140 - Pirate Monks w/ Nate Larkin

You're listening to the Pure Desire podcast. Your safe place to find hope, healing, and freedom from sexual addiction, betrayal and relationship issues.

Hello.

Hello.

I am your host, Trevor Windsor, and you are listening to episode 140 of the Pure Desire Podcast here with me, as always, my co host, Nick Stumbo.

Yo ho, yo ho. A pirate's life for me.

All right, in full disclosure, you, listener out there, I did suggest that Nick use that intro. I did not know he was gonna sing it. I'm so sorry.

I figured you were asking me to.

No, it's so good. Look, we've got an awesome episode for you today and you will hear the tie in for why Nick used that intro. A couple things, quick, subscribe to the podcast. If you haven't, you can find us on all the major platforms. And if you give us a review, it actually helps more people find the podcast. Also, you can share these on social media. We have these on our Facebook page and all over the Internet, so share these as well. Also, if you're not following us on social media, you should do that. Facebook, Twitter, instagramuredesirepdmi. And you can also watch some clips from these episodes on YouTube. Just search Pure Desire Ministries. All right, so tell people why the Yoho Yoho.

Well, not only is Pirates of the Caribbean a fantastic ride at Disneyland on a rainy day, because it's indoors and it's air conditioned and it's awesome.

But.

But no more than that. Getting to have Nate Larkin on today, who authored a book called Samson and the Pirate Monks. So a very unique title. And we talked today about why that is. But I think for the listeners that maybe don't know Nate or ever heard from him, I think what makes both he and his book so appealing is just the honesty and someone willing to call out what they've seen in their own life, what they've seen in the church and how we can change to move towards authentic community. That really is transformational. So. So he's a great guy. You know, he's in his 60s and he's still doing it. I think he told us Today he's like 22 years into recovery and so just awesome to hear his perspective. Really appreciate him a lot.

Yeah.

And he is a great communicator. Had a lot of good stuff to say, so this is gonna be a good one.

Yeah. Take your pens out, write down some notes.

I think that's right. While you're driving. Enjoy the episode. Nate, thank you for joining us. Thanks for being here, man. Appreciate it.

It's my pleasure so, so happy to be on your show.

Yeah, we're. We honestly have been trying to get you on the show for a while now. Thank you, Google Calendar and your lack of. No, just kidding. We're not going to call them out. We like that. But look, for our listeners, we're familiar with you. I know you've spent some time. You and Nick have spent some time together. He's been on your podcast. But for those of our listeners who are not acquainted with you, can you give us kind of a snapshot of your life, your ministry, what you do live, all that?

Oh, wow. Okay, sure. I'm going to compress 63 years into about 63 seconds.

There you go.

Fantastic.

No, I'm the product of a Christian home. More than that, the product of a pastor's family. So my dad was a preacher. I'm the oldest of 10 kids. Grew up in a very devout home and was marked from childhood for the ministry because I just had a natural ability to do the things that, you know, play well in church. So I could sing, I could talk. I had a good memory back then for scripture and also a sincere love for God from an early age. Made a decision for Christ as a child. And was the Christian kid in school always well behaved. But problems began to arise at puberty.

As they often do, right?

Yeah, Same.

Now, there is also some trauma in my story. So my mother had succumbed to a mental illness and then died by her own hand when I was nine years old. And then we had my dad remarried. It was not in those early years a very happy marriage or a very happy home. So lots of trauma, lots of social displacement. We moved a lot, put all that together with the flood of new hormones that arrived at puberty. And I was a sitting duck for anything that would medicate my anxiety and sexual arousal. Certainly did that. And the fact that sex was not a topic that was ever raised in our home. And the implicit messages around sex were all negative. I knew to hide it. You know, I knew from the moment I saw porn for the first time. For me, it was the glimpse of a Playboy magazine. I knew it was bad, but I didn't know why it was bad. And I also felt tremendous. You know, I felt guilty for having seen it and ashamed of having liked it. Yep. So I did what guilt does. I lied. And I did what shame does. I hid. And I did so partly in justification. I justified that, that course of action. I mean, part of it was self preservation. I didn't want the punishment that would come if I were discovered Also, I kind of felt that as a Christian I had an obligation to hide this growing interest of mine. I had to preserve Jesus reputation in addition to my own. And I worked very hard at that and was very successful. So I don't think that anybody really suspected that wonderful little Saint Nate, you know, this bright and shiny beacon of Christian, you know, behavior was developing a porn addiction. I nursed the hope throughout college that marriage would fix it. I really nailed my hopes to that verse often quoted in our circles, that it's better to marry than to burn. So I thought, you marry and, you know, the fire goes out, it's now contained within the fireplace and everything's going to be just hunky dory. And, you know, sex did turn out to be wonderful. Not as wonderful as it would have been if I had not carried into marriage all the expectations, the unrealistic expectations that porn had provided.

Yeah.

