420 - Foundations of Freedom: Establishing Sobriety

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Hello there, good listener. I am your host, Nick Stumbo, and you are listening to the Pure Desire podcast, your biblically based and clinically informed approach to healing from betrayal and breaking free from compulsive sexual behaviors. Today is episode 420, and here joining me as my co host throughout this series, at least for most of it, is, is Mr. John Beguman. John, welcome back.

Thanks so much. It's so much fun to be here.

Yes, we had a little bit of a pivot because some who've been listening to this series know that Mike Maxwell hosted one, but he's got a horse throat. And so John has been jumping in and we're having a great time, I think, really unpacking what does freedom look like, especially when we're in those initial stages of trying to understand how do I do this? Like, how do I learn a new way of doing life that is free of acting out, creating, going into my old pattern, getting out of the binge purge, and these foundations, I think are so essential. And so today is part four, and we talked to another one of our co workers, staff member Stuart Blade, who is over our men's online group leaders, and we talked about establishing sobriety. So tell us a little bit about today's conversation, John.

It's hitting me even now, Nick. I know today wasn't a stories of healing, but, man, Stuart just does such an incredible job of leaning in with vulnerability. Like, yes, there's a handful of tools that we talked through today, and I think it's really practical. But also, I think the beauty is you get to hear Stuart kind of talk through his own story of how these tools were helpful. And my goodness, I don't know if I've been on a podcast in this series with so many quotable things. I'm like, Stuart, what you just said is so profound. And so he's just a gift man. He's been through so many groups, he's led so many groups, and he. His commitment to honesty. At one point he said, I want to be a man of honesty. That wasn't a part of his life kind of before recovery or sobriety, but it is now. And it's just like Stuart, man, he's become a man of honesty. And I think these tools have been so helpful. And he did an incredible job unpacking them of how they can be helpful for us as we think through where we are in recovery. Yeah, yeah.

Like so many of our staff, he's lived it. He's been down this road. He's understood what it takes to establish sobriety and stay in that place of healthy behaviors so that the long term work of recovery can happen. And he's a huge encouragement, I know, to the men that he leads. And we kind of. You brought it up in the episode. We kind of sniped him out of his local environment because he was doing such great work. We're like, well, you need to come work for us. And now he's doing the same on the PD team. So excited about this conversation. A bit more about Stuart Blade. He is our men's group's lead at Pure Desire Ministries. Before joining the staff, he served for seven years as the small group's pastor in his local church where, as he shared, he's led over a dozen groups and is now leading for pd. He holds a batch bachelor's degree in psychology from Lincoln Christian University and brings both pastoral and clinical insights to his work in group leadership and recovery. He and his wife Jackie have five children that keeps their lives full and they are in the process of relocating to the Nashville area. Here now is part 4 of 6 in our foundations of Freedom series with Stuart blade establishing sobriety. Mr. Stuart Blade, welcome back to the podcast. It is good to have you on again.

Yeah, thank you. It's good to be back, that's for sure.

Now, some of our listeners may recognize you from an episode we did on your church and the groups there. And since that time, you have joined the Pure Desire staff full time. And this is your first podcast as a staffer. So welcome and thanks for what you do in overseeing our men's online groups and all those leaders.

Yeah, thank you. It's exciting. I think I'm in my fifth month now of being on staff here at Pure Desire.

What the Pure Desire world doesn't know is that we got a first round draft pick. Totally stole it from the church realm. I mean, this was a steal of a deal. Stuart Blade is. He's pretty top notch if you ask me.

You're too kind. You're too kind.

Well, how many, just for giving people some a point of reference here, how many, like men's seven Pillars of Freedom groups do you think you've either been a part of or led or helped lead?

I think I have been in one and then leading currently my 14th pillars group, 14.

So he's probably walked through what we're going to talk about today 15 times or more. Gives him a voice of experience there. And let's jump into that because today we want to really understand one of the pillars of freedom, one of the Foundations of freedom for people walking in early recovery. And that's to really establish sobriety. That it's not just, you know, a binge purge thing, but we're really learning to make a lasting foundation of sobriety in our lives. So let's talk about what does that look like? What does it mean to truly establish sobriety in someone's life?

