418 - Understanding the Nature of Sexual Addiction w/ Sam Jolman

Foreign 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. We're so excited to have you back for today's podcast. This is episode 418 and here joining me as my co host throughout this series is Mr. Mike Maxwell. Mike, welcome back.

Hey y'. All.

How you doing?

Good, thank you.

Good, good. Anything exciting happening in your life these days or just, oh my gosh, so.

Much exciting stuff happening. Exciting stuff personally exciting stuff at work.

Well, I think today was exciting because we got to interview a first time guest, but I'm confident not a last time guest. He's a therapist and a brand new author of a book called the Sex Talk you never got, Mr. Sam Joelman. And today we talked with him. This is part two of a six part series that we're calling the Foundations of Freedom, kind of helping people understand some of those initial steps that you need to take, what really creates a transformative healing pathway. And today was all about understanding the nature of sexual addiction. So Mike, just tell those, tell our listeners a little bit about what they might expect from today's oh my gosh.

Some really good insights. I, I think right out of the gate he talked about the splitness, which I had not thought about that in that aspect before, and he had some really good insights.

Yeah, he knows what he's talking about. As you'll hear in his introduction, he has three boys. And so his content is stuff that he's living out at home and with the client he helps. And I think everyone will get great information out of today's talk, whether it's for their own journey or understanding something their spouse is facing or how to help their kids, because we all could grow in that area as well. So a little bit about Sam Joelman. Sam is a licensed professional counselor who specializes in men's issues, marriage counseling, and sexual abuse recovery. He has a master's in counseling from Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida and is trained in narrative focused trauma care through the Allender center at the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. Along with his experience in private practice, he leads men's wilderness trips for Mars Hill Bible Church. He he is the author of the Sex talk youk Never Reclaiming the Heart of Masculine Sexuality, which by the way I looked today it is number 13 on Men's Christian Living on Amazon.com so it's becoming a pretty popular book. And here now is our conversation with Sam Joelman. On understanding the nature of sexual addiction. Sam Joelman, welcome to the Pure Desire podcast. So good to have you, Nick.

Thanks for having me. Thank you, Mike.

Yes.

Yeah. We have been looking forward to this conversation. And since it's your first time on the podcast, can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and the work that you do?

Yeah. So I like to say I'm a lover, a father, a therapist and an author, kind of in that order. So I'm a lover, a lover of Jesus and a lover of my wife for where we just crossed 22 years of marriage.

Right.

Yeah. Which is, it's just great. So much so that the, the pictures look dated now, you know, like, wow, we were, we were young and it was a different era. I'm a father to three boys coming of age. I have a 13 year old son, 11 year old and 8 year old. And I'm a therapist and an author. So I, I've been a therapist in private practice 20 years roughly, and specializing in sexual trauma, men's stuff, men's issues, so to speak, in marriage counseling. And then I'm an author, so first time author of the Sex talk you never Got, which came out last year. And still riding that journey into just watching. You know, the greatest gift as an author is always hearing stories of how God meets people or how people meet God in the pages of what you're written. There's nothing quite like that.

Amen.

So I'm enjoying that.

You know, I have to say is I'm not through with your book yet, but I am about halfway through. And one of the first books that impacted me was Wild at Heart. And I felt, as I was reading your book, it's very reminiscent of John Eldredge's writing. It felt kind of like I was reading John Eldridge. So that's a big, that's a big compliment.

Yeah. Thank you. That's an honor.

Well, and I always love reading a book when I know the author is having to apply the principles they're writing about in their own life, you know, so for you to have a 13 year old and an 11 year old, you know, we all know you're in the middle of those formative years where the questions are being asked and the conversations need to happen. And you know, to read the book through that context of this isn't just some guy, you know, telling us what to do. Like this is a dad in the middle of it who's walking through the early, early stages with his boys. So I, I know we'll get more into the book later. But, yeah, just excited about that.

Yeah. You know, that that was, you know, one of the selfish motives of writing a book on this topic was I knew I had three boys and I wanted to give them something that was alive and a blessing. Right. A true blessing of male sexuality, which I was trying to see. The vision, what is this that God intended? That was good. So, yeah, that was the selfish end as well. Now hopefully I have something to offer them more deeply.

Just out of curiosity, how long did it take you to write the book?

22 years, it sounds like.

Yeah, right. Yeah. In some ways, you know, there are parts of this that were, you know, my own story. Obviously, I'm writing to the young man in myself and so walking through, you know, my own struggle through sexuality, my own struggle with compulsive sexual behavior in my early twenties and. And find. Trying to find a way to live sexuality well, that wasn't full of shame, wasn't condemning, but was actually alive and good, you know, that I'm writing to him, but ultimately, you know, sitting down and plunk it again, it out. It took a year to do from start to finish, and that was pretty intense. You know, 4:00am, 5:00am writing sessions, writing at soccer practices, you know, wherever I could fit it in. In life.