So I didn't realize that all those years I'd been. Not been. Yeah, I, I'd rationalized my porn use during my college years as preparation for marriage, unaware that I was actually poisoning my marriage. Right. Yep. And, you know, when real life showed up and, you know, my, my wife and our intimate life did not live up to those unrealistic expectations that had been built by pornography. And when really I don't know that I was at that point capable of experiencing true intimacy with my wife. Yeah, she, like all women, had by that point become so objectified and I had become so focused on performance or whatever that was, that just the joy and the deep pleasure of connection with my mate that God had designed was already out of my grasp. And then it got worse in seminary, of course, I went to seminary because of course I was going to go into the ministry. Yeah, it was in seminary that I got my first glimpse of hardcore pornography. Up until now, it had all been the softcore stuff. And it was, ironically enough, on a seminary sponsored trip to New York City where we were taken on a tour through Times Square, through all the sex shops of Times Square, by a group called Women Against Pornography, so that women, we could see for ourselves how women are exploited by the sex business. And I, I actually brought my wife along on that trip. I really thought that if porn, because I certainly, I had already grown to hate pornography at least as much as I loved it. Right. I was enmeshed. I was looking for a way out. And I really thought that if I could see behind the curtain and see how bad it really is, I would stop. And instead, what I saw for the first Time was I saw moving images. This is before video. This is film. It was a peep show booth that we were shepherded into and handed tokens, and my wife sat beside me and they closed the door and the lights were out and we put the. She put the quarter in and the projector began to clatter in the darkness behind us. And the images appeared on screen. And these were moving. What I didn't recognize at the time was that film, moving images. This is an immersive experience far more powerful than the still images that I had been viewing up until that point, you know, And I had a visceral reaction. My wife did, too. She hated it. My reaction was ambivalent. I, too, was repulsed in the moment, but at the same time hooked. And that began, you know, it was only days after that that I started venturing away from seminary and away from home and scouting places where I could get a dose of this drug. Yep. And so, you know, that continued through seminary. I was. So now I didn't tell Allie what I was doing, but I was so discouraged by my inability to stay away from that. Out of seminary. Actually didn't take a church, although we had a couple offers. Moved instead to Florida to join a church that built itself as a healing community. Eventually took a job as the church janitor. And there, on a church retreat, heard a priest talk about his battle with pornography. It's the first time I'd ever heard porn, actually, the word pornography spoken inside a church. I waited for the ceiling to fall in, and it didn't.

I heard a gasp.

Yeah. I was inspired enough by what he said that when we got back, when I got back to our tiny apartment, I took Allie into our bedroom and I told her what I'd been doing. Wow. And she's a remarkable woman. Of course, she. In a way, it helped explain to her where I had gone emotionally because her best friend had disappeared, had drifted away, had been drifting away. It gave her something to nail it to. And she told me that she was sorry that I had had to hide it from her. I lied to her about it. She would be my ally. All I would have to do is tell her when I was tempted and she would stand with me. And actually, you know, miraculously, in the days that followed, the obsession lifted. And I thought, man, I have found the solution. It's confession. That part I had. Right. Right. But I concluded that I was going to make my wife my accountability partner in all matters sexual. And nobody else would ever have to know. It could be just the two of Us. And then I can maintain my false self outside the house. And what I didn't realize, what I didn't recognize. My wife had actually volunteered for a job that God didn't build her to do. She, as my wife and as my intimate partner, was never able to hear my confessions about lust for someone else entirely objectively. Right. In her mind, it came across communicating some deficiency on her part. I could tell that it hurt her when I told her. And it was also humiliating to me when I had to start telling. When I began to move back toward the edge. And so I decided to protect my wife and not tell her anymore.

Such a noble thing to do, right?

Yeah, very much.

It's for her good that I hide these things.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't know anything at all about healthy disclosure. And I had no alternatives. I had nobody else to turn to.

Yeah, exactly.

Right. To have confessed to anybody else would have been to sabotage my, you know, my career because I still hoped for some time in ministry. And actually, it was during a period of abstinence that I mistook for sobriety that I actually found the nerve to start a church. We planted a church and quickly gathered about 100 people. And then the political pressures began, which are inseparable from communal life, whether it's church or Kiwanis club, began to accumulate. And before you know it, I am back in the soup, hiding. And then it got worse. A few years in, it got worse when I found myself on a Christmas Eve. It's a story I tell in my I Am Second video, picking up, unsuspectingly picking up on Christmas Eve, my first prostitute, not knowing what she was doing until she was in the car and propositioning me. And already at that point, I was so conditioned by lust and had seen a similar scene so many times.

Yeah.

Your brain was so conditioned.

Yeah.

You knew what to do.

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I followed the script. And in that I honestly, looking back on it, I really didn't see the person in the car. Yeah, right. I really didn't. And it never even occurred to me to wonder what would compel a young lady to walk the streets on Christmas Eve.

Yeah.

And offer her body to strangers. But that was just. It was the worst night I'd ever experienced that. You know, later on, officiating at the candlelight service on the most sacred of nights. Yeah. And the worst part of it was knowing in the pit of my stomach that I was going to do it again. Yeah. And of course. And I didn't do it right away. I prayed That I wouldn't. I promised I would, but it's a.

Scary place to be.

Thank God I wouldn't. And I didn't right away. But eventually I did and did again and again and, and, and, and eventually I did that for about a year and was never caught. But I despised my own hypocrisy. So plagued by the guilt and despair, I woke up on my 30th birthday knowing that I could not keep this up. And my greatest nightmare was that like some of the TV preachers who were now being featured on the evening news and on the front page of the local paper, I was going to be discovered and I was going to be a laughingstock. Yep. And to me, I knew at that point I was either going to have to quit the behavior or quit the ministry. And at that point there was only one I could quit. So I retired from the ministry at the age of 30.

The ripe old age.

Giving the explanation that I was burned out. Went into business, went into the engineering business where I had the great misfortune to succeed. I make a lot of money, which an active addict doesn't need.

Yeah. The more money, the more problems, right?

Oh, man. Yeah. With even less accountability than I'd had in the ministry. Partner in the firm. Right. And I could travel. And. And so looking back when I added up, when I finally got into recovery, I got sober in 12 step recovery. Not long after we moved here To Middle Tennessee 22 years ago, my first sponsor, one of the things he had me do in order to get in touch with my powerlessness and insanity was actually to construct a spreadsheet and try to calculate how much money I had spent.

Count the cost. Reality. Yeah.

Holy smokes. Best I can figure, $300,000.

Wow.

