414 - Anchored in Hope: A Conversation with Adrian Hickmon

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Listener. I am your host, Nick Stumbo, and you are listening to the Pure Desire podcast, your biblically based and clinically informed approach to breaking free from compulsive sexual behavior and healing from betrayal trauma. Today you are listening to episode 414. And here joining me as my co host throughout this series is Mrs. Ashley Jamison. Ashley, welcome back to the podcast. Good to see you again.

Always good to be here. Love that we get to talk with Adrian today. This is a fun one.

Yeah, he is one of our favorites. And honestly, you know, it's why we invited him to the summit. And you know, he was supposed to come last year and then he ditched out on us because he went on an amazing moose hunt to Alaska. But we like him so much that we still wanted him to come back. And I think today is a really powerful conversation. It is part 2 of 4 in our series that we are doing with our summit speakers because we do want people to get a taste of what the summit is like, hopefully create some excitement, momentum, or encourage someone to sign up who's been thinking about should they go or not. I think today will give them a lot of encouragement to do that. But this is part two of four in our Anchored in Hope series. And yeah, Adrian just had a lot of amazing things to say. So, Ashley, what might our listeners expect of today's conversation?

Okay. Every time I sit with Adrian or in one of his sessions, I walk away with feeling like I just drank a warm cup of coffee and got a kick in the butt. And so I, I, it's like he is so real and relatable and like you want him to be your kids grandpa and just very, very personable, but then also a wealth of knowledge. And every time I sit in his sessions, I can tell that he's been growing and learning and continuing to absorb information and implement it into the program that he runs at Capstone. And so I think, I think that people will walk away feeling encouraged. He works with a lot of parents and also just empowered that there is, there is hope. No matter what situation there is, they're never too far gone.

Yeah, that was really the focus of today's conversation is how do we find hope in the recovery process, whether we're the one struggling or the spouse or the concerned parent or friend. And I know there's great content here for everyone. I would add that Adrian is incredibly quotable because I was writing down all these one liners that he has. So if you, if you are listening on your drive or on your treadmill, or out on a walk, you know, maybe find a way to grab a little pen or paper, take it with you because there might be a couple of times you'll need to stop. We do advise that you pull over, not try to write while you're driving, and just jot down some of his thoughts because they really are significant. So a little bit about Adrian. Dr. Adrian Hickman has a PhD in Marriage and Family Therapy and has served for 20 years as a full time professor and supervisor training over 200 master's level therapists. In 1994, he purchased land to build a ropes course in Judsonia, Arkansas. I think I'm saying that right, but it's now in the Searcy area. For six years he and his family lived on the property and facilitated experiential activities through the ropes course and other mediums for teams, youth groups, families and more. All the while laying the foundation for what would become the Capstone Treatment Center. From that foundation, Capstone has become an industry leading treatment program. For more than 20 years, Capstone has worked with thousands of families from 49 states and nine countries or territories outside the United States. Their Christ centered approach, a two to one client to therapist ratio, a family focus, the investment they've made in therapist training, canine companion therapy and more are unparalleled in the treatment arena. And truly, if you don't know much about Capstone would highly recommend that you go and visit their website and learn more about what they're doing because it has been life changing for so many people. So here without any further ado, is our second conversation in the Anchored in Hope series with Dr. Adrian Hickman. Dr. Adrian Hickman, or Adrian as we get to call you familiarly. Welcome back to the podcast. So good to have you again.

Thank you Nick. It's great to be here with you and great to have Ashley here too.

We are so looking forward to having you back at the Summit this year in 2025 and as one of our featured speakers, we wanted to let the podcast audience hear from you just a little bit and catch some of your heart for people and recovery and what you do. And so let's dive into it. You get to see firsthand the transformation that can take place when someone enters a recovery program. So what role does hope play in the healing process, especially for those that are struggling with addiction and trauma? Talk a little bit about the role of hope in our process.

You know, it's one of those things that, you know, people throw out, hope, love, peace, joy, all those kind of words. But when you're thinking about hope in any kind of a challenge, especially this kind of challenge, it's absolute. I mean, it is crucial. You don't win without hope. You don't change without hope. And as I thought about that question, you know, when I read it, you know, nothing changes without hope because hope is imagining something different in your future. You know, you don't have hope that, oh, I, I hope this, this don't last. It's like you hope that you get to a different place and things are better and, and I started thinking about what is that doing neurophysiologically in the brain? Well, hope is imagining something better in the future, and that is something new. And when you are thinking about something new, that activates a part of the brain for novelty. And novelty activates the dopamine receptors. And so dopamine is very interesting. Why that's so vital in this is they did a study of mice. And I won't tell you what they did with it, but they, they disconnected the mice, the brains of the mice dopamine system, so they, they were getting no dopamine. And so they had them in a cage and they would put food and water so close to the mice that they did not have to even take a step to drink or eat. All they had to do was stretch their neck out and they starved to death. Because dopamine is what motivates us to do anything, to get up, to get dressed, you know, to brush our teeth, eat a meal. It's like we don't do anything without it. So dopamine is connected with the reward system, but it's actually more about incentive and motivation to get up and do something different. So hope is connected to activating dopamine. One of the things we do at Capstone in Family Week is a session. I call it the Realistic Pictures Possibility session and the Realistic Possibilities Picture session. It's like, take a poster, and on one side, if your son continues on this road, which we call the road to the wasteland of ruin in the next five years, what's realistically possible? And that goes everywhere from a grave to a jail cell, to being unhealthy, alone, disconnected. And in this session, on one side of the poster, they will put a collage of drawings of symbols that represent what's realistically possible. If they stay on the road to the wasteland, that's pretty easy for them because they've been living in the wasteland. When they bring their kid to Capstone on the other side, if your son changes direction to a new future, which we talk about it being the road to the promised land of dreams. What. What's realistically possible? Not grandiose and not leading the witness, but just flat out realistically possible. And there's an embedded message in that. It's not even that we make this overt, but the embedded message is both those futures are realistic, both are possible. And so when a kid who's been in the hole just thinks, there's no way I can ever get out of this, and then you're kind of seeing other people say the, you know, things that we think this is possible for you, it starts to engender hope, because when you're at the bottom of the hole, it's hard to imagine something different. So, you know, that embedded truth that both are possible actually causes the imagination to start thinking, well, what if that was possible? And then you start getting a little dopamine and then you start working a little harder. So, yeah, hope's crucial. You don't. You don't go anywhere without it.