Yeah, that's pretty quick. A year seems like.

Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was, you know, kind of. That was not a deadline I set. That was the publisher's deadline for delivery, so.

Great. Well, thank you for engaging in that project. Question for you. In what way can pornography use and other compulsive sexual behavior be described as an addiction? And how might someone know if their behaviors have morphed into an addiction?

As I've sat with that question, you know, the. Over the years of what constitutes addiction or not addiction in terms of sexuality, there's obviously a debate about that. But addictions are really any ritual that we use to keep ourselves split. Right? So we all have parts of us that we keep in the shadows, parts of us that maybe have been rejected over our lives or things, you know, splits that have been caused by traumatic events in our lives. But addictions are really the way we keep ourselves split. So rather than becoming whole and engaging stuff that feels shameful or parts of us that feel rejected, we use addiction to. To manage feelings we don't really want to have to address or parts of us we don't really want to have to address. And so we push it into the shadows. And addiction is how we manage that. It's how we keep ourselves divided and an addiction, you know, needs to have some capacity to create an altered state to allow that, right. To allow us to stay separate from those parts of us we don't want to have to engage. So I mean, you know, chemical addictions, right. Literally create a chemical altered state to do that. But a process addiction, like an eating disorder, right. Allows for an altered state in terms of the ritual itself, kind of punts us, puts us into a trance like state to manage that. And you know, fantasy, sexual fantasy, sexuality in itself was meant to be this altered state, I believe from God, right? This, this kind of time, outside of time experience we get to have, you know, with your spouse, this, this moment of delight and even ecstasy. And so, you know, you think sexual fantasy, if you kind of hot wire that to create then a trance like state to avoid or really to stay split, sexual fantasy and compulsive sexual behavior can allow that, that to happen.

I think that is a great definition, a ritual that keeps ourselves split. Because I think a lot of people maybe have, especially if they're new to this journey, they might have a reaction to the word addiction because we've created a lot of stereotypes around who is an addict or what an addict looks like. But if we were to ask ourselves honestly, has this behavior, whether it was pornography or other things, has this become a ritual in my life that's easier to define and a little easier to say yes to, like, boy, this isn't just a one or two times thing. Like this is now a ritual, whether it's every week or every day or a few times a month. And that ritual beginning to define, like you stated, that an alternative state of mind or just a way that there's like a hidden, separate part of me that is not integrated, that is not known by others, that is not above the board and something I'm living into an understanding, it's just kind of this split part of me again, I think people could probably hear that simple definition and self analyze to go, man, that's what I'm doing. Whether the behavior is pornography or something else. And it really demystifies perhaps what we think of when we hear the word addiction. So thank you for that. I've never heard a definition like that. That's really powerful.

Yeah, as you said that I had not heard that either, but it perfectly described. When I was in my addiction, there was this part that I kept hidden. And I remember thinking, that's not who I am, but I just have to keep it over here. And until you can reveal those secrets, it does keep you split. I hadn't thought of it in that way, but that is actually a very good description. The other thing that you said that made me think, you talked about the state outside of time, you know, kind of time outside of time. And I remember one of the ahas I had, and you speak about this, the awe factor in the book, that whole thing. You know, there's a place where we meet with God where you kind of fall into that time outside of time, place in worship or whatever. And I remember thinking at one point in my life that sex is probably the closest thing to, to that intimacy we have with God.

Yeah.

You know, and I think that's meant, you know, having moments and experiences that are transcendent are healthy. It's not to say that anything you do that, you know, puts you into like a trance like state, as I said, is addiction. No, there's, there's actually integrated ways to live in awe. And I think we all need that. We need moments where we transcend the ordinary. And that can be a beautiful moment of sexual intimacy with your spouse. It can also be times of worship or moments of awe in nature. I think those are healthy and can be healthy and integrated ways of living. And in fact, I would say you need those, those are necessary for us to rise above the kind of humdrum right of, of just doing life or work. And. But again, the, the. The point there being that it's an integrated experience, meaning it's something that I. That's congruent with me. It's something that I can talk about. It's something I share in community. Right. Like that it's not the secret space that I'm. I'm living from. It's not a part of me that I operate out of, as you said, in silence and secrets and shame.

But.

But in the wholeness of who I am. So again, that's where addiction really can mess with us because it can make that ache for transcendence feel dirty or scandalous or, you know, sinful. And I think a lot of times, you know, that that can be the kind of self contempt that I hear in men or those struggling with compulsive sexual behavior is, this is a bad part of me. Right. Everything that I do in my compulsive sexual behavior is bad. And I would say, you know, again, is there sin happening? Sure. But is everything, are all of those parts of you just bad and sinful? Right. Again, that. That's actually what keeps you split. The answer is no.