On pornography and prostitutes. But that isn't the worst part for me. My greatest regret is that I spent my children's childhood and spent 20 years of my wife's life and 20 years of mine. But now, 22 years later, having experienced the miracle of recovery, having been driven out of isolation and my egotistical drive for self sufficiency, out of my practical atheism, into forced into a reliance upon a power greater than me and forced to join the human race and become an actual member of the body of Christ and actually trust the body of Christ, my life is so rich and our life is so rich rich that, you know, Allie and I both agree that as hard as those years were for both of us, they were worth it. We're. We feel blessed to be where we are. So There it is. Wow.

So cool to hear that story because the, you know, the points, I mean, we have very different backgrounds, very different experiences, but the points at which we can say, yep, me too. Yep. Been there and I think a lot for a lot of our listeners and just appreciate your vulnerability and sharing those stages and just where you were at.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, you know, Nate, I'm excited that we're talking to you because I heard your name when someone said, have you ever read this book, you know, the Samson and the Pirate Monks? And I'm like, well, that's a weird title.

That's like, what are we talking about? Is that a Disney book or a movie or.

They said, I think you'll really enjoy it. And so I got a copy of it and yeah, read it, loved it, thought, man, this guy, he knows what it's like. He's been there, he's walked through some of what I have. And so one of the joys I've had being a part of Pure Desire is getting to meet some of my heroes, those that have kind of gone before and started to pave the way in this area. So tell us a little bit about what prompted the title and that book and what is the Samson Society that has grown out of the book, Samson and the Pirate Monks or vice versa? The book maybe came out of the Society. You can tell us.

Yeah, yeah, the book came out of the Society. I'll tell you what. I just finally the book was. I wrote the book in 2006. I finally read the. Recorded the audio version last week.

Good for you.

And I hadn't read the book in years and I was surprised it was better than I remembered. I don't think I can write that well anymore.

That's not a terrible thing when your book is better than you remember.

Yeah.

Seriously.

Yeah, yeah. So the Samson society started in 2004. As I told you. I got, I got sober, got my first taste of freedom in 12 step recovery beginning in 1998. Really wanted to be able to integrate my Christian faith more directly into my recovery. Also, as I began to tell my story, as I, as I got free from shame, began to tell my story to people and allow people the liberty of passing my name around. And I would say, look, if there's anybody you think I can help, here's my phone number. Yep. And began to walk with. Walk with other guys. I found first of all that there is a very wide range of behavior that is compulsive. There's a wide range of compulsive sexual behavior. Not everybody fits in the same box.

Yeah.

And not everybody I told my story to was I would have called myself a sex addict. Certainly without reservation. These guys weren't sex addicts. Not in the way. But I never told my story to a guy who didn't have something in his life that was bigger than he is.

Yeah, he could relate.

Yep. Yeah. And after I told my story, suddenly I was the safest guy he knew.

Right.

And now he would trust me with that thing, that secret that our ancient enemy had been using to beat him into submission day and steal his hope day after day after day. So the idea for the Samson Society was, first of all, it's a company of Christian men. And secondly, it's an organization, it's a company of Christian men in which we do not segregate by sin. So you don't have to be a sex addict to join the Samson Society. It helps, but it's not necessary. So we do have guys who's presenting issue as something else, but we can all relate. But we need a place where we can bring our real selves and say the real truth and we can walk together and support each other. And so that's what the Sampson Society is. Started in 2004 here in Franklin, Tennessee and grew quickly. And so the book came out, I wrote it in 2006. And they're actually, they're not in the audio version, but in the print version there are vignettes from the lives of many of my brothers also inserted in the book. So we wrote the book more or less together out of the first chapter of the Sampson Society here in Franklin. The first half of the book is memoir mine. The second half is really field manual. And what we wanted to do was give guys a picture of how they could start a Samson Society of their own or something like it. Some principles, some suggestions and some vocabulary and really to appropriate for Christians, you know, that language and symbolism that is part of our rich heritage. So that's what the Samson Society is. So it's not a 12 step program. We have seven stages. So, you know, but it's the same healing journey. But we have. It was kind of an attempt to recover recovery for the church. Right. So after the book came out, guys took up the challenge and about 500 groups started around the country. And then a couple of years ago, we finally became aware that there are so many guys around the country and around the world who for one reason or another can't start a group. It isn't realistic or they're for One reason, or they're not close to one, but they just really need connection. And we really began to believe that it was time for us to redeem the technology that has done so much damage for so many of us. Amen. It was. I'm. I'm greatly in debt to Michael Leahy. Introduced me to Zoom Technology got me in my first, you know, Zoom meeting. I got a taste of a virtual room, and it. And I began to understand for the first time that it is possible to create real relationship, even when you're not in the same shared physical space. And so we launched online meetings of the Sampson Society a couple of years ago and found ways to connect guys between meetings in what we call Silas Relationships. So in Samson, you don't have a sponsor, you have a Silas, but he's your trustworthy traveling companion, the guy you're talking with every day. And we take this journey together. It's a joy.

Yeah. And we're seeing the value of the online stuff, too. It's a reality of our world that a guy. If they can connect that way and that gets them in a safe place to tell their story, it is so worthwhile.

Absolutely. Yeah.

Tell us a little more. Why the name Samson Society and why Pirate Monks like those. Those are kind of foreign words. Like people like, what does that mean? So tell us the origins of those unique names.

Yeah. Okay. Well, the Samson Society, there's a. In Samson and the Pirate Monks, I contrast the stories of two great biblical figures, two heroes who both had spectacular falls, both at about the same stage in their life. One is Samson and the other is David. And one dies a failure after his fall, but the other recovers. And we contrast the two, and we see the ways in which David's life is markedly different from Samson. And I think that David was able to recover because he had learned the things that make recovery possible, things that Samson had never learned to do. I was tempted to want to name our group, you know, the Society of David. Yeah, a nice aspiration.