Yeah, I. I love that idea, Adrian, of the two drawings and wonder, just for listeners, if they should maybe do that to say, you know, look at the road you're on. And if you continue on it, what realistically happens if you head towards the wasteland and what is realistic with other steps. And I think that's powerful because I've heard it said about the brain that we will subconsciously move in the direction of our preferred future or the future that we believe were intended for. And so if we have a very hopeless kind of belief system, our brain is cooperating with that because our brain loves to have symmetry. It doesn't want dissonance. It doesn't want things to be misaligned. And so if we believe we're headed to a very hopeless place. Place, the brain kind of works with us to do that, versus if we have this strong hope, this strong belief of what God has for us, of what the future looks like in. In a similar way, our brain will partner with us to say, that's where we're headed, that's what we want. And so I think it underscores and. And the. The exercise you just described how important it is that we have a clear picture of what hope looks like in our lives.

Yeah, and the therapy that you're talking about is. Is about toxic shame. And I know we're going to get to that later on in. In the discussion, but when we do remember all those things you just said, toxic shame is what makes you believe you should not have that promised land future. Yeah, that's where that comes in.

Yeah. And I, I feel like, you know, with, with betrayed spouses, we can get stuck when we feel like we don't have choices and, or that there's no hope of change. I kind of put those in the same. Like you've got fear and feeling stuck on one side and choices and hope on the. And it's a similar exercise that I haven't done on paper, but I walk women through verbally when they, when they've been in a 20 year bad marriage, addictive spouse or abusive spouse, that will not change. And there's, they're, they're hanging on to hope that all of a sudden there's going to be something different in their marriage. And that keeps them a little bit stuck in fear. And so I'll walk them through and say, okay, you have to start making changes. What if, what if he never changes? What if every day for the next 20 years, because it's already been 20 years is exactly the same? Is that what you want to sign up for? Like kind of paint the picture of this is going to be Groundhog Day. Same thing over and over and over and over. And then over here you might start implementing boundaries and saying what you need to feel safe and sane and have your own whole person experience that God wants you to have. And then comes all the what if, what if, what if? And so we kind of have to walk them through, okay, what if that does happen? Then we'll do X, Y and Z. And they start to see that it may not be the, the choices and the decisions that they want to make, but at least this route they do have choices to make. If, you know, if this happens, then, then yeah, you may end up being a single mom. If they choose to live in their addiction but just trying them, you know, to get them to split. Because otherwise it's every day coming to group saying, I wish he would just do this. I wish he would just recognize how much he hurts me. I wish he would just recognize this addiction is more important to him than our family. And it's that idea.

Yeah.

And that, that is agency, you know, the agency that I have control of my future. I, I can, as far as I'm concerned, I can make my choices. And that's one of the things, you know, when you think about the disease model of addiction and all that other, that you just ended up catching this thing and, you know, you had no agency in getting here. It's very important for people to realize their Choices got them here, you know, and it's like. And I can talk a lot about why they made those choices. And it's like, but if you just ended up here because like me, I've got freckles just because I got freckles, you know, then there's no changing of it.

Right.

If I did some things to get here, then I have agency coming in that gives me going out. Yes, those choices, especially for the betrayed spouse, is huge.

Yeah, choices. They're empowering. Okay, that kind of leads into our, our second question. So talk about more. You know, at Capstone, you guys work closely with people carrying deep emotional pain. And so when they're feeling hopelessness and it's feeling overwhelming, how do you help people anchor themselves and rediscovered a re a renewed sense of hope and faith? So we kind of talked about the two roads. What other strategies, tools, approaches do you take?

Yeah, well, first thing I would say is hopelessness is always overwhelming. And I don't care how strong a person you are, in whatever realm you're talking about, strength existing in hopelessness is overwhelming. I mean, it's Alaska. So that to me is a first step, you know, kind of issue. And the first thing I think in answering your question question, Ashley, is I always tell my students the first day of the first class and then therapists that I train at Capstone that were not my students, you can't take your clients further than you've taken yourself. And the most important thing in the room as far as change is you, not what you know and your degree and the fancy one liner that you can say that you read in somebody's book or training you have, or it's who you are. And who you are is honestly about doing your own work. So the first part of that answer is, you better have yourself right. And that doesn't mean that you're perfect. It means that you're growing. Lots of our therapists have already been through intensives doing their work, going to therapy to do their own work. And when I interview a possibility for a therapist, if they come in and say, yeah, well, I just had such a wonderful growing up and my life has just been all kind of peaches and ice cream and, and I just want to help some of those people who struggle, I'm like, yeah, this interview is not going to last long because mirror. And so I would say that to answer your question more specifically first, instead of how to get them away from helplessness or hopelessness, I would say, how did we get them to be hopeless to begin with yes, preventing hopelessness would be the best answer to that question. And I always use that phrase. You guys have heard me say it. How you see it is how you treat it. How you see something is how you treat it. So if you are working from the paradigm that you have a chronic brain disease, you have a genetic defect that has caused this, that's the most hopeless producing paradigm that there can be. Because it truly means, and I know this sounds funny, but it's like I say, you know, my wife is 18 cherokee and she gets a dark tan and I want to get one too. Well, that ain't possible. I'm just going to get sunburned sitting under the tent, my tilly hat on, and it's like that's the same thing. If my struggle is that kind of genetic, biological based, you know, disease, that's hopeless. But the other way and how you see it is how you treat it is. Was this thing that you're doing originally an attempt at finding a solution to a problem that you saw as unsolvable, then it was right or smart or good, but that, that's what was under it. And I think, secondly, I would say that the way to cause people to be hopeless is to use a symptom relief paradigm. That, that's the whole thing is just symptom relief. Yeah, it focuses on labels, quick fixes, temporary, you know, relief. And the biomedical paradigm and the DSM does that. It does exactly that. And there's a plethora of meds that they use. None of those are about the causes. None of them. You know, they've, they've looked for biomedical markers on any mental illness for over 50 years with a strong bias to want it to be there, and they've never found one. And so if you are a person being treated that way, that causes hopelessness. And second thing I would say causes spiritual bypass. And we see this, as y' all do in churches all the time, that somebody's got one of these big time addictions or trauma or affairs or whatever, and the church leaders want to just pray it away. You know, they say the, the scripture about if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can tell this mind to go jump in the river or the ocean and it will. I've only seen that happen twice in my entire life. I believe it can happen, but I've seen thousands of mountains go into the ocean 1 teaspoon at a time. If you're thinking that your faith has got to be strong enough for that mountain to take a Flying leap into the ocean. You're going to get hopeless real quick because it's probably not going to happen that way. So, you know, the other thing, and you guys have heard me talk about avoidance patterns in relationships. People say time heals all things. Well, that's the biggest lie that's ever hit the streets. When it comes to therapy, Tom doesn't heal anything. When it comes to trauma or addiction, it is like you have to do the work to do it. So I would say you engender hope with the truth in, you know, it's in red letters in the New Testament, the truth will set you free. Now in invisible ink, it may say, and it'll kick your butt in the process, but it is the only thing that's going to set you free. And to me, it's helping people understand what's going on with them.