Right.

There are probably really important parts of you that you need to integrate with that you need to bring back into the wholeness of who you are inherent in your acting out behavior. And again, that's why, you know, I said an addiction is what keeps you split. It helps you reject parts of you that actually are probably good, you know, in the light of day, so to speak.

Yeah, that is such an important insight when we're on this recovery journey, that, that there are very legitimate things happening in us like desire and longing and a need for belonging, even the desire for pleasure and for intimacy. Like those are all hardwired into God's creation of us. And like you said, to just reject all of them is to, you know, proverbial toss the baby out with the bathwater. We're missing some of the really good pieces. And yes, it leads to bad outcomes. That's what we're trying to fix. But it can't just be this total rejection of everything going on inside of us. And I think that's why this podcast is so important as we explore what's really happening in sexual addiction. And we know that one of the key components of recovery is understanding the impact of our past. Things like family of origin and attachment or non attachment that happen in growing up years. And so talk a little bit about how early relational wounds impact our struggles with sexuality and intimacy.

Yeah. You know, again, even just the language of a split, right. What I'm saying is that you have parts of you that have been pushed into the shadows or you've suffered wounds in your life that, that leave parts of you disconnected from the whole of who you are. And, and so understanding your story, you know, where do those splits come from? That's why it's so important to understand your story and your, your history of love, so to speak, or your history of attachment. Right. Oftentimes it's in those early relationships that we suffer those splits. You know, the language of trauma. We talk about trauma as you know, it's just literally the word means wound. And you know, it's. It's places where we experience pain. But what I would say is it's, you know, trauma is not just wounding, it's also the shame that follows. Meaning we were left alone in some sort of pain in life. Right? Like we wanted something and. Or we suffered the violence of a parent or, you know, a wounding moment. It's not just that we experience pain, but we also experience shame. Right. We often end up stuffing down our wounds. What keeps those down is shame. Right. That part of us feels bad or needy or too exposed or Too vulnerable or clearly, right. You know, the parents anger at us, right. That part of me must be rejectable. And so it's that shame that joins to the pain that then keeps us split, right? Like, well, I'm never going to be that boy again. Oh, I'm never going to want my mom like that moment, because look what happened, right. I suffered pain and this must be a bad part of me, you know. So when we talk about splits, right, You. You've got to know the story of your splits. You didn't just wake up one day and have parts of you split off, right, that. That happened in your story and maybe in parts of your story that you've completely forgotten and have, you know, and have no recollection of. So it's. It's not about digging. It's about being curious about your story. Where. Where did those early relationships begin to shape your sense of self and. And maybe lead to parts of you being rejected and split off.

Yeah. In group. Last night, we actually did our top 10 traumas. It fits right into this conversation because identifying those traumas and then going, what is the common thread and what are the lies that I believe based on these, the vows that I've made? I'll never trust my mom in that way again because I got hurt or whatever those things are. I think it's so important, and I love it because it's probably the first place in group where the guys potentially let their guard down and share things that they've never shared with any other human, let alone a group of men. And it just feels very sacred.

And it can be so hard for us, I think, especially if, for Christian men and women, if you grew up in what we would call a good Christian home, and the idea of trauma or pain is like, why I had a good family. And. And yet that reminder for me of what Dr. Gabor Matei says, that it's not what happened to us, it's what's happening inside of us. It's the messages that we internalized as kids, interpreting what was going on, even with very loving or caring parents or family members or caregivers that created this messaging. And I looked at some of that, you know, when I thought about when I shared my first 10 moments, because I had that reaction, like, what trauma? Come on? And I felt like I was kind of scratching deep to try to get to 10. But honestly, when I started sharing, like numbers 8 and 9, there were. There were strong emotional reactions that I was like, I had no idea. I cared about this moment because I had learned in how I dealt with it. I had learned to kind of siphon off the pain, not feel it and just go, you know what? That didn't feel like a very cool or manly thing to be hurt by. And so I'd never acknowledged how painful it was until I said it in a safe group of other men. It was like, wow, that was pretty wounding for me. I have a message from that moment that I've never dealt with. And it's not that kids were being so bad or my parents were. So it's just it was the way I interpreted a moment that had created a framework that was impacting my adult behavior 30 years later. And so I think if we're open to the idea that like, boy, there are things that shaped me that maybe in an attempt to not feel them, I now think, oh, that wasn't that big of a deal. But really it is.

