151 - Porn Free w/ Matt Dobschuetz

You're listening to the Pure Desire Podcast, your safe place to find hope, healing, and freedom from sexual addiction, betrayal, and relationship issues. Happy Tuesday to you people, or whatever day it is when you listen. I am your host, Trevor Windsor, and you are listening to episode 151 of the Pure Desire podcast. Here joining me as always, is my co host, Nicholas J. Stumbo.

All right, chefs, open up those baskets.

So I'm, like, trying to not feel shame that I don't know, because we talk about it a little bit in today's episode that you come up with these obscure intros that, I don't know.

Kind of like, my new goal is can I bring in intros that Trevor won't know the reference for?

And all of our listeners will hear me triggered at least 75% of the time.

That's right.

So today we have a pretty cool episode. We've never done this before. We're doing basically what I'm going to call a mashup episode with Matt Dobschutz from Porn Free Radio. And he's also. He does recoveredman.com and we just talked about his ministry, our ministry. We had some conversations of our story. Talked about the culture in the church a little bit and a lot.

Yeah, it was awesome. We just felt like, because we're all podcasters, rather than us interview him and then later him interview us, like, just have a great conversation about freedom and integrity and what that looks like. And since you didn't ask, I'll go back to my reference. Was or was I supposed to? Okay, well, yeah, because I had a lead in the Food Network show Chopped, which, truth be told, is one of my guilty pleasures, because I know it's always going to be non triggering. There's nothing I have to worry about content wise.

Unless you're a food addict.

Well, that's not my story.

Okay, got it.

I love watching people cook. And the connection is that it's always these different chefs that come from their own background and they take the same ingredients and try to make a unique or distinctive dish. And I feel a little bit like that's what we did with Matt is we have some distinctives that we bring and some backgrounds, but really we're all working on the same thing. We're working on trying to help people find lasting freedom from their addictive behaviors, the struggles they've been caught in over and over. And I think there's just going to be a ton of good insight today as we talk about this. So you had three different chefs that brought forward their best Dish. And hopefully people enjoy it.

Nice. That's good. That's a good segue. And if you haven't, subscribe to his podcast, Porn Free Radio and enjoy this episode.

Well, I had a question for you guys. Just to start. I've listened to some of your episodes where Nick makes sort of like Gen X jokes and Trevor has no idea what he's talking about. Trevor, exactly how old are you? You look really young on video now.

That's. Thank you. And now I'm emotionally triggered. Great. I am two in a little over a month. I know I've got the baby face. I've tried the whole growing facial hair to make myself look older. That would work if I could grow facial hair, but I can't. And I'm happy to represent the millennial generation on our podcast.

I would just say Trevor's grasp, though, of media, music, movies. Like, he doesn't have many dead spots in there. But there's other particularly late 80s, early 90s cultural references that are the ones he's kind of like. I'm not sure what you're talking about.

Like, I was 2 or 3 when that was going down so well.

Trevor, I just want to give you permission to raise your hand at any point that Nick and I. That the old guys start making a reference that. That you know, because. Because if. If you've ever listened to my podcast, I'm always making cultural references to, like, old hip hop from the 80s and. And then I'm always having to explain it to my. My younger listeners.

Well, I mean, here's what I'll do. Instead of just raising my hand, I'll just make fun of you guys out loud for everyone to hear. That'll be the right way.

Sarcastic video.

Yeah, Sarcasm is my love language.

You are so old.

Seriously, that's fine. My audience loves it when I invite people on who just make fun of me. So any shots you can take, go for it.

I expect to be on the all star team of that group of people.

Well, Matt, if we're gonna be able to make fun of you, we do need to know a little bit more about you. Tell us some of. For the Pure Desire audience, what you do, who you are. They're probably wondering, like, who is this Matt guy? We intro'd you a little in our pre episode stuff, but give us a bit of your story.

Well, I run a podcast called Porn Free Radio, which is for motivated guys who want to quit looking at porn. And I started it. Kind of an interesting kind of connection with Pure Desire. I ran a Local church group for about 11 years. And it was for people struggling in their sexuality. For Christians, it had to do with discipleship and basic wholeness and healing. And it was interesting. The years I was running, it was 2003 to, I think 2015. So 2004, broadband Internet comes out and slowly in some of those check ins and some of those people coming to help, you know, all of a sudden, video and, you know, consuming more and more porn became more things that people were coming for help with.

Yeah.

Then in 2010, as we all know, the iPhone comes out. Smartphone and. And so by 2011, 2012, you know, we had men and women in our ministry. All of a sudden, everyone's coming for all the issues they were coming for before, for healing and help with. But then all of a sudden, porn is like this addendum to everyone's application. And I spent more and more time talking about it. Now my background is I was a. I struggled with porn my whole life and got caught by my wife downloading porn when I was 31, early in marriage, right about Trevor's age. And, you know, it was a real shock to my wife. You know, we. I grew up a Christian. She did too. So it was like a real kind of, you know, kind of coming out of hiding moment for me and a lot of courage to step into kind of being known. And she was kind of on the journey with me. So I had had that in my background, but when I first went to get help, I didn't know anybody else struggling with porn. Yeah, it wasn't. I remember being in my group explaining some of the behaviors that I did, and people would be like, oh my gosh, what? Right. You know, I was talking about.

Which always feels great. Yeah.

I was talking about struggling, walking past the video store.

Right.

Someone's like, why are you struggling? Yeah, like, what's the. I go, it's. It's a struggle.

I had this, okay, so I had this friend, this friend growing up or this family friend growing up that would write. And I think I've said this on our podcast before Blockbuster Video, you know, not many people, which actually was Hollywood video was where my family went, if you can believe that. But he would never go into Blockbuster because he would go down an aisle and he would get triggered and then he would act out later in the day. And so I remember hearing people like, you know, like yourself. It's like, I can't even do this. And the initial response is like, man, how gross or how perverted are you that you can't Even walk into a movie store without, like, you know. So I think that that's something that even me in my millennial generation had experienced to some degree.

Well, you know, on porn free radio, we talk about this thing called edging, and it's kind of like getting to the periphery of addictive behavior, you know, kind of revisiting the old porn behavior.