Yeah.

So, you know, ask the question, what makes this make sense? This thing that I'm struggling with, what makes me make sense? And then, then answer it. And by retracing the vine to the roots, to the third generation and beyond. And I love using that volcano metaphor that you have the eruption, but it comes out of the magma chamber, and that comes from the core of the earth and in the environment of where that happens determines how big of a blast it's going to be. So if it's under the ocean, not a big deal. If it's next to a city, then it's going to be a big deal. So that's about family connection or disconnection. And when you're like explaining that you don't have eruptions without a magma chamber, and that magma chamber chamber is about your trauma and lack of attachment and your lack of connection to God and lack of agency. And that's why you're reaching for these things that are temporary coping mechanisms that are very unhealthy. People are like, oh, I just thought I was screwed up, or I just thought I was stupid or cursed or whatever. And. And those. That explanation is not. And I really hammer this with the betrayed spouses. It's not a get out of jail free card. It's not an excuse. You do something wrong, you do something wrong. No matter what. The core underlying issues are sins. A sin, but it helps to understand it, you know, with. With what it is. It is a fact. And it is a fact that you cannot deny, no matter what your paradigm is. Trauma and disconnection in relationships underpin addiction. And addiction is always an attempt to handle that loneliness of that isolation or that trauma. And so you have two people go out and drink a few beers or smoke pot, or, you know, even separately, hopefully use pornography, and they both get euphoria and relief from it. But one of them is drawn back to it so strongly, and we tell them, well, that's because you've got the genes.

Yeah.

Instead of that person is drawn back to it, the other person can take it or leave it. It's like the question is, what kind of relief did this person get? They're carrying in more pain, more toxic shame. They get more relief out of it. It means something different to them, and that's what, you know, changes it. So, you know, I look at trying to say, you know, trauma is healable, it's realistic. It's not even a question about can you heal? Surely can be. And that, to me, is where people that we work with, both moms and dads and sons, that's when they start seeing hope that they can. Can heal it. Our boys get it easily, really. Parents come in, and they've lived with it for so many decades. They're like, well, I can't do anything about it. It's just this thing on my back I've got to carry. And when you can show them this, you know, we have about half of our moms throw their own sexual abuse out. About 40% of our dads start getting those disclosures on the table with moms and dads, and. And then we're able to do the work, you know, to be able to help them, to build the connection, you know, with it. So, yeah, to me, understanding what's going on with me is in general, the answer to your question. Yeah.

Yeah, I. I love that, Adrian, because I remember in my own recovery journey, the. The nature of where my marriage was at, I really felt like I was at a place that if I relapse again, my wife is so tired of this pattern that she's going to be done. And I was terrified because I felt like. And I remember I drew it on a piece of paper. Like, I felt like life would just be going along fine, and then, bam, I'd have a relapse and. And I wouldn't see it coming. And that fear of that hopelessness of I don't know how to prevent this thing because it just happens. Well, you get into group. We understand through pure desires, methodologies, the trauma stuff and the messages, and I begin to understand how. Oh, actually those could be predicted and precipitated a long time in advance. There's a pattern here. There's many, many choices. I Make along the way. And understanding that whole system was incredibly hope giving because it made me see there are so many things I can do that, yes, involve reaching out in my faith, but also involve a lot of other very practical things or steps like calling a group member that I can do to redirect this process much sooner. And I'm not just going to be blindsided by yet another relapse. And that hope and what you said earlier, there's agency of I can do something about this. I'm not just at the will of my addiction or my past behaviors that created momentum and hope and change and growth. But until you see that, I think you do feel hopeless. And I would say at the same time, for some listeners, I would caution that when you hear that, like, if I just understand where it's coming from, then I'll change. Sometimes can sound like a golden key. And I get people in group sometimes that are looking for, like, just give me that one golden key that I have to turn. And if I turn that right key, I'll never struggle again. And it's to remind them that everything Adrian is talking about is. It's really a process. It's a part of being in community. And this understanding comes over time. It's not just like figuring out that one core message that your daddy said when you were five. And once you understand that, you'll never be an addict or struggle with pornography again. I wish it was that straightforward. It's more of a. There's more layers to it, is what I would try to remind people. But. But that as that understanding comes, the hope of change and actual transformation comes as well. And thankfully, we get to see that on a daily basis around here.