Right, right. And again, listen to, you know, the subtext of what you said, right. Is oh, that didn't feel manly. Yeah, right. And so again, the, the scripting of shame. You know, it's, it's Dan Allender that said the realm of evil loves to hunt like a shark to blood in the water, right? Likes to hunt for the trauma in the drama of our lives, right. To whisper a different narration of what's going on, right? So it's again, recognizing we're all living outside of Eden. So you might have very good hearted parents, but it's the recognition that we're all doing this outside of our homeland of Eden and your parents are still sinners and this isn't a witch hunt, right? Of we need to call them evil. It's simply beginning to sit with just that reality. You live outside of Eden and you live at a world that's haunted and it's haunted by evil and an evil that hates you. And so it's going to look for opportunities. You know, Revelation 12 is always a haunting picture to me of the dragon, right, that goes to wage war against the offspring of the woman and it says, you know, to wage war against her children. So the sense again that evil comes early for the vulnerable to the vulnerable, right? And witches, children to come early in our stories to try to get that purchase of shame, right? To get you to begin to believe things about your wounding or simply even sometimes just the drama of your life, right. It may not be, you know, a clinical defined trauma. It may be just the drama of like a girlfriend breaking up with you in eighth grade, right? That, that evil comes to whisper things to You. Was it pain?

Sure.

Was it trauma? Well, maybe not outright trauma, but did evil want to take advantage of it? Yes. Right again. To create splits. Well, I'll never be that vulnerable again. And again, there you have a split.

That was actually the scenario that happened to me. My girlfriend at 15, who I thought I was in love with, we were going to get married, cheated with my best friend. And out of that I vowed I will never be hurt again. I will always be in control.

Wow.

Yeah. And it affected my life for decades.

Yeah. Well.

There is such a heaviness that I feel like grief for you. Right. To know that that was like that 15 year old was left alone with pain. Right. That he had to. That that was then attacked with shame, that then you found a way to have to manage.

Right.

And what I would want to bless Mike is thank God that you have the kindness within you now to know and welcome back that 15 year old. I mean, just you telling us that story says that you've fought to recover him. What a cool thing.

Yeah. Yeah. So we've kind of touched on this a little bit. Many people know they have a behavior they want to stop or change, but they may not realize how this pattern developed in their life. And so we've kind of been talking about these traumas that drive this behavior. Help us understand how identifying these patterns can help us change the behavior.

Usually most of this stuff that we're talking about is subconscious, right. Somebody's acting out and you know, they're left usually in the wake of like, I don't even know why I do this, right. There's. Or they don't even stop to think about why it just sort of, they do it and they get back to life. Right. And man, they might feel bad for the behavior, but it's. It's like, I don't know, I just did that. Some, you know, most of what we're talking about is subconscious. So beginning to sit with those places where again, you have rituals or behaviors, patterns that just feel inconsistent with you.

Right.

Like this, this just does not match my whole. So back to again, this language of splits. Right. Like this doesn't line up with my ethics. This doesn't line up with what I really believe. You know, most of the guys I, I work with say like, I really do love my wife. This, I don't want to do this. And oftentimes we end up saying, well, see, it must be my sin nature. That's what all this other stuff is. But what I'm inviting is sure, is your sin Involved? Absolutely. Are you participating in keeping yourself split? Yes. But just beginning to sit with. Where do I do things that just feel incongruent with me or where I just. I don't even know why I did that. Right. That's a place to begin to be curious. Most times I sense, and this is the other part of addiction I would describe is addiction is always simultaneously an addiction to shame. Your shame is as much a part of the ritual as the actual pleasure that you seem to be getting out of it. You are also addicted to the shame and self hatred which is up is necessary to keep you split. Right. So most guys I know will beat themselves up, even literally physically punch themselves at times in the depth of their own self hatred. Right. For behaviors, even compulsive sexual behavior that they. They don't understand and they hate themselves for. And what I'm inviting you to sit with is that shame and self hatred is not of God. That is not what God wants you to do with yourself. It is right. Romans 2. It is the kindness of God that leads us to repentance. And so just beginning to see, you know, even places where you hold a lot of shame or self hatred can be the inroad to discovering, oh, I have a ritual that I use to keep myself split. So starting with just that, where do things happen in your life that feel inconsistent? Where do you have a lot of self hatred? That's usually the beginning inroads to understanding addiction and addictive behavior. And then, you know, the posture of will you sit differently with that process? Will you be far more curious and kind than feels comfortable, maybe even feels right? Right. The gospel is very scandalous. And so, you know, really, I'm going to sit with kindness and be curious about why I do this. Yes. You know, that being the beginning process of discovery and engagement with addictive behavior.

