say to me, similar vein to what you were just expressing, he said, I'm not okay and you're not okay and that's okay. And he said, actually don't, ⁓ if I ask you how you're doing, Scott, please do not tell me that you're doing fine.

Please don't use that word when I'm asking you. I've got too many people who one day have told me that they're fine and the next day I found out that they had killed themselves. so we just bring it to me like it's as it is. He said, out there in the world, we lead with our strengths and here we lead with our weaknesses. And in weakness there is unity and in unity there is victory. And so I mean it was all counter cultural to what I was, counter to what I was just conditioned to do. In fact, early recovery, I just kind of also said,

You know, I'm just going to listen and do what these people tell me to do. That way, if it doesn't work out, I'll just blame them for it not working out. Now, in my case, it did work out and I had nothing to blame anyone for, but that was also a little bit of a manifestation of that victim mentality that I had. just following those directions of the people who are there. And said, also, never underestimate your ability to help the addict or alcoholic who still suffers. I found a lot of purpose and joy in that.

Joey Pontarelli (44:50)

You did. Why do you care so much about this? You've dedicated your life. You've put so much work into helping people who were where you were. Why do you care so much?

Scott Weeman (45:00)

People have saved my life and I am just trying to give back a fraction of what I've received. And it also helps me stay sober and close to God. I mean, I think that every best, the best gifts that we have in life can only be kept if we're willing to give them away. And so I've gotten, I mean, I know firsthand what it's like to suffer with an addiction and the ⁓ toll that it takes on individual lives and on families and on communities and

even on our church. And so I have, yeah, just set out to help those people who have suffered and are suffering. I'm not the one to speak about prevention. That's like, I'm the last person to be speaking about addiction prevention. But to those who have fallen in the well, I am eager to reach my hand down and help pull them up as people have pulled me out of that dark well that I lived in for a long time.

And it's incredible. mean, the ability to see the light come on in other people's eyes and to see them start to get honest with themselves and others, to see families return to form, that is an experience that I want more and more of every single day. And yeah, I get to witness God through the individuals and families who find freedom, who were in a place of desperation. So yeah, that I think is just a call that I've had and this was not in my plan. I mean, I

I was supposed to be successful in college and be successful in debate and then parlay that into some career in politics or ⁓ law or maybe be a sports agent or something like that. ⁓ yeah, I believe that God has given me the experience and the dark past and not to shut the door on it, but to allow that to be an asset, probably the greatest asset I have to stay committed and connected to God and to my brothers and sisters.

a great asset to share with other people who are still suffering.

Joey Pontarelli (46:55)

I love it. One of the things you mentioned, ⁓ unwanted sexual behavior and how that that's something you guys help people with treat. One of the crazy stats, which I'm sure you've heard is from Dr. Patrick Carnes for everyone listening, who's an expert on sexual compulsion addiction. He found that 87 % of people who struggle with the sexual addiction come from a broken family, what he calls a disengaged family, which is absolutely mind blowing to me. Have you seen similar data or anecdotally that

a lot of the people who end up struggling with addiction come from really dysfunctional or divorced families? ⁓

Scott Weeman (47:28)

Yes.

I question though, I mean, at the same time though, I know people who are, you know, suffer from addiction who come from great families. Right. And none of us are immune from the potential effects and dangers of addictions. And I think that if we're honest, a lot of us experience all sorts of dysfunction within our families, some of it, of course, much greater than others. Right. I think that for those, you know, impacted by divorce.

The ⁓ separation of family is a great tragedy. I liken families to starting quarterbacks. This may not land for every listener, but they say if you've got two starting quarterbacks, do you even really have one? And I say if you've got two families, do you even really have one? Because I think that the family unit is like, my mom, whose parents did not get divorced, she has an intact family unit. My dad.

came from a family of dysfunction where his dad left him early on in life and a lot of tragedy has come from that. His sister died of a drug overdose and challenges with food and identity and in a lot of ways some of the same patterns have repeated themselves in my dad's life. So yeah, think that certainly the traumas that we experience as children and the challenges, if we don't have something or someone that we have a secure attachment to,

and can find connection and ⁓ a place of safety with, then it's going to be much more likely that we're going to turn to behaviors and substances to make us feel good. Because those primary caretakers who provide a secure relationship do provide also the outlet and model how we can self-soothe without having to rely upon external behaviors or substances to help us feel better. And that learning how to self-soothe in very healthy ways, either through

exercise or prayer or surrender or honest conversations and such. mean, think that just that puts someone in a much greater position to be able to not fall prey to compulsive behaviors and substances that can be tempting as outlets of reprieve. mean, for me, alcohol and drugs did for me what I could not do for myself. And of course, they also came with, you they

promised a lot and didn't come through on all those promises. And in fact, it turned out wanted to take everything from me. And so I needed to find a new solution that wasn't going to turn on me as alcohol and drugs and lust and other behaviors did.

Joey Pontarelli (49:57)

Okay, real talk, if you've been trying to get in shape so you feel better physically and emotionally but nothing is working, you're not crazy. I've been there myself. I recently read a free guide by Dakota Lane, a certified personal trainer who we've partnered with that's helped about a thousand people and it was really helpful for me personally. In the guide, he breaks down the biggest fitness mistakes that we all make like under eating, over stressing, or focusing too much on the scale and he gives really simple, practical tips that you could actually use that you can implement today.

And so if you're tired of feeling like you're never gonna get in shape, just click on the link in the show notes and grab the guide today. It's totally free and it might just be the thing you need to start feeling healthier physically and emotionally. No, that's good advice. And yeah, I think sometimes it's hard to see when you're maybe stuck in a compulsion, but there's so much in life that can give you like a natural high that can make you happy. In fact, there was a bunch of research they did at Harvard that basically said your happiness is more or less.

Determined by the strength of your social connections which is kind of a nerdy way to say like how good your relationships are and I the guy who did the research and wrote the book the happiness advantage Sean Acre I think is the name might be butchering that but ⁓ He actually left Harvard and moved on the same street as his sister and his parents to just like practice what he was preaching

And, ⁓ and there's some beauty in that. I think, you know, I think it always goes hand in hand when you're stuck in a life of deceit and addiction and compulsion, numbing, escape. You're so lonely, you're so isolated. And there's something beautiful that comes about when you're able to experience like a real honest, good relationship and go out in nature and experience like, you know, an adventure there or.

travel somewhere and not need to rely on substances and whatever other behavior. There's something really good and beautiful about that that I think is totally being missed.

Scott Weeman (51:44)

and these things, these unnatural things that get us high, whether it's food, compulsive eating behaviors, mostly around flour and sugar, or course lust or alcohol, drugs. Marijuana, legalized in many states throughout the United States now has been long thought of as a non-addictive substance. I would argue with that for a long, time, that there are very harmful effects and potential for addiction.

But using that as an example, marijuana use on a regular basis kind of just discolors our lives. And especially when we're not under the influence. And a lot of these other things, numb, are the natural experiences that we have, whether behavior or substance. And so even something like the enjoyment of a ripe fruit can be just a gift from God, a pleasurable gift from God that it experiences. But if we are inundating ourselves with these like

know, feel-good drugs, lust behaviors, or whatever it might be. It can be very hard to almost appreciate those very subtle, pleasurable gifts from God because our minds are so focused on this need, I need this substance or this behavior. It becomes my greatest need and source of comfort because I can't rely on God or other people to meet my needs, so I've got to turn to something else.

Joey Pontarelli (53:04)

Totally, I love that you mentioned that. It's just like how, yeah, like you said, a meal itself can be so good and beautiful and refreshing and the taste is amazing. If you've ever had a good steak, it's like, wow, this is so good. But you're right, those super stimulants like porn or drinking drugs really drain the life. It's kind of ironic. It drains the life out of those naturally good things and trains our brains to just seek those super stimulants. I mean, what I'm hearing you say is like,

You do need to go through a detox period in order to experience that joy again. Otherwise you can't like they don't compare. Yes.

Scott Weeman (53:39)

Exactly. I hardly even see the miracles of God when we are so self-centered.

Joey Pontarelli (53:45)

So good man, A few final questions. I'm just curious if there's anything else you would add, especially given our audience about how maybe your parents' divorce impacted you and contributed to your struggle with addiction. You've already talked about it a bit, but I'm just curious if there's anything you would add.

Scott Weeman (54:00)

Yeah, I think that a lot of it was just this escape. was seeking, you know, I didn't trust God or other people to meet my needs, and so I sought an escape through alcohol, drugs, lust, gambling, food at times, internet and technology still at times. And so that's, yeah, that really at the crux of it. And that might manifest differently for different people, but I think a lot of it is often the same. I think really the thing that I wanted just to...

What I've been reflecting on quite a bit as a father and a husband, father of three kids, seven, five, and three going on four years old, is, you know, and also coming to meet my wife. My wife comes from a great family, parents are together, and you know, even as we were pursuing that relationship, you know, I was sober.

several, you know, couple years into my sobriety and active in my church life and, you know, even feeling a little bit of that shame of not, you know, bringing a background of like a solid family and, you know, but just grateful that she was able to kind of receive that and love me for who I was at the time. But now I think sometimes too raising our kids, I mean, we just kind of go back. I mean, our experience is what we reference and so.

you there's sometimes where I can get a little bit stuck still in resentment and I'm so grateful for the 12 steps in our Catholic faith. Just two ways, parts of my life that help invite me into something new every day. But I can get all wrapped up in, know, what I'm trying to do is trying to give my kids an experience with family that I did not have. I'm sure yours is the same, Joey, having the blessing of meeting you and your family and...

Like sometimes that can be a challenge. It can be really hard. I can even get sometimes resentful that I wasn't given this, but I'm working really hard to give this to my kids. Not in an envious kind of way, but just like I can go back to this victim mentality and also not referencing or no, you know, like, so I've got to just be very careful. And I'm so grateful though to, because our family and my kids are kind of fascinated. They're at this age now where they're very fascinated with their, my parents' divorce. They're asking questions and things.

I've learned how to even communicate with my kids about the divorce. At first, I was kind of like, well, why don't you go ask grandma, my mom, who was the one that instituted it or initiated it and kind of put it on the spot. This was not the right thing to say or do. They did not follow up and do that, by the way, but just I learned that it's probably important that I control the messaging with my kids around what had actually happened. And my mom has gone through a lot of...

reconciliation and seeking forgiveness and has come to her faith in ways and you know a lot of my resentment toward her has been, we've worked that out and very grateful for those opportunities. But sometimes they'll even ask like you know we've got to be, say often, mom and dad will not get divorced, we don't believe in divorce, even if we don't like each other we're always going to be together and because they're, you know, they're like are you guys going to get divorced or...

It just brings up conversations that I just wish weren't a part of the family, but I also get it. There are kids and they're curious and it's outside of the norm, so they're asking questions about it. I like to see it as really a gift to be able to give my kids a family and that stability that they can rely and count on, mom and dad being together no matter what. Even just being able to share my recovery with them. They know the work that I do. They've even found

a jar of my recovery tokens one day about maybe eight to ten months ago in my closet. Wow, daddy's got treasure, all these bronze tokens that commemorate different recovery milestones. So even be able to introduce to them how I've come into relationship with God and know God through my recovery and what it was like, what happened and what it's like now. You that's got to make that age appropriate, but still has been a huge gift to be able to.

just kind of reassure our kids that mom and dad will be together and then invite them to participate in my recovery, which I have but a daily reprieve based on the maintenance of my spiritual condition. I'm not cured as an alcoholic or an addict, but get to live today.

Joey Pontarelli (58:01)

Before we close down, I just wanted to make sure to touch on this because we talked about it before. People who want to help someone who's struggling with an addiction. what are maybe the top one or two mistakes they make and then what is the better right way to help someone?

Scott Weeman (58:13)

I would strongly encourage, just from an attitude standpoint of perceiving or engaging with them as if they are a sick person. A sick person, like they have a physical illness. They have a spiritual illness and have in many ways lost their capacity to say no, which does not mean that they're not accountable for their bad behavior or responsible for their actions, but the will to...

not drink or use drugs or eat compulsively or lust or gamble has been taken from them or is no longer there in the way that their loved one has. And so just to treat them as you would a sick friend. I think one of the challenges I mentioned, one of the things that people do wrong is they try to soften the blow of the consequences. And so, you know, we'll try to, you know, make sure, make that car payment so that the car is not repossessed or make that

mortgage payments because they're you know whatever might happen or bail someone out of jail or not you know make sure that they don't get in trouble or cover up for them because honestly we think of that my gosh like that would be the worst thing that could happen to them. ⁓ It may also be the best thing that could happen to them is allowing them to experience the natural consequences of their behaviors and be empowered to do something different. What you can do I think is helpful is to share from a place of humility.

and maybe even recognize like I don't have, I don't struggle with this problem, but I do struggle with this and this and this and even just kind of providing some exposure, exposing yourself and you know, kind of letting someone into what's really going on in your life can be helpful for them to get honest about what's really going on in their life. Because you know, they have been treated probably as the quote unquote identified patient in the family.

And so everyone's almost identity has become rallied around helping that person. Or maybe if it's like a child, for instance, and ⁓ other children might be resentful at mom and dad because they're giving this identified patient more attention than they're getting. it's just a lot of messiness. The whole family is impacted. And so I would strongly encourage, if it's a family member, to also try to find recovery yourself. If you, a healed person who goes back into a wounded family system,

It makes it very hard for that healed person to stay well because in a lot of ways that family system is kind of set to have that identified patient. when the identified patient gets well, other family members are not sure what to do because their identity is somewhat been formed on helping this person. And so that's, know, there's a lot of kind of deeper, I would say subconscious psychology there, but I've seen that play out so many times. There's, you know, families want to maintain the sense of homeostasis and it can be very hard to change.

within a wounded family system. And so if your loved one is struggling, find a group like Al-Anon or Es-Anon or other groups. Catholic in Recovery has a variety of different meetings and resources for family members or loved ones, friends of an addict, alcoholic, food addict, you name it. And yeah, start to recover yourself. And this can be a pathway toward surrender in new life and trust and faith and...

all of the things that can be beautiful fruits of the twelve steps and just surrendering and finding freedom through our Lord.