Yeah, that's such a good question. And I want to start just. It was helpful for my own story to know the difference or to understand the difference between sobriety and recovery. And so for myself, when I say sobriety, I'm talking about just abstaining from or avoiding a behavior. And then when I talk recovery, then I'm addressing more like I'm not white knuckling my recovery anymore. I am looking at new healthy desires, dealing with roots of addiction. And in my own story, like I have a defining line that was seven years of abstaining and sobriety. And then since 2019, then it is me moving into recovery. And our discovery day with my wife occurred September 14th of 2012. And for the next seven years, we didn't know about CSATs, we didn't know about pure desire. And it is in that seven years that I truly was experiencing just a behavior that kept me obsessed. Abstaining from behavior. And I was just doing like, what do I need to do to save my marriage? And then in 2019, I was introduced to pure desire by a pastor friend of mine. And he led me through for my first time. And like, that is such a pivotal point because it got me past that point of living in just not doing behavior and then moving towards something where I actually got to live a true life that led to recovery, led to healing, led to freedom, led to hope, led to like, let. It was just, it was a pivotal change of going through pillars for me.

I love that so much. I love the way you're describing the difference, that there is quite literally a difference. Like sobriety is not necessarily recovery, like abstaining behavior is not necessarily healing. And how you got invited into a healing journey. I think about even Rodney Wright, our coworker, and how he shares like he had sobriety, but he wasn't living into the fullness of his story and sharing it because he was still burdened with so much shame and he hadn't done maybe some of that more public facing work. And what I hear you saying is I had found, you know, freedom from a behavior, but I hadn't done the deep heart work of transformation and jumping into a group praise God for that.

Yeah.

I do want to underscore, though, the value that sobriety does now. It's not the end goal recovery and healing is, but I've often used this illustration that if you're a rancher, you know, in the mountains of Wyoming, and you've got a wild stallion that you've brought in and you're going to try to train for useful purposes, or one of the first things you're going to do is construct a really strong corral to keep that wild stallion in the pen. Because if it continues to break through the fence and run off into the wild, you're going to put all of your time and energy into going out again and finding it and getting it back and rebuilding the fence. And you won't be able to train the horse for usefulness because you're spending all your time chasing it down. And I think that's where many people get stuck in their recovery. What they truly want is the usefulness of lasting recovery.

But.

But every time they relapse and break their sobriety, it's like they have to spend all this extra time and energy, like corralling it back in, getting things back organized, coming up with new guardrails, and that's important and valuable, but it can become wasted energy if we don't figure out how to stay in sobriety long enough for that recovery work, the training to actually take place so that we become useful for the purposes that God's called us to. And I think sometimes that helps. Like, oh, I don't want to minimize sobriety. I really need it long enough and in a lasting way that I could actually do that deeper work and not just always play damage control.

Yeah, Nick, I never have ever broken a horse, but I was a paramedic.

Well, neither have I. For full disclosure, I am from Wyoming, but that I've never had to do that.

And I can think about, like, if we had a. As a paramedic, if we had a person who was bleeding out, the priority was stop the bleeding, and then we can deal with underlying issues. And so I think that's the same thing of what you're saying. It's like, what needs to be addressed? What do we just. What. What's the bleeding that we immediately have to stop before we can start looking at, like, what is actually going on.

So. Well said, Stuart. I love that background that you have, and I think that's just such a fitting analogy. I also know in pillar four, we talk about making intentional choices for text sobriety. What are some practical steps a person can take to limit the damage of past behaviors and prevent future setbacks.

Yeah. So when we're talking about limiting the damage, this is great work that we get to do in pillar four. And one of those is the matrix of addiction. And what I think the matrix of addiction is incredibly good at is it helps us understand the predictable and the repetitive patterns that our addiction has created. And what I like to look at when I'm leading guys through these things is this is like the super highway where we can get kind of like caught up in the addiction. And before we know, like, well, this is the response where it happened before I could even become aware of it. Or like, it just happened so quickly or all of a sudden I found myself doing this. And so we get so wrapped up in the addiction, it's almost like we're just going through the cycle because we've done this thousands of times before. And I like to encourage guys, like, what are the off ramps? And so I think of, like, tools, like the recovery action plan. Like, that's a great tool that we can say, like, what is a way not to even get caught into the recovery action plan? Nick, you've said this one before. Reach out before you act out. Like, that's another one of just having community and just having those people that you can be in contact with. And then I got permission to share a story from one of the guys who's in my group currently. And this is like a this week thing that he shared. He went camping, and around 2 o' clock in the morning, he couldn't sleep. And he was getting his iPad out. And as he was getting ready to get on the iPad, a car alarm started going off in the campsite. And it immediately, like, it's one of those moments where, like God says, when you face temptation, I'll give you a way out. It's like one of those moments.