Yeah.

And so back then, I remember one of my bottom lines was I couldn't go in the blockbuster, not because I was going to act out, because I was just, like, staring at movie cases. And it was like, a way to get, like, a little buzz. And I remember explaining this to my men's group, and they were like, what are you talking about? You're, like, wishing that you could rent a video. Like, it made no sense to people. It totally makes sense to me now. What I was doing back then. I had no idea.

It's for all of us, that place where, like, we think we're still in control. We think it's a safe, regulatable amount that gets a little bit of that hit. But, oh, I would never go too far. And then, you know, I look back at my pattern and go, that's what led me to relapse. Like, every single time is, I thought, oh, I can handle it. It's only this far. And then, oh, there I go again. And you just.

You.

Then you start to see that happening. You get wise to it. Yeah. And you've got to start talking to a group about, what are you doing that moves you towards that edge? What are you doing that starts. The way I think of it is what starts that engine. Because if you start the engine, the next thing that happens is the wheels start moving. If the wheels start moving, you pick up speed. And so let's not try to hit the brakes when you're at 50 miles an hour. Let's look at what starts the engine and not do that.

Yeah, that's. That's a great point. I was just getting ready to report record a podcast on temptation, and I did one a few years ago, but I wanted to do an update on it. And. And the thing I was saying to myself is, it's like what you do when you're not tempted affects how your temptation goes.

Totally.

And so it's kind of like. It's kind of like that old Chinese proverb, you know, he who sweats more in time of peace bleeds more in time of war. And it's like what you do when you're kind of down and not. Not in that you know, right at the edge. That really. That really has a lot of impact.

Well, and the scary thing of today is really that, you know, at first, maybe something like going into Blockbuster, and again, to remind people that was a video store, you go and rent stuff. Wasn't streaming.

Thank you.

So millennial translation. There you go. Right? Yep. Okay. Oh, man, this is already so fun for me. But I think that one of the scary things today is you've got streaming services like Netflix, like Hulu, like Amazon Prime. And the scary thing is, is that most of their original stuff has some sort of sex or nudity in it. And I think what's happening is it's not just, you know, going in, like, looking through the newspaper and pulling out, like, the Sears catalog or going into a Blockbuster Video now. It's like, well, there's only a little bit of nudity in this. And so it's tv, Ma. It's gonna be fine. I'll just go in and watch it, and I'll be okay. And so what I'm seeing is that culturally, it's actually gotten much worse that the things that we're doing that are fringe are actually things that are hooking us a lot quicker and setting us up for more failure later.

Yeah, the lines have gotten really blurry in terms of it unbelievably, you know, your video story, Matt, video store story. Like, you could look at a cover of a DVD and know what kind of movie I'm. I'm getting into here, where it feels like now just what you're saying, it's getting blended and stuff. That, like, boy, 90% of that movie I love, but maybe I shouldn't have put up with that 10%.

I want to watch Jack Ryan. I want to watch John Krasinski just, like, shoot people and do amazing things. But then there are sex scenes in it, and there's this just like, am I willing to compromise in order to see something which 90% of it I'm going to enjoy, or am I going to make the hard decision now, which we talk a lot about that in all our material and podcasts, is like, you have to do what's necessary. And if that means not watching certain things or being a culturally weird person compared to other people, you got to do what you got to do to be healthy.

Well, yeah. I mean, I say the same thing is, like, you have to really be, you know, you have to really take ownership of your recovery. And, you know, Trevor, you could say it's okay to watch Jack Ryan, and if I get. If there's something in it that stirs me up. It's not safe for me. My wife, you know, there's stuff she watches that I cannot watch, and I just. It's not. We don't even have the conversation anymore. It doesn't matter if she gives me permission or not. It's not safe for me.

Yeah.

And I was gonna just wrap up one thing about. About my little story. So in that group, you know, after the iPhones came out, you know, a lot of it just became an issue that everyone was struggling with. And I think that when you're struggling with boundaries in your sexuality, when you're struggling with wholeness, porn, porn and porn behaviors, and just the whole lane of specifically Internet sexuality just opens you up to all sorts of things. So people who are hurting already or were wounded were now finding new ways to basically self injure themselves or get more stuck. And so I started porn free radio right at the end of running groups as a way to just talk about porn and maybe some habits. And kind of the idea was I would just kind of have the tools and then I could still do the wholeness and healing stuff at. At the church group. But what I found was there was an audience out there who needed more tools, but also needed wholeness and needed, you know, to dig into some of the same stuff we were doing in the church group, but, you know, from a different perspective. And so porn for radio started catching an audience and, you know, and so it's been about six years now.

Six years. Got it.

And that's kind of the trajectory for me with the podcast.

So I, like you said that it's a ministry or it's a podcast for motivated guys. I'm curious, do you have unmotivated guys that ask for help and how do you help them? See, I don't know if you're actually motivated enough to go through this process.

Well, the reason I say motivated guys is I want to spend zero time on my podcast convincing people that porn is bad for them. Yeah, that's a completely different conversation.

Yeah. Which is needed for some, but totally.

Yeah. Yeah. And you see other people, probably some of our other peers, getting more into those debates about the. Whether porn is good or not. And I have no time for that. I only want to talk about recovery. And now do I think porn is good? No, I don't think it's good, but I'm coming at it from. I'm not trying to motivate guys. And so, yeah, every once in a while I get, you know, I get A lot of emails from partners. How can I get my husband to whatever, or how can I get my boyfriend to stop looking at Instagram? And I'm like, well, they can call me if they want help. But you know, how many. How many call? None. Yeah, I mean, one guy, I remember one guy's wife contacted me. I put it out there. Have him call me. He called and he kind of took ownership and went, yeah, but. But, you know, I don't get into, you know, I don't go on Reddit and try to.

Yeah.

You know, woo. Woo people over to my argument.

Do you know what Reddit is, Nick? Do you know what Reddit is? I feel like that was almost a millennial.

Yes, I'm slightly aware.

All right, got it.

Slightly.

Yeah. Reddit's like a message. Remember AOL message boards? It's kind of like that, you know, and then I.