Joey Pontarelli (1:01:32)

stuff man, appreciate that and if people want to learn more about you and what you offer, maybe give us a little bit of a list of what you guys do offer you mentioned a little bit and how people can get that.

Scott Weeman (1:01:42)

Catholicinrecovery.com is our website. You find there all sorts of different resources. I published several books. My first book, The Twelve Steps in the Sacraments, A Catholic Journey Through Recovery, published by Ave Maria Press. It's kind of the first book that I would encourage starting with. We've also published the Catholic in Recovery Workbook, which is a sacramental guide through the twelve steps, integrating wisdom from saints, scripture, catechism, and of course taking one through the twelve steps.

and then we most recently published the Recovery Rosary, are meditations for those impacted by addiction, compulsions, and unhealthy attachments. We have a variety of resources free on our website, blog articles, and assessments that I mentioned before to help discern if this is a problem and what can be done about it. We have events taking place, monthly webinars, and ⁓ a virtual recovery summit that's going to be taking place on Friday, September 26th.

Yeah, a variety of things. And then we have a ⁓ digital resource platform called CIR Plus where we walk through your first 90 days of recovery and have a host of videos, video modules, courses, resources, webinar recordings.

community forum to connect with others in recovery through the lens of Catholic faith as well as daily reflections that reflect upon daily mass readings and another person who's right doing a saint of the day reflections as well. We just launched this the Catholic in recovery app, CIR app, so that those resources can also be can be accessed through through your phone on a mobile app. Other retreats and events and things of that nature taking place. Got a lot of good stuff going on.

Catholicinrecovery.com, can find more about that and either begin your recovery journey or if you're in recovery already and you're active in a secular 12-step recovery group, we invite you to kind of integrate your faith into that, integrate Catholic faith into that process. We're not here to replace AA or SA or NA or OA or Al-Anon or all of the different 12-step groups that could go on and on, but really to be a supplement to those groups and or to be a bridge between.

12-step recovery in the Catholic Church.

Joey Pontarelli (1:03:48)

Beautiful man. Just want to give you the last word, Ben. What final advice, encouragement would you offer to everyone listening right now, especially someone who is stuck in an addiction and feels hopeless?

Scott Weeman (1:03:58)

I would say that the cost and the price of salvation is honesty. And we're promised a banquet with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And the cost to get there is for us to be honest with Him, with others, and most importantly with ourselves. And so whatever kind of humility might need to be found, and many of us in recovery find humility first through humiliation. But whatever it takes to get right-sized in order to surrender,

and admit that I can't do this on my own, I need help, would encourage you to find people who don't have any kind of affiliation to your family, your work, your maybe even church community, but who know exactly what you've gone through and have found a solution, a solution to be free from that addiction, compulsion, or unhealthy attachment, freedom from those addictions so that we are free to love, serve, and know God, our neighbors, and ourselves.

And so I know, I totally get it. It seems like the worst thing that could ever possibly happen is for other people to know how much pain and how much challenge you're in. And the only way out of that pain and struggle and suffering and challenge that you're currently in, that enslavement, is by sharing with other people what's really going on. That seems incredibly scary, but I promise you that the fruits and the benefits from it will far outweigh the ⁓ difficulty and the challenge and the humility or maybe even humiliation.

that can be found by just letting people know what's really going on. doesn't have to be everyone. You don't need to take out a billboard to say that you are an addict and in need of help. you know, ask God in prayer how to go about doing this and then find people who can be the eyes and the arms and the feet of our Lord. Just as Micah was to me, I'll say to you, you're not alone. I know exactly how you feel. You don't ever have to drink or use drugs or eat compulsively or lust or gamble. Again.

God will make that happen, will allow you, but He also respects your free will and when you're ready, He'll show up. He may show up before you're ready to.

Joey Pontarelli (1:06:02)

That wraps up this episode of this podcast has helped you feel free to subscribe and rate or review the show. You'll avoid missing future episodes and help us reach more people. closing, I was remember you are not doomed to repeat your family's dysfunction. You can break that cycle and build a better life. And we are here to help and keep in mind the words of CS Lewis who said, you can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.

#133: Digital Addiction: Why It Hurts You & How to Beat It | Andrew Laubacher

Technology certainly has benefits, but there are dangers as well. Sadly, our misuse of technology is causing us to be more depressed, more anxious, less happy, and less healthy than ever before. 

Perhaps worst of all, it destroys our ability to heal, grow, and build healthy relationships. In this episode, we dive into that with my guest, Andrew Laubacher, plus:

• Alarming data on how misusing tech is hurting us, especially young people

• How to build an intentional relationship with technology

• A novel yet simple solution to help you find freedom from digital addiction

Visit Humanality.org

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30-Day Digital Detox Challenge via Hallow

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TRANSCRIPT

Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!

===

Joey: [00:00:00] How big is this problem?

Andrew: There was a study that just came out actually that surveyed teenagers and around 75 percent of them shared that they wish TOK never existed. I don't know anyone so far I've spoken to that's like, Hey, I want to be spending more time on my phone. Founders of Google and Instagram, Facebook, they don't give these products to their children.

Joey: What would you say to someone like that? Who's like, man, like I can't even consider giving up my smartphone. Like I live on the thing and I get, I'm so productive on it.

Andrew: When we talk about. Being moderate with our devices. It's like nurses going to high schools, telling students to moderate ecstasy. It's just, it's just not possible.

Joey: Welcome to the restored podcast. I'm Joey Panarelli. If you come from a divorce or broken family, this show is for you. We help you heal your brokenness, navigate the challenges and build healthy relationships so you can break that cycle. And build a better life. My guest today is Andrew Laubacher. Andrew is the executive director of Humanality, a movement, helping people overcome digital addiction and reclaim their humanity with degrees in theology and philosophy and a decade of experience as a [00:01:00] touring musician, he offers a unique global perspective on human connection as a national board certified health and wellness coach and personal trainer.

Andrew blends his expertise and wellbeing with Humanality's mission for humanity. Promoting balance technology use his innovative approach, empowers people to reconnect with authentic human experiences in the digital age. I'm really excited to have Andrew on the show. As you guys know, technology certainly has benefits, but there are dangers as well.

Sadly, our misuse of technology is causing us to be more depressed, more anxious. Less happy, less healthy than ever before. And perhaps worst of all, it's really destroying our ability to heal, grow, and build healthy relationships. And so in this episode, Andrew and I dive into that. Uh, he, we talk about the alarming data on how misusing tech is hurting us, especially young people, how tech addiction is perhaps the biggest barrier to achieving great hard things.

How to build an intentional relationship with technology is some awesome advice on that. And finally, he offers a novel yet simple solution to help you find freedom from. Digital [00:02:00] addiction. So if you have a smartphone or you watch screens, maybe more than you'd like, this episode is for you. Quick note. I apologize for the background noise due to a canceled flight.

Andrew actually had to speak with us from the Denver airport in the Delta airlines lounge. But I'm really glad that he did. Here's our chat. Welcome to show, man. So good to have you here.

Andrew: Hey, honored to be here. Thanks so much.

Joey: I'm going to talk about your apostolate, the work that you're doing. I, you know, it was checking out your website, obviously, and definitely impressed by what you're doing and just how well researched it is.

And just how, um, big of a problem this is. It's such a huge issue that we're all facing. And so I'm really excited to dive into the conversation where people aren't aware. Um, what problem are you guys trying to solve exactly?

Andrew: Yeah. So humanality exists to help people discover freedom through an intentional relationship with technology.

So. We are really helping people be more fully human and especially in regards to our phones and devices and TVs and tablets and, you know, the addiction regarding our phones and social media and gaming and, you know, pornography. We're, we're [00:03:00] addressing that problem, which is like the elephant in the room, you know, but the elephant's really in our pockets.

And it's affecting all of us in many different ways, but at this point in our society, we're really helping people get their lives back and get their time back.

Joey: So good. It's amazing. I know we'll get into this a little bit, but I've heard stories of people when they actually take a break from technology, they, yeah, like what comes of it.

So we'll get into that in a little bit. But I wanted to ask you the kind of maybe obvious question of why do you care about this? Like, you're a talented guy. You could be doing a lot of things. Like, why this?

Andrew: Yeah. At least in my own experience, I am a millennial, so I had half of my life, you know, without a phone and then kind of half my life with the phone and all the social media platforms.

And yeah, I got a, I got a smartphone in college 2010 and got on every, you know, social media platform. I mean, I was on my space and AOL and some messaging and, you know, all the early kind of things like that. You know, I had the razor dude and I thought it was like the coolest. Kid ever, but you know, as all these different platforms came out, I began to experience the addiction to all of [00:04:00] myself.

So just the comparison, the waste of time, the lust, and that just began to get just progressively worse in my life. I've been a musician pretty much most of my life. That's been my career the last 10 years. So playing music at, you know, conferences and retreats and had a band that traveled around the world playing music.

I was playing the game, you know, sharing all the. Places and people and flights and cool trips and I just noticed my own addiction to feeling good Getting more likes and yeah by 2018. I say I was addicted to all the platforms snapchat Instagram Facebook Twitter YouTube and I personally was just getting tired of the struggle with lust and Comparison and waste of time and just feeling lesser like I should be in this different place Place at this stage of my life, you know or all my friends getting married off, you know and finding their person and I'm not so anyway 2018 I decided to delete all my social media and go to a flip phone and my record label and Management at the time was like that's a [00:05:00] horrible idea You know, like how are you gonna get gigs and events and I was like, dude, this stuff just is not making me happy And I deleted all of it, and that year, God took me all over the world, North America, all over Canada, South America, Europe, Jerusalem, all without social media, all with a flip phone, and it was just this moment of real freedom, like my relationships improved, I got my time back, my purity improved.

I was beginning to experience like surprises about things, you know, like about stuff happening in friends lives. They're like, Oh my gosh, I found out they had a baby, you know, and I didn't know. And, uh, we'll get to do this thing called like catching up with people, you know, like in person, you know? So, so anyway, that's, that's kind of where this all started for me.

Um, and I just noticed even while I was on the road, playing music, you know. In front of all these people, I saw the mental health epidemic unfolding before my eyes, and I began to be very passionate about healing. I've always been fascinated with [00:06:00] healing, pretty much since I was 21. Um, so for me, I wanted to help people.

And I just felt like music wasn't enough. Like when I was on stage playing, like I wanted more. And so I started studying nutrition and health and wellness and longevity and mental health and started to find You know, and this intersection with technology, I just began to see more and more. We're getting sicker and sicker as a society, almost, you know, on every on every front.

And I wanted to help people heal. And I noticed that technology was really affecting us in many different ways. So there's a lot more to the story, but that's kind of how I got interested in these topics. And to me, it really comes down to healing. How can I help, you know, people heal? I

Joey: love that. One of the things I love about your mission is that It gets to the root of so many other problems.

And I think that for so long in our culture, we've just been treating symptoms. And now you're, especially with this, like that's what we try to do here as well. You're going to the root. Talk about that.

Andrew: Yeah. Let me hit you first with just a little bit of the data. I'm kind of a [00:07:00] nerd. Um, so I'm going to hit you with the slew of stuff.

This is going to be a little overwhelming, but it's going to get to, this is obviously describing maybe the symptomology and then I can kind of share some Um, you know, changes we're looking to present to the world. Uh, children aged eight to 12 in the United States spend an average of four to six hours a day watching or using screens while teens spend up to nine hours a day on screens.

This is common sense media. That was 2019. So that number is actually even higher. Um, excessive screen time is associated with a 30 percent higher risk of anxiety, depression in adults. A study of 4, 520 adolescents found that those who spent more than seven hours a day on screens were twice as likely to be diagnosed with depression and anxiety as those who use screens for an hour a day.

A 2021 study found that 210 million people worldwide suffer from social media addiction. Research shows that limiting social media to 30 minutes a day can lead to significant improvement in well being. I mean, there's an incredible amount of [00:08:00] information on, on gaming. Right now, in regards to pornography, 28, 258 users are watching pornography every second.

A study found that 64 percent of young adults aged 13 to 24 actively seek out pornography weekly or more. Um, and here's kind of a synthesis analysis. A study of 2, 587 adults found that problematic internet use, including social media, gaming, and pornography was associated with poor mental health, increased suicidal ideation, and decreased physical activity.

So, that's just some of the data. Obviously, this book by Jonathan Haidt called The Anxious Generation has really been blowing up lately. You know, since the last 10 years, anxiety and depression have skyrocketed amongst teen girls and boys. 10 to 14 year old girls have experienced a quadrupling in, uh, self harm, directly correlating to this moment when the smartphone came out and the front facing screen.

So these are a lot of different problems, right? I don't think the technology piece is the answer to all of them. I'd say it's a [00:09:00] huge contributing factor, and all the data is pointing to that the more you're on these things, the worse mental health outcomes you experience. So our idea is, Hey, how can we help people get more human interaction, more face to face in person interaction, get outside, get sunlight, get moving and actually do this thing together, right?

Here's the bread and butter of humanality. This is a movement. So it's people doing this together right now. We're at, you know, six universities, over 300 students that are essentially giving up their smartphones and taking on dumb phones to be a part of this movement. And when you realize there's people that want to do this together, that's the game changer.