Yeah.

But I think about, like, the tools that we get to do specifically of three circles. If only there were a metaphorical car alarm. As we're going from, like, healthy behaviors into the middle circle and then to the inner circle, like, these are where these tools need to come in to where they. They're. They're working. Documents were in them. And I'll. I'll continue with the car alarm. If they're a car alarm and not white noise, it's helpful for us as we're in this journey to start noticing, like, where am I at in this cycle? And if we could create things that are going off and as annoying as car Alarms. That'd be so helpful.

Yeah.

You know, one of the metaphors or illustrations I've used with my groups is I'll say to them, in a hypothetical situation, if I were going to pay you $1 million, if you could go and relapse and no one would find out, what would you do? And whatever your answer is, it's like, well, you need to go and remove that temptation. If they know, like, well, my spouse's iPad is totally unblocked and if they were asleep, I could grab that and that's how I'd act out. Like, okay, that's what's. If the chips are down and you're in a rough place and you're thinking about going back to your old behaviors, that's what you're going to go for. So let's eliminate that, whatever we need to do. And then I'll say, okay, if that's dealt with, what else would it be? And they're like, well, I actually know that this program on my phone doesn't work properly and I can get around, okay, what do we need to do? And I'll work with guys in this season where you're trying to establish sobriety and this doesn't need to be the rest of your life, but right now, what will it take? And I've had guys give up smartphones, laptops, get rid of the television in their home, not have Internet in the home. And I know in today's day and age, like, is that even possible? But it's amazing you've gotten so creative in your addiction to figure out ways to access pornography. Get equally creative to figure out how to block it and avoid it. And again, blocking and avoiding is not a long term strategy. But if it creates the fence high enough that you can stay sober, then you can do that deeper work. And I'd say initially in recovery, it's worth it. And so until your answer to that million dollar hypothetical question is, I don't even know where I'd go because everything is so locked down, taken away. Okay, well now we're in a really good place. That's how you should feel. Like, I'm not even sure where I'd go. Okay, don't, no, no, don't try to get too creative. Like, don't try to think where else. But like, when your brain really can't think of it anymore, that's what you need. Because as long as your brain goes, well, this old laptop, I could pull it out. Like, that's going to trip you up unless you go deal with it. And that I think is some of the really practical stuff that at the beginning or early in recovery we have to do so we can establish that sobriety and then do the deeper work.

I just have two thoughts here. I'm like, if that was actually a car, a car alarm, our world would be so loud. Could you imagine all the car alarms that are just going off in everybody's life? You're walking around the office and like some. Somebody's car alarm is going. I was like, oh no, I don't know what to do.

And then somebody's moving in their circles.

Exactly. The circles are moving. I just am thinking about the Xbox, the iPad, and the MacBook I have in my room that are not mine right now. I literally feel like I'm like amassing all this digital technology and at some.

Point people are giving it to you as part of their plan. That's awesome.

They're giving these guys in my group, I'm like, I think I could make like a part time job or living just selling resell, secondhand electronics. All these electronics that weren't helpful for these guys. It's become kind of a joke. I'm like, what is this Xbox? Oh yeah, that guy gave it to me months ago. So just to say it can be really practical. Nick, back to your analogy of the Stallion of like, what walls do you need to build to keep yourself in a place where you can experience healing? That's the end goal, right? But to your point, it's like, well, let's keep, let's build these walls high enough to keep us, ourselves in a place where we can experience that healing over time. And I do think that's really critical. And I just want to say this. Who convinced us as a society that we need five plus social media platforms? Can we just make a real quick cultural commentary? And you don't need five social media platforms. And so many guys in group are continuously tripping into that inner circle of relapse via social media. And it's just like, who convinced us that we need these? I'm not saying they're inherently bad or evil. I just don't think they're helpful. For many men or women who are.

Navigating addiction, if it's jeopardizing your sobriety, it's not worth it right now. And I've said it a lot of our events. You will never regret a wall so high you couldn't step over it. But you will always regret the one that was so low that it was easy to step over when Convenience or desire suited you. And so building that wall high is a big part of that long term sobriety. So, Stuart, when we talk about limiting damage, we know that that's not just about us and our behavior, but it's what happens in relationships, particularly in the marriage. So how do we rebuild trust with others and ourselves after brokenness and maybe being in a pattern of acting out.