I love what you're saying, Sam, that a lot of this is about integration. That recovery is really a process of becoming whole. And I like to say that when I look back at my story, I don't know that I learned a lot new about myself. But what I learned was a lot of new ways that my story connected that I didn't realize. So I knew I had all these performance issues and I wanted to be great at sports high school, and I wasn't. And I also knew that I had all kinds of struggles with fantasy and lust and got into pornography, but I saw them as two totally unrelated streams and hadn't seen the way that the two really became fused into a journey of you know, when performance didn't work out, then lust and fantasy became a pseudo solution to that, which then created a lot of guilt and shame that then fueled my desire to perform better and to do well and be the All Star. And then when I was, I would just ping pong back and forth between the two. But because of probably the shame and some of my, you know, the things that were taught in our upbringing, they had really been kept as two separate pathways that needed to be healed separately. And it wasn't until the recovery group, like, with pure desire that I saw, oh, these aren't two separate journeys. This is really one and the same. This is my story of how all this got merged together. And seeing that became then a whole new approach to healing and recovery.

Yeah, that's so great.

Yeah.

As you were talking, I was thinking about when I came into group. You know, you do your check in, it's like, well, I relapsed this week or whatever. And they question you, why'd you relapse? And like, it just happened. There's, you know, and they would say, well, what was going on in you? I'm like, nothing. It just happened. So I was so disconnected from what I was feeling that I couldn't connect it to the story. And I see that in group now when guys first start to report their, you know, which is one of the reasons we use the faster scale to try and get them to go, what are you feeling previous? Or what was going on previously to your stumble or your desire to look at pornography? What feelings were you trying to escape? And if you would have asked me that when I first started, I would be like, I have no idea. I just, I like porn and I can't get away from a guy.

I got hormones, I got eyeballs. Like, what more is there?

Right?

It's funny, in the book, you tell the story about the two boys who find their dad's pornography. And the one boy, from his experience, he's feeling the rush and the wow and the awe and then they run and hide. And then that night, in his innocence, he says, thank you, God, for naked women. And I'm like, that's kind of how I looked at myself. I'm just a guy. I like naked women. So. But of course, it's gotten perverted and twisted, which is the devil's plan.

Yes. You know, and that's. That can be right? That can be. The kind of setup is like, oh, yeah, you know, I'm, you know, I'm a guy. I just, it's lust and it's an overabundance of sexual desire and, and it's bad behavior and, and I need to stop. And it's why sobriety in itself doesn't work right? Or I'm gonna double down on just not doing this. And you can go even extended periods of sobriety, so to speak, of not acting out in your behavior. But if you don't address the splits right, what was the feelings that you were managing with this behavior that you, you won't enter into that wholeness, that integration, right. You, you weren't meant to be split. And all of those parts that you rejected want to come home to you. You were made to live whole. And so you've got to find a way to welcome those parts back.

Yeah. So, Sam, you've talked a lot about shame, and I think it is a critical part of our journey. But one of the things we see a lot, and I'm sure you do as well, is that the voice and messages of shame can kind of operate like elevator music in someone's life. It's something they're so familiar with, they don't even hear it or see it anymore. And so how do you help people begin to identify that shame message and see how much maybe they are being driven by shame when they've become so accustomed to it?

You know, shame is so embodied. Shame in itself is a form of terror. It's a form of fear. It kicks us into a fight or flight response. And so it can, it can feel like anxiety, it can feel like panic. It can in itself can operate just emotionally like you said. I like that, the elevator music. And you can just get so familiar to being a shame based person, so to speak, or shame driven person. And you know that that fight or flight in a sense is, is a God given system to make us run from danger. But in this case, right, the danger that we're running from is ourself. And so that's where again, we keep those splits. Right. Like in this case, I'm the bear that I'm trying to get away from. And I noticed in my own compulsive sexual behavior, you know, there would, there would be a lot of kind of cleaning up my act, right. That that shame would drive me in it. And it actually looked like good Christian practice, right. Like I'm suddenly really into to prayer and journaling. And as I reflect back, it was all driven by so much anxiety in me that I, I was not acceptable to God and I needed to get really good and, and do a bunch of performing things. To kind of clean up my act. And I see now that that's not the. The. The motive. Shame is not a good motivator, right? It ended up. It didn't work because it was like, you know, drinking a Red Bull or something. Like I would have this burst of, you know, performative Christian practice, and it wears off. It wasn't until my own process in counseling when I had a. A really kind woman therapist who told me, next time you act out with pornography, I want you to sit before you do anything, before you even turn the screen off, I want you to stop and start singing Jesus loves me. This, I know to yourself, which instantly felt scandalous, right? Like, I can't invite Jesus into this.

He's not here. Look what I'm doing.