Real.

Hopefully.

That's right. Exactly. And it's kind of a pretty name. But I really think that the challenge for most of us is to admit what we really are. And the truth is, there's a big part of me that is the same isolating loner, you know, that proud wanderer, that internal guy who just doesn't pray much, doesn't talk much. The guy who really thinks he's above the common run of humanity. He's a very tragic figure. But there is a big part of me that Samson and Recovery for me is first of all admitting that I'm a Samson and learning to live more like David. Yeah, that's good. The Pirate Monk. For us, it's a name, a nickname we acquired about a year in. And for us, the Pirate Monk is a metaphor for the integrated Christian life. All of us in Samson, you know, our logo is a monk with an eye patch. All of us in Samson have a very real and sincere monk part. We are Christian guys, we love God and we love the things that Christians love to do. But all of us also have a pirate part.

Yeah.

And what most of us did for a lot of years was we tried to kill the pirate and be the monk, or at least hide the pirate and be the monk. Right. And we. But that strategy, it failed. And it failed partly, I think, because we were under the, the mistaken impression that the monk is all good and the pirate is all bad. Well, the monk is a good guy, but he has some traits really that are not that admirable or helpful. He really can become smug and self righteous. He really can isolate a quite, quite a bit. He can think he's better than other people, he can remove himself from the world. And the pirate, yeah, he's a bad guy, but he's a scoundrel. But he doesn't pretend to be anything other than a scoundrel. He's got that going for him. He's not going to pretend in the way that a monk might. He's got some courage, he's got a sense of adventure. He knows how to hang with his friends. So what if we can take the best of both guys and put them together and be the same guy all the time? Now we got something. We're going to make the monks a little nervous and we're going to make the pirates a little nervous, but we can be at peace with ourselves.

That's so good.

I like that.

Yeah, that's good. So let's kind of press into the book a little bit. And you already mentioned so far that St. Nate thing, which. Good for you. I wasn't that way. I was the punk kid who everyone knew about. But you talk about that and really we see it in church. There is a struggle with the culture that it's, it's not okay to struggle with this. It's not not okay to talk about it. We hide it, we keep it in the dark. And so, yeah. Why in your opinion, is church not a safe place or a real place for this topic?

Wow. You know, I do think that moralism has so seeped into the church. And, you know, that impulse has been there since the very first days of the church. We see that in, you know, in the argument that in the confrontation that Paul had with Peter. When Paul said, hey, you know, you're starting to pretend a little bit here. You're relying a little bit too much on appearances and you are sacrificing grace. It's why Paul wrote the letter to the Galatians. You know, there is kind of always this Pharisaical impulse where I've just got to be good. It's this mistaken idea that what God really wants from me, the primary thing he wants is for me to be a good boy, for me to be a good dog. And we forget that Jesus, you know, I don't know. I'm a preacher, so I could run off right now and run aside. I don't want to go there. Yeah. But it's tragic, I think, that we have too often replaced the gospel with moralism.

Yeah.

And we have lost. Here's the thing. What's so striking about Jesus to me was the way he reacted in stark contrast to the Pharisees, the way he treated every sexually broken person he encountered, always with such unfailing kindness, with such gentleness, without encouraging them to sin more. Right. He didn't endorse the sin, he didn't embrace the sin, but he embraced them, always did.

Yeah.

And somehow we think we've got to stone the adulterer. Right?

Yeah. I think it goes to what you said in your story about you felt an obligation to protect not only your own reputation, but also that of Jesus in the church. And I think we fall into that of like, well, I've got these problems in my life, but I know the gospel is true, and I don't want anyone to doubt the gospel because of me. And so I better act like it's okay because I'll keep working on it. It's going to get better. But if I can just present that nice shiny image, then people will think the gospel is true and I won't damage it. Whereas in that very scenario, we're creating what we fear. We're creating something more damaging to the gospel because we don't address the brokenness well.

And that's the thing. So for me, growing up, that was the thing, is I saw my mom and dad, I saw the leaders in the church, and I saw them have all their stuff together. I don't relate to people who have it together. Therefore they're not safe for me to go to. Like I say this the imagery for me is like, my dad was Superman. I don't relate to Superman. Clark Kent, I get him. Life is not easy, you know, But Superman, I'm not that. I can't be that. And so I think in a lot of ways, and this is just my opinion on evangelism, if we would be more real and raw about what it looks like to actually be a broken person following a savior, that would actually be more inviting for people to join into the church rather than look at how together our life is like, nah, I can't really relate to that.

I gotta tell you, I am far more effective in ministry today than I was when they were paying me to do it.

Yeah.

I'm far, far more effective than when I was bright and shiny.

Yeah.

People tell me things now they open right up and they tell me things they never told me when I was Pastor Nate.

Yeah.

Yep.

So true.

Yeah, yeah.

So you talk a lot in the book about the need for community and to be in that kind of a vulnerable group. But you also talk about when you were frustrated first, you know, invited to go, and the struggle that you face to walk into that group for the first time and so relate that. Why is it so. Even if we know we need it, why is it so hard for us to enter into real community and take that first step?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's, you know, it's a combination of shame and pride. Yep. And this is where I think God is so gracious in. In that he allows us. You know, I do think that in the end, humility is inevitable. In the end, every knee and every will bow, every tongue will confess that.

Jesus Christ, that's great.

Humility is inevitable. Humiliation is optional.

Yes.

I can choose to fall upon the rock or the rock can fall on me. I wasn't going to fall on the rock. I needed the rock to fall on me. So I needed. I only went to that first meeting in a desperate attempt to salvage what little was left of my marriage. Because my ambition was to become somehow to overcome this compulsion and become morally self sufficient. I really wanted to. I didn't want God's help so much as I wanted to be God.