Um, there was a study that just came out and actually that surveyed teenagers and around 75 percent of them shared that they wish Instagram and tech talk never existed. So we're actually giving young people the opportunity to opt out of this social contagion of. This need to belong via social media platforms and allowing them to reintegrate their friendships, their purity, [00:10:00] get their time back.

And it's already been incredible. We're only in our second year as an organization, but the testimonies coming in are just amazing.

Joey: Wow, man. So good. And how big is this problem? Would you say like, obviously all those. Stats show the seriousness of it and mind blowing, honestly. We'll, we'll make sure to link all that in the show notes, but my goodness.

Um, how big is this problem?

Andrew: I mean, it's definitely universal. So there's 2 billion people on the planet that have smartphones. I don't know anyone so far. I've spoken to that's like, Hey, I want to be spending more time on my phone. I also have never heard anyone after they scroll Instagram for like four hours, be like, wow, my life is incredible.

Everything is so great in the world. And I'm just so looking forward to this day. You know, I mean, I just, those aren't the things that people experience. And we have to understand that these different tech You know, gurus, different founders of Google and Instagram, Facebook, they don't give these products to their children.

So Steve jobs was interviewed in a 2010 interview. I was asked, how are your kids enjoying the new iPad? [00:11:00] He said, we don't give it to them. We limit their technology. And here's the also funny part. All these guys are Schmidt from Google. Mark Zuckerberg, Kevin Tok, all these guys went to Waldorf schools, which are zero to low technology schools.

So, and that's where they send their kids as well. So, you kind of know something's off when the guys creating these products aren't giving it to their children. And they themselves created these products from a place of growing up without them. So, we're really helping people. One, understand that these platforms are addictive.

It's actually behavioral addiction. Um, and we don't use that word flippantly, right? It's actually, uh, dopaminergic neurological wiring that's happening. And they've essentially exploited the human brain in such a way that we constantly feel that pull, right? The average American is checking their device, just looking about 352 times a day, that's almost every two minutes and 45 seconds.

Uh, some other numbers are even worse. Um, so [00:12:00] there's a reason you can't stop checking, right? Two major mechanisms they're using social approval and intermittent positive feedback. So a lot of these companies went to the slot machines of Las Vegas and actually, you know, looked at how they utilized intermittent positive feedback to create You know, greater dopamine responses to keep you coming back for more.

So that's your Instagram, your Facebook, your, you know, Snapchat, Tik TOK, but then even just the idea of communication, I mean, pretty much everyone constantly is checking email, text, phone calls. I mean, there's never a point where it disconnected. So. Once we help create boundaries once we help educate people on how these technologies are addictive and actually this is their attention you kind of build up this rebellious anger of like you know what when i don't like being used.

And i don't like my time being monetized for money i mean really your engagement and attention into these platforms is what's being monetized are not free at they're not free actually [00:13:00] cost you a lot. If your screen time here's, here's my thing. My screen time was average five hours and 30 minutes with no social media.

I was just looking at the weather channel app, you know what I mean? Just to distract myself, you know what I mean? And my Delta app, just see how many points I had five and a half hours times, seven days a week, you know, times 365 days a year times the next 20 years. It came up to, you know, over four and a half years of my life are going to be spent on the screen.

Now, if your average American is on a screen seven to nine hours a day, I mean, we're talking over ten years of your life, you're going to look back, and it's going to be spent on the screen. And I remember looking at that number, and just not wanting to entertain that reality. I wanted to choose a different path.

And That's really what we're inviting people into a new way of living while utilizing the good of technology. So we're not anti smartphone, we're not anti technology, I'm speaking to you on a computer in the Delta Club in Wi Fi, you know. But we have to understand that this didn't just happen, like this, this [00:14:00] wasn't just by chance, this is, this is by design.

And, um, there's many different physiological, social, emotional, spiritual implications that, um, humanality is really addressing as a whole.

Joey: So good. So much I want to comment on, but one of the things you made me think of is in one of our past episodes we had Dr. John Bishop on and he, um, was talking about how there's really three, um, somewhat recent revolutions that have really, in some ways, damaged the human person.

There's been some good things that have come out of them, but they've damaged the human person. They've hurt our ability to love and hurt like families and. And he talked about obviously industrial revolution, how that kind of took, you know, men and some women away from their families and away from like a farming lifestyle.

Then from there came the sexual revolution, of course, which had so many devastating effects on love, on marriage, you know, relationships, all that. And then finally, the one he pointed to, which I don't think is talked about enough. That's why I like the work that you're doing is the digital revolution. How that's like just upended so much of our culture and cause so many problems.

And so I love that you guys are talking about this. [00:15:00] I also, I was thinking about how you said that, you know, all these guys who've created these platforms and who are very successful businessmen are not, you know, doing the things that they're trying to get us to do. It's fascinating. I remember hearing from James Clear, the author of atomic habits.

He was in one of his like emails. I get this, he was talking about how, you know, a lot of people have their best ideas in the shower. And he's like, for a lot of people, that's the only time they're away from their screen. So it's like, it's amazing what your brain can do and how like productive you can be when you're away from it.

And the final thing I was going to say is I remember, um, studying in Austria, you know, going to Franciscan university, going over to Austria. And for anyone who's not familiar, we have this awesome study abroad program. where we go for like, you know, semester three, four months. And we're literally there on this, like in the foothills of the Alps and at this old Carthusian monastery that's been converted into a hotel.

And it's just like 180 of us. And, um, now it's a little bit different, but back in the day, we didn't have any smartphones. And it was like, you maybe had it done for maybe, and that was it. And so obviously we're using our laptops and computers to get schoolwork done. But then when we would [00:16:00] travel, we had nothing.

And it was so, so freeing. Like some of the most peaceful, happiest times in my life were there. And then my time in Italy. And so, yeah, I, I've tasted it and it's so good. And I think like so many people feel that, uh, this is just the way our culture is. And we can't really overcome it. What would you say to someone like that?

Who's like, man, like I can't even consider giving up my smartphone. Like I live on the thing and I get, I'm so productive on it. Like, what would you say to that objection?

Andrew: Yeah, so many things. But, um, I was just thinking briefly, Cal Newport in his book, digital minimalism says that we weren't wired to be constantly wired.

Like there's just not how we were designed. Um, and just, To your point about the shower, like we don't really have any space away from these platforms, uh, and it is affecting our capacity to think, to reflect, to be creative. Actually, boredom is one of the most incredible places that you can begin to be creative.

And I think there's a creativity crisis in our culture right now. [00:17:00] So yeah, to the people that are so addicted, most people are willing to admit they're totally addicted. So I've haven't met anyone. That's like, you know what? My smartphone is so amazing. It's doing everything. I don't actually struggle with being on it at all.

I have perfect control of it. I mean, I actually haven't spoken to one person that's ever said that. If that is the case, and, you know, maybe they're, you know, convinced that, uh, this is the only way forward, I would just say, you know, really ask the question, like, is this the best way you could, you know, spend your time because while there is incredible, like apps like Lyft, like a random person can come pick you up and take it, like, that's an incredible technology.

Um, I know most people aren't just using, you know, the phones for these incredible tools. Uh, they're also getting caught up, you know, scrolling on. On YouTube and Instagram and Facebook and Snapchat and Twitter. So again, it's very difficult because the, the tool, the phone has been so mixed with incredible tools.

Most of our society now doesn't even have menus at a restaurant, [00:18:00] right? You have to use a QR code where we're actually, it's getting very difficult to live without these platforms. So here's the only difference. It's very difficult to talk about the moderation conversation again, because this tool is largely addictive.

So. Abigail Schreier says, you know, and speaking of this moderation thing, this is what I just, I hear a lot of like, well, just be moderate with your technology, you know, she says that when we talk about being moderate with our devices, it's like nurses going to high schools, telling students to moderate ecstasy.

It's just, it's just not possible. You know, you'd never give an alcoholic a beer and tell them to moderate it. The issue is. Is that we have these addictive things in our pockets in our hands at all times. It's literally an appendage now That we can't live without so it's not like you can really fully detox from the thing because you just need it at all times so yeah for most people I think the answer to the You know, productivity.

I don't, I don't think I can get off this thing. I mean, I would one just say, yes, it is incredibly productive. Um, but [00:19:00] maybe are there places with your relationship with your device and social media that you're finding are unhealthy or toxic? And I guarantee you, every person is going to say yes. So we're here to help.

How do we help get those toxic places with our relationship with our devices out and kind of get back to a more healthy place? And to be honest, I don't know. At this point with how toxic social media platforms are, if there is a healthy place. Now that's a hot take.

Joey: If you feel broken, understanding why is the first step to healing.

Our free mini course called Why You Feel Broken features five short videos by a trauma therapist answering key questions such as, what is trauma? How does it affect your body, your mind, your emotions, and your relationships? It'll help you diagnose what's wrong so you can begin to heal and build. a better life.

Get the free mini course at restored ministry. com slash broken, or just click the link in the show notes. Yeah, that totally makes sense. And I remember when we were in Indianapolis, when I met you for the first time, you showed me your dumb phone. I was the wise [00:20:00] phone or light phone. And, um, and it was kind of impressive actually how like, New looking they are, they're not the phones from the nineties or early 2000.

So I was impressed with that. But the few things I would throw out there, in addition to everything you just said, would be, you know, doubling down on what you said, if someone said, you know, saying that their phone makes them so productive and their life so easy and everything like that, which I think there's a lot of truth to it.

Um, but at what costs you said that really well, then the other thing is, is it the only way, like you said, you can do a lot of this stuff on your computer. And then what if, you know, you could actually be more productive. Without your phone, which I think, you know, you, you quoted, uh, Cal Newport and I forget the name of his new book, but it's, I think it's slow, slow productivity.

It's like that, that idea that, you know, anything great that you can produce in your life is going to come through a lot of like focused, deliberate work that, you know, doesn't involve distractions, maybe some healthy breaks,

Andrew: but

Joey: it's like, good luck. If your attention span is worse than a goldfish, like you're not going to be able to build anything great in your life.

And it's going to, there's going to be a [00:21:00] lot of other struggles that come from that.

Andrew: Yeah, no, I mean, it's kind of the whole funny thing I've been discovering that even when I deleted all my social media, I mean, I really actually felt withdrawal symptoms that first week and two weeks, like actually anxious, feeling left out the FOMO, the whole, the whole thing, you know, which again, they know, this is how we feel.

This is why young people can't get out of this. Um, they feel stuck, you know, cause all their friends are on it and when they get off of it alone or their parents are forcing them. Yeah, they feel very alone. Um, but yeah, county reports book is incredible because he goes through a list of, uh, you know, inventors, creators, businessmen, I mean, really anything worth building just takes like 20 plus years, you know, and right now this is what I'm calling the instification of everything.

So I think again, our habits and our day to day. Um, decisions really do impact our thinking and behavior. So in regards to our Instagram and Facebook and Tik TOK, like watching influencers and watching them share [00:22:00] every meal and everything they think and everything they do and every time they go to the bathroom and whatever, like.

This is warping our view of reality. Um, So the idea is, okay, I can get rich and famous instantly and go viral. Uh, this is what, like the number one thing young people want to be is an influencer. Like, that's very alarming to me. Um, because that isn't real life and it's mostly people projecting false illusions, you know, and this is like the part of the difficulty is like a lot of people are, you know, desiring to do so many good things.

You know, via the internet, via these different, you know, websites. Um, I think it's just missing the mark in so far as that you have to become obsessed with how many people are following you, you know, everything's about a reaction video to what this person said, we're, we're losing actually authentic friendships.

We're losing actually real in person communication. Uh, Dr. Cardoris talks about this in his book, digital madness. And Nicholas Carr talks about in his book, um, the shallows, how we're actually [00:23:00] losing our capacity for what's called spectrum or critical thinking. So these platforms are actually making us dumber, like our IQ is going down, but actually one of the main indicators of success.

In many different realms is actually creativity, and I would say our creativity is actually going along down along with that with our IQ. So my point being to really do anything fulfilling, uh, we're in a meaning crisis. We're in a loneliness epidemic. Uh, the surgeon general has shared. We're in a loneliness epidemic.

The surgeon general has shared that, you know, we need to have warning labels on our social media platforms.

Joey: Wow.

Andrew: Um, because this stuff is making us. Sick and really anything worth doing in life, I believe takes a really long time and it's slow and it's painful. Like even just building this organization, you know, it's like, this is an incredible undertaking that is not instant.

And it's probably going to take the next 40 years to really unpack for the world. What I want to unpack for the world. Um, And along with that, um, I think it's pretty [00:24:00] clear that at this point in time, the experiments gone horribly wrong. So, you know, 10 years ago, we didn't have this data, right? But now we do.

And it's like, well, what do we do moving forward? I don't think the influencer model, you know, creating a culture of consumption and obsession with self is healthy. And we're really interested in helping humans flourish. I'd say humanity is more of a wellness movement. Yeah. We actually don't even call ourselves a ministry.

We're actually just a movement for humans. So it doesn't matter if you're religious or where you land on the political spectrum, everyone is asking the question, how do I be more human? 90 percent of our time is now spent indoors with 10 percent of that time being outside. A hundred years ago, that was completely the opposite.

You know, we're not getting enough sunlight. We're not getting enough movement. Uh, we're eating highly ultra processed food. 60 percent of the American diet is ultra processed food. Almost 70 percent of our society is, you know, overweight or obese. These are a multiplicity of issues coming together that within our calling them villages at our universities, because [00:25:00] it's this idea of how do you get back to your local village?