As if I've. Right. As if I've kept myself or kept him away, right? But like, it changed and exposed to me where. How much shame was driving me, right? That. That anxiety about my own behavior. So, you know, that. That anxiety, to me, that's usually the sign of shame. That universal sign of shame, obviously, is dropping of your face. So wherever as well you want to hide, wherever you want to look away, wherever you want to drop your gaze, wherever you hold secrets, right? Where. Wherever. And I've had clients say to me, there are things in my life that I plan to take to the grave, right? Or, oh, there's some weird things, right? Wherever you notice that kind of inner flinch. And I've had men describe to me, oh, I feel like in my shame, I'm always curling up into myself in my body, right? I know men that literally have flinches in their shame where they flinch in cower and fear, believing God's going to strike them, right? Like, oh, I act it out, something in my life's going to go bad this week. That kind of anxiety or fear is where I sense the need to be curious about what shame might be driving that.

Yeah. Yeah, that's good. Breaking free from an addiction usually means facing down or facing up to secrecy and isolation. And I would say one of the things I struggled with early on as an introvert was what's the difference between isolation and solitude? Because they felt the same in many ways to me. But how do you help someone move out of these destructive behaviors? Because exposure is painful.

You know, it always involves risk. And I think what you've described, well, both of you, that. That community being able to face a group, you know, that. That being a context, not that it has to be a group, but a group where you are risking Vulnerability. I think it's Brene Brown who said, you know, vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of courage. So being willing to even disclose, I've, you know, I've looked at pornography or I've, I've acted out in some way. That in itself is an act of vulnerability. You are, you are welcoming people into places where you are managing split. So, you know, it will feel risk, like risk, because it is. That's not just cute language, right. It does take courage. Something will feel on the line and you know, wherever you risk, some place where you, you know, you're going to experience some kindness, that would, is what I would recommend. But also truth. Right. Somebody that's going to be honest with you, that feels important. But I would say at the heart of it, you know, it can't be something you do for somebody else. So you might have, you know, consequences in your life or people in your life that have paid for your behavior, meaning they've suffered under your behavior. And at first that can feel motivating, like I don't want to lose this person in my life. And that might motivate you to start the process. Right. Something's on fire. A relationship is, is on fire or, or is in conflict. But ultimately it has to come back to eventually. I'm split and I'm tired of not being whole. I'm divided. Right. Splits become a double life. And where you have that double life beginning to say, there must be a part of me that I need to reckon with and realizing that this behavior is self sabotage. It's not simply something that costs other people something, but it's keeping you less than whole. I think that being a motivator is really important. Like I want all of me back. I want to find who God made me to be.

Yeah, I've heard it said that there are really only two things that motivate us to change. And it's pain or beauty. And unfortunately in recovery we see a lot of people and in our own stories that we waited for pain, that with a spouse or in discovery, something came up. Like it got so painful that we're like, oh my word, I, you know, and we hit rock bottom only to find out that rock bottom can actually get for, you know, there's really no true rock bottom because it can. And we hear the stories like it can get worse. But the pain does create motivation. But I think part of what we're discussing here today is what if beauty became that motivation? This idea of what if I didn't have to live in this divided State, what if I didn't have to have a part of me that I felt like no one knew and was so shameful I couldn't talk about? What if. What if I lived whole? What if I lived in relationship with others that I felt, you know, what we call intimacy. I was fully known even as I knew others fully. Like, that beauty of what God made us for, for wholeness could also draw us towards change. And I. I think that's where sometimes we see that change happen for people in groups, maybe they start because of the pain, they've been kicked out, or they've been caught or they lost a job. Like, okay, I guess I got to deal with this. But over time, if we do the work, I think we start to see the beauty of what we can become. And then we get to hear, you know, in our groups and counseling, people say, like, I've never had the kind of relationships I have now. I didn't know what was missing. I didn't know how much better it could be.

Yes.

And sometimes when we haven't experienced that beauty, it's hard to believe it's worth it. And I think for some listeners today, maybe that's what this podcast is, is for the three of us to say it's. It's worth it, that there's beauty on the other side. There's good that comes in your spirit and your. Your nature that's worth this journey for. So don't just wait for the pain. Like, have this vision of the beauty of what could happen in your life.

Yes. Yeah. You know, I. This was certainly true for me. And. And it's true of the men that I walk with, that, you know, there are a lot of times where men will say, I don't even like what I'm doing. Yeah, it's lost. It's lost its pole. There's just this again. The craving, the ritual. Right. It's so familiar. But I find I don't even enjoy it. And, you know, to beginning to sit with that, that. That there's a kind of boredom and numbness, that. That you're compulsive, sexual behavior is creating in you. I remember a therapist saying to me in the process, like, I think you're going to recover when you start to recognize how boring it is what you're actually doing. You're bored. I hear it in your voice when you talk about you're acting out behavior. And that was so helpful for me to say, wow, you're right. Right. Like, this isn't actually adventurous and alive. It's actually numbing, but it seems to present as pleasurable. Right. But I think eventually you start to realize this isn't actually all that fulfilling or sensual. It's not really all that alive. That can actually be a really helpful motivator.