Yeah, for sure. And that's, you know, you think about the idea of a funnel that you pour oil in your car with and that somebody is born. And it's like they're at the top end of the funnel where they've got the widest. All the options in life are in front of them. All the choices are there, like a full menu of life. And then by the time we get them, and probably by the time that they would come and get involved in pure desire, they've. They've narrowed down their choices to this spout. And how did they get there? Well, people do exactly what you said, Nick. They're looking for what's that one thing that happened? Like, this domino fell over and knocked that one. And instead, that funnel is made out of jigsaw puzzle pieces. And there's dozens, if not hundred, and you've got to look at all that. But from one sense, that's your trauma and your disconnection, you know, Peace.

Yeah.

It's not just that. It is that with figuring out a way to do something that's healthy to cope, not unhealthy, and make the connection. So it's like a three battlefront war that you've got to look at. And then if you want to just get in grad school conversations so we can go deeper. But it's also the pace that you take in doing it, because just figuring it out, it's the work and the pace is. And you know, I think I have this thing right here that I brought it out with a kid yesterday, was having a major trauma meltdown and. And it's this turtle and it's a turtle that a client, I gave her a turtle because I kept. She kept wanting to be a rabbit on 100 yard dash. And I kept saying, no, we've got to be a turtle that looks about like I look jogging, you know, and it's like. So when we finished our two years of work, she had been raped 11 times in her teenage years. I mean, she, heroin, everything else. Now she's a wonderful mother, wife, and you know, got a master's education and, and doing wonderful things in, in her job and with her family. But this turtle sits on my desk and I see it and it means something to me every day about myself. The pace of all those three battlefronts is one step at a time. Like a turtle, you know, and that's how you get real. Second order change, change that last. But we are built to be quick fix. And so that biomedical model and that spiritual bypass, love Jesus, trust God to your belly button glows and all this stuff goes away. That's what we want. We tend to want to go do. And then we fail at it and we feel like it's not the way we went at it that failed. I failed because I'm not good. So.

Mm.

Yeah, that's. I. I mean again, even on the like twofold everything you were saying, I experienced that as a betrayed spouse and, and for my husband that in those months after discovery, I was thinking, how can somebody who has a pornography addiction and history with prostitutes and drugs and all these years has just been swapping addictions never really recovered or healed. How can it ever change? Because in my mind it was a sin problem. It was, okay, well, you know, Jesus, you know the word. And if you're still struggling after 25 years, like, where's the hope. And I'm not meaning to say that in like there's no hope in Jesus, but when the church kept saying, well why don't you just have more faith? That same verse of like faith enough to move mountains. And. And then I started feeling like, why am I still stuck as the betrayed spouse If I just had more faith and could forgive him and trust Jesus with my marriage, I shouldn't feel this way. And fast forward two months when, when I sat down and, and was introduced to pure desire material and saw this is also a brain problem, it just unleashed all this hope in me. And then, you know, fast forward 10 years I'm able to say it is all about Jesus. It is all about having your identity in Jesus. But what I learned was I had to go back the whole journey and figure out like if I'm this, if I'm this cake today, like what. All ingredients were put into my cake along the way to make me exactly who I am today. And some of those ingredients were not wanted. Some of them were bad ingredients, some of them other people dumped in my cake when I wasn't looking. And you know, that I had to go back and figure out like what did God originally intend for my life and where along the lines did I stop believing what he originally had planned for me or what shaped my perspective, an abusive sexual situation shaped how I view men in this way or how I view myself. And, and to go back to all that is a long, long process. But then I'm like, oh, it is all about Jesus. I just had to get there and like undo all those pieces and understand how they impact me. But you know, when, when you're told that early on and, and people throw out psychology and they throw out that, yeah, somewhere along the line my perspective of God was changed, my perspective of myself. But then that actually physiologically, physiologically changed my brain as well. And so beliefs do have power. And I think that's something Christians, you know, don't always talk about, that our thoughts can change our brain and so we have to go back to the thoughts and then re change our brain again back to what it was supposed to be.

Yeah, it's. We have a lot of parents that come to Capstone because we're Christian based program and they're my favorite, you know, parents, they're Christians, they love the Lord etc, but they almost always come out of a very ingrained spiritual bypass perspective. And so it's very interesting when you watch it. And I've actually been sitting on the front pew at church After I spoke before, some people came down for their prayers and. And that kind of thing. And, you know, and then I've seen it hundreds of times from my back row seat in the balcony, because I'm always a back road Joe guy when I'm not up there speaking. And they've. There's been an adultery in a marriage. There's an addiction to alcohol or drugs. There's a trauma like being raped. And the elders will come up and put hands on them and they'll pray. And I always wondered what they said to them after the prayer. You know, you hear the prayer on the microphone and. Or on the speaker. But I was sitting there one day, and this guy prayed for someone that was in an addiction to alcohol. And when they said, amen, they looked at the person and said, hey, you want to get your family and go with my family to KFC for lunch? It was like, we're done with this. The alcoholism is over. I just pray that we're good to go. Yeah, we get that kind of thing a lot.

Yeah.

I'm like, let's go read the book of James, because there's something that y' all are leaving out of the scripture. And let's go. It's not really about the psychology and all those things yet. It's about you're not reading part of the scripture. It is like faith and prayer don't change anything. Faith and prayerfully working is what changes things. God, then bless you. And I think you said it so beautifully, Ashley, after all the work that I've done on many different things, yes, it is all about Jesus, but it's all about Jesus opening doors, closing doors, and empowering me to do the work that was necessary to get to this place. Yeah, it's not done without him. And I think there's such a dichotomized thinking paradigm with a lot of Christian leaders that, you know, if you are going out and doing the work, it means you don't have the faith. And I'm like, well, no, actually, that shows my faith that I believe if I do this work, things can change.

Yeah. Kind of the whole book of James in a nutshell. It's faith and works. Yes. To both. And both are absolutely crucial.

Yes.

Adrian, you were getting into it a little bit earlier here, but let's dive more into the topic of shame, because we know that addiction and trauma often create strongholds of guilt and shame in a person's life. And so how do you guide an individual to break free from those burdens and re. Anchor themselves in hope on the healing process.