Okay, so it's funny what you're saying, though. Like, for us as a nonprofit, as a ministry, you know, we've got, especially coming from the church world, there's a lot of people who've already tried. They're motivated, They've already tried to get sexually healthy. They've tried the rubber band. They've tried loving Jesus more over serving at church. They've tried going to the altar call. Yeah. And then maybe, like, casting it out, maybe even going to counseling once a month or like, whatever it may be. And I think that a lot of it for so many people is. I think it's a moral problem. They think it's just, I'm a bad person. When, you know, one of the foundations of our ministry is looking at not only what's happening in your body, but specifically your brain and how that's impacted addiction and just the patterns that we create. And so for us, we run up against the. We also, we want to equip people with the resources and tools to get healthy. But we also, there's a piece of educating which for me is the marketing director at Pure Desire. It literally is. The difficult part of my job is we have to, as an organization, you know, filtered through my department, figure out how do I communicate in a way that educates people without making them feel dumb or stupid, while at the same time saying, hey, there's hope. You've got this. Here are tools that work. And so, yeah, it's like, so for us, you know, basically figuring out that target market. Who are you after? You're after motivated people. We are, too. And there's this tension of we have to both educate and Equip people to get healthy.

Well, I mean, I'm from a marketing background, Trevor. That was my job before I started doing full time work with guys. And sometimes people say, well, Matt, well, how does marketing have to do with what you do now? And I'm like, well, I'm selling guys on one of the hardest propositions that you could ever. I'm trying to get them to buy in to letting go of porn, which has usually dominated their lives for 20 years. And all the habits, all this stuff are stacked against kind of what we're doing. But I think the key that you said was hope is like, guys want hope. And so, you know, I have a whole bunch of stories of my, you know, video store escapades and downloading stuff, but I also have a track record of freedom and I've gotten sobriety. And I've also had a lot of help just with some of those holistic issues like shame. And the big lie for me is that I was unlovable. And, and that was actually what really was unlocked in recovery was that that that lie was really fueling a lot of my, you know, going to porn. And so that it's. It's like there's a lot of guys out there like me. The biggest surprise I had when I started the podcast was I thought things had changed since 2001. When I got in recovery, you know, people were talking about it more, there were more books, there were more groups, and yet a lot of guys come to it this. There's a guy right now who's listening to this episode who just realized this is a problem or just realized they have to do something radically different to get this out of their life.

Totally.

And that was a surprise for me that guys were still kind of coming to that realization that I had when my wife caught me, you know, in 2001.

Yeah. So, Matt, let's press into it a little bit. What. What all do you do? Do you offer for these motivated guys? Obviously the podcast, which has a following and. But what, like, what else do you do to help support these guys on their recovery journey?

Well, the first thing that, that I really came about that, that I noticed people didn't have as a plan, people didn't really have a way of kind of knowing some of their basic needs, knowing why they are doing this, and even creating some habits that maybe support the recovery efforts. So about a year into my podcast, I was like, you know, I should just come up with a podcast about how to make a plan. And the way I used to do it is. I used to have relapses when I traveled for work. I would do pretty good at home. I had some accountability support. I'd go to a hotel room in California and I would just like lose everything. It was like disconnected. Just a little bit of that anonymity of the hotel room, the tv, just that kind of thing would just cause me to screw up every time I'd go on the road. So one of the things I started doing was making travel plans when I traveled. And one of my first episodes I shared how I make a travel plan when I go out of town. And so after about a year I was like, well, you know, if a travel plan works for traveling, why does it work? It's because it's specific, it's measurable, you're committed to habits. Why wouldn't that work for life? And so that's kind of where it came from. And I started coming up with this idea of having just a 30 day plan that you commit, you share with someone in your life. It can be your wife, it can be guys in your group. And that was kind of the first tool that I started developing. I told people about it. I had a couple podcasts about it. People started downloading a worksheet. I built a course that kind of modeled that setup. And then from there I started doing some coaching with guys. Guys wanted help kind of building their plan or getting feedback. Lot of guys at the beginning, you know, just don't have any tools. They just, you know, I know you guys talk like about the faster scale or you might talking about how to check in or bookend something or guys just don't have any of that stuff. So, yeah, those are some of the first things that I would help guys start to navigate and also help them. One thing that I'm a big fan of Trevor and Nick is I heard a lot of guys telling me why they wanted to be porn free. But it was always like some external reason, like it was about their wife or about, you know, maybe they were caught at work or maybe it was even a spiritual kind of motivation. But it sounded kind of like the answer that you would expect a Christian.

Guy to say, yeah, the right answer.

And yeah, and I'd be like, well, why? What's the internal motivation for you? Because this is really hard to let go of this comfort, right? Escape that you have this relationship that you have with porn. So what, what are you going to get from letting go of this? And so, you know, I try to help guys unpack that and I have kind of a little exercise that helps people sort of figure that out. And that right there sometimes will get someone in touch with, oh, I'm doing this because I'm sick and tired of living in shame. Or I'm sick. Like, for me, it was, I'm sick and tired of believing the lie that I'm unlovable. Yep. I turn off the TV sometimes when I'm tempted to channel up or tempted to kind of surf to some MA programing. I turned off now not because of my piety, but because I'm no longer willing to agree with the lie that I'm unlovable and that I need that celebrity's image to make me feel better about myself.

Yep. Yeah, that's good, man. Thanks for sharing that.

So from there, you know, from there, you know, I started doing some one on one. And one thing I realized doing one on one coaching is guys are disconnected. And so that's where I started building a group coaching model that came out of that. And so now I run, you know, four groups a week all through zoom, and work with some one on one clients and, you know, have guys all around the world who listen and guys who are all around the world who participate in groups and do coaching. And that's kind of the. That's kind of what I do.

That's awesome.