Such an uphill battle? I remember there was this gentleman who attended the church, and this is when Jackie and I were newly married and this guy was over helping me with a plumbing problem. And I said, hey, you've been married 50 years. Like, what would you. What would you tell me is the advice? And he said, in marriage, there's so many times where you're just going to find yourself in conflict and you just need to pick the hills that you want to die on. And for me, it was just the discovery that this was the hill worth dying on. Like, gaining back my wife's trust was totally worthy of every advance I had to make. And. And it had to be through hard comments too, because one that was common was like, I don't trust your words, but I'll trust your actions. And so I had to just not only be a man who said the right thing, but I had to be a man who did the right thing and followed through with what I said. And recently you guys had the podcast on the intimacy pyramid, or the. Yeah, the intimacy pyramid. And it starts with honesty, and then we get trust and safety. And I think, like, those foundational things is how we work to build that back up. It's. I think it's incredible. I've said this before, and I'll say it many times. My kids recognize, like, if I do a white lie where I'll, like, make a joke about something, they'll be like, oh, you're gonna have to confess that to your group on Wednesday night because that was a lie.

I love it that your kids are calling you out.

Oh, they do. And I mean, it'll be like, you're gonna have to. You're gonna have to say that. And children have noticed, like a man of honesty. And that is just so different than the man I was before of protecting the secret at all costs. And lies were just part of my everyday life. I love the exercise. I think it's pillar two, where we go through the masks and look at, like, what masks do we wear? And then for me personally, that was a lot of internal work where eventually my wife came to the point where it was like, hey, God's forgiven you. I've forgiven you. When are going to start forgiving you? And, like, things like the commitment to change were, like, powerful things to see that I could, like, actually follow through with what I was saying I was going to do. And. And that was just. Those were some difficult moments because then it was just rebuilding trust with myself. Like, I had already become something that I never thought I would be. A. A man who would have an affair and cheat on my wife. And yet here I was in this place, and I had to come to terms with that. And following through with commitments like that, like little weekly commitments, were just really helpful in helping me find trust in my own story.

Stuart, you said this, and I think it's just important to say again, gaining my wife's trust back was the hill I was worth dying on. That's really profound. What a commitment.

Well, I was going to share. That was a pivotal point, I think, in my own recovery, because we were probably, for my wife And I, maybe nine, 10 months into recovery and had been doing really well, you know, sobriety the whole time. We were both in group, we were both in counseling. Like, we had been all in immersed. And you do it if you're doing that work and you've really got all the tools. Like, I just felt like I was a long ways away from a relapse. Like, I was in a healthier place. And I remember we were watching a movie, just, you know, it was like a PG 13. And a scene came on that I would describe it as not particularly overtly sexual, but it was definitely sexualized in nature. And my wife looked over and saw me watching and not turned away. And it really hurt her. She was kind of upset and angry, and I was. I felt really defensive because I knew in my heart I wasn't triggered. And I'm like, I wasn't feeling anything. Why would I turn away? And the commentary or the conversation we had, I realized that I had made my recovery, that I was the source of it. Like, well, if I was concerned about being triggered, then I would choose a boundary. But in that moment, I realized I needed to choose boundaries that were honoring and respectful of my wife's needs for safety. And just what you said, Stuart. Her needs to see my actions and not my words. So it didn't matter to her if I said, oh, I wasn't triggered. I, you know, I could say whatever I wanted because I would try to use words to fix things and make her feel better. All she saw was there was an image that, to her, felt unsafe and and she saw her husband watching it. And in light of our history, like, that was really hard for her. And so in that moment, now we're kind of, in a sense, backtracking, because now I'm doing damage control and no, I'm not struggling. But she had all those fears and concerns because I wasn't mindful of what she needed for safety. And it's not her job to tell me what she needs. She'd already done that. She'd already told me of her needs. It's really my job to protect her safety, to ask her those questions of like, do you feel safe and comfortable with us watching this film together? Is this something that you feel like you can trust me in that environment? And if she says no, not yet. And this was probably some of the hardest things, it's like, but I trusted myself. And she would say, yeah, but I don't trust you yet. It's like, oh, that's kind of the point. The problem has been that I trusted myself far too soon and would get into trouble. And I needed to really choose behaviors that made her feel safe and that were ultimately, as I look back, what I needed for long term sobriety. So that. That was a huge shift for us when I saw that limiting damage wasn't just about my needs, but really about her needs and helping us grow as a couple.