Again, we were talking about that omnipresence idea. I can't really do much about all the wars around the world, but I can go help that person down the street that just like needs someone to say hello and maybe needs food. Or I can call that friend, you know, that I know is struggling and instead of just liking their picture, I actually, I think I could call them and actually check in and see how they're doing, you know.

There's people like literal neighbors next door. That need a hello, that need a hi. Like I've lived in a lot of different places and I'm sad to say I've barely known my neighbors. So with globalization, with all of its benefits and amazing attributes, again, it's making us lonelier than ever and unhappier than ever before.

And so really the things we're proposing in the club, which we can get into maybe our, uh, solutions that we're proposing are actually to help people heal physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally. I mean, it's the whole person and it's, and it's literally applicable to every human. Um, so that's, what's so exciting about.[00:26:00]

Um, our work and i'm also a national board certified health and wellness coach. So i'm very passionate about behavior change. I love you quoted the, uh, atomic habits. Um, but i'm very interested in virtue and i'm very interested in those questions, you know, like what does it mean to be happy? What does it mean to live a life worth living?

So anyway, those are some of the things I'm, I'm interested in.

Joey: So good, man. I love that. Yeah. Let's get into the solution. Um, for you, I'm just curious if you'd add anything about like young people who come from broken families in particular. I know we've talked a lot about kind of where technology leads us when it comes to like anxiety, depression, tension, span, all those different things that we talked about.

What do you think is driving at least for these young people from broken families, their use of technology as an escape?

Andrew: Yes, there is a 20 percent increase in low income communities on all platforms and all gaming platforms. So yeah, single mom, three kids. I mean, the, you know, the phone and tech is, is a pacifier, you know, and it's hard to blame these.

You know, families that are having to, you know, [00:27:00] to do this, but man, I mean, I pretty much lived my life in airports and it is wild when you walk around how many young, young kids are just glued to a screen, you know, and there's an incredible amount of data showing that this is affecting their, their hardware, right?

Their, their brains, their communication skills, their emotional recognition skills. So it definitely is affecting younger populations, especially low income families. Uh, More and it's a problem. I mean, it's actually creating these bigger disparities because the more wasted time they experience on these devices, the less they're engaging reality, the less they're building skill sets, the less they're, you know, able to engage in their schoolwork and actually finish, you know, homework and projects.

So it's a real issue. And the whole idea that, you know, every kid needs technology in a phone or iPad, you know, to be successful in this day and age, it's a complete lie. I mean, Jonathan Hyde's been talking about this. Yeah, again, Dr. Cardares, Anna Lemke, her book, Dopamination. I mean, there's a slew of PhDs, MDs, [00:28:00] um, that are sounding the alarm that, you know, the idea that every kid needs to have an iPad with full access to the internet is going to help them succeed.

It's actually the complete opposite.

Joey: No, it's a real problem. And that's why the work you're doing is so important. Uh, what are you guys offering? What's the solution to this whole mess we're in?

Andrew: Yes, this is the good news part. So I'm excited about this because it gets, it's dark, dude. I mean, it's even worse than what we just talked about sadly with, you know, how children are getting exploited, you know, the sex trafficking, pornography.

Um, it's really, really bad. And so our solution is pretty radical. And I think Jonathan Heights book is great, but I don't think it goes far enough. And, um, I think he's just a little too soft. To be honest, so our, you know, proposition right now to college students, which we realize we're late, right? We realize that at that point, you know, we need to go further upstream to really help, you know, young people heal.

But at the university level, these kids can make the decision. They get to decide. To give it their smartphone, take on a dumb phone. And we've just found that, you know, students are doing this together, are [00:29:00] so excited to opt out of the matrix, you know? So, uh, you join a humanity village at one of our six locations, you can get a light phone or a wise phone.

You go through a 30 day detox that we have together. Um, which again is going diving into all the data, little challenges throughout. And then during, during the year, every month we have, you know, a meeting where we've synthesized multidisciplinary fields on technology and mental health, spiritual health, physical health.

Um, so we're unpacking all the data of what is doing to us, our attention spans, our social connections, our dating life, our, you know, everything. Right. So once a month they meet, they dive into the data and then we're giving them like phone free experiences. So they're going on phone free hikes and having phone free bonfire nights.

And creating new games just without their phones. Like, uh, one of our groups at Aave just had a cookout night and they just literally went and cooked food and grilled meat without their phones. It sounds hilarious how simple this is, but it's like, uh, [00:30:00] there was one group I was talking to, you know, that was sharing like some young guys, you know, they're going through this detox and they're like, we literally don't know what to do.

So. Young people actually don't know what to do when they aren't engaging in some of these technologies. So we have a slew of challenges that students take on and they get to choose their mode. Okay, so this is like the humanality modes. You join the club, you can be in human mode. Rebel mode or savage mode so human mode you go grayscale you keep your smartphone you take off all addictive apps you just have maybe podcast maps banking very basic.

Rebel mode you go to a light phone or a wise phone you can still have some of your social media platforms on your computer. But again, just that little bit of friction from it not being in your pocket is just going to decrease your chances to just endlessly scroll on it. Um, then you've got super rebel mode, which is just a light phone, wise phone, no social media accounts, um, and everything is done on your computer.

And then savage mode is [00:31:00] just choosing one device. I mean, we had some students that did this, they went no cell phone and just used a computer laptop, you know, which sounds so wild now, but it's funny. Like that's how most people lived for millions of years. Yeah, like this is actually more human and these students are thriving.

So you pick a mode and then you have a monthly phone challenge and a monthly wellness challenge with the community. So for example, monthly phone challenge, no phone at meals. Say you look at the phone three hours at each of those meals, right? You add that up by the end of the year, it's close to 70 something days.

So if you just don't look at your phone at three meals every day, you get 71 days of your life back. So last year, just with all the, you know, the events that students did in their clubs, they got about an average of 144 hours back from their lives, just. And so, yeah, at the end of the year, you know, we bring in a speaker each semester as well to speak on the topic.

And then at the end of the year, the Humanality Club throws a concert for the whole [00:32:00] school with the cost of admission being your phone. So you just act to experience music without a screen. So students are, I mean, they're literally having like transformative experiences. Experiences so you have to realize like this generation now grew up on the smartphone.

So they're learning how to interact. They're learning how to flirt and go on a date. And I mean literally like learning how to ask people out in person. You know, they're learning how to do new things. Like there's a guy in our club that was addicted to YouTube got off YouTube and he realized and I want to emphasize this point in a moment.

He realized that he had the desire to learn to sing and play guitar. And now he's like playing events and learn how to sing. And like, that's exactly what I love. I really believe humanity is going to help people get their time back. Their lives back. We're going to have the newest, best artists, authors, physicians, lawyers, teachers.

They're going to come out of these clubs, um, looking very different from their generation. Because [00:33:00] they're going to be more human and being more fully human, they're going to be happier. And we also have some fun like sauna challenges and cold plunge challenges and circadian challenges where you have to watch the sunrise and sunset and not let the screen be the first thing your eyes see, but actual morning sunlight.

So we're incorporating a lot of wellness principles too. And yeah, right now we're, you know, in six universities, we have a waiting list of high schools and we're just kind of about to take off. We're just kind of in this process of Preparation, you know, kind of period here, gathering all the data and getting ready to, to blast out the world.

The funny thing is you probably don't know this is happening because we're not on any social media platforms. So that's part of the gift of podcast and I actually love podcasts. Long form podcasts are amazing. Um, I myself was addicted to podcasts as well. So I had to actually find that balance as well of like I was listening to too much good information.

I would say i'm a recovering addict of information. So in my car rides, it was filled with [00:34:00] podcast and my workouts is filled with podcasts and my flights is filled with pocket. I'd say even good things, all good things. Um, so I've even had to found my own new methods moving forward to not be constantly consuming information.

And miss out on information and that's been extremely healing for myself. But anyway, that's a little bit of what is happening in the clubs. Um, and students are responding in an incredible way.

Joey: So good. I'm sure there's so many benefits. Um, what are kind of the biggest benefits you've seen? And if someone wants to jump into this, what's the first step?

If you're from a divorced or broken family, the holidays can be so stressful and challenging, you know that. Pressure to choose between parents, being reminded of your family's brokenness, especially if you've been living out of the house or at school, and just feeling a bit lost and alone in navigating it all.

Thankfully, you're not alone. Our free guide, 5 Tips to Navigate the Holidays in a Broken Family, offers really practical advice that you won't hear anywhere else, a worksheet to plan out your time with your parents, super helpful, and even a copy paste template you can edit for communicating with your parents [00:35:00] through messages or even a call.

Most of all, the guide helps you feel less alone and more in control when the holidays hit. You can get the free guide@restoredministry.com slash holidays or just click the link in the show notes.

Andrew: Yeah, so if you're at one of our six schools, if you're at, um, Christendom Ave, Maria Franciscan University, university of Dallas, Benedictine, or tac, you can join a club there if you want.

Start a club at your university. You can be totally secular this again. This is not a religious political thing Anyone can start a humanality village at your university So if you want to do that just reach out to us from our website Humanality org and we'll help you start a club, but really If you just find a few people that want to do this together, that's, that's really all it takes you would be amazed.

I mean, average year one of humanity villages starting was 40 plus students. Like we're all in, you know, um, we've had as much as 60 students in one of our villages around the country. So really, if you're at one of those universities, Join, [00:36:00] and if you want to start one at your own university, there's nothing stopping you.

There's no startup fees. You essentially create the club and you fundraise. Each club fundraise for what they want to experience, whether they want to fund the phones, Humanity merch, the speaker, the concert at the end of the year, other phone free activities. You got, you know, they get to fundraise and they create the experiences they want.

So that's a great place to start. And then I'd say for the general population, um, we're going to have some resources for them as well, probably in the next couple of months. But the best thing you can do right now is probably go through our 30 day digital detox with HALO. Uh, which everyone always is like, Oh, that's an app.

What do you do it? You know, and my answer again is we are not opposed to technology. HALO is not trying to addict you through social approval and intermittent positive feedback. We are happy with our partnership with them and in the coming weeks, we're going to have a 30 day digital detox, uh, you can go through with hallow.

So I'd point people there and that's going to walk you through all the data, [00:37:00] all the hacks, all the ways to move forward. And I, and I mean, I know people say this about a lot of other things, but this is so particularly true to this movement. I literally believe this is going to change your life because your life comes down to time and attention.

And right now our time and attention is being sucked into the abyss. When you get your time and attention back, it's going to change your life, you know, and here's the thing, my life hasn't gotten any easier once I've gotten off of these technologies. My life is still difficult in many ways, but I think my capacity to be resilient and have incredible friendships, have a prayer life, exercise, sleep, the average American is losing 30 minutes of sleep per night.

That's largely due to the invention of the light bulb, but also social media and our devices. I mean, life doesn't just get easier all of a sudden because I got off of Instagram, but it does actually become incredibly more fulfilling. So I just want to invite people. I know this is scary. This is terrifying for most humans to think about not being on these platforms.[00:38:00]

And even if you get amazing information, because there are incredible pieces of information, all these platforms. The detriment along with it, I think outweighs the good. And even if you just take a break, maybe this isn't what you have to do the rest of your life. Go on a 30 day detox. Maybe go to a light phone for a year.

Like what's one year of your life going to look like if you just went to life and like do a scientific experiment and just see what happens if you want to go back to your smartphone later and go back to all your social media platforms, do it, but just give it a chance. Like, don't look at the news, which I know is really difficult during this time in our society, but imagine just not going on the news for 30 days.

Here's what I found that was super interesting when I didn't go on the news for 30 days. The world kept happening, like reality didn't like just explode into oblivion, you know, like life kept happening, you know, and I knew what was happening in my environment and my village and I was happier for it. So, um, I hope that [00:39:00] encourages people.

There's a huge fear aspect to this of missing out, not having real connections, being lonelier. I've experienced the complete opposite and most people will too. You really have to take that leap of faith, but find someone to deal with. And two major predictors of actually long term sustained behavior change is your environment and accountability and the humanity club.

You get both your environment is now a group of people. That are opting out of this norm of being on these platforms and you have accountability. So maybe go through this 30 day detox with hollow, you know, with your family, with your coworkers, with your friends, we're also going to have stuff available for anyone soon, but yeah, that would be my encouragement moving forward is.

Take a leap of faith, like just do a scientific experiment and see what happens.

Joey: So good, man. Thank you so much for being here. I, I just love the work you're doing and I'm excited to promote it to our audience. I, um, yes, when you were speaking, just all I could think of is like, this is such a barrier to doing, building marriage, building, like, Date, like whatever this stands is such a huge barrier.

So I love the work [00:40:00] you're doing. I love how simple it is. And I love how yeah, novel too. I think it's simple and novel at the same time, which is a hard thing to pull off. So well done, man, really appreciate you and the work you're doing, your wealth of information too. This has been awesome. Again, everyone, I invite you to check out humanality.

org. We'll link to that in the show notes and yeah, just want to give you final last word, like what final encouragement or advice would you offer to everyone listening, especially if they feel maybe a bit. Heavy or the weight of what we've spoken about and even discourage any just kind of spoke to that but any final words of wisdom

Andrew: yeah i'd say don't be afraid to heal and i really think what these technologies have done to us we have to be willing to enter into a healing process and that's painful and i'll never forget i was playing an event with my band in west point.

This navy seal ranger dude, whatever, you know, eight kids been to war three times was driving me my band at the airport and he just said something I'll never forget. He said, if you seek comfort, you will deprive yourself of self knowledge. So I'd say one of the things that these devices have done to us, which is really sad, is that we're, we're escaping [00:41:00] our embodied reality and self to see someone else's.