Yeah, good stuff. You know, you speak about not knowing there are tools or how to make a plan. I remember at the beginning of my own journey when I was meeting with a Pure Desire counselor and, you know, he talked about going to a group every week. And I'd done accountability groups, you know, the traditional accountability of, you know, I struggled this week, pray for each other, you know, would you call me, ask how I'm doing, that kind of thing. And so I kind of had that perception of groups in my mind. And he said it was going to be every week for two hours. And I just remember thinking, like, what on earth could possibly take two hours? Like, isn't this a 30 minute, like, check in, did you mess up this week or not? And so I went in with that mindset, like, this is going to be the most, you know, dreary, horrible experience just because I could not imagine what you would do for two hours. And then they start using tools and, you know, making commitments to one another and becoming aware of what's driving it. You know, that's the point of the faster scale and going through the workbook materials that Pure Desire uses and that I think early on, you know, within the group or two, it was like oh, okay. This is different than anything I've ever tried because I've never tried any of this. All I've done is, you know, tried to avoid it and not do it anymore, but I didn't have any tools in my tool belt. And I think for a lot of people, just you're describing. That's where we start, is we've been fighting it alone. We've been doing it the best we know how, but we're not aware there are all kinds of tools and plans we could make, people that could help us. That really is a totally different approach than when we're fighting alone. And so I just. I relate to that because of my own experience of thinking, and this is what I would say about it. I truly thought I was fighting. Well, I was fighting to get free as best I knew how. But I look back and go, man, I was, like, fighting in a war with zero weapons. And no wonder I wasn't having much success.

It's funny you mentioned the word accountability, Trevor. You might find this interesting. When I first started building this course and selling it to my audience, one of the benefits that I suggested or added was that you could. You could buy a copy and get another subscription for your accountability partner, and guys would write in and say, why would I want to share this with anybody? Like, they were still dedicated to trying to recover a loan, and they thought they could just buy it. Buy. Buy this little course and just figure it out.

Yeah, this is the magic fix me plan. Right?

Right.

Yeah. And. And. And I realized, you know, even some of the, you know, I know you guys really support the church. I realize guys, sometimes outside of the church or from other faiths, the idea of even being in a group or having a couple of guys who are really invested in their life was totally a new thing. So if there's one thing I've learned about the podcast is I don't make any more assumptions. I don't make assumptions of why people want to quit. I don't make assumptions of that they understand all the intricacies of this idea or these groups and how we use tools. And that's actually benefited me a lot because, surprisingly, we joked about the millennial Gen X references. But I did a podcast last year where I talked about Lamar Jackson, you know, from the Baltimore Ravens, and I realized, oh, I have to explain about American football in this, in these illustrations, because, like, it doesn't make any sense. No one knows who the Bears and the packers are, which is just a.

Shame, because the packers are God's gift to this country. I just. They're a gift.

Hey, but I, I had a couple of questions for you guys that, that I was. I'm dying to ask. And one of them has to do with the name Pure Desire. First of all, I love the idea of desire and it even being a good thing. Nick, where did the name come from? And how do you kind of see it when you talk about desire?

Yes, it is certainly a bit of a challenge. I've been on staff at Pure Desire three and a half years and at the time when we moved to be a part of the ministry full time, I got my new email address and you know, I'm Nick Suredesire.org and you'd go to businesses and you know, can I get your email? And yeah, you know, nick s@ PureDesire. And you'd see it in people's faces where they're like. Because outside of like the Christian circle and the church world, Pure Desire can have a very different. You know, it's ironic, isn't it, how words can be used in context to have totally, totally different meanings. And so there is that dynamic to it. But you know, originally Pure Desire was started by Ted and Diane Roberts when they were pastoring a local church outside of Portland, Oregon. And you know, Portland at the time had more strip clubs per capita than anywhere in the United States outside of Vegas. And they just recognized that if they were really going to help hurting broken people around them, they had to do something about sex and pornography and prostitution and strip clubs and everything going on around, you know, the greater Portland area. And so, you know, Ted's a student at heart. He starts researching it. He goes and studies with Patrick Carnes and learns about all the brain stuff. And he just saw that the church's basic approach of try harder, pray more, quote more, Scripture wasn't helping anyone find freedom. It just made him feel worse about why they kept doing it. So that led to his book in the late 90s, pure desire. And truth be told, I don't know if he had some genius vision behind that name. I just think that's what he was looking at was the idea that desire is a very God given thing, that God makes all of us to have desires. And the challenge is that in our fallenness and our broken world, those desires get latched onto unhealthy things that lead us astray. And so the idea of how do you purify desire and how do you have a pure desire for God and for your wife? And that led to the book and then the book, over time, is what grew the ministry. And Pure Desire became an independent ministry just 11 years ago in 2000. And I guess 12 years ago now, 2008. So the book title came first and then the Ministry. And yeah, we still sometimes have to explain people why Pure Desire. We are not a sex toy shop.

We're not an erotic novel publisher.

Yeah.

So we're expanding the message of Pure Desire one awkward conversation at a time.

I mean, I have a podcast called Porn Free Radio, so that always is a little bit of a record scratch. Sure. At cocktail parties.

Yeah. So what do you do? Isn't that the world's best question? So what do you do?

Oh, my gosh. Okay. So let me tell you, I have a system. I have a system for. Because we travel quite a bit. We do events around the country, sometimes international as well, but we travel. And I don't know if you're an enneagram person, but I'm a seven, so I like to just talk to everybody. I'm fun. I'm outgoing all the time, obnoxiously so. Our producer's shaking his head because, you know, this is true. But I'll sit next to people and you get to, you know, that small talk. What do you do for work? I have this system where this is kind of how I lay it out. It's like, oh, I'm a marketing director at a nonprofit. Oh, that's cool. And if they're interested in nonprofits, which it feels like everyone is like, oh, what do you guys do? It's like, oh, it's a ministry nonprofit. We support the church. Oh, with what? Like, well, we help in addictions. And they're like, oh, what addictions? And at this point, I'm like, bro, you have asked for it.

Now it's on.

We help people to stop watching porn and masturbating. And then people are just like. You'll get one of two responses. Like, one's like, oh, that's interesting. I didn't realize people in the church struggled. Or the people who are just like, now I'm going to sleep. You know, like, headphones on, headphones in, VR goggles on, whatever. So I just. I have this system. But I've gotten to the point where, honestly, especially with people that I come to find don't feel, follow Jesus or have the same perspectives or morals that we do still find the brain stuff and the effects that pornography has on human beings is just fascinating. And so in some ways, if you can get over that kind of initial awkward hurdle, if you Will it ends up having some great conversations about a pretty interesting topic.