Yeah.

So good. Well said, Nick. Say, sue, for someone who's newly starting their journey towards sobriety, why is it so important to understand the matrix of addiction, or also known as the pattern of relapse? And how do we go about doing this? And maybe, Stuart, if it'd be helpful, what is the matrix of addiction? Like, what is that progression?

Yeah. Okay, So I would say start with curiosity. And when it comes to this tool, you're looking at, like, what is an action? Like, let's say me being home alone is the start and the very top. And then what does that action produce as an excuse? Like, what is it? Then? What's the lie I tell myself? And then it could be like, well, I'm bored. I'm by myself. Let me just turn on the tv because I have nothing else to do right now. Or let me scroll on my phone. And so then you scroll on your phone. You're like, I'm not doing anything bad. I'm just on my phone. Maybe I'm looking at one of those five social media accounts I have. And then you can find yourself, like, naturally going through until you get to the point that you're at a relapse. And you're asking, I don't even know how I got to the point that I relapsed. All I was like, last thing I remember, I was just sitting on the couch and I was home alone. And it's, it's looking at that tool and going back and saying, like, where are the points along this thing? That I can see a shift in my attitude and a shift in my behavior. And I think what's really interesting about this, we had a. My youngest is now 5, but with all the little kids, one of their favorite toys was this little, this little mechanism that had little gears on it. And when you turned one, it turned like seven or eight of these gears that were all on the thing. And I think of that in like the matrix of addiction. Like we don't have just one matrix of addiction. Like there's multiple areas where like in different scenarios we can find ourselves in like different things. And so like one might lead to another, that might lead to another. And if we come in with curiosity, we might find and discover in this tool that there's patterns that we've developed that we continue to repeat. And until we start to unearth these things and discover them, we're just bound to repeat them. And I think that's like one of those powerful tools. I've got one of the joys and I do have to. In going back into the numbers, I'm only in pillar three right now. So I have to like, I'm going to correct and say it's four. This is the honesty part and the not lying part. Since we haven't gotten the Pillar 4 yet, I'm going to have to say I'm only in my 13th round of leading up to this point since we're not there yet. But there's so many other areas of the matrix of addiction that we can look at to say, like, what is it? So like, even for my own story, like some of them I'm looking at, they're not even sexual in behavior. It's like when I, when I lose my lid as a parent, like, what's that driving behavior that is starting at the top where like I become dysregulated as a parent. And those are like so helpful for me to now process through the matrix of addiction and just look at different areas of my life of where do I act like a jerk and I don't want to act like a jerk anymore.

And I would say, Stuart, as I've experienced group, you know, maybe in the 20 something number of times and heard from so many others, I would say our matrix of addiction. I believe this is true for men and women, although I've not led women's groups for. For obvious reasons. But for men and women, the matrix of addiction rarely if ever starts as something sexual. It becomes something sexual. Maybe it steps three, four, or five. And that's why we've been so blind to it, because the triggers are often non sexual in nature. And by the time we are triggered sexually, we're already kind of getting into this pattern that we've been in for many, many years. And, and I know it can be difficult early in group to identify it. Like, like you just both did it so easily of like, well, this led to this, to this. It's like, well, if I knew that, I probably wouldn't be here. So you can kind of treat this like a crash site investigation of you. You probably know it's obvious that you relapsed. Okay, I looked at porn, I binged, I masturbated. That's obvious. Okay, then to ask yourself the question, well, what happened right before that? And someone might say, well, I went into the bathroom by myself with my phone. Okay, well what happened before that? Well, I was looking for some space because my spouse and I were in an argument. Okay, what happened before that? Like, what produced the argument? Well, I. I'd felt disrespected about a comment they made and I kind of lost my temper a little bit. Okay, what happened before that? Well, I'm actually kind of sleep deprived because I haven't been getting to bed early enough. I've been working too many hours and I'm just kind of emotionally exhausted. Like, what happened before that? Yeah, and we. You can just keep going until you're like, well, I don't know, I think that was kind of the starting point. Like, oh, well, there you go. Your starting point might be I get physically or emotionally exhausted from work. Now I start to get edgy or critical of my spouse, which leads to an argument, which causes me to isolate. And then as I isolate, I end up relapsing. You've just discovered your pattern because you walked it backwards. And what you're learning to do then is go. What I need to pay attention to is not just going into the bathroom with my smartphone, which by the way, is almost a universal guardrail. Like, no phones in private rooms because it's just too easy to click on a button. But that alone is not as important as all the way back to when I'm emotionally exhausted or physically exhausted from work. I've got to have some ideas in place to not go to the same pattern over and over.