I think this is so important. I remember talking to Judy Crane many years ago about trauma. And I told her, judy, I think toxic shame is the core of trauma work. The limbic system therapy and the autonomic nervous system. And all those things absolutely has to be done. But I think that's not as deep as the toxic shame work. As a matter of fact, in the book that I just finished that's going to come out in two, three months, the title is called the Cave, the Crucible and the masterpiece. And the Crucible is about toxic shame. In the battle with it, Toxic shame is I am bad, not I did bad, healthy shame. Which is the shame you're talking about. I did something wrong and I'm ashamed. You should be. That's your conscience. I did something wrong and I'm guilty for it. Okay, you should be. You did something wrong. But when you're looking at that part of shame and guilt from the doing wrong, you don't get rid of that without Jesus Christ, because he's the only one that can forgive your sins. So that, that takes that shame and sets it over here, gives it to Jesus Christ. Faith in him is what takes that away. But the shame that we're really talking about most of the time is the shame that is. I am bad, dirty, weak, whatever. You know, like my sexual abuse as a four year old, the, the toxic shame message was, you are bad, weak and stupid. And man, those battles with that have gone on for my whole life and I'm better at it now than I've ever been, but it's still a battle. Yeah, the hurts of not being picked for kickball or invited to the party or, you know, all that social rejection was, you're not good enough. And then I was the kid that was bullied for 11 years from age 4, interestingly started the same year that my sexual abuse occurred till 15. And that message was, you don't belong, you're, you're kind of a mistake. And so that shame is not, hey, this happened to you. Hey, that person did this to you, or hey, you did this thing. Toxic shame is you are this thing. Yeah, that's the one that you, you've got to go in and do the work on. And that work takes a lot of the neurophysiological systems work, limbic system work. But then it's also, it's kind of like this. If I can, can go off on an ADHD rant, it's like, so if I'm was raped by a 5 foot 10, 400 pound sumo wrestler. And I do all the work on therapy, EMDR and brain spotting and you name it. And then I'm walking down the airport, in an airport and out from a gate walks a 510, 400 pound sumo wrestler. Different guy, but will I be triggered? And the answer is I hope I will be because I've got brain damage if I'm not. The question's not should you not be triggered? The question is when you're triggered and you go into low road response, which means your prefrontal cortex goes offline, you're starting into fight, flight or freeze, how long does it take for you to realize, no, now this age, that guy's in prison, so this isn't him. I'm safe now. I would know how to take care and defend myself now. And oh, here comes my prefrontal cortex back and I'm on the high road. It's like a time cycle, the high road shift is what I call it. That's the physiological systems. Toxic shame works exactly the same way. Something happens that makes me feel stupid, I go into that same trigger and it's a fight response and I want something to fight and I want to kill it or it kill me. And it's those kind of how long do I stay there? That's how you fight toxic shame. And the only way to beat it is in relationships is that I have to have. You have to have people that know you, which means they know everything about you basically. And that they know your story, but more importantly, they know the story underneath your story.

Yeah.

What was going on with you and they see you differently. So like the most important change agent in therapy I think is co regulation to be technical about it, but it is believing in somebody you know, and it is only by having enough people in life that are in our inner circles that believe in us and they know us and they believe in us with all the flaws as well that we can get to the point that we can have a quick high road shift on toxic shame. I mean it is the nucleus of all trauma work, all addiction work is, is in dealing with that. And matter of fact, in the scripture, Satan is called the accuser. Yeah. And I think that's the best term for him because he accuses you, no, you're not good enough. No matter how much you achieve, no matter how good you are, many people you lead to Christ, you know, you're not good enough. I'm accusing you of being that. And that's where the battle is of addiction. Trauma, all of it, if that makes sense.

It makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And that. That seems like one of those. I call them, like, the gray areas, you know, the addictions, the struggles, the betrayal, they bring us in. And those are, like, clear to measure. You're either doing it or you're not doing it. That toxic shame you're talking about is just the nasty weeds that is. So you have to be so diligent and intentional about dealing with that, because it's. It's more dangerous than the actual behavior that led you here, because it is the thing that led to those behaviors. And it's harder to see, it's harder to pinpoint, it's easier to justify.

And.

And so you do need to be in step with the Holy Spirit to feel those little gut checks and have your people, your group, your mentors, your accountability that know you to call it out. Um, I would say that's been. That was the hardest and can be the hardest season of mine and my husband's walk and our recovery and healing with our kids. Because now that my teenagers are. Or my little. My little two are teenagers, some of that toxic shame gets triggered in my husband from his teenage years being the most difficult at his home, in his rigid Christian upbringing. And we used to think it was because there was a step parent dynamic with my twins, who are now 21. So it was like, oh, there's something there, because they're not my biological. My biological kids. Well, now that our. Our bottom two are at that age and those are his biological kids, it's like, oh, no, there's some toxic shame here that gets triggered. And exactly what you explained, Adrian. Sometimes when we're trying to parent the way we want to parent and something happens with our kids, it's like, oh, I'm a failure. I. I'm messing things up. And it can just spin into this toxic thinking that sets. Sets us back. And so I've experienced that. I know what you're talking about. You have to be on top of it. You have to stay. Stay with your people and give them freedom to speak into your life and just share the highs and lows of your week. Because sometimes it's hard for you to identify it because you are the one in it.