You reminded me. I bought a book once. I think it was just called the Book of Questions. And I was reading through it, and one of the questions was something along the lines of, if you could go through life never feeling great pain, but you had to give up feeling great joy, would you choose that? Or would you choose embracing great pain so you could feel great joy? This was prior to my journey. And I remember going, I've already made that choice without even thinking about it. I live in a place where I never feel great joy and I never feel great pain. It was in counseling that my counselor brought up. He goes, when you numb the pain, you numb your ability to feel joy as well. I think that's part of the beauty that comes out of getting free from these addictions is, yeah, you get to grieve some painful things, probably some things you've been trying to avoid for many years, but you also get to begin to experience great joy and see the world in the awe that you've been blind to. You've been numbing yourself to.

Yeah. So, Sam, you wrote a book. We want to get into that a little bit. The sex talk you never got. And maybe for some listeners already, they feel like, man, this is a whole realm of, like, growth and development and sexuality that I've never really thought about. And a lot of this can relate to the ways we've been brought up, the conversations that we have or haven't had that people, fathers, parental figures did or didn't have with us. So talk about that a little bit. What are some of the biggest gaps or misconceptions in the way that most people were taught or not taught about sex? And how does your book and your approach in the book help fill in some of those gaps?

Yeah, you know, I think I put it this way. I think sexuality is probably the place most men have had the least meaningful conversations in their lives. And, you know, even more than like spirituality. Right. Which male spirituality in itself is. Is a topic. Right. That's. That often doesn't get talked about, but especially sexuality. And we, we end up living in this kind of over sexualized, under sexually nurtured place. Right. Because in our culture, men are so over sexualized as. Oh, that's all that drives men. Right. That's all that men think about and there's these crazy, you know, false stats on how often men think about sex. And it. It's. It's not that men aren't sexually wired. We are. But it's that we don't get the integration through meaningful conversations. And so we're left to kind of figure sexuality out on our own. Right. Or the. The implication is it's just supposed to work. It's just supposed to run itself, and you'll figure it out. And that in itself, I think, is a curse of shame, because the stats are 85% of couples at some point in their marriage will experience even physical dysfunction, let alone emotional or relational sexual struggles. And so 85% sex. What's that?

85%? It's normal.

Yes, it's normal to have physical dysfunction even in the plumbing. Right. Let alone the relational disconnection and all the struggles around that. So sex doesn't just run itself for anyone. It's something that we need to be taught about, to learn about, to be able to feel free to talk about. And I think without that, most of us men already start by saying, well, if I'm struggling, it, there must be something wrong with me, because it seem, I guess it works for everybody else. And I know so many men to where this is the place of deep, maybe even the greatest struggle in their life. And so just that alone, I think, sets us up. You know, maybe if men got anything, they got a purity lecture or kind of a shoddy anatomy lesson, but that's about it, right? Just don't screw it up. And so again, you know, if the only other option you have is sex jokes, locker room talk, questions you ask your buddies, or nowadays, primarily, you know, kids are going to the Internet to get their sex education, which is a terrible nurture of your sexuality. Right. Obviously, they're getting nurtured through pornography, and they're setting expectation for this generation. So just to mark we have an inheritance as men of such neglect here.

You know, as you're talking, I was thinking the world is constantly communicating a broken message around sexuality, but the church doesn't really, or traditionally hasn't talked about it. Maybe 10 years ago, when I first started the journey, we tried to do a porn and pancakes thing at our church, and we probably had 200 guys show up and had a guest speaker come in. And afterwards, it was surprising to me how many men came forward and said, this is wrong. We don't talk about this in church. Mostly older men, you know, generations above me. But I think that's part of the challenge is I never really got. I mean, my mom did the physical anatomy thing, but dad was never present to talk about how to steward my sexuality. And in all honesty, it was shaped largely by Happy Days and Fonzie. Right. Fonzie was known for getting the girl. And so that's what made. I thought that's what makes a man is the guy who gets the girl. And I internalized that. It wasn't until I, I was going through this journey that I realized that was a lie, that I believed that wasn't true. But it was based on a sitcom that all of us watched in middle school.

Yeah. And in other words, we're all craving.

Right.

You know, nurture conversation. And there was a Harvard study that was done on 18 to 25 year olds. And this was like, I think 10 years ago. And they found that I think it was 70% of 18 to 25 year olds wanted more conversation with their parents about sex and romance.

Wow.

Yeah. And, you know, I think of just even already my boys and the questions they ask. And now that it's on my radar, you know, having written this book, I start to hear their hunger in this area. Simple questions like, dad, you know, how do you ask a girl out or how do you know when you want to marry somebody? Right. Like those are all part of the sex talk. Yeah, right. It's not just how the plumbing works.