Can we take it a step deeper and simply say, oh, that person could even be overworking because they believe they're not enough. And so they have to prove their by performance, prove their identity back to a core wound, back to a core life.

Which may be, but also what I would want to point out, I think many of our matrixes of addiction start in places that are not bad, wrong or sinful. You know, like yours, Stuart, you were bored. And in this world at some point or another, we're all going to experience boredom. Like, you can't live this life and not at some point, say, I'm feeling a little boredom. Well, if that's your trigger point, or maybe you do have a hard taxing job where like I had a 14 hour day. Not because I chose it, because that's what was required of today. Well, as part of life, then you've got to be aware that could be what kicks off my cycle. And that's going to happen again. So what will I do differently next time?

Yeah, it makes me think of the nurse who works 312 hour, 412 hours.

And then they're home and everyone's gone because it's their time to sleep. And now suddenly they're on no fault of their own. They're into their pattern.

That's the ritual that leads to edging, that leads to acting out. So true. So true.

Yeah, Nick. The other thing I would point out is the faster scale. Also it takes a long while. I think it's down to ticked off or exhausted before sexual behavior even shows up on the faster scale. And so for the matrix of addiction to not notice that until later on, I think that's just, that's we see that across the board and other tools.

Yeah. I remember when I started counseling with Dr. Ted and I've shared this on other podcasts. I remember most sessions he just kept bringing up my patterns of procrastination. And at one point I got frustrated, like, I'm here to deal with pornography. Would you get off my back about the procrastination? And he said, nick, it's the procrastination that is always what leads you into avoidance and isolation and you end up using pornography. And it was this moment. I mean, he was like basically saying my matrix in that moment. Like, how have I never seen that? How have I never understood that procrastination is the breeding ground for me? So look into those places that you probably know are true of yourself. But you haven't connected the dots that it's what leads you into a relapse. So taking this a step deeper, Stuart, let's talk about the arousal template. What is that and how does an understanding of our arousal template help us build a successful relapse prevention strategy?

Yeah, can I. I'll start by saying I am thankful this does not come up until pillar five. And it allows us four full pillars to gain a lot of trust within our group before we're entering into digging in and understanding our arousal template. So I am in the season of looking for a house, and Zillow and I are best friends at this point. I love the houses that have really great pictures, but I love more the houses that give me a floor plan or, like, the blueprint of the house. And so. Because then you can really, like, see, like, okay, well, where is the. Where's the laundry room in comparison to, like, where we would come in from the garage door? Or, like, how big are the bedrooms and, like, where are they associated? Like, it just gives you a better picture of that. And I think, like, in. Since that's where my mind's at of looking for a house, like, that's what. That's the arousal template for me in this season of what I think of. And I think, like, the arousal template just gives you that floor plan where you really have an understanding. And. Oh, one of my favorite books is a book called Bose Cafe. And the guy tells a story of, like, stumbling around in the dark and he's, like, kicking stuff. And, like, when we can understand the blueprint and the floor plan, it allows us to stop fumbling around and kicking things. And for me, the arousal template was understanding my. Like, it was. It's so much more than sexual. It was understanding, like, my emotional needs. It was situational awareness and coming to understand my triggers. It was, what messages is my body sending, sending me. And I love the exercises where we go through the sensations, like, not only do we have sight, but we have taste, we have smell, we have touch. And so I think it was Deb. Dana, in her somatic therapy, talks about, like, 80% of the messages the brain receives are from the body. And, like, the arousal template was allowing me to understand, like, where am I getting 80% of my messages from? And that, for me, was just incredible helpful, incredibly helpful for my healing journey.

I was really concerned there for a second that Stuart was equating his house search to, like, being sexual or fantasy. I was like, I don't know how this thing I'm into Bigger bedrooms, if I'm being honest.

You know, chalk Zillow up to one of those, one of those apps we got to delete now.