Totally.

Right. So it was very humbling. It was also. I carried a ton of shame into that room. So I think the double burden of my pride and my shame is what made it so difficult. The first time, the first time I drove to a 12 step meeting, I didn't even go inside. I couldn't bring myself to get out of my car and go into the building. I only went in on my second visit. I only went in after seeing a guy I recognized from church. I followed him in. And these days I try to be the guy who is safe enough that somebody else might follow him in.

That's good.

I think it just. Growing up as an athlete, it's funny because you were talking about how moralism has gone into the church. I think that performance is also the same thing, like performance based value. You know, I play in baseball my entire life. You are loved to the degree that you perform on the field. You go 2 for 3 and hit a home run and a triple. Right on, man. You're on the all star team. Everyone loves you. Let's go for pizza. But if you know you've got three K's and you have. Sorry, I'm speaking baseball language. If you strike out three times, I love Facebook. Yeah, right. If you grounded a double play and you're over five, like, whatever, it's fine. We've got tomorrow, like go, you know?

Yeah.

But I think the same thing is true that I'm. I'm afraid because for me, when I started stepping into healing, I was a pastor and I'm like, no, my, my value, my identity, my role, it's all going to go away. I'm not going to have any value in these people's eyes if I'm honest. And I. It's just sad that performance based. Here's what, here's what's sad. What's sad is my inability or my lack of willingness to step into that room teaches me actually what my theology is, what I truly believe. And that was what's so cool, is as that paradigm got shifted, our friend Rodney Wright says everybody needs to get kicked in the paradigm every once in a while. And I'm so thankful that recovery was that kick to the paradigm.

Yeah. You know, I also think that we have a strategy in the church, a well established strategy of trying to shame people into better behavior. We really think that shame works. Shame and fear are capable of forcing people to change. And here's what I believe now. I think shame and fear can force compliance in the short term. But what they really are going to do or drive us into hiding. One of my great regrets is that during my years when I was an active addict, no longer a pastor, but always very active in church as a leading layman, I participated in the pillorying of other guys who either confessed or were caught in sexual sin. If I wasn't throwing the rocks, I was holding the cones and I was really. And I was doing it in a way thinking that I was going to find a way to, you know, in our prosecution and persecution of those guys. And really, you know, they were going to learn a lesson and I was going to learn the lesson vicariously. Right. But I don't know that they ever learned the lesson. And I know I never did.

Yeah.

And I knew. And when it came, you know, I'll tell you what, when it came time for me to face the music, I went to the basement of the church in the middle of the week while all the good people were gone.

Yeah, this is a great conversation so far. We're going to take a quick break and talk about a new video course we have.

All right. Alright.

So for many of you out there listening, you know about the Conquer series, we have a 10 week series that we partnered with Kingdom Works Studios to create for men struggling with sexually compulsive behaviors. And for a really long time we haven't really had anything to offer for women who struggle because we know that women struggle. This is not just a man's issue, this is a people issue. And so we're really, really excited now to be distributing and be partnering with Mo Isaac. And Mo has created this eight part video curriculum that really was created to help start the conversation or really push the conversation forward about sex and Jesus and what it looks like in the church. It's supposed to equip you with practical and applicable truths. It'll answer tons of questions. And really our favorite part is that it really presses into this really taboo topic of a woman struggling with compulsive behavior sexually.

Yeah, I think much like the Conquer series for men opens the door to these conversations for any man. It's the same for women. And Mo has become a really great friend of the ministry and we just respect her for her approach and her solid biblical foundation. But she will help women whether they struggle or not, just help them open up these conversations that usually we're not comfortable having. And so helping women understand just some of the basic very real questions they have about sexual in marriage, having a better understanding of singleness and dating and what to, what would help us, a woman have a better approach in regards to that? And if there, there are issues with pornography or perverse dreams or memories of past relationships like how do you deal with those? And that's, that's the messy stuff we often avoid. But most teaching will guide people really through some solid things and, and maybe another great outcome is how to have these kind of conversations with your kids. I know moms are approaching us all the time at events like, what about my kids? What about my kids? Well, Mo's going to be able to give some really practical godly wisdom of what does it look like not only to deal with this in my life, but then to have the right kind of conversations and create the right culture in my home with my children.

Yeah, and, and Mo is the one who's teaching and the one who's speaking in this and she is a powerful speaker. She really is. Tons of conversations, conviction, tons of experience and wisdom. And we really think that you're going to enjoy this course. So if you are interested, this could be a great on ramp for you getting into an unraveled group. If you are a woman and you are struggling in this area, you can go to PureDesire.org mo, that's PureDesire.org mo and you can get this video course today. So let's kind of talk about the other side. I mean, you know, walking into your first recovery group or, or at least sitting in your car for that first one and then coming around the second time, which I'm sure you still hung out with the smokers who stand outside of the, you know, the anonymous group. But why is deep, authentic community so crucial to healing? I mean, now that you guys have been doing groups for a long time and you guys have online groups and all that, why is it that we just can't fix it on our own and we need other people?

Well, I do believe that's God's design.

Yeah.

You know, I think that we are made in God's image. God himself is a relational being. That's what we as Christians believe. We are made to be in, to be connected to him and to each other. We are part of what's called the body of Christ, not the building of Christ. This is an organism that's good, whose members can only move. You know, we're so intimately connected, we can only move together. And I think that's part of all humanity. I think that. I'm sure you're familiar with Johann Hari's famous TED talk with that money line. You know, the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, it's connection. And he amplifies that point in a book that I just finished a couple days ago that I highly recommend called Lost Connection, where he argues that the roots that the anxiety and depression that plagues modern Western society is not a sickness and is not caused, except in a very small minority of cases by a chemical imbalance in the brain. As we have been told it is actually a healthy signal. It's a healthy response to living disconnected.