Well, I'd be curious to know what you've experienced with this, Matt, because I've found that actually, people outside of the church are more comfortable with what I do sometimes than people inside the church. Because when I have shared my job and what I do for a living with people outside the church, usually their response is something like, that sounds really important. When I say that we're working to help people break free from sex and pornography addiction, they'll say, that sounds really important, because I think that's really damaging a lot of relationships in our world. So, to me, there's this irony of, like, our target is trying to help empower and equip the church, and yet people outside the church are almost more comfortable talking about it and see the value of it, even if they don't necessarily agree with our method or the, you know, the foundation of how we're doing it.

Yeah, I mean, I've actually experienced more of the. What you're saying, Nick. A lot of times, you know, I'll get. It'll be faster for me. I do a podcast. What's the podcast? And then it's like, oh, here we go. Buckle up. But a lot of times people are like, oh, how did you start doing that podcast? And then I said, well, you know, I had this addiction. I was struggling. I really was lost. And I'll start sharing some of my story. And then if I can talk about being unlovable or just feeling just a lot of shame or not good enough, immediately people connect with me. And I got to speak at a podcast conference a few years ago that was just an open podcaster conference and had this. There's a therapist in the front row who's now a friend. He's a gay therapist. He does, like, a. An online podcast chat show. Kind of like, you know, ask.

Yeah, nice.

You know, And. And he. He said, when I saw your topic, or when I heard you start to talk, or when it. No, when they. When they introduced me, he's like, oh, here we go. And I. I started with a really powerful story, just about, like. Like one of the worst nights of my. Kind of, like, a story where I relapsed and just all the feelings that came from it, and I shared it. That was how I started. I didn't share anything about my podcast or what I do. And he said, the moment you started sharing your story, I was like, oh, this guy. I get it. I get this guy's story. And I remember it was funny. I saw him in the bar later and he bought me a drink and it was just funny because he said, hey, this is the porn guy. Come over here. And there's like four other podcasters and we all had a great conversation about recovery. And I was on his show at one point and we just had a powerful conversation, amazing about, about some of the changes in my life. And, and so I've, I've experienced a lot of grace from people and a lot of really kindness and a lot of women too. I think, you know, women today, and I live in Chicago, you're in Portland. You guys probably experienced this. A lot of women in sort of these more liberal places are used to men kind of being behaving badly. You know, they're used to boyfriends looking at porn, or they're used to just sort of like, you know, just our culture and the Me Too movement. And, and so to hear someone who said, not only did I have a struggle in this area of compulsive, you know, pornography use, and now I'm free and I'm getting, I'm helping other men get free. There's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of safety. They almost think I'm like a monk or something. Like, hey, I still, I still need boundaries. Nick, I was dying to ask you a question about this too. Now your background was you were a pastor who struggled with porn. And can you tell me a little bit about what it was like being in ministry and struggling and then, you know, how did you start to get free? What kind of allowed you to get enough safety to get freedom?

Yeah, I think it's interesting because for me, I really entered into ministry with that belief. Like, I'm going to mature my way out of this because I was doing what the church had taught me. I was praying over it, I was confessing it. I had confessed a lot in high school youth group, to my dorm floor, resident advisor in college, to my mentor, to my fiance, and then my wife. And that openness is what I think helped me actually stay in the fight of like, hey, I don't want to just act like this isn't there. Because when I continued to struggle as a pastor, and so I'm a young 23 year old associate pastor, my lead guy was a very, very gracious man that I felt safe enough and that he really wanted to invest in me. And I felt safe opening that door and saying, hey, here's the truth. I've struggled and I've struggled since you've hired me And I don't know if that means my job's on the line or what, but I know I need to get it out. And he was so great to provide guidance and counsel and prayer and say, no, I'm not going to fire you over this. Obviously, I don't want you to just accept it. I want you to deal with it and get help. But that created for me an environment of feeling like, hey, I could actually pursue health while remaining in ministry. But I think, unfortunately, what happened in a lot of those confession times, or as I'm seeking help, is no one really knew what to do with me. You know, they knew to forgive. They knew to I'll pray for you. And, you know, and there would often be. They'd say, I'll, you know, check in with you in a month and see how it's going. And I don't mean to throw anybody under the bus, but none of them ever checked back a second time, like, hey, how are you doing with this? And so it would be these moments of like, let's deal with it, let's face it, let's pray over it. And then it would be going back into my shell to deal with it by myself. And I think what I did in a lot of that season then is I just kind of separated. You know, this was my quote, unquote, real life where I was Nick, the pastor and the dad and the husband and, you know, the godly man that was doing things the right way. And then there was this little itty bitty part of my life over here on the side where I had conveniently, you know, pushed all of my struggles and lust issues and pornography. It's like, well, this is just this tiny little box in my life that 99% of it is good and healthy and holy. And there's just this one little piece that every once in a while is a problem. And when you, when you think of it that way, I look back and think that's. That's actually a big part of why it took me 10 years into marriage and 10 years into ministry to deal with it. Because I was trying to tell myself the whole time I had dealt with it. You know, every time in my story, I say every time was the last time. And I really meant it. I wasn't trying to just get people to leave me alone. I really believed, okay, that was it. I confessed it well enough and it's out like never again. And I'd have a good month or two and then, whoop, that tiny little box would get opened Again and go through the whole thing again. So I think stuck in that cycle, I just didn't see that that picture was so inaccurate, that it wasn't just this tiny little box, that it was actually integrated into how I thought about myself. You know, what you said about the way we view ourselves, that my issues with wanting to feel like I was good enough, that people accepted me, that I had value, was all rooted in my performance and my identity. And so it was all mixed in there together. And because I couldn't see that, it continued to be a problem. So it really wasn't until, and I thank God for this, that the district, the denomination that I was involved in, got connected to Pure Desire. And Pure Desire has a program for pastors and churches to get their leaders healthy and help them find that freedom. And so, because that door was opened and I'd already faced it with my lead pastor, and by then, I was the lead pastor. But because of that, I'd already. My elders also knew that it was a reality in my life now. I hadn't said anything to them in a couple of years because now I was the lead guy, and I had to act like I had it all together. But because at some point in that past, I had opened that door, I felt like I could pursue this healing option that was laid in front of me and be supported. And we were. And so that's where I'm so grateful. And I know that my story is different for many, many people in churches because they feel like nobody knows. And if I do tell someone, I will lose my job. And this is the, you know, you run into the brass taxes of, this is how I pay my mortgage. This is how I put food on the table. And if I confess to this little struggle with pornography and lose my job, I could jeopardize everything. And so we put it back in that little box. We shove it off in the corner. We say 99% is okay until that box takes over our lives. So that's just a little bit of kind of how I look at it. And really, it was that year where we had our elder support, we had our denomination support, and my wife and I did a year of counseling together with Pure Desire. We were both in groups, myself for the struggler and my wife for the betrayal group. And for the first time, actually having people who walked alongside of us, not just who prayed and said, you know, good luck, try harder, but actually had a plan and a pathway and an approach that was life changing. And then, then we were able to take that into our church and offer that same pathway to other people. So it was pretty cool to watch that happen. And I'm aware that my story is still very much the exception in the church that we still want our pastors to be. Be perfect. And even though we know, you know, human nature, we know they're not perfect. We kind of like the idea that they do have it all together. And so we don't allow permission, we don't allow our pastors to be real people. And that's something I'm passionate about. Trying to help the church see is that pastors, men and women, are. They're still real people that often have desires, and particularly in their sexuality, have issues that they've never been able to deal with because no one's given them permission to. All the way through Bible college and seminary and being hired as pastors, people just assume that you've developed this part of your character and you've got it together, because otherwise, why would you be a pastor? Meanwhile, most of us, we're just trying to act really hard, like we do have it all together so we can get the job we feel God called us to do. So to try to help the church see, we've got to give our leaders permission to still be real people that need help. And that doesn't disqualify them from what they're called to do. So that's a little bit of the divine revenge I see that I get to take now is using my story and. And the 10 years of struggle that now have led to 10 years of freedom to call the church to say, let's let our pastors get healthy and not, you know, jeopardize their career over it. Because if our pastors get healthy, then the church will get healthy with them.