Oh my gosh. No, I, I see and hear the teaching point, Stuart, and it's, it's really well done. I also love that you didn't just jump into body parts or hair color physicality, but you're really expressing and highlighting that arousal is so much more than just physical attraction or physical appearance. Yeah, that's a part of it, but it is sight, smell, sound, location, time, needs, wants, longings. There's so much that goes into that to shape our arousal template. And so much of that unfortunately can be so hidden, we're just not aware of it. It's like we wait, why am I so triggered right now when I'm at the pool? Like I'm here with my kids, but all of a sudden now we're taking back to our 12 year old self. And the pool was a place where fantasy was always so active in the mind of a kid who's hitting puberty as he's noticing and recognizing women. And now you're in your 30s or your 40s and you're taking your kids to the pool and you're finding yourself so triggered. It's like, well, what's going on here right now? Now we're talking about locations and different places in which our arousal template might be more active, but we might not be aware of it. And so anyway, Sura, I think you did such a good job at describing this is so much more than just physical appearance.

Yeah, it's a tool that really, it's kind of counterintuitive because I think when a lot of us go into it, at first we're like, okay, how does this all fit together? But it's really meant to help us connect the dots between those early relational childhood experiences, the core themes or beliefs that we developed because of them, and how those later in life have now become attached to, to the feelings and emotions that we're using sexual acting out to medicate, numb or avoid. And it gives us this cool opportunity to kind of be a sleuth or a private investigator of our own life. Because one of the things as we do it in group, and if you've never looked at this tool, it's in the seven pillars of freedom. I believe it's in our free tools page or if you know, I'd be careful in googling arousal template, but it's not a unique tool to pure desire is what I'm saying. There are other PDFs of it out there. What you do is in one column, you list all of your current, you know, problematic behaviors. Then a second column, you list all of your early painful childhood experiences and memories. Third column is what were your beliefs or memories about what you felt at that time? And then fourth column is, what are your current problematic beliefs and thoughts and feelings? And you kind of do each column separately. Or I always tell guys in my group, you know, work down vertically one at a time, don't try to make the connections. And then kind of set it out there and look at it and go, okay, if. If someone came to you and showed you this story of their life, what would you expect they struggle with? And you kind of read through all of it, you could go, I bet this person really has issues with, you know, feeling disrespect for male authority figures. Or I bet this person really struggles with rejection because of this and that. And you're starting to connect. Literally, you can connect the dots. Sometimes I'll draw on it like I'm circling this one, drawing a line to that one. And it can be so eye opening to go, oh, that's why when I feel disrespect for my spouse right now, my go to is acting out. Because this has actually been a learned behavior for a long, long time. And something else we talk about a lot at Pure Desire is that neurons that fire together wire together. And so it may be that if those early childhood experiences or teenage experiences did get connected to anything sexual, whether it was something done to you or something done by you, you may still be reenacting that feeling as an adult, even though you didn't want it at the time it happened to you. So it just gives you this picture of like, oh, my brain is reacting to these signals that tell it to be aroused. Again, that's not a moral decision you're making. That's just how your brain responds. And then I'm already two steps down my matrix of addiction before I've even really paid attention to what's happening. So it's a self awareness tool that honestly can be a game changer. You know, Dr. Ted Roberts told me he believes it's the single most effective tool to presenting, preventing relapse that we have in our arsenal. Wow. And so if you've not really thoroughly ever gone through that, I'd highly recommend it. And if you need some help, this would be a great reason to seek out a counselor, a coach, someone that could help you understand your arousal template.

And Stuart and Nick Just to say, because, Nick, you highlighted it so well. Just briefly there, and I want to put voice to it. So many men and women going through peer desire groups have a significant story of sexual abuse that was not their choice, something done to them. And so if you're listening today and you're in the audience going, that's my story. And I don't quite understand how this connects to this. We just know that those moments are so shaping. Dan Allender would say that the enemy must love sexual abuse because what takes seconds to occur can take a lifetime to unpack. And so you might never hear it from the person who betrayed your trust or who abused you. But just to say, on behalf of us three, we're so sorry, and you're worth healing and you are worth making sense of how that has shaped your arousal template, how that shaped your story. And like Nick said, working with a counselor, someone who's safe and trusted to go backwards, to go forwards, could be such a critical part of your journey. It always blows my mind how many men in group, again, that's my context. Or women have experienced sexual abuse. We work with so many abuse victims.

Yeah, well said. I think Adrian Hickman asked the question, like, what makes this make sense? And it's a great question.

Yeah.