And I would just encourage people that you're worth getting to know. Like get to know yourself in a place of solitude and discover what silence does to you. It's incredibly difficult to get to know yourself and love yourself and your neighbor and God. But I would encourage you to go on that healing journey.

And instead of escaping our emotions and our difficulties, um, to face them. And it's easier said than done. But, uh, the healing process is so worth it. And Dr. Bob Schuetz says that, you know, hurt people hurt people. Heal people heal people and i want to be part of seeing humanity heal i think we need a healing movement i think humanity is it so i just want to encourage people to not be afraid to heal and make some difficult decisions with our relationship with tech.

And you're going to experience healing, and it's going to be amazing.

Joey: That wraps up this episode. If this podcast has helped you, feel free to subscribe or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or [00:42:00] wherever you listen to podcasts. Not only is that the best way to not miss future episodes, but the more subscribers we have, the more the apps will show our show to people who are looking for help, and it only takes a few seconds.

If you've already done that, feel free to review or rate the show. That also helps us reach other people, and we appreciate that feedback. And in closing, always remember, you are not doomed to repeat your family's dysfunction. You can break that cycle and build a better life, and we're here to help. And keep in mind the words of C.

S. Lewis who said, You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.

#120: Freedom You Never Tasted But Always Wanted | Jake Khym, MA

Pending! Stay tuned.

Two years into marriage, Jake found himself enslaved to a sexual addiction. He longed for freedom but felt very stuck. As a result, he lived a double life, hiding his unwanted behavior from his wife.  

But one random day, it all came to light. At that moment, he thought his marriage was over. In this episode, he shares what happened next, plus:

• What kept his marriage from falling apart?

• How a wound of abandonment from his family drove his addiction

• 6 tips to break free from sexual compulsion or addiction

Go to Jake’s Website & Resources

Listen to our series, Healing Sexual Brokenness

Go to Dakota Lane Fitness

Links & Resources

Full Disclaimer: If you purchase through the links on this page, your purchase will support Restored at no additional cost to you. Thank you!

• To leave feedback, comment below or contact us.

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As a bonus, you'll receive the first chapters from our book, It's Not Your Fault: A Practical Guide to Navigating the Pain and Problems from Your Parents' Divorce.

TRANSCRIPT

Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!

Two years into marriage, Jake found himself enslaved to a sexual addiction. He wanted to break free, but he felt so stuck. And as a result, he just continued to live a double life, hiding his unwanted behavior from his wife. But that all changed one day when it kind of randomly came to life. And at that moment, he thought his marriage was over.

And so in this episode, he shares about what happened next and much more. We talk about how shame. truly crushed him, but it didn't destroy him. He answers the question, like, what kept your marriage from falling apart? We also discuss how pride is often at the root of lust or sexual compulsions. He touched on how a wound of abandonment from his family was at the root of a lot of his behavior, and he shares six tips to break free from sexual compulsion.

Uh, or addiction. So if you or someone, you know, struggles with a sexual compulsion or addiction, especially within marriage, this episode is for you. Stay with us. Welcome to the restored podcast, helping you heal and grow from the trauma of your parents divorce separation or broken marriage. So you can break the cycle.

I'm your host, Joey Panarelli. This is episode 100. 20. We're so thrilled that so many of you have found the podcast helpful and even healing. We've heard tons of great feedback. One listener said this, finally, a podcast that helps me understand why my parents divorce when I was five affected me so much.

Joey's guests are articulate and every episode helps me heal. I normally avoid religious content, but this show is so focused on felt experience that it doesn't come across religious at all. Major props for that. Thank you. And I just want to say, you're so welcome. Like we do it for you. Like I know it might sound kind of cheesy, but we do it for you.

We're so happy that the show has been helpful and even healing. Today's episode is sponsored by Dakota Lane Fitness. If you've ever felt intimidated by working out and eating healthy, or perhaps you've tried workout programs and meal plans that just didn't work for you, then this is especially for you.

Dakota Lane is a nationally certified fitness and nutrition coach who's helped about a thousand clients worldwide, including moms of 10 kids, CEOs, MLB baseball players, 75 year olds, and people who've never even stepped foot. In a gym, Dakota builds customized fitness and nutrition plans with around the clock accountability and one on one coaching for people anywhere in the world in a safe and approachable environment.

But what makes Dakota different than the insane amount of fitness and nutrition coaches out there? I would say three things. One, he's done it himself. He's a very healthy, ripped duties, but he's also a good virtuous man. He's not just caught up in his looks. Another thing I'd say is he, he studied to become a priest for a little while.

And from that experience in his time at Franciscan university and the Augustine Institute, he developed this belief that to live a fully human life involves not just growing in one area, such as your spiritual life and neglecting all the rest, like your body. We really need to care for it all so we can become more virtuous and free to love.

And the final thing is Dakota's mission is not just to help you get a six pack or get bigger arms or whatever. He really wants to lead people to experience the highest quality of life through intentional discipline and treating their bodies the way that they were made to be treated. And so if you would desire that freedom, if you desire transforming your body and even your life, Dakota can help you.

One client said this. Dakota Lane changed my life, and the best part is that what I once thought was impossible was made so doable and realistic by Dakota. This program is worth every penny. If you have struggled in the past and can't seem to find a way to change yourself for the better, look no further.

Dakota Lane is your man. And so if you want to see what Dakota offers and the amazing results that his clients have achieved, just go to DakotaLaneFitness. com or click on the link in the show notes. My guest today is Jake Kim. Jake is a Catholic leader with over 20 years of experience in various ministry settings.

He has a master's degree in counseling psychology and a bachelor of arts in theology with a concentration in catechetics. Jake has worked in adult faith formation, a seminary and in priestly formation, a diocesan evangelization, catechesis, retreat ministry, and had a private counseling practice for over 15 years.

Currently Jake offers Human and pastoral formation for Catholic leaders is a consultant to various churches and ministries across North America. He offers an annual men's retreat in British Columbia, Canada, and accompanies male leaders on their journey of faith. And he co hosts two podcasts, uh, restore the glory is one of them.

And the other one is way of the heart. Plus in this episode, he shares about a new podcast that he and his wife are going to be launching. And with two children at university, Jake currently lives in Abbotsford. Uh, BC, British Columbia up in Canada with his wife, Heather, and one of their three. Now, in this episode, we do talk about God and faith.

If you don't believe in God, you're totally welcome here. Anyone listening to this show for a while knows that this is not a strictly religious podcast. And so wherever you're at, I'm glad you're here. My challenge to you is this, just listen with an open mind. Even if you were to take out or skip the God parts, you're still going to benefit so much from this episode.

A little bit of a trigger warning before we jump in. This obviously is a mature topic talking about sexual compulsions and addictions. And so we recommend putting in earphones or at least not listening around children. But with that, here's my conversation with Jake. Jake, so good to have you on the show.

I'm honored that you joined us. Thanks so much for having me, Joey. It's great to be with you. I want to get into your story. And if, if you would, I'd love to start with a little bit of background and then take us to that day when you and your wife, Heather, Heather, really difficult conversation about your struggle.

Well, the, the back story is that I, I walked into marriage under a lot of deception. I had convinced Heather that previous issues in my life weren't there anymore and she was convinced and settled and she had entered into marriage, you know, with a lot of bliss and isn't this great and, you know, and. All that you would hope and expect, but what you didn't realize is that I was hiding a lot.

Um, there was a complete double life that was going on for me and I think to make it even worse, uh, at least it feels worse to me is that I, when all of this was happening, I was working at a church and so I was, you know. leading people into the Catholic faith through RCIA. So the duplicity stung particularly because my double life was extra heightened because I was proclaiming something about not living a double life to people.

So I'm working at a parish and, and all this is going on behind the scenes. And it's not like I'm loving it or embracing it all and going, Oh, who cares? I never was. Content with this being the reality, but felt utterly defeated and honestly didn't have much hope. Confession was my close friend and that's kind of the best that I was doing.

So the day where everything, where everything hit the fan, I was in, uh, we were getting ready or we were up in our bedroom and we were just chatting about various things in life. And. It's, it's really ironic because in hindsight, I realized what happened is that I was actually sharing a story, which was very boastful.

It was a story almost patting myself on the back about how wonderful of a helper I was to people. And so I was sharing with Heather about this story, uh, about this guy who came to me for counsel about going to confession for, Sins of impurity and so I was sharing with Heather. Oh, I know and I counseled him so well And I said, oh you got to go see I said to him you got to go see father So and so he's really good at these things but father so and so, you know, he's not so good and boy look at this great counsel I gave and was very full of myself and Heather for some reason it hit her and She said Jake, how would you know which priest would be better at that?

You And that question felt like everything went into slow motion, and I had possibly, you know, the most important decision of my life right in that moment. Because there were other times where Heather had quote unquote caught me or confronted me, and I'd lied my way out of it. But for some reason, this particular day, she asked that question, and I made the decision to cross a threshold that was terrifying to me, and to start being honest with her.

And so, I think my pause, and probably the look on my face, began to communicate to her, Oh, no, we have a lot more that's going on here. And so, I think if I'm, if I recall correctly, it was probably over the course of Two days that I came completely clean about everything that was going on in our marriage and Honestly, it was it was horrible just to be blunt There was there was not a lot of consolation in it the consolation did come for me quicker than for heather for obvious reasons because the burden of a secret and an addiction is Excruciating.

And so when you no longer live under the burden, what often happens is the addict starts to feel a bit of relief. And that can be massively confusing and hurtful to the person you've hurt your spouse or somebody else, because they're watching you almost feel relief and they've just been thrown into, you know, a hornet's nest of pain.

And so that came a bit later, but the first few days were, they were terrible. Because I'm, I'm honestly thinking my marriage is over. That's genuinely what I thought. We had my oldest daughter at the time and I, it was a very real serious consider so much so that I went to work probably, you know, I think I took the first day or two off and said I was sick or whatever, and I went back to work and I.

I had a meeting with my boss, who I was very close with, and I said, I need to talk to you and I need your help. And I said, I need to learn about annulments because I think my marriage is over. And he just obviously was floored and was like, what are you talking about? So it launched into this whole conversation with him.

So that's how the day, the first kind of day went. Um, there's all kinds of nuances I could say, but that's the rough sketch. Wow. No, thank you for sharing so vulnerably and knowing you a bit, how long you've come from that day. I just want to say a little bit of a pause in the conversation. Like I admire you so much.

It's incredible. The transformation in your life. And we're going to get to that. I want to give everyone some hope. Cause I know we're in like a heavy spot right now, but man, obviously I know you'd say it's a lot of God's grace, but you just, you have to be a fighter to be able to come, come back from something like that, which I'm excited to get into one place.

I want to go to is leading up to that. You alluded to the fact that. You know, all of this was unwanted. This is unwanted sexual behavior. What did it feel like in the midst of it all? I think so often it might be easy to like skip over that, how grueling and difficult it is. But I think to people who are in the midst of that right now, it's actually really helpful to talk about that.

So what did it feel like in the midst of it? And then, you After you opened up to Heather, how did you not let the shame crush you? I think any person that has any level of addiction and some addictions are worse than others, you know, like an addiction to cookies doesn't seem to bother as many people as an addiction to pornography.

Right? So it's like, okay, so But when you kind of increase the magnitude of what you're addicted to, alcohol, any kind of pleasure, and then when you bring in sex and all of those kinds of things, I think the reason that the sexual one has greater implication, greater pain, greater sting to yourself and other people is because it taps it into deep, deep dynamics in the human person, which is we're inherently relational.

And especially when you're in a marriage and an addiction of that kind in a marriage is like a direct. Like heresy of sorts. It's like a direct countersign to the very thing you're supposedly living day to day. Alcohol maybe is a little bit less than that because it doesn't have necessarily as blatant a direct correlation, but it does.

I mean, like a person coming home drunk impacts their spouse. I'm not trying to diminish that at all. But, you know, food is a bit less than a bit kind of like for me, the sting of it gets less. And I'm sure other people who struggle in those other areas would argue the opposite. And I'm welcome them arguing that I think that's fair for them.

But when you're in the midst of it and you look at something and you feel the clutches of something around you that you honestly, sincerely believe there's no way out of, It is a horrible experience. I think it's the closest thing I've ever come to knowing what it's like to be in jail. Like, here's the reality.

I can't do anything to get out of here. I am imprisoned by this. Every effort I try, it's like trying to shake the bars of a prison cell open. Doesn't work. And you know, you, you go for a week or whatever, and you even have the slightest ounce of hope that maybe, maybe this one's different. I remember feeling like, Oh my gosh, it's been two weeks since I haven't fallen and feeling this sense of victory only to like the next day have fallen worse than maybe a six months ago.

And that repetitive cycle of defeat and shame and imprisonment is. It, it really can mess with you. And I think what eventually people probably do is they just associate because of that pain, it gets so bad, they just start to check out and they get really numb. And that's usually when the addiction gets worse is because there's this thing in psychology called a tolerance effect where what one beer would do now takes five, what.

One website does, now it takes a worse one, a more intense one. And so you're always looking for the next high and you get used to the current high. And so it increases your tolerance increases. And so the, usually the ugliness of what you do can get worse. And so that's the whole cycle is. It's brutal and it can create a lot of despair.

I know a lot of men and women who I've seen and encountered and they feel utterly defeated. They're like a shell of a person. It's like looking at someone in a concentration camp and they're like, I'm going to die in here. And I have no hope of getting out. It's terrible. Like, it's, ugh, anybody who knows it.

And that's one of the things where I have a lot of compassion on people who struggle in this area, because I know what it's like. I know the pain of these areas, and I don't wish it on anybody. Your second question about the shame, you know, it's funny, I'm not sure I didn't let it crush me, if I'm honest.