Yeah.

In a disconnected world. I do know this recovery only began to happen for me. You know, when I. When I first showed up in 12 step meetings, I did not want to join the group. I came there to on a temporary basis. To get the secret information from the people who had the secret information.

So you could leave and never come back again.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Now I'll go do it on my own.

That's right.

That's right. And I'm a good student. I'm a quick study. I got all the literature. I learned all the lingo. I was selling it before I owned it. But. But I did not want to make the emotional decision to join the group. And after the pink cloud dissipated and I was. And my relapse cycles began, I had to face the fact that. That I could not do this on my own. Only when I actually became willing to emotionally join the group, become vulnerable, to ask for help. I'm very comfortable giving help. I love doing that because I feel like it puts me in a superior position totally. But to ask for help, to admit need to say what I want and run the risk that I won't get it, to step out of the shadows and show this ugly part and trust that I will not be rejected. And I'm so grateful that I, you know, that God directed me to a group of people whose acceptance for me was unconditional. They didn't have a mechanism for ejecting me from the group.

Yeah.

So good.

I love it.

Yeah. Well, I love the idea that we can't learn our way into recovery. Because I think that is. That's kind of the American way. Like if you can't do it, go learn about it and you'll be better. But there's this need for each other. And you know, I just returned from some training done by Patrick Carnes group, and both of our trainers emphasize that in trauma and in early childhood stuff, that a lack of attention or neglect is oftentimes as painful or more painful than physical abuse. Because they brought up that in a physical abuse situation, I don't mean in any way to minimize someone's physical abuse. If you experience that, because that's horrible as well. But what they brought up is that in physical abuse, the brain is at least getting attention. You're being seen and heard, but you're at least being noticed in neglect and kind of that not getting attention. The brain feels like I'm not seen. I don't matter and the sickness that comes out of that is oftentimes more devastating than the physical abuses. And I just, I think that's. And this is not a Christian perspective at all. That's just secular brain research that's saying our brains were literally designed to be seen and to be loved and cared for. And even negative attention is better than no attention. It's like, wow, that.

Yes.

That just underscored for me how powerful relationships are in our health and our transformation.

I need you to tell me who I am. Right. And to use the language of Kirk Thompson, who I love in Anatomy of the Soul. We need to feel felt. Right. There has to be some sense of it. Otherwise I'm just living in this vast vacuum, just floating through space. I was listening to Andrew Susskind the other day, and he made a striking statement. I was talking about attachment styles and attachment disorders. And he said in his long experience as a sex addiction therapist, most sex addicts, he says, would be classified as love avoidant with an avoidant attachment style. Right. And that certainly is me. Yeah, that certainly is me. Allie. And I joke, you know, we've been married now 41 years, going on 42 years. We joke that one of the reasons we're together is we have compatible intimacy disorders.

Yeah, that's good.

And in recovery, we're learning how to move together. But even at this stage, we do so kind of cautiously. And, you know, one of the reasons why I found that wives like to see their husbands go to Samson. They'll sometimes push him out the door to go to the meeting or kick them. They like what comes back. Because in those meetings we are learning non sexual intimacy. Right.

So good.

We're taking some small risks. We're becoming so vulnerable. And then the world doesn't end, the ceiling doesn't fall in. And we come home and we just try that thing on, on. On the person we love most. And we begin to build some real intimacy in marriage.

I, I was thinking just using the sports analogy again. You know, I just think that it's one of those things where. So if you're an NBA fan, you know that you've got 10 to 12 guys on the team, and those five guys don't play the whole game. They need to get tapped out, they get tired, they need to take a rest. But guess what? You have somebody who can fill that role, who can step in. And I found in my recovery that when I am at a point where I'm feeling triggered or I'm feeling really susceptible and feeling really low, that's where my teammates around me can support me. They can be there, we can have the conversations. They can step in and remind me of what's true. They can help me give my performance based mindset. Just like I can sit on the bench for a little bit and relax. Like, you're okay, man. We've got this. And I think that that is such a huge piece to community that this is something. Nick, I've heard you say a lot too. It's. You're allowing someone to practically, on a horizontal level, show you God's grace, God's love, God's mercy, that, that there are times where, like you and me, God, we're good, man. I got it. But it's everyone else I'm nervous about. But it's that practical. It's God's love being practically shown through the love and affection and acceptance of other people in our lives. Man, that's a great gift. And we just. All we got to do is receive it.

So. Did you watch SportsCenter over lunch?

No, man.

The sports analysis.

No, I just used. I mean, hey, honestly, I could use a sports analogy for anything in my life.

I know.

We all could.

Yeah, I love it. I don't know if you remember, but the opening line of Samson and the Pirate Monks is, I love baseball. Yeah.

Amen.

So there you go.

Yeah.

God's pastime.

So, Nate, go back a little bit to. You're starting to talk again about you and your wife. You tell the story in the book that your wife reached a point where she was done. You know, she was still in the house, but perhaps feeling just done. So what did it look like for you to rebuild that relationship and regain her trust?

Yeah, it took time. I am glad that I was held back from my brothers, by my brothers from going home right after I made my first step and my first disclosure and vomiting everything on my.

Yes, thank them. Over and over.