Yeah. Yeah. I really appreciate the metaphor of the sumo wrestler Adrian, because I think that thought of, well, if I'm healed or if I'm better, then I won't be triggered anymore and even by shame. And I think we can. I hear it in other people's stories, in My own life. We can shame ourselves all over again if we still feel shame versus seeing healing as less about being triggered. As you said, it'd be normal that if you saw another person that looked just like them, you'd feel the trigger, because that's how your brain is wired, but it's how you respond that shows health and recovery. And I feel like I experienced this lately because the school that my kids go to just won the state high school basketball championship. So we went to a couple of basketball games. And I don't attend a lot of high school sporting events because my kids aren't on the team. But being in that environment of an intense sporting moment actually brought back to the surface a lot of my high school memories that didn't necessarily go well and are wrapped into a lot of my shame messages. And I started to feel some of that, of like, if you were only good enough, you could have been that star. If you'd only. And in that moment, as I look back, like, I could have had the choice of shaming myself again. Of like, oh, why do I still struggle with that? Why do those still come up? Or as, thankfully, in that moment, what I felt was like, you know what? I remember how hard that was, but that's not my identity. God's done such amazing things in my life since then that are much greater than, you know, high school basketball success. And yes, there's a part of me that wishes and will probably always wish that I had been the All Star, but I wasn't. And that's okay, because look at all these other things God's doing in my life and that I'm really invested in now. And I think that moment for me was that of like, oh, I don't need to shame myself that I still have a trigger that says, you're not good enough and if only you'd have been better. But what I do with the trigger is the key. And I think for listeners to really internalize that, you're going to feel shame triggers. You're going to have those toxic voices that rear back up because they are connected oftentimes to memories that you need to hold on to for safety, for protection. But where you go with them and who you take them to, because that's the other side of it. So many of us just internalize it and shove it back down. Like, well, don't listen to that. Versus going, man, I. I should probably process that with someone. I should probably tell a group member, make a phone call, or just share with my spouse. Oh, man, that really brought up some old memories, because when we lean into relationship, we can continue to walk that road of healing and freedom.

Yeah, I agree with everything you're saying. And then, you know, I would add to it that there's a part of it, it's. It's like Malcolm McDowell's book. David and Goliath was a great book to me, and, and he's got sections in there about kids that had dyslexia and, and learning disabilities and. And different struggles that became kind of off the chart successes in life. And that these people looked at all those things as desirable difficulties, you know, and I'm like, okay, so it's kind of like, you know, me, you know, all the things on my permanent record. I actually got it when I was in my 40s. It was, you know, about six of my 12 grades. The end of the year verdict was below average. There was two or three that were daydreamer, one that was. Doesn't pay attention, one that was emotionally unstable in the seventh grade. You know, it's like, thank you, Mr. Crosby. But it's like all of those things were about what. Well, I was struggling. I don't think I could hardly read till I was 27, and. And I didn't understand a lot, and I was daydreaming. And I kind of think, looking back on it, I was probably thinking about something more important than what was being taught in the classroom. But it's like, you. You go through those things and it really hurt you and, and you reject it, and you didn't achieve to the level that you wanted to, then there's a place to find out something about yourself in it. And, and how did you respond? You know, feeling like a failure that I didn't make a certain level of being a football player, you know, hurt. But then I look at what did I gain by what I did? Well, I gained, yeah, grit and knowing how to go at it, but also gain by learning from mistakes. And it's like. And then you take that to the next level of things. You know, for me, I love playing coaching was 100 times better than playing coaching boys. And it's like. And then now doing what I do at Capstone is 100 times better than coaching. So it's like each one of those levels has successes and failures, and both of them were important in building that footing that, that I'm on today. Just like with you guys.

Okay, Adrian, we need some more. We need some more of your expertise and insight on, you know, what you do over there at Capstone. So what are some of the most common misconceptions about recovery that you encounter? 1. And how do you help others replace those misconceptions with a hopeful and realistic vision for transformation?

You know, that's a very interesting question. And I would say not every single parent and family do we have to do that with, but almost they come in with the same perception about things that all of us had growing up in America. And it's a biomedical dsm. All that stuff that I said earlier is an answer to your question. But it's, it's like they have never heard of asking the question, what makes this make sense? They've never connected trauma to addiction. They've never understood it, you know, at all. And so being able to, if you come at somebody really strong with that up front, you know, I don't think it works well. So, you know, we, we go at it at a slower pace and sequence our talking about it in a way one I think is respectful, but it's also strategic that you build the groundwork up. You know, we have them watch a video every week from the time they admit until Family Week. There's nine videos. And we slowly build this whole picture. Like I shared, you know, a while ago on the question, because if you can help them make it make sense and show them the difference, it's things like this. Everybody has heard of chemical imbalance, you know, that I've got a chemical balance. He does, his dad did, her mom did, you know, blah, blah, blah. And I come in with nothing. My I'm a redneck in the middle of the woods yelling about things I don't like kind of approach. But I bring peer reviewed journals, you know, Journal of Molecular Psychiatry and all these different things. Not that I read those things, but I do find articles in there and read them typically. But it's like, I don't want y' all to get a bad impression of me, but it's like, you know, when, when you're showing them that chemical imbalance is not a medical term. It does not exist. It was proposed by Joseph Skillcraut in 1965. It has had dozens and dozens of attempts to prove that there is a serotonin imbalance and that's what causes depression. It has never once been proven. Eli Lilly used chemical imbalance as a marketing slogan in the late 90s. Chemical imbalance does not exist. And it's an interesting thing. One author posed this question, if there was a chemical imbalance, someone says, you have, I have a chemical imbalance. You, the question to say is, okay, how do you know that? Did a doctor do a test and give you the number, like your, you know, a 1C number, you know, your insulin number, your streptococcus bacteria number on strep throat? Did you get anything like it? No, they didn't. Okay, let's say they did and Your number is 14. What does that compare to? What is a chemical imbalance number? Well, oh, they don't know because they've never determined that either. So it's like it is a total non truth that America has believed as a, as a narrative. And so you. I'm kind of whittling at the very base of the biomedical model which creates doubt in what they have believed in. That opens the door for them to believe in this stuff that I'm talking about with the systemic funnel and the volcano, you know, etc, and then I give them the references, I give them the articles to read. I make a reader so that they can see it. And sometimes we'll have, you know, doctors and people that are very interested in reading that. And I'm like, hey, don't just take my word for it. Read this. And that, to me is how you break down those beliefs coming in that are going to be detrimental to them. And I throw out one more just because I'm on my soapbox.

Yes.