I think the shame probably did crush me. The shame even in the addiction was crushing me. The shame of telling Heather, like my stomach, I probably grew 15 ulcers in a four days and I don't, and I never knew about it. I mean the, it was, it was terrible. Like it was brutal. And I say that cause I'm not trying to candy coat this.

Like I, there's a no BS philosophy that I kind of abide by and I don't want anybody to have, you know, Oh, it's rainbows and, and flowers when you go through this thing, it's awful. Like it's, It's brutal, but it is incredibly worth it. So I think the shame actually did crush me. I, I think why it didn't destroy me is maybe how I would rephrase the question.

And honestly, I would say grace. And I would say there are things in my life that God did to me very, very early on. He set up in me, he established in me that were critical to my recovery. And I think that's for everybody. I trust that that's the case for everybody. Everybody has things that God. Has put in their soul and in their personality and in their temperament, et cetera, that is their pathway out.

They probably just don't realize it. And so here's an example of one of those for me is I'm a very competitive person. I've been competitive for since I was little, I had two older brothers and I hated to lose. And so what, what ended up happening is that very early dynamic that just felt like me and my personality.

With some of the right love and mentorship from other people, they tapped into that dynamic in me and it was like a lifeline of don't lose and it, it, it like brought fire, even a spark back into a pouring rain environment internally. And that really mattered. There was one man in particular. He's quite well known.

Christopher West was a dear friend of mine in this journey. And it was Christopher West at the time was just Christopher West. Nobody really knew who he was. He wasn't this big popular guy. He lit fires underneath me all the time. And, and he, I don't know if he could see it or it was just the Holy Spirit, but he could motivate me like, like an athlete in a locker room.

You know, you watch those YouTube things and, and people are like, I would run through a wall now because like he had that capacity and he lit things up in me that massively helped me. And created lifelines for me. I think another one that was a lifeline for me, like I first learned that all of this was wrong when I was 18, um, I went to college and I remember going into the church because honestly I was lonely and I went to university and the girl I was after didn't work out.

And now I'm like, oh crap, I'm all alone. What do I do? And it was this tug of, well, where am I going to go? Where are people going to be nice to me? I'm insecure. I'm alone. And I felt like, go to the church, they kind of have to be nice to me. So I was like, okay, so I, I go to the church and I meet some nice people and they did, they welcomed me.

Then I start going to the talks and stuff like that. And the priest was brilliant. He just started saying the truth. And one of the things he said is masturbation, pornography, sexual addiction is real and it is a mortal sin. And here's what a mortal sin is. And that scared me because he said, hell is real and you don't want to go there.

And if you don't want to go there, you need to be in the state of grace. And so I had a very quick, Oh, Oh no, Oh, this is bad. And, and for some reason, the concept of eternity haunted me like forever, like forever, forever, like jail forever. And it terrified me. And so that in turn motivated me. And he said, there's a very simple way to be in the state of grace, go to confession.

And I was like, Okay. And so at some level, I was like, I don't care. Uh, I kind of had this internal disposition of if you don't let me go to confession, father, somehow that's on you. Cause I tried and God have mercy for you, buddy. So I worked those priests as hard as you can work them, man. Like I went to confession.

A lot. A lot. Numerous times I went twice in one day. They had the Saturday morning one, and the Saturday afternoon one, and I'd hit both of them. Because I would fall that frequently. So, that was another massive motivation for me, was somebody just flat out saying, Hell is real, you don't want to go there, and there's a way out.

You need to be in the state of grace and there's a sacrament you can get, even if you're an addict, you can come to and all you need is a slightest bit of, I don't want this anymore. And the Lord takes that. He cleans it all. And I drank, I gorged on confession. That was huge for me. It's beautiful. Wow.

There's so many lessons and so many great points I'd love to comment on. One of the lessons I'm learning from you is just how essential it is to have people in your life who can love you through this, who see you as you are, not some mask, not some fake version of you, but just like Christopher West was for you.

He's been on this podcast, so people are somewhat aware of him. And, uh, man, that was just like a lifeline, like you said, something that kept you moving. And also, like, you know, I know it was such a big struggle for your wife, Heather. I'm curious, just let's stop here for a second. Like, what made you guys keep going?

Because there's a lot of couples who would just go through something like this and say, Oh, I'm done. This is, this is not what I signed up for sort of thing. What, what kept you going? Ah, this is where my gratitude for my wife is. I, I honestly struggle to express it because I, this isn't a normal expression of love.

Like my wife, Heather is, she's amazing. Like she is amazing. I don't know why. It doesn't make sense for her to stay with me. Like, if you're honest, she shouldn't have. On every natural, normal reason, I've lied through my teeth. I've destroyed her. I've been unfaithful to her. Like, what? Why? Why should you? And, Her response here has been something that I've watched her live for the next, we're coming up on 24 years married, and this happened in year 2.

So year 2, so for 22 years, I've watched her live this wholeheartedly, and that basic point is, Either the gospel is what we say it is, or it isn't. Either Jesus Christ is who he says he is, and it's real, or what in the world are we all doing? And so everything that flows from that, the church's teaching, um, vows in a marriage, fidelity, all of that stuff, either it's real or it's not.

And what she lived was, I believe it's real. And I'm not going to believe another narrative about reality other than the one that Jesus Christ presents. And honestly, I can say, Jo, I do not think I would be here if it wasn't for her. There's no question. She was the catalyst to all of this for me. I actually have thought about it numerous times.

I'm scared. It's a scary thought for me to think about where I would be if it wasn't for her, I'd probably be divorced five times. I'd probably, I mean, I don't even know. It's, it's a scary thought. I definitely wouldn't be doing any of this kind of stuff. Heather was a, I mean, she was, a massive, massive gift and grace in my life.

Like just take this on day two. I think it was day two or day three after I've confessed everything. I'm sleeping in a different room and she's not yelling at me. She's not like mad. She's deeply hurt and she's not hiding it. And day two, day three, she says to me, I want you to know that I forgive you. And, and here's the crazy part.

I don't even remember that because I was so consumed with my inner world and my pain. That's part of the dynamic is you're obsessed with yourself. That's part of the issue. I was so consumed with that. I don't even remember her saying it and she, we've had to retell the story and I, and I vaguely have this memory of it because I remember internally, I'm like, That's impossible, right?

Like you look back on it and go, that's not possible. People don't do that. This isn't real, but it is, but it's the gospel, right? It feels impossible. I was the guy caught in adultery and Heather was the one who's saying, I forgive you, but don't sin anymore. And she offered both of those to me. She said to me, she doesn't remember saying this to me, but I have this vivid memory of her saying it.

Maybe it was the Holy spirit put these words in my heart, but I felt like it came directly from her and they were. I expect you to be a man, and nothing less. That's my expectation of you. I forgive you, but it's time for you to be a man. And, what I say when I share this story with people, I'm a movie guy, and like I said, I'm inspired, I like, Competition that that's the scene for me when the Rocky music turned on in the background and it lit a fire under me because I felt like I had a second chance at life and somebody said to me, not you're the biggest loser I've ever seen.

What the hell's wrong with you? I mean, all the things she could have said, she could have rubbed my face so deep and all of that. And what she said to me is the thing I wanted to be the whole time to begin with. I, that's what I deeply desired was to be a real authentic, strong and good man. And she basically said, put up or shut up time to get in the arena.

And that, that like exploded the fire within me. And now it wasn't easy. Uh, you know, every time you see the montage in a movie where it's like they go through eight months or a year or five years of something in 30 seconds, we all go, yeah. But the friggin five years is hard, and the music stops, and it sucks, and you don't want to do it anymore, and all of that.

But those moments were utter gifts to me, and all of them were from Heather, because she trusted and believed the gospel. So beautiful. And thanks again for sharing so vulnerably. I want to backtrack a little bit because you said something that was really profound about shame and about how, you know, I think there is the scale of intensity when it comes to various addictions or, you know, unwanted behavior.

Like, I agree with you on that. And I think part of the reason that makes the sexual struggles so shameful is that As a culture, I think we look down on them, at least, you know, within like the Christian culture. And so I think, yeah, I can drive you so deep within yourself that you think, man, if I ever were to show anyone this, they would quickly and easily disown me.

And they would, you know, say all the things that, you know, Run in the back of your head, you know that I'm a failure I'm never gonna get over this and so on and I've heard people say to that What when you're in the midst of that not just believing that what you're doing is wrong, but you are wrong You are bad kind of being the definition of shame this dual identity emerges where you to the outside world and to, you know, like you said, at work and church, like you were this one person and then interiorly you were just this broken, struggling person.

And then the gap between those two gets so big, it can feel like they can't be reconciled. Like, and that's such a hopeless, hopeless place to be. Like you, you articulate it so well. I'm curious if Yeah, backtracking a little bit when it came to, what, what held you back? Was it the shame that held you back from telling Heather in the first place?

Because I imagine there were times when you were going through this and you were like, man, I just, I want to open up. I need to open up. Like, what, what was it that held you back and held you, you? To that line of lying and deceiving, it took me getting into my own story and almost understanding myself before I could really appreciate the why.

And I'd say one of the biggest reasons of why I didn't share with Heather is because I was terrified of experiences that happened earlier in my life happening again. So as a very young boy, Abandoned very early by my mom, not her fault. She had mental illness and she had extreme postpartum depression.

She had to go into inpatient mental health care. Um, so she was gone for months, uh, when I was a brand new baby. And that was an incredibly deep wound of abandonment. And then from that, the enemy just thought, Hey, let's just beat the tar out of this guy with this wound of abandonment. So every girlfriend I had, they always broke up with me.

I never broke up with them. So there's always this repeating narrative of the thing you long for the most, feminine care will always leave you. And it, it was to the depth of my being. So the thought of sharing with somebody Something that in my mind guaranteed my biggest fear to happen. I'm like, I can't do that.

So I'm in this terrible, I call it a double bind. If I go left, I'm dead. But if I go right, I'm dead. I don't know what to do. So if I share with Heather, all this, she will abandon me. But if I don't share all of this with Heather, I'm living a complete and utter lie that once she finds out she'll abandon me.

So I'm just stuck. In both places, terribly, that was probably the biggest reason, but I didn't know that that was the biggest reason until after the fact. I think another reason, if I'm just honest, the, the wounds that those dynamics, the impact of those wounds in me made me very, very selfish and self reliant.

I basically, I call it a masturbatory mentality. And this is the language I've learned. People say, Oh, I've struggled with masturbation. I think the bigger issue is that we have a masturbatory mentality, outlook, way of life. Everything becomes masturbatory. It's all about me, what I can get and my pleasure.

And so I think that dynamic goes on. It's rampant. And it was rampant in my life. Selflessness Was a very small category for me It was all about me because I believed I had to make it about me For me to be okay because no one else would take care of me or be there Those are all the lies and vows and beliefs and so I mean it sounds it's a bit crude But I was quote unquote Masturbating all the time because everything was about my pleasure and everybody else's job was to make sure I was okay So that was another reason So, I would look at Heather and justify at times my behavior because she wasn't giving me what I wanted and I was convinced this is what I need and if everybody would just give me that.

You know, the lie becomes, if I could just have pornography in real life, I'd be fine. And I believed that lie deeply. And so in my relationship with Heather, you bring that into the marriage. That's one of the issues with pornography. And then you end up deeply wounding your spouse because you're expressing disappointment in them because they're not living the lie with you.

Just as a footnote, I think that's a very dangerous thing that happens for a lot of couples is their spouses that believe that's the remedy. Give them what they want. And then they begin to compromise their own dignity, and that just creates all kinds of more interesting and troublesome dynamics. So, selfishness is kind of what I'm saying here.

Massive selfishness and terrible fear of abandonment. And then I would say the last one was, I honestly didn't have the kind of relationship with God to where I sincerely trusted he would actually satisfy me. And so I'm living this life with God and going, yeah, God's good. And, you know, I say all the right stuff.

I'm passing all the multiple choice tests, but if I'm honest, Will God actually satisfy me to this depth? No, I don't think he goes there. I mean, you know, you look at all the stuff that we're formed in and all the false formation and prudishness that enters into our, our world and we call it holiness. We call it prudence, but it's actually manichaeism, which means body, bad spirit, good.

You know, we, we adopt some of these heresies without even realizing it. And then we shut out. The very grace of God in our lives. And so I believed God can't satisfy me. So you throw that combo together. That was gnarly. I was like, man, I'm not going there. No, it's so profound. And I love how you tied lust and pride together.

I don't think a lot of people make that connection, but I think it's so potent. I heard that St. Augustine once wrote that lust is the sin of the proud. And, and I think like you said so well, it's so true because at the core of lust of using another person for own pleasure. It's, you know, obviously an extreme amount of selfishness, which is pride.

And so I think one of the antidotes, which I know we're going to get to in a second here, is an incredible amount of humility of, and obviously valuing like the worth, the dignity, the value, you know, of another person, seeing their pain, seeing, you know, their desire to be loved and just understanding how Our behavior of salvageness just destroys them in so many ways.

And so I love how you guys were able to kind of go from that place into just a much healthier, more beautiful place. And so many things you had, I would love to comment on, but I know we don't have forever today. I could talk to you forever, but I'm curious if there was, um, if there was anything else that you would say that that sexual compulsion addiction Uh, was, was filling, like, if there are any other needs, cause you, you outlined it so well how it went back to the abandonment one, but I'm just curious if there's anything else you would say like this need or this thing was filling this need.

Yeah, I, I would say I'm a very, I'm like, you know, like when you talk about the five love languages and those kinds of things, physical touch is very high for me. So I'm a sensual person and I'm, Stereotypically male where I'm highly visual, I'm very sensual. And so what the pornography was doing was just almost like meeting me to a depth that I felt.