Oh, man. And she says today she doesn't know whether she would have been able to survive that. Yeah, I do wish that we had had some help in disclosure, because full disclosure didn't come till almost three years in. Yeah, and that was a painful second hit for her. She knew about the porn. That's when she discovered about. Learned about the prostitutes. By then, I disclosed it to a ton of people, including our adult children, but I hadn't told her. But fortunately by then, when she kind of got her bearings again and started to come true and regain consciousness a few days later, she was able to say, I have seen changes in you. You are not the same person who did that. Maybe I'm willing to restart on a new if we can get some help. If you ask Ali. When she was very skeptical, and rightly so, she was deeply hurt and greatly skeptical that I would ever recover. One of the things she told me, you know, on the. On the night she. The fateful night she caught me downloading porn in my office was, I still love you, but I don't like you, I don't trust you, I don't respect you, and I don't think you can ever change. Wow. At that point, no promise to change held any water. I've been promising change for 20 years. I turned over more leaves and frankly, when I got into recovery, I didn't think I could stick to it. I really didn't. I was surprised to learn that it would stick to me. Recovery turned out to be really sticky. Thank God. When you ask her when she began to. Began to believe that maybe change was happening, she says it was when I be she. She noticed that I was becoming less defensive. By that time, I was doing some fearless moral inventory in 12 step recovery. I was actually taking a look at my defects. I remember coming home, my sponsor suggested that I might want to ask my wife to assist me in this part of the inventory. What defects might I have? And that's not a question I had ever asked my wife. She had been making suggestions for 20 years and I had always counterattacked very quickly.

Sure.

Yeah.

You know, because I just couldn't. I couldn't handle criticism of any kind. So sensitive. And turns out she was, she was. She got pretty enthusiastic about that part of the project and she was stunned.

I would say, yeah.

When I would say, tell me more. Can you tell me more? And because at that point, I am no longer fighting to gain God's approval or to preserve my self respect. My self respect is now being built on an entirely different foundation. Yeah.

And I think that what you said at the beginning there, Nate, is what I would just jump in and emphasize. Your first three words were it took time period.

Yeah.

And just how many people that go into this process, you know, like we all did at some point when the behavior started to change, we're like, man, I'm rocking it like three good months. And we're like, look at our spouse. Like, what? What's wrong with you? Why are you still mad at me? Like, these three months have been awesome. And we are so engaged in the fix it. I'm all better. Let's move on. Versus allowing this to be a process that takes time. And in our marriages, more than anywhere, we see this is a slow, slow rebuild. And I tell guys that all the time. It's kind of like you blew up the house of your marriage in one fell swoop, and now there's bricks laying everywhere. And rebuilding that house is a long process of one brick at a time, picking it up, bringing it back to the house, and it takes time. And so just to emphasize that. That no truer words have been spoken about that relationship. People can hear that. It's key.

Yeah. She needs care. I'm so glad that help for partners these days has moved toward trauma treatment for wives. Because what was the best day in our life was the worst day in hers.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

We faced the truth, and she was hit by the truth. Yeah. And being able to put that. I'm so. If you'll allow me to go ahead and plug something we're doing, I'm just so excited. 15 years in Samson society. We've done lots of retreats for guys, and our retreats are great. We're finally doing the first one for wives this summer.

That's awesome.

And Dr. Barbara Steffens and Lori hall are coming to do it. And just. We want to give our wives a relaxing healing weekend. And when we're not sending them there to do their work. You want to take a wife off, Tell her I'm doing my work. You need to do your work.

Yes. What?

You handed me an assignment. What is that?

How dare you?

Yeah. No. She needs some care. She needs some healing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I tell guys. I tell guys. Look, I. It's a little ugly. It could have gone better than it did. I slept in a closet for two years. I literally slept in a closet for two years. Yeah. And it was part of our process of individuating. My wife needed some distance. I needed to learn that sex is truly optional and I could have a full, rewarding life without it. I needed to get over my deprivation mindset.

Yeah.

I needed to walk in some fresh freedom. That's not necessary for everybody, but that's the road we took.

Yeah.

I think too. Just like. And we talk about this a lot here, just. Recovery is a lifestyle. It's not something that you do and you graduate from. You get the diploma and you move on to something else that maybe, you know, maybe the emphasis of your recovery changes over time due to what you choose to numb out on. But recovery is definitely a lifestyle.

No doubt. Yeah.

So let's say that there is, because this is what we found is that it's not just a man's problem anymore, if it ever was. This is something that both men and women can struggle with. 100%. Let's say someone is stuck in that pattern of sin and that compulsive behavior. But, man, as the three of us know, breaking out of secrecy and isolation is scary and very, very risky. What encouragement would you give that person in breaking out of the secrecy and isolation?

Yeah, you've got to find a safe place to go. So you guys have created a safe place. You know, we've created a safe place. Fortunately, the. The church. At least parts of the church.

Yeah.

Is starting, you know, to wake up and allow the conversation. Yeah. But there's. In my experience, there is no private way out of this as much as I, you know, I begged God for years for a private solution to my private problem, and that whole prayer was running counter to his grand intention.

So bargaining with God doesn't work, huh?

No, no, no, no.

You'll only set me free.

I will write this down, guys.

Thanks.

Appreciate that.

Yeah, yeah.

And find. But find people who are already on the path. Yeah. And by the way, you know, we're talking here a lot about the absolute central necessity of having relationship. It's also helpful if the people you are in relationship with kind of have an idea of where they're going and they have some structure. And that's why I'm so grateful for what you guys have provided in the seven Pillars training. We got a lot of guys in Samson now are picking up that ball and. Yeah, we bet. We learn from each other. We benefit from the. From the experience of one another, but in the end, it's. It's. It's. It's not a. It's not a curriculum. It's relationship. That's what it's all about. It's connectedness. Yep.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The curriculum creates a context to go deeper in those relationships.

Yes.

Because now I'm talking about things I otherwise would never have talked about, and I'm doing it with safe people that are talking about the same thing and the bonding that comes. Yeah. That's what I hear from men and women in pure desire groups. What I expect you hear in that Samson society setting is like, I'm talking to people about stuff I've never been able to talk about, and they still like me. In fact, it seems like they like me more the more honest I get.