So then people talk about use of, of SSRIs, antidepressants and Irving Kirsch, and I give them this article as well, did a study of every single antidepressant that was ever put before the FDA for approval. And the aggregate of all of them together was their effectiveness was 80% placebo, with Prozac 89%. And so it's like it's the placebo effect with most people. And it. They've now determined that serotonin is not what causes depression, you know, that SSRIs don't work for because they're change in serotonin. And all that stuff is in the research. It's just not presented in conferences because it goes against the biomedical model. I spoke at Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis. And if you guys have driven down that interstate to Nashville, you'll see Bellevue Baptist. It's giant, big as a college campus. And it was great place and a great conference and a doctor was talking about a topic and I knew from his topic it was going to be he'd have to talk about chemical imbalance and SSRIs, et cetera. So I went to it, and for the first time I was going to contend with him, with the research I'd been doing for this book. And all of a sudden he said, now, I'm sure most of you have read by now that there's no such thing as a chemical imbalance. And I'm like, well, there you go. It's starting to become so mainstream that they can't hide it. And. And psychiatrists have known this all along. You know, it's like a lot of us therapist types have not. You know, we just believed it because it was told to us. But if you can create doubt in. In the predominant paradigm because people suffer with all of us do paradigm paralysis or confirmation bias, whatever word you want to use. But it's like at one time, if we. The three of us went out in public and said, hey, we were on this mountain yesterday, and we were looking out across the ocean, and we think there is a curve there, that maybe the earth is not flat, it's round. We would have been run out of town for being heretics, you know, and so it's like, the truth will set you free. I come back to that again. And in this stuff, the truth kind of erodes a little bit of the belief system, which opens them up to a different possibility again, novelty. Dopamine. Hope.

It makes me think of the idea that if there was an easy way to recover, we would have found it and already done it. You know, I think Besser van der Kolk brings it up in his book on the body keeps the Score, that if. If the biomedical model was. Is effective or was effective, wouldn't we see shrinking numbers of people getting the medication versus these exploding numbers? And just the numbers of people on it would suggest it's not actually effective. It's not creating traction and healing. And yet that's what we get to see in the kind of work that we do and that you do at capstone. Like, when you lean into these pieces of our story and understanding the false core beliefs and the family of origin pieces and all of that, like, we actually see traction and effectiveness. And so why not look at the models where people are seeing something actually change versus just perpetuating the easy road myth of like, well, here's the next quick fix. And I think, as you brought up, we will perpetually see people be attracted to that. But over and over, when we see it doesn't work, we can come back to this, that there is a road, and it's maybe longer and a little more challenging than we expected, but it's effective and it works. So in that regard, Adrian, if people are coming that are listen. If people are listening and they're a pastor or a parent or a leader, and they have people coming to them who are struggling, and maybe in the past they would acknowledge they've been guilty of some spiritual bypass or they've just tried to offer a prayer or said, well, don't do that. Let's get accountability software on your computer. You'll be good to go. If someone is trying to help others that are facing addiction and trauma, and they're not necessarily like the counselor themselves, but they might have a role as a person in ministry, how can they offer someone hope and direction when they know they're maybe pointing them towards a difficult and challenging road that isn't a quick fix? So what. What can we say as parents, as pastors, as leaders, if someone comes to us for help, how could we be the voice that starts shaping this new paradigm for them?

I mean, it starts with relationship. You know, it's like, who's got a voice with any of us? It's the people that we have relationship with. But then when you have relationship with somebody, it's usually the most difficult, you know, dyad to be able to have those kind of conversations with. So the idea again comes back to communicating something different with who you are and doing your own work, but then also showing them a different paradigm that can give them realistic hope. I mean, that's what it comes down to. It's like, to me, you. You like in a church or a team or a company, there's a culture. Whether you specifically say, hey, this is going to be our culture and you work to build it, which I'm sure you all do, like we do, or you just end up having a certain culture, a culture in church that denies these struggles. You know, I did a series at my church about five or six years ago and talked about all this stuff in detail. It was only for adults, and a dozen or more women asked my wife, why is a talking about all this bad stuff? And Joanna said, because that's the stuff that's going on and that we're dealing with.

Yeah.

And everybody wanted to deny it. And so I. I actually wrote an article in a little publication here locally, addressing pedophilia and some stuff that had happened with a minister in town with a child, which is all a different level than. Than the stuff that we're talking about. And it's like, I walked into church. It was a pretty damning article, honestly. It was. We hide this stuff there. There's a dual code. You know, we say Honesty, but then we lie to cover up when stuff like that happens. And it's not about any specific church organization. It's like, seems like every, everybody does, but it's very hypocritical and contradictory. And when I got to church that Sunday morning, one of the church leaders saw me in the hall and they kind of wide eyed looked at me and I said morning. And they said, well, I didn't think you'd be here today. And I said, why not? It's Sunday morning. They said, well, that article that you wrote, I said, oh, you read that article? Well good. He goes, yeah, but we just don't talk about those things. And I said, yeah, that's why I wrote the article.

What's the problem?