One thing that I've seen with pastors, I have a lot of pastors who listen, priests, rabbis. It seems like what happens is you have a position and a role and you're caring for others, and you end up in this paradigm where if you're struggling, if you have a weakness, there's not a place to share it. And not only that, but that smaller part of you that feels not seen or not really known or that's not really getting met. There's this little nagging feeling that says, what about me? When do I get taken care of? And I've seen it with priests and pastors, of course, and leaders in the church, But I've also seen it with doctors. I've seen it with nurses, healthcare professionals, teachers. It's that same kind of thing. They're spending their life, their calling is pouring out, but there's this part of them where they didn't have. They didn't grow. They didn't get the capability or the maturity or they don't have the skills to overcome this challenge. And so the deeper they get in playing their role, the more disconnected they get from their hearts.

Yeah, well. And it's odd how those serving professions can actually become part of our, you know, what I would call our excuse structure of I've worked so hard, I deserve this. And I remember thinking some of that. And I would have never said that out loud, like, if you asked me, well, do you believe if you work really hard as a pastor, you deserve a little bit of pornography in your life? Like I said, well, no. No way.

Absolutely not.

But in my kind of foggy thinking, there was that boy, I am so emptied, and I've given so much away that a little bit of this, just for now, it's okay. God will understand. I'll deal with it later. And that would be part of the excuses that could lead me down into it. And I've heard that a number of times from leaders that it's at those low moments where they're expended because they've poured out, that they listen to a little voice that says, you know, you deserve this. You've earned. And it opens doors that in our right thinking, in our healthy thinking, we would never give ourselves permission to. But because we're poured out, it's like, you know, I do just a little bit, just for now. This will make me feel better. And then it'll be the last time that was the other one. And because it'll be the last time that makes this time okay.

Yeah, I mean, I always. I say that as it's entitlement, but when we say entitlement, a lot of times we think about the rich guy who feels entitled to be in the VIP section, you know, kind of this real arrogant guy. But it's more like. It's more like the child who feels neglected. You know, it's that small part of us that feels unseen where that need isn't getting met.

Right.

And it's almost like a grasping kind of like, why did you. Why did you take extra cookies today? Or why did you, you know, hit your brother? They can't explain why they acted out of their frustration, but they did. And I feel like a lot of guys, even. And the more, you know, the higher the role and the more educated they are, the harder it is to see that. That sort of almost grasping for care.

Well, and you know, something that we've kind of been circling around a little bit too, and we've talked to it a little bit about guys, including other people, is, you know, you talk about someone who's educated. I know for me, like, especially because I was a past been in pastoral ministry for around 10 years, and I had, like, I bought all these books and had them in my office so that when people walked in, it's like, oh, he's really smart or educated or well read, blah, blah, blah. But what I found is it was a defense mechanism or like an educational structure I put in place or walls I'd put around me so I don't have to ask for help. And that was the biggest thing. Like, I realized that through my recovery journey that if I actually want to be a strong and godly man who's doing the right thing, I cannot. I am not capable of doing it by myself. I have to ask for help. But the problem with asking for help is I don't get to take credit for it. You know what I mean? Like, for me, I grew up an athlete. I played baseball through college. If I get up to the plate and I hit a triple, guess who hit the triple? Me. No one else did it. I did that. But if I'm struggling in any area of my life and a book is, I'm not able to, like, absorb the book and then put stuff in the place to then do it by myself. And I have to ask other people. I don't get to take credit for it. I don't get any of the glory. And so for me, I'm apparently a glory hog is what I am. And I like to keep that ball in my hands at all times.

I mean, those are. That's a really great point. I think sometimes when I have new guys join a group, I say, hey, you know what this group is for? It's for practicing honesty, practicing asking for help, practicing being vulnerable, practicing even trying to understand your feelings. Because where do guys get a chance to learn those skills if they weren't modeled by dad and mom growing up? Where do guys learn those skills?

Good point.

Yeah, absolutely.

And honestly.