And so in some ways it was this perfect assault on me because it's deeply visual, highly erotic. All of these things that I kind of at baseline feel, and I think I'm, I'm, I don't think everybody's that way, or if they are, I don't know that. And so pornography had like this perfect concoction for me and passion, like I'm a passionate guy.

I'm a pretty intense guy when I play a sport like I, I go all in, I'm an all in kind of person. And so what you see. One of the twists of pornography is that it meets you in that space. And the lie that it suggests is you won't find this elsewhere. In other words, when you hear and look at the passion of Jesus Christ, you don't equate that to a satisfaction of Eros.

Most people don't link those. They go, that's the opposite of Eros. And I think one of the dilemmas that we have is that we, we assume making a gift of ourself, which is. The passion of Christ, the cross doesn't satisfy. This to me is one of the crux issues with Christianity and the gospel and Jesus's message is we, we don't believe in when we say, when you lose your life, you'll find it.

I think that's a, that's a line in the sand that few people actually cross over to believe. And so we think we actually have to take care of ourselves. And so they go, where am I going to go? I want it to be really good, highly intent, blah, blah, blah. And it's, this is the brutal thing of pornography. It's affordable.

They call it the three A's. It's affordable, meaning I don't have to pay much to get it. It's anonymous. No one's going to watch me. And it's easily accessible. Affordable, anonymous, and accessible. That is a real tough one. And this is one of the issues with the advent of modern technology is, you know, back in the 70s or 80s, early 90s, to partake of pornography, More guts than it does now.

And so you had to, you had to have a bigger desire. So it had a threshold that a lot of people just wouldn't push through. And in some ways it prevented a lot of issues, affordable, accessible, anonymous, man, that is rampant right now. So, um, anyway, I feel like I'm digressing. No, no, it's so good. And so relevant to what we're talking about.

Cause you're right. It's so, it comes at you so aggressively. And I think not only men, but also women now are struggling in so many different ways when it comes to just lacking self mastery in the realm of sexuality. But also, I think, like you said so well earlier on, there's something about our sexuality that just hits on so many components of the human person.

And so, We're all, you know, I think so many people have been through trauma. They carry broken with brokenness with them through life, especially our audience who's coming from, you know, really broken dysfunctional families that the kind of sexual release is just so attractive because it feels in the moment that it kind of satisfies those needs to satisfy that brokenness for a moment.

At least you feel some level of relief and maybe even wholeness. I don't know if I'd use that word exactly, but when you have, uh, I'm trying to be Veiled with my language when you have a full experience of a sexual act what literally goes on Neurologically for you is an is a very intense bonding cycle And so what it's created to do is one of the most powerful things on the face of the planet It's to take two people and to have this repeated experience where they keep bonding and keep bonding and keep bonding and get closer And deeper and closer and closer and closer because the Lord's saying I want to show you what I want you Us to look like, meaning God and the person.

I want to give you a sign of what that looks like and how deeply bonded I want to be with you. Well, it's like he, you know, this is the joke. Like when God's pouring the chemicals together to make reality that he like slipped and he like poured too long in this domain and we're like, Whoa, why'd you put so much of that one in this one?

And we go like, back off a bit. And so we feel like we got to counteract God's design, but that's just not true. Like he got it right the first time. And what he's desiring is that level of intense bonding intimacy with us. Like this is the four and all these domains is exactly what heaven Is it's the fulfillment of all the desires that we have they're put back into right order and I think that's where people just go no way heaven's full of angels and organ music and ice cream like that's we put all these random categories together and go such a trite definition of it and so C.

S. Lewis has this concept of, there's no desire that God can't satisfy. I think what people struggle with is they go, well, I have desires. He won't satisfy my way. Okay. Yes, that is the issue, but a desire that's unsatisfiable. No. That's hard to believe. Oh, just pick up your cross. That's going to make me happy.

Baloney. I'd rather go do this other thing. And this is where the cross is not easy. This is where GK Chesterton says things like Christianity to be, has not been tried and found wanting. It's been found difficult and left untried. Like it is not for the faint of heart, this call to be a disciple of Jesus.

But what you see over and over and over and over with the people who took it serious, we call those people saints. They were deeply satisfied. I would call them the happiest people that have ever lived. Now you might look at them at face value and go, they look sad. Look at the artwork that shows them.

And I'm going, uh, you might not realize all the depth that's going on. Right? Don't judge a book by its cover. I had somebody recently say, Jake, why don't you smile bigger? And I was like, I thought I was smiling. Like, I'm actually happy when I'm making this face, you know? So, there's a bit of that maybe going on.

But, um, Wow. No, no. Profound and so good. And I think this gets to the root of so many struggles in our relationship with God, where I think father, uh, Michael Galey said that the, I think the core problem is that we don't actually trust God because we don't believe he's good. And we think that, He's holding out on us.

We think that he's putting us through these ridiculous rules and regulations and just trying to stifle us so that we don't experience the joy and the pleasure that we could experience on our own. And so like you articulated so well, and I've experienced this in my life too. We just think, well, I really don't believe that God's going to take care of me, come through for me, satisfy me.

So I'm just going to take care of it myself. And that, you know, can look like any number of. unhealthy behavior, but I think that's where the world is right now. And it's so sad and you're right. Like when you go through that, the cross and you go through just living life as it was meant to be lived, even though it's not pain free, it's not easy.

There's like a deeper level of satisfaction of meaning of, of joy that you receive that it's hard to articulate unless you go through it. Yes. I am eternally grateful to John Paul the second. And Christopher West, because the whole anthropology of the theology of the body, particularly how do I manage desire, was them.

Like I, all of that has been formation from them being able to situate the deepest longings of my heart within a context where does, where satisfaction is real and it's also holy. So for example, the concept of freedom. For me, freedom meant Do what I want, when I want, how I want it, so I get the biggest bang for my buck, the biggest return.

And then another concept of freedom was put in, was offered to me, which was, freedom is not living in jail. It's not, because you can do all the things you want within a jail, but you're still in a jail. You're still locked up, you're not actually free, you don't have the capacity to have your yes be yes and your no be no.

Something else is pulling you around like a puppet. But you have to be brutally honest to admit, man, I can't actually do and say what I want here. I'm in bondage. So getting the permission to do whatever I want is different than the capacity. Do I even have the capacity to love somebody? Do we even have the capacity to say no?

So that spin for me was huge. And then to say, what if you can be free and be satisfied? And I was like, that's impossible, right? And it's just so subtle that these narratives get in there. And basically what they taught me was, now you're looking Jesus Christ right in his face and he's saying to you, I can't.

Will you follow me because I promise you I can, and that is a shattering, rattling reality. An author put it this way that I love. When you encounter Jesus as he truly is, you will either turn away from him because you can't handle what he's offering, or you will shamelessly worship him. And that I love that articulation because it captures my experience and I think the honest experience people have when they encounter Jesus as he actually is with all the, all the garbage drapery that we put around him.

Like when you peel all that stuff away and you look Jesus Christ square in the eyes, his offer is life. And he even says it. To the full life to the full is what I'm offering to you. Wow. Wow. Wow. And I love the point you made about freedom. Cause I think people feel that strongly today. Like they want freedom, right?

They don't want to be tied down. They don't want to be, so to speak. They don't want, you know, shackles, but like you said, so often we're slaves to certain behaviors or whatever attachments that we have in our life that we don't even realize. We just think that, no, I choose this thing. But if we ever tried to stop it, it would be like, no, I couldn't really do it.

And I love that definition you gave. And I, the way I've kind of thought about it too, in the past is. The greatest measure of freedom, in my opinion, is, like you said, your capacity to love. The greater your capacity to love, the more free you are. The less your capacity to love, the less free you are. And I think a lot of even moral issues can be looked at through that lens.

And so that, that shifted things for me, especially when I was younger and struggling with, you know, lust and pornography and masturbation, all that stuff. It was, you know, realizing that it was holding me down. And, and there's, it's almost like you can't. You know, I know Christopher Walsh uses the analogy of like eating junk food from a dumpster.

You know, it's like, you can't really imagine what like, you know, an amazing ribeye would taste like when you're in the midst of that. But once you taste it, you're like, my goodness. Like, this is like a world of a difference that I never even knew because I never experienced it. But once you do, you're like, wow, there's something else on the other side.

And I think that's what I want people to hear. From your whole story, like there's something better on the other side that maybe you can imagine or experience or, um, yeah, there's something burning within me that I want to say to people because I, and I almost want to remind my former self of this. So you, you take me back 30 years and, um, Uh, you're looking at a teenage version of me walking up to a beautiful woman and having the integrity of heart to simply love her and not grasp after her felt impossible.

But I can do that now. And the satisfaction that comes from walking up to a beautiful woman and not having this thing within me, that's trying to fantasize or what if, or if I played my cards right, you know, all that stuff that's twisted and distorted within you, and to be able to say it in freedom and to make that a gift to them and they feel and see that you have no ulterior motive.

Watch what that does. It is amazing. I have, what I love about that is that when you start to taste and see what love is like, and to be a lover in all of the right contexts and ways as a, as a husband, as a father, as a brother. To be able to, with utter congruence to walk up to somebody and bless them and not need anything from them.

The life that goes into that person is like stuff you've never seen before. And what that takes is an integrity of heart. Like that, that's not easily won. You don't cheaply go up there. This is one of the things I love about the feminine soul. Their BS meter is so sensitive. It is such a gift, and it's terrifying all at the same time.

And so they can smell your macho BS from so far away. And so what that demands is an utterly clear minded, solid man. And when you can offer that to them, the life that comes into them is like nothing you've ever seen on any false version of pornography. And it's live. And you get to do that all the time.

Like, I'm not recommending going up to everybody and go, Hey, you're beautiful. Hey, you're beautiful. Cause now that starts to get distorted and probably be about you. But imagine your heart is so conformed unto Christ that you are literally moved by what moves his heart. And so you go up to people and you want to love them and you become a lover.

And the right context, an untwisted version of being a lover of people. It is the most satisfying thing in the world, dude. It is unbelievably wonderful for men to, to love men and women. Well, like it's the best, it really is the best. And then to have that capacity to love in a unique and particular relationship where those words.

Can become flesh and you mean it into your bones and to make that gift of someone to someone and for them to receive that gift from you and to have it all be true and good and beautiful and passionate. There's nothing like that. And so, we, we, we, we settle, C. S. Lewis says it this way, we settle for playing in dirty mud puddles when we're made for the holiday at the sea.

And what I'm trying to emphasize is, I have gone on the holidays, I've tasted the holidays that C. S. Lewis references. They're amazing. Like they are worth it. They're incredibly satisfying and they're not cheap. They require a total and complete. Yes. Of the person who wants to realize that reality, but that's what makes them matter.

Like. The, the stuff that we get these days, because it's cheap, like cheap love, cheap respect, cheap praise, it's so shallow. And then you wonder why people are depressed and have no meaning. It's because everything's lost its value. But when you raise a standard. And you hold that standard. The thing has value again.

Like this is one of the things that like with athletics, I'm being an, I like athletics when they start changing all the rules and all the old people who played the sport are like, you can't do this. Like, come on, like, you don't get to change the thing. Cause that compromises the whole point of it all.

You show up and you either won or you lost. You're either better than them or you're not. And there's no other way to prove it other than getting on the mat and showing It is instant. reality right in front of you. And if you want to get better, it takes a lot of dedication and hard work. It just, it is what it is.

You're either going to embrace it or not. There's no games. I love that. It's not cheap. So good. So good. And I think we need to hear about that more. So I'm so glad you, we spent so much time here because I think people, when they're stuck in an addiction or compulsion, They, yeah, lack the motivation and they don't think what's waiting on the other side is worth it.

It's like, no, I'm more comfortable here. And I remember Jay Stringer in his book, he has like this awesome quote about how you have this kind of maddening fight with freedom in the midst of an addiction or compulsion. And I think this gets to the heart of it, because we actually don't think that's what's waiting on the other side is better.

We think what we're in the midst of is so much better. And so feel free to comment on that. But I wanted to shift gears a little bit in the time we have left to kind of fill the gap. We've kind of contrasted what your life was like then to what it's like now, which is just beautiful. Feel free to add anything there.

But I'm curious what happened in between, if there's any particular steps or principles or lessons that you would like to pass on to everyone listening, especially people who maybe find themselves where you were years ago. Yeah, there's numerous things that were very important, you know, over the years I've tried to categorize them and what's difficult about just labeling with.

You know, Oh, here's the five easy steps to pornography recovery. Like it's never that, that that's cheap. And so I don't mean to cheapen it. Like these are very real and there's a lot of depth to them, but I mentioned one before and that would be the sacraments in particular confession. Confession changes lives.

It's a real encounter with supernatural capacity. In particular, in the areas of healing and forgiveness and the grace to be able to not sin again. You, you can't find that anywhere else. You might not be able to see it, but there are lots of things we can't see that are very, very real. So I would say sacraments are very high on the list and use them a lot, go a lot to them.

You know, confession, I'm not encouraging scrupulosity, but I'm saying if you're in an addiction. Go to confession every week go to confession every three days like what I love about my region is I can find confession like Anywhere the next day, right? So just yesterday I was like it was the I'm gonna timestamp this but We're recording this right after the Feast of St.

Joseph. And so Big feast day for me. And I was like, you know what? I just want to go to confession and I could. So I'm really grateful for the priests out there who offer that because it's a huge thing. So sacraments, I would say another one that was very big for me that you mentioned as well, which is other people.

You cannot get through this alone. And there's different kind of types of people that you need. I needed a Christopher West who was like the trainer at the gym. Who's Got the right dose of, come on, you can do this, as well as helping me analyze my, you know, what I'm doing and not doing. But I also had a lot of people who were exceptionally kind.