So if one of the things that I've said is if you can create a culture. So take this from a church point of view, but also in a family where taboo subjects are normal. And I don't mean to talk about them all day and everything, but when it's appropriate that you can talk about anything and there's nothing off limits. And so the idea is you build that with connection. And I think I said this at the last time I was up there speaking connection, real connection, and then protecting the young ones, protect it from getting in and then prevent them from going down those roads and then prepare them for dealing with it. Like Jordan Peterson said, bring a little evil in your home so that you can teach people how to deal with it. It doesn't mean participate in the evil, but, but teach them about what they're going to hit and then show them restoration, which is rupture and repair and then live a risky faith because nobody's going to follow somebody. That's a neutral faith. It's not actually faith anyway if it's not risky. And so to me you're showing them rupture and repair and the masterpiece effect, which is the biggest thing and everything. We're talking about Bowlby and Ainsworth's work on secure attachment. And then Jake Porter spoke and talked about the theology of attachment. And the idea with attachment is the most important cornerstone of it is that the child believes after any rupture that happens, repair will follow. You know, and it's like that's what gives secure attachment. So when you look at the Gospel, you know, where God knew when he created us, we were going to break the relationship with him with our sin. And he already had a plan with Jesus going on the cross to mend that, to repair it. And so Ephesians 2, 10 says, you know, for God's workmanship or work of art, where God's masterpiece, depending on which translation, that we've been created again in Jesus Christ to do the good works that he prepared for us before creation. And so when you look at that, I've read it 100 times and I thought, yeah, we're the masterpiece. Where human beings are the masterpiece creation of God, like over all animals and mountains and clouds and stars and you know, humans are the top deal. That's not what it's saying. And I missed it until I heard Jake speak on it. And he's kind of taken me in a whole different walk of life. We're the masterpiece after we ruptured it and were repaired. And what does that mean? Well, think of the implications of secure attachment. Secure attachment only happens after there's been ruptures and repair in, in the strange situation study. The mom leaves and comes back, she leaves and come back. The baby knows the mom's always going to come back. And so secure attachment, the deepest relationship happens after that. It's the same thing as Ephesians 2:10. Masterpiece happens after we've screwed it up, after we've broken the relationship and been made new by Christ. So post traumatic growth, add to that post addicted growth. Because that's same concept with addiction. That's all the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's the gospel played out in a different venue. And when I look at moms and dads that come in and look at boys and can say, when you get to the other side of this and it's, it's an ongoing growing thing. It's not that, oh, you regain what you have. It's not that, oh well, I've just gotten to a place that I can stand for the rest of my life. You're talking about being better after repair than you were before rupture. And so in a spouse, betrayal, betrayed spouse, the non offending spouse, they have decisions to make and I would never question their decision if they said, hey, this is too big of a betrayal for me that I don't want to be here anymore. But if they choose to stay in it, then you, you look at the repair process of this. The work that has to go on is not an event. You know, forgiveness is an event with God. And forgiveness with God equates with reconciliation. Forgiveness with humans is a process and it does not necessarily mean reconciliation. You have to have a whole different deal that goes with that. But if they're willing to and they move forward. And then when you talk about well, what about with back steps and all that other. Every time there's a back step, the non offending spouse should tighten boundaries and raise consequences. Why? Because that's healthy for the non offending spouse. It also is helpful to the offending spouse for them to know that this is what's waiting on me if I keep going down this road. So go back to the very first question. Envisioning a different future where things are good is novelty produces dopamine. Guess what else produces dopamine? Fear.

Fear.

You can have healthy fear by realizing I can't keep going down this road.

Yeah.

That's how that whole thing works together in a synergy that makes any sense.

Yeah, it sure does. Yes, it does. That's so good. Well, I. I am. I'm so excited to just like every time you're talking, Adrian, even sometimes, I mean, we all hear on this, on this podcast play in the same sandbox. We bump shoulders. Jake's going to be at our summit as well, and I'm so excited to have both of you under the same roof. But still, every time I get to hear you explain with all the stories you pull in and examples, it's just really encouraging. And it kind of leaves you with a little charge to want to get out there and take more agency over our life, our betrayals and our addiction and just move forward.

Yeah. And. And I was going to say something similar to you guys. And. And I'm. I'll say one other thing about this, and y' all can cut it if you want, but we. We do talk about people with addictions as if they are a group of people inferring that there's another group that don't have addictions, and they are called normies. And I want to tell you, I don't believe normies exist. And. And it's like Carl Eric Fisher and his book The Urge, a 500 year history of Addiction. We all have addictions. We all are capable of having addictions that are very severe. And so it's really not about what the addicts do to get into recovery. It's what the human race does to deal with the hardships of life. It's all the same for all of us. It's just on different degrees. And when you think about all the stuff do on sex addiction and drugs, but obesity kills five or ten times more than they do. You know, it's like we don't have a bunch of stuff going on with that, you know, an obesity epidemic or cigarette epidemic, which also kills half of me. In a year. So it's all of us. We all struggle with. How do we get relief of pain and feel the emptiness.

Yeah, well, there's another paradigm that you're. You're chipping away at and helping people think through. We've. We've got to learn to think differently. I totally agree with you, as. As Dr. Ted Roberts told me early in my recovery, that we were all born to be addicted to Jesus in a sense that when we needed comfort, when we needed escape, we would know we can run to our creator and maker and Lord, and he welcomes us in. But we've learned to be addicted to something else. And he said that we have all learned to be addicted to something else. It's just that some of our addictions are socially acceptable, and so we don't call them addictions. And yet if we see that this is what the brain does to try to cope with all these things, and then we put ourselves all in that same category, we can learn and heal and grow and be on this road together. And so, Adrian, we are so excited to have you coming to the summit. And real quick here at the end, would you just give from your perspective as one of the speakers and what you know about recovery, community, and pure desire, why would you recommend that someone join us at the summit and get to hear your session live at that event?

Well, I mean, the summit is. Is great, and I think I'll talk about that more than. Than my session. My session is going to be basically more of the same. But the. The thing that I get out of being with you guys on this, even though it's zoom, but especially being at the summit in person, it's kind of like what you were just talking about, Nick, that, you know, we run to Jesus Christ. There was a story I read somewhere, and I can't remember where, so forgive me for not citing the person who thought this up, but it was a story of a dad and mom in their bedroom, and down the hall was a little boy. And it was a storm outside, and there was thunder and lightning. And the boy yelled at the. The dad said, dad, I'm scared. And the dad said, son, don't be scared. Jesus is with you. And the boy responded, yeah, but right now, I need somebody with skin on. You know, like, yes, that's what the summit is. You know, it's getting around other people that can be the band of brothers, band of sisters that can see you and that can know you, and you just expand that inner circle group. And to me, that's the best part of it.

Yeah. Well, we are so excited and looking forward to it. And listener, I think you can hear and understand why we love having Dr. Adrian Hickman as one of our speakers and just the insights that he'll bring as well as many, many others. And I'm sure in the show notes there will be information about how you could sign up for the summit, whether you can join us live or on Zoom and watch all of the sessions via the Internet in the wonder of the world that we live in. So Adrian, thanks for joining us. Wonderful to have you and we look forward to seeing you in person in a little while.

Yes, thanks Adrian.

I love you guys. Thank you for having me.

Yeah, thank you to our listener as well. And if you're a fan of today's content, please subscribe, share with somebody, give us a like or review. All of these are ways that other people might find this life giving content. And if you would like more information about pure desire, groups, counseling or resources, Visit us@puredesire.org Journey on my friends, you are not alone.