Well and honestly, the church, at least the churches I grew up in, were not giving me the tools to practice that they were. They were giving me what they thought were tools. Like, oh, if you just memorize more scripture, or if you just, you know, like, Nick, you're a serial confessor. Like, whatever it is, they basically give these surface Area things that aren't actually addressing what's motivating the behavior. It's just this basically, how do you cut off your hands? But I mean, that doesn't solve the problem. Solving the problem is getting to the root and the wounds and the things that are motivating the behavior in the first place. And that, for me, is why pure desire was such a game changer. Because this is my story. Like, I struggled from 12 to 27. I was hooked. And not only in this, but in relationship acting out, you know, with women. Like, it was just. It was not. It's sad. I mean, really, genuinely, like, I still grieve that there was this huge part of my life that I lived that way. But what I didn't know, that it wasn't just stopping a behavior, it was actually healing the wounds. And the reasons why I felt like I needed to pursue this to feel loved.

I was thinking about the word desire earlier. Just aside from my podcast, I'm running a Bible study on Romans. And so I was reading this commentary where they were talking about the word lust, which is a word that, when I first started porn free radio, I tried to avoid all the words that felt like cliched words. So I would avoid lust, and I would avoid purity, and I would avoid any of those kind of words that just sort of started not having real meaning anymore. But anyway, I was reading this commentary, and he said that lust in Paul's book of Romans, he said it was actually. The word was over desire. It was maybe something that was a good desire, but it was like over desire. So I thought. I was thinking about pure desire. I was thinking pure desire. It's like, it's the right amount of desire. It's the whole desire, as opposed to over desire.

We're renaming the ministry now. The Right Amount of Desire Ministries.

Yeah, there you go.

That would be good. Yeah, yeah, that'd be good. That's cool.

Trevor, what position did you play in baseball?

Dude, I was a utility player. I played. I pitched and played infield a lot growing up. And then my senior year of high school, they moved me to the outfield. Played center field. Was the only time I got all conference honors. Go figure. The one position I've never played. But then when I played in college, two days into fall ball, they're like, hey, have you ever played the infield before? Your arm. Arm action's a lot shorter. Outfielders, this is where we get a little bit more technical. Outfielders tend to have a longer arm action where infielders are a Little bit more short arm. I'm like, yeah, I've played my entire life. They're like, great, you're playing third base. So through college I played infield and pitched and I still can't throw a baseball the same. Marv's killing me today, still.

Well, I have a kid in travel baseball, so he played 45 games last summer.

Wow.

So I can't wait till he gets out of college because the next eight.

Summers are going to be a whole lot of baseball.

No, dude. But I'll tell you what, like, there are stuff, there's things about, you know, I think that some brokenness in my story definitely comes from the culture of athletics and what they taught me, that you're loved to the degree that you perform. If you go 2 for 3 and hit a home run, great, you're loved. If you strike out three times, you're less loved.

Come back and try harder tomorrow. Right.

I mean, but in reality, no one comes up to you and says, man, way to go. You struck out three times, but you looked real good. You know, like, maybe your mom does that, but you just kind of push that aside. But athletics also taught me, you know, growing up specifically with baseball, the greatest players of all time succeed 3 out of 10 times, 7 out of 10 times, you fail. And so for me, I do think there's character building that definitely gave me some perseverance or some grit to understand that. It's like, hey, man, don't give up. We're about getting that next success moving forward, that next success and understanding that no one's perfect. So it's kind of an interesting duality where it, it features in my brokenness, but at the same time has been a great tool in recovery. So don't push your kid, don't push your kid away from baseball, Matt. Keep him in there.

I want to brag one thing, Trevor. Fall ball. Last year I saw my son do something I've never seen done in a live game before. Can you guess what it was?

There's a lot of things, man.

It's a broad, broad campus. There's.

Yeah, they throw somebody out. Was he playing right field and threw somebody out at first base?

No, I'd love that. I'd love that. No, here's what it was. Straight steal of home.

Wow.

Left handed pitch.

Okay.

Yeah.

Was he in the wind up or was he in the stretch?

Left handed, pitcher on the mound. So back to third, right. He gets a lead. They were timing his pitching.

Yeah.

And he took a secondary lead and the coach counted him Down. And when the kid came to set, he took off.

That's good.

They, you know, the whole. The bet, his whole bench yelled, yep, Jaden got the slide right under the tag ball came in a little high.

That's awesome.

And it kind of sparked a rally.

Oh, it's one of the most exciting.

Things in baseball against. And it was against a rival. Yeah, we see we're in Skokie and the next town over is Evanston, where Northwestern is. And we have a lot of animosity. We're kind of like the little brother. We're like the little brother suburb. And so it was against Evanston, so it was the best team to do it again.

That's awesome. So cool.

Hey, I wanted to ask you guys. Something was super exciting that I saw from you guys this last year was starting some of these online groups. And I know you kind of baited it and I think it's getting rolled out now. Tell me, how is that going and what are you seeing in those groups? What's happening in those groups?

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, one of the primary reasons for doing this is we have people all over, really all over the world that don't have churches who are offering groups. And so, like I can remember online groups were a thing, but when I first started groups, there weren't any. I lived in Salem, Oregon. We didn't have any groups registered on the Pure Desire website. And so it's like, well, either I don't do it or I start one. Which, you know, the Lord had a great culture in that church that allowed me to start. But there are so many people that don't have a place to pursue their healing. And so when, you know, we've been doing online groups for a while now, but then this one now we have actually, we're not going to call them professional group leaders, but it's like they're certified, they have run the race, they're continuing to live in health and recovery. They've been through groups, they've led groups. And we're trying to create a place where people can, from anywhere, any season, any schedule, step into healing and have these tested true leaders who are walking them through this process for two reasons. One, of course to get recovery to heal, to finally live in that integrity or live in healing, because we also have groups for betrayal side as well. But then also so that we're equipping and empowering these people to then create that culture in their own local body. So let's say I jump into an online group. I Go through our seven pillars group, I get recovery. At the same time I'm going through that 10 month group. This leader is also training me, having conversations with me and supporting me as I start the conversation at my church. And then, I mean if you think about it, if you get healthy and then start something in your church, that means that maybe five or ten more people go through group and then over time you maybe have hundreds of people who've gone through groups. So we really see it as a great starting place, but then also a convenience thing for people who don't have groups in their area.