The guy who I mentioned, who I shared my story with at work and the annulment thing. The first thing he said to me was, Jake, hold your head high. And, and I was like, what did you just hear what I just said? And he said he was fighting for me right in that moment. The brilliance of that man to begin battling shame on my behalf, like in his third statement, it was utterly brilliant.

Hold your head high. You are now fighting a good fight. Like. Oh, that phrase just rang in my ear. So I needed other people. I needed to go to counseling. I needed healing. And so I went to many versions of counseling and basically I've never stopped. I've been in counseling ever since that whole journey started with me.

I've never stopped because I have perpetual areas that I need to address. This area isn't there anymore, but that doesn't mean there aren't other areas that I need to address. So, I went into healing, lots of it, and I just said, I meant this is my path and I'm not getting off of it, because this is what it means to be a Christian.

This is the gospel message, perpetual healing. My prayer life I had to take very seriously. And I made things practical. I made a bet with a buddy, because money was precious when you're young and you're early married and you got new family, so I made a bet with a friend. If one of us misses, uh, we had, we committed to an hour, a holy hour, you have to pay the other guy a hundred bucks.

And that stung. And so it was like, I'm not missing. And you know what? Heather was like, you're not missing. Get your butt up and pray. Cause we don't have a hundred dollars to spare. And I was like, it's not in the budget. Yeah. It's not in the budget. You being lazy is not on the budget. So I needed that.

Another one was fasting. Fasting was very important to me. I had to strengthen my will muscle. That's Christopher West's brilliance. He said, Jake, you go to the gym for your body, but you're not going to the gym for your soul. And part of the going to the gym for your soul is fasting. And so I committed to a bread and water fast on every Friday.

And it was hard. I did not like it. And it wasn't brutal, like I'd go to Panera Bread and I'd get the nicest stinkin bread that I could find. Cause I was like, I don't know, and I, I even eventually got to the point where butter counted. So, I don't know if that was cheating. The point was, I was strengthening a muscle, which was my will muscle.

And I would say the last thing was just truth. I needed to fill, fill myself with a ton of truth. Not just truth like, oh, the church teaches, yes, that. But also, this is the truth about my identity. This is the truth about why I do what I do. This is the truth about God. And I had to fight for those truths to actually, like, find root within my soul.

For the soil to be turned over to be able to anything to have root. Because, like, my life at that point was like a hurricane and you're trying to plant a garden in a hurricane. Like, you gotta really protect some of those things. for them to actually grow and get strong enough. So that's kind of the rough categories that I would say.

No, it's super helpful. And I love that you highlighted the point, like as helpful as all those principles are and those tactics that healing is deeply personal, that it might look a little bit different in different people's life. But I think so many of those components, um, I know in my story were present when I've experienced the most amount of healing.

And so especially I would just double down on that whole vulnerability point of like having someone in your life who just knows everything about you, who you can just share everything about you and who they're just going to love you in spite of it all. Um, it's, it's beyond healing. It's beyond helpful.

It's something that can transform you. Yeah, there, maybe I can nuance that for a little bit. There, there are two types of people that I find helpful and both are needed. And that, and that was represented by Christopher and Tom. Tom was the guy who said, hold your head high. And so as I've seen that over the years and becoming somebody who's worked with people in these regards, I've found that both kinds of people are necessary.

So. The kind that I will love you no matter what. And I will love you in the midst of the sin and the ugliness, et cetera. And Christopher did that for me. He also was a wonderful version of accountability because he wasn't okay with excuses. And so I think a lot of the problem is that people have an accountability partner and what they give each other permission to do is to just get away with whatever.

And so I, I challenged a group of men I was working with one time. And this is one of the best stories I've ever heard. I challenged a group of men one time to actually do real accountability with each other. And so there was a group of men and they came in and one guy kept coming and saying is falling.

And another guy in the group said, I promised you, I promised you. I would help you. And if you come back next week and you say you've fallen again, I will take care of this problem for you. And the guy was like, what? So we're all like, Whoa, what does this mean? The guy comes back the following week. He says, I fell again.

And the guy who promised him said. I'll take care of it. So I'm like, what is going on? So now it's the next week and there is all kinds of issues between these two guys. Well, here's what the guy did. He knew that the way that this guy fell was through the internet and through buying things on TV, he went over to his house.

And he ripped the cable box off of his house and cut all the cable wires, ripped it off, like holding the head of Medusa in his hands and left it on his porch and drove away. So he had no access to the internet. He couldn't get any access to anything. I think that's illegal, what he did, but the commitment was so amazing.

They were the one guy who had his house. Assault was not happy because then he had to pay the company to come back out and fix it and blah, blah, blah. But I went, that's the kind of thing. I'm not promoting illegal behavior, but that's the kind of thing that the guy was serious. He was like, Either I'm, either I'm whole, I'm loving you or I'm not like, uh, so I love that story.

And so good. Maybe that guy's in jail for doing that for other people. No, so good. No, I think it hits on that whole thing. When we're trying to help someone, we need to go in with both truth and love. We can't just love them and, you know, say, well, You know, what you do doesn't matter. No, it does. We need to hit them with the truth and say, no, no, you're, you're called to more than this and you can beat this.

And yeah, I'm going to be standing right there through it with you, but I'm not going to let you fall prey to mediocrity and just like living this life. That's never going to end because that's just depressing. So, so much good stuff there. I want to, um, just get kind of fire. A few questions that you, when it comes to someone listening right now, Who is in that spot that you were in, maybe in their marriage or leading up to marriage in a dating relationship even.

I know those are two different things. So maybe let's just focus on marriage for the sake of this. So what would you say to that person? Like, where do they go first? And I'm curious, do you always advise sharing your struggle with the spouse? Yeah, good questions. I'll be brief. The first things I would say is you're not going to go anywhere if you're not honest.

And so step one is getting honest with the reality of the situation. Christopher did the same thing to me, and he said, you've got to be honest about do you actually want this? Because he said, you can actually want it, and that looks a particular way. Or you can want it. To want it, or you can like the idea of wanting it, that's not wanting freedom, and you just need to be honest about where you're at.

Do I want it? Do I want to want it? Or do I hope to one day want to want it? You know? You've got to situate yourself there. Cause there you're least honest. You have to be honest at first. Then I would say the next step is what do you believe will happen with regard to a journey of transformation? And you need to look for the lies there.

So for example, it's impossible. I said that. I said that all the time. Obviously I'm sitting here proving that wrong, but I believed it. So I believed a lie. So I have to look at what I believe about a process of change and actually examine it and, and, and examine that for lies. And usually you need to do that with someone else.

Amongst all the other stuff, I would say the last one is something I've learned from The Navy SEALs. And I think the reason I say that is because Navy SEALs are people who do extremely difficult things and you can learn a lot from them. There's a friend of mine who's a Navy SEAL. He's a retired Navy SEAL.

And I've talked to him about all these things. And he said, getting free of pornography addiction is an equivalent to going through hell week. So if you know anything about the Navy SEALs, he said, and he's been through hell week. He's been through hell week. So he has real life experience. And he said, I respect any man who has worked through an addiction, man or woman, but we're talking about men work through an addiction of pornography.

He said, you are like us when you've done this. That was huge motivation for me. But one of the things that they teach there is what's called micro goals. The principle is you will never make it through hell week. When you think about the entire week at the same time, You'll quit because it's overwhelming.

So what you have to do is draw your attention, which isn't easy, but it is possible. Draw your attention back until the next thing you're focusing on is reasonable and achievable. And that might be. All I have to focus on is the next 30 minutes. And if that's the sobriety journey that you're in is all my goal right now is the next 30 minutes.

And I'm working hard because it's not instantly happening. I'm working hard to hold my attention to being holy, being pure, and being free. For the next 30 minutes, I'm breaking down this lifelong journey into a goal. That's reasonable and achievable. It's micro goals. That's how they survive extremely difficult things like hell week.

And they train that and they practice that. And then they embody it. I think that's essential to recovery is micro goals. You have to break this whole thing down into realistic parts. And. That doesn't magically happen. That is intentional. Soon as you think about, I'm going to have to go seven years without ever struggling, you're done.

It's too big. You're done. It'll crush you. You got to think about the next 10 minutes, day, week, whatever is manageable to you. So good. And proof that that work is that works is, um, the lone survivor story of Marcus Luttrell, who's a Navy SEAL, who you guys might know this story. He was, um, essentially just left without a team in the mountains in Afghanistan.

And he actually using that exact tactic that Jake just taught, he actually crawled on his belly with like a broken femur. He, his nose was collapsed into his face. Sorry, this kind of graphic he had. bitten through his tongue. Um, he was on his belly, like running from likely hundreds of enemy fighters. He, he would take a stick and draw a line in the sand in front of him.

And he said, if I can just get past that line, I'm going to live. And he did that again. He did that for seven miles. seven miles. And so it works, it works. And so, so, so good. And I think one of the biggest lies I just want to touch on briefly when it comes to, um, breaking free from sexual compulsion addiction is that I'm going to beat it myself.

I'll figure out a way to be yourself. That's a complete lie. And I know you can, we can do a whole nother show on that. But, um, the, the final thing I just wanted to make sure we touched on was just your ministry. You have so much more to offer here. I mean, this, Episode is a proof of it. So please tell us about it.

What do you guys offer and how can people find you online? Yeah, I'd say that the simplest thing is to go to our website life restoration C A, C A is for Canada, we're in Canada. So Life Restoration Ministries is what we do and in that we do all kinds of various things. The biggest thing that we offer is we want people to encounter Jesus and we want people to experience the maturation and healing of their humanity.

So, human formation, healing, encounter with Jesus, that's what we're all about. So, if you're kind of looking at going, what's the nuance here? Human formation is a big nuance. Encounter with Jesus is a big nuance. Um, but we do that through conferences, podcasts, like, podcasts. Uh, we have a podcast and Joe, you've been on ours, which was a great gift to us.

So Heather has a podcast, my wife, she and I run it together, abiding together. I have a podcast called restore the glory. Heather and I are actually going to be starting our own podcast together. It's one of our ministries and podcasts are a thing we love to do. So they'll, that will be one. We do conferences and talks and formation courses, et cetera.

But if you go to the website, you get a sense of all that. And Joey, I, I'm sorry, I know I'm way over time, but I, you, you had asked a question about. Do you say to your spouse or do you not? And I think I'll answer that very, very simply. I wish there was an easy black or white answer. I don't think there is one, but here is one thing I will say in my experience.

I don't know anyone, and I'm sure they exist, but I don't know anyone who hasn't told their spouse and gotten through it. I say that as a field note from my experience. Now, hundreds of people could write in and say, Hey, I great. I just don't know about them. I have a lot of stories of people who have broken free when their spouse was on the journey with them and their spouse was aware.

That's my story. So. That's one comment I would make. But back to the other thing, life restoration podcast, you know, retreats, et cetera, go to that website. Love that. And one piece of advice on that for everyone listening. I've heard that when you do tell your spouse, you want to make sure there's someone else present there who is some have some level of competence in this, because then your spouse has somewhere to go to, to talk about these things and not just between the two of you.

So I've heard that's a really, really helpful tactic. Yeah, we don't want to be flippant. Like, I mean, It's not about you. That's the thing. Um, I mean, we, yeah, we could do a whole other episode just about that, but there's a lot of differing opinions there, but love them. The point is to love them. It's not to get you out of the doghouse or to get you better.

Remember, it's not about you. The point is, what do they need? How can I love them well? Okay. No. So good. And Jake, thank you so much for coming on the show. I could talk with you forever and just such good content, good advice. I want to give you the last word, like what's one final piece of encouragement that you would give to everyone listening, especially someone who finds himself where you were years ago.

Trust Jesus. It sounds cliche, but when you are with him, when you're facing his direction, even if it feels like you're so far away, you don't lose. You never lose. When you are close to Jesus facing him, trust him, it's worth it. So good. Jake is amazing. And it's really an understatement to say that if you want to really soak in all the wisdom that he has to offer, uh, relistening to that episode is a smart move.

But I wanted to highlight the six tips that he gave to break free from sexual compulsion or addiction. Uh, one is sacraments like confession. He mentioned two, People someone to coach you and really hold you accountable through this whole process of breaking free a three therapy to heal the brokenness that drives that behavior for his prayer to tap into strength.

That's beyond your own five is fasting to grow your self control yourself mastery muscle. And six is truth to bury those lies. How to keep you stuck. And if you want more content like this, I highly recommend checking out Jake's website and the podcast that he hosts. Um, but I'd also humbly recommend our podcast series called healing sexual brokenness.

It's a six part series where we just offer a lot of tactics and resources from experts on how to overcome unwanted sexual behavior. So you can find freedom. And it's so relevant for people like us who come from divorce and broken families, because one expert found that 90 percent of people who struggle with a sexual addiction actually come from a broken family, pretty mind blowing.

And so if you want to listen to that, there's two ways you can do that. Uh, in your podcast app, you can just, once you've selected our show, you can just search. Healing, sexual brokenness, and you'll see all of those episodes. Um, or you can just click on the link in the show notes of this episode, which will take you to restored ministry.

com slash sexual brokenness again, restored ministry. com slash sexual brokenness, or just click on the link in the show notes. That wraps up this episode. If you know someone who's struggling from their parents divorce or broken marriage, feel free to share this podcast with them. Honestly, if you take like 20 seconds out and message them, I promise you they will be so grateful.

And in closing, always remember, you are not alone. We're here to help you feel whole again and break the cycle of dysfunction and divorce in your own life. And keep in mind the words of C. S. Lewis who said, you can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.