And they move in.

That's what creates the change.

Yeah, yeah.

So tell us a little bit more about that. The Samson groups You've already mentioned a little bit how they're structured, but I think most of our listeners are probably familiar with a 12 step approach. And just talk a little bit more about how does the Samson Society differ from what our listeners might know of a 12 step group? Because as you said, you're not a 12 step group. It's a little.

We're not a 12 step group.

So how do you distinguish that?

We borrow a lot of the. Yeah, we borrow a lot of the spirit of 12 step. So for example, Samson Society meetings are run by volunteers. We don't have a designated facilitator, we have a meeting format. Anybody who can read can lead. It's a little trickier in the online meetings, but any volunteer can run an online meeting, can start one. We just have to show you how to run the controls on the website. But we want to create a place so the meetings are an hour long. Start on time, end on time. Unlike the standard 12 step meeting, we open in prayer. We actually have a statement of faith that's read at every meeting. There's a scripture we read at every meeting. But the heart of the meeting is the sharing time. And thanks to the capabilities of Zoom technology, we're able to do online the same thing we do in local meetings. When it comes to sharing, we break into small groups of four, five, six, no more than seven guys per group so that everybody has a chance to share within that designated time. We don't have a lesson for the.

Meeting.

And we have, you can, you can choose from 150 suggested topics or go off list. What we found is in the end it really doesn't matter what the topic is. If we as Christians are gathered in Jesus name, he's promised to be there. And if we bring ourselves and say the real truth. My experience, 20 years of being in meetings like this is if I bring my real self by the end of the meeting I have heard something I've needed to hear and I've said something I've needed to say. And I've never walked away from a meeting saying, you know, that was a waste of time. I always, I always leave going, man, I'm so glad I went. Sometimes I have to drag myself to go. It's the exact opposite of my acting out episodes. I never had to drag myself to a strip club or I just kind of was drawn there like a moth flame. And I never left going, that was a good idea. Yeah, I always left going, I'm never doing that again.

Yeah, right.

So it's great to Have.

Yeah.

To have this opposite experience. Yeah.

What a great observation.

Yeah. So let's talk like vision for the future for Samson Society.

What?

Like how can people be involved? What are you guys up to these days? Just let people know how they can get more information.

Okay, great. Yeah. Well, you can check the Samson Society website. There's no P in Samson, by the way. S A M s o n samsonsociety.net or.org or.com. i think all three will get you there.

Fantastic.

If you want to attend an online meeting, which by the way are especially good for people who are in full time professional ministry, if you're a pastor, you can encourage and I would love for you to encourage and support the formation of a Samson group or a pure desire group in your church. But if you want that level of vulnerability and authenticity and honesty, it's going to be difficult for you to participate that way in that group. And you're going to make it probably tough for the guys in the group who want to impress you.

Yes, that's right.

So we have lots of pastors who show up in the online meetings. So you can, you can. But in order to get into the online meetings, we want to keep those safe. The only people we want in the meetings are people there for their own recovery. So you have to first attend a newcomer meeting. It's kind of, we run at this point 7 newcomer meetings a week and we're going to really ramp those up in the next couple of months. It's kind of a two way interview so we can explain what Samson is and we get to know you. And if it's a fit, then you give us your information in an email address and we'll send you a link that gets you through the door and into these online commutings where you will meet some of the greatest guys in the world. I just, I just love men in recovery. When we're tired of hiding and pretending and we're just there to be ourselves, it's a wonderful thing. And when it's real, real fellowship and not that kind of towel snapping locker room crap that, you know, that passed for masculine, I don't know.

Sure.

I'm over the pancake breakfasts, by the way. I want something more than that. Yeah, that's good.

Amen to that. Yeah. You know, I just want to speak to our listeners and say this doesn't in any way have to be an either or. It's not either you do Samson or you do a seven pillars group that for men. I've talked to A lot of guys that the engagement in both can be really, really healthy because they've got seven pillars. You've got the curriculum you're working through and developing the relationship with those guys. But a lot of men early on in recovery, say once a week is actually not often enough. I need more places to check in. And so being engaged in a Samson group, in addition to that can be a wonderful thing. And the flip side, I know, as Nate's talked about, guys that have done Samson for a long time see the need to have a structured process, so they adopt some seven pillars stuff. And that's what I love about having you on in this conversation is we're working, you know, stepping. We're in step with each other on how we want to help, and they're really things that can be congruent. So I encourage our listeners, man, check one out. And if you're just hungry for more honest, real community, Community, check out what Samson can offer because that could be a real valuable resource in your recovery.

Yeah, totally. So, I mean, really what sticks out from today's conversation is that we need to be willing to face what's going on in life. We've got to do it in community, and we've got to continue pushing in. Don't ever leave that community. So if you want more information on Nate Samson Society, you can Visit their website, samsonsociety.com or net or.

Org.

Or you could try all the other ones if you want. They got a bunch of great resources.

I've been misspelling since Bible college.

No P. I have not. So I feel good about myself. You can also check out their groups, their resources there. And then Nate's book, Samson and the Pirate Monks is on Amazon. Go check that out. Nate, man, thank you. We got you on. Finally, we've had the great conversation. Thanks for being here, man. Appreciate it.

I really enjoyed it. Trevor and. And Nick, great talking to you. And yeah, thanks, man. Love you guys. Love you guys.

Thanks. And we love you too. And. And look, we hope our conversation today gave you hope. We know that ministries like Samson Society and Pure Desire are here to help create that safe community and that roadmap to your healing. So you, or if someone you know are looking for help, go to PureDesire.org or SamsungSociety.com and start your healing journey today. If you haven't subscribed to the podcast, hit the subscribe button. Keep the conversation going, write a review, help others find the podcast, and lastly, never stop being healthy.