Yeah, it's been exciting to see it launch and we started them mid September and I think we've had about 40 groups launch up to this point and there's more starting every week and they're for men and women. So we've got women's betrayal groups and women's recovery groups as well for women that have had their own struggles with sexual things. And the exciting thing, because they're a 10 month group, we don't have any that have finished yet. So we don't have like the end results. And we'll get to do some, you know, great data research at that point. But the feedback we're getting from our leaders, and these are people like Trevor said, that have led peer desire groups for years in their church. In many ways they're saying the groups are even better online because people have had to invest. So because the leader is a paid leader, you have to pay to be in the group. And something about that taking, and I think what you said earlier, it's people taking ownership of their own story and their recovery. So because they've invested in the group, they show up more prepared, homework done, ready to engage and they've decided this is worth it and I'm going to do whatever it takes to have this experience. And it just leads to a really, really healthy group dynamic where as I'm sure you've seen in a local environment where everyone's there voluntarily, some people maybe have the motivation and other people are just kind of drifting through or checking it out and there's maybe not, they're not motivated enough yet so much. Like probably the guys you work with, the people that end up in an online group, they're motivated and they're saying, I've tried a lot of other stuff and I need this to work because it's often it's kind of their last resort of like I've tried it on my own and this group is what I need and we're hearing really, really good things so far.

Yeah, I mean, I saw the same thing in local groups. We used to always charge something for our ministry and for our groups. And I remember, you know, a lot of times it would just go to the church, and we would barely ever use budget. Sometimes we would send someone to a training or a conference, but we would never use it. It would just go.

Yeah.

Go to the general fund of the church. And during an interview, though, I would always ask a guy, hey, do you have any problems? Do you have any problem with the fee? And the question was not to. The question was really aimed at someone who really might struggle to pay the fee.

Yeah.

But every once in a while, a guy would have some big reaction to the cost. A guy who could totally afford it. And I remember thinking, this guy's not ready because he's not even willing to say this is a priority enough to spend 100 bucks or whatever. I don't remember what the. The fee was, but it was always a red flag to me if. If a guy who I know had means said anything other than there's no problem, it would be a red flag to me. And there was one time where my team and I were kind of brainstorming, well, you know what? Let's just do a group without any fee this year. We're just gonna. We'll just. Let's say it's not about the money. Right. As soon as we did that, it was like, we'd have guys show up. They'd not show up. One week, they blow it off, and we're like, screw that, you know, like, totally, like, like, we. You know, and, you know, and it's. It's weird because I think, you know, sometimes in church settings, you know, everything's free and everything's, you know, and. And the truth is, is. Yeah, you need ownership and you need investment, and even, like, someone will bring up, well, you know, essay groups are free. And I go, you know, essay groups are not free. They require that you're invested. You go through the 12 steps. You do service, you become a sponsor. It's. You know, there's a cost. And they're asking for time. They're asking for your investment of your time and your service. If you're not. If you're not doing the steps, if you're not sponsoring, if you're not getting into that mode, then you're not really paying anything. Yep. You know, so even. Even a group that. That runs without an official fee still has an investment required.

Oh, yeah.

Well. And I Mean, my experience is like, whatever the monetary value, like, when I got into it and started to really see some traction, like, I'd, I'd pay even more if I were to do it again. Like, you just see the value in what you do when you press into your own health and your own recovery and you see return on that investment. Like, well, yeah, like. And again, that's a struggle of like, you know, we get people who assume that our counseling, you know, we have licensed counselors that have spent thousands of dollars to get certified and have tens of thousands of hours with people training, developing, growing, helping them heal. And it's like, well, it should be free. And it's like, you don't, you don't, you don't get it. Like, there is a level of, when you get skin in the game, things change. There's a little bit, there's a little bit of frustration in my tone. It's okay, though. Like, I mean, but like, here's the thing. One of the cool things that I really appreciate about our ministry and our staff is that even though there may be that frustration, there is tons of understanding. We've all been there. We've all been at the place where, like, I'm not, I'm not actually willing to do this and I want to, like, you know, basically, like, try to squeeze out of it in some way where I don't have to invest. And so tons of grace and understanding there, but also understanding that you're not actually going to heal unless you put the time and investment in.

Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. Well, it's great to meet you guys. Trevor, it's cool to see you. And Nick, we met in Colorado earlier this year or last year and, man, I'm excited. I started getting emails about your podcast last year, so. So we have some listeners already in.

Common and then some cross pollination is always good.

Yeah, yeah.

And then this year I've been hearing more and more people going through the seven Pillars program.

Awesome.

You know, because a lot of times when I'm helping guys with the recovery plans, you know, we're trying to figure out, are you in a group, are you going to have, what other places are you getting support? And so seven Pillars definitely was getting mentioned a lot. And so it's really cool to see where you guys are going. And I think it's really neat too, to see. You know, obviously Ted Roberts is a special guy that a lot of people know, but it's really cool to see kind of the legacy of what he did now sort of being taken up by you guys, and it's just cool to see you guys continue to grow.

Yeah, we like to joke and say what Ted used to do by himself now takes like, 11 of us.

So that is.

It's funny. I was on your website the other day just looking, you know, I was looking for Trevor's. Trevor's bio. And so I was, like, clicking through and I'm like, oh, my gosh, there's a lot of people here.

That's right.

Yeah, we help in a lot of ways. Yeah. Great having you on, Matt, and what you do, we really appreciate and having more voices to add to this arena that I think it just reminds everybody, like, you're not alone. You're not the only one. There are a lot of us that are working together with you and with each other, because our goal, whether it's porn, free radio, or Pure Desire, or any number of other groups that work alongside of us, our goal is for people to. To live in health and freedom and joy and not be stuck in those places of shame and, you know, enslavement to their behaviors and all that stuff. So we're glad you're a part of it, and great getting to know you a little bit today.

Yeah.

Wherever you're at on your journey, Pure Desire is here to help help create a road map for your healing. If you or someone you know is looking for help, go to PureDesire.org and start your healing journey today. If you haven't subscribed to the podcast, do it. It's free. Share it with your friends and family. Write a review, help others find the podcast. And lastly, never stop being healthy.