It's.

It's really the dance of romance. And, you know, we don't talk about how as men, we are lovers, we're made to have sex integrated with romance. And so, you know, sadly, I, and I have permission to share this story. I tell it in my book. You know, I had some clients come that their 14 year old had come to them and said, you know, mom, dad, I've been struggling with pornography. And of course they were devastated and wanted to help. And, you know, it became the conversation of how did this happen? And he told the story of, you know, he was listening to some friends talk about girls they were interested in and he realized he didn't know how to kiss a girl. And he felt shame for that. So he went again because it's supposed to just work, right? That, that cultural pressure. And you're supposed to just know and be the, you know, the Fonzie or the Don Juan. Right. That's the pressure. Is it supposed to just be natural in you? And it's not for any of us. We're all figuring it out. And, you know, so he went to Google, typed in how to kiss a girl, and of course you know, the search engine optimization of pornography sites got trying to get their next customer. It popped up pornography. Right. But what could be more innocent than the question of how to kiss a girl? Right, right. That's part of the sex talk that he felt shame for. And he's getting help now through his parents and doing great. But that's the kind of neglect, again, that I think we're left with, that we need to have engaged somewhere.

I love Sam, how you're kind of expanding what many people think of when they hear the sex talk. It's like, well, you're gonna be married soon, or, you know, you hit puberty. We better have that sex talk. And. And we just focus, I think, on perhaps the physical act versus a much larger conversation about relationships, romance, marriage, kissing, asking a girl out. That all of that is part of the nature, the nurturing role that parents can play with their kids. And if we just think, well, I have the birds and bees talk, they know the basics. Like, that's only one small piece of the development of our kids. And I love your point there at the beginning, that no subject is talked about less. We have less meaningful conversations about. And I think, too, about the similarities between sexuality and food or eating, because they're both process addictions. They're both areas where we can't stop being a sexual being. We can't stop eating food. They're a part of how we're wired. And yet, if you thought about, you know, if you never, ever talked with your kids about food, what to eat, when to eat, what not to eat, why we don't eat. Like, you just think, well, that's silly. Like, that's kind of my role as a parent from the time they're two is to help them eat and learn to eat and understand. Like, that's just a normal part of human growth and maturing. And yet the same could be said of our relationships and sexuality and understanding that part of our world as well. But we treat that one like, oh, just figure it out yourself, you know, and how unhealthy would all of us be if we never learned anything about eating except what we saw in movies and TV. Like, we would just be eating McDonald's all day long because that's what we see on TV versus being trained and taught. So I love this. This metaphor and the kind of. The bigger narrative to say, this is a way we all need to be developed. And as parents, as caregivers, as mentors, friends, we can participate with others in having those meaningful conversations so that we're not just left on our own. We're not just doing what seems best to us, which is very much, very often what leads to things like isolation and shame and the negative behaviors that then we have to work so hard to unlearn and to grow beyond. So, Sam, I think this has been a fantastic conversation. I really hope people will check out your book. Last question as we wrap up. Would just love to hear. What do you hope that people will take out of your book? Like what, what is one big takeaway or kind of a summary? You say, I hope this is a message that people will really walk away from if they read the sex talk you never got.

Yeah, you know, I, as I say in the introduction, this book, I wrote the book not just to kind of inform you, but I actually hope that through the book you feel the blessing of God your father, on your sexuality. Right. We know that God saw Adam in the garden and created him good. And that that includes his sexuality. And so I, you know, that original father blessing is on all of us as men. So I'm, I'm wanting and hoping that, you know, men will meet God their father and feel that blessing on their sexuality afresh in the book.

Yeah, that's really beautiful. I appreciate that, Sam. And I hope for all of our listeners as, as you look at leaning into this area, whether facing your own journey and understanding sexual addiction or trying to be more proactive to speak into someone else's life to parent your children, that we all need to remember this is a journey of healing that starts with compassion, a lot of self awareness, and then taking practical steps toward healthier relationship with ourselves and others. And so, Sam, thank you for all these incredibly valuable insights about sexual addiction and the importance of understanding the roots of our struggle with sexuality and intimacy and how when we, when we do that, work around relational wounds, breaking free of the shame, moving out of secrecy and isolation, none of these easy, all of these things that require a lot of courage. But when we do, then we can learn to rewrite our narrative around sex and emotional connection. And your book provides some powerful ideas and tools around doing that. So, listener, we will put the link to the book in the show notes. We want you to check it out. And Sam, I hope it's not the last time we'll have you on the podcast. Thanks for joining us today.

Yeah, I'd love to have you on.

Again, Mike and Nick, this has been great. I've really enjoyed our conversation today.

Thanks for your work.

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