And it's worth pointing out, as Jay Stringer says, that those abuse experiences might cause us to either replicate or try to reject the experience. So if we encountered abuse that made us feel powerless, we might find that our sexual acting out is all about feeling in control and powerful and making someone else feel powerless. Or we might continue that pattern of looking for acting out sexually in ways that we feel like the victim still. So sometimes people haven't seen the connection because they've maybe responded in the opposite way to what they experienced. But it's still a byproduct of that abuse that they're trying to overcome this deep pain they experience by getting the opposite. And actually it's just reinforcing that pain message.

Yeah. So well said, Nick. I say, Stuart, I know the Three Circles is another really heavy hitting power tool within the arsenal of pure desire. And it's not just a pure desire tool. This is a tool that many recovery groups use. But what is the Three Circles tool? And how can somebody, if they're hearing this for the first time, begin developing theirs today?

Yeah. So this would be. Yet Nick had mentioned the tools on the resource page. Pure desire. You can find this as one of those tools. I'm going to be honest with you. I. I had a lot of confusion when it came to this tool when I was first introduced to it. And it was confusing to me because if I, like, I'm not an avid marksman or anything like that, but what was confusing is like, okay, so I'm not aiming for the bullseye, I'm aiming for the outer circles in this one. And I had it introduced to me by Harry Flanagan to say, hey, like, stop thinking of it in circles and think of it in rows. And so I took that and then said, okay, I'm going to modify this a little bit. So how I think of the three circles and I think of the outer circle as the highway, like, that is the road I want to stay on. And then the middle of the circles I consider the rumble strips. And it's kind of like that car alarm. And I'll tell you a quick story. With five kids, we love driving through the night when we go down to Florida and having our kids sleep for 10 hours of a 17 hour drive is helpful. But it was like 2 o' clock in the morning, we were somewhere in like the middle Tennessee area. And the far left lane closed for construction. Then the middle lane closed, and then eventually the right lane was like halfway closed. And they forced me to like straddle the rumble strips and do the curve. And my wife is sleeping in the passenger seat beside me. And so like this double bind moment comes where it's like, okay, do I just jump, jerk the wheel really quick and like, try to avoid the rumble strips, or do I go slowly, hit the rumble strips and like, try to wake her up? I didn't. I was like on those rumble strips for like half a nanosecond before my wife shoots up from the passenger seat, looks over at me.

Are you okay?

Okay.

Are you sleeping?

Oh, absolutely, yeah.

Been there.

Yeah.

I knew I should have woken you up. Like, this is for me, like, what the middle circle should serve as. It should serve as like my wife should shooting up from the passenger seat, looking over at me and screaming, are you okay? And like, that is what we're really addressing. And then like, for those, for the innermost circle, like the relapse behavior of what we're defining, that's the ditch. And I think where we, we do a really good job of identifying the relapses and we do a really good job of identifying the healthy. But where I see the most hiccups is that we have trouble identifying the ditch behavior. And for example, somebody in like, I've had group members say, like, I'm gonna not be on my phone after 9pm and I'm like, no, that's a healthy. Like, that's a healthy behavior. Like, move that over into a healthy column. Change what's in the guardrail section or the rumble strips to say if you're on your phone past 9pm like, if you're not making good decisions past that time, the rumble strip should be that you're on your phone past 9:00pm and so, like, make that decision. Distinction of, like, where is the area where we're finding ourselves? Kind of like off the highway, drifting towards the ditch.

Yeah, that's so good. And I know there are groups that have flipped it around because they like the goal to be healthy behaviors. I've always thought of it like the center circle, the relapse. Defining relapse is when I'm collapsing in on myself into isolation and secrecy, whereas the outer circles, like, when I'm moving out towards God and others. So that's helped me and how I think about it. But yeah, that the. The picture itself is not the key. It's the three categories that I have a firm understanding in my life that I've clearly defined what's a relapse. So there's no gray area. It's like, this is a relapse. This is what I'm committing to no longer do under any circumstances. And then that second category is like, these are the guardrails. These are the behaviors I'm choosing to avoid because when I choose them, I'm moving towards that old relapse pattern. And then the third category of whether the healthy alternatives, the things I do instead that keep me healthy, connected, energized, what does that look like? And it's creating this picture of health that then I don't have to wait until I'm in relapse to check in with someone. Because that's unfortunately what many of us learned in traditional accountability. Right. What were we being held accountable to? Like, I want to be accountable to not look at pornography.

I stumbled, I fell, I tripped.

So basically, accountability was about relapse, which is waiting way too long. And it's moving accountability into the outer circle of like, hey, I just want you to ask me if I've spent time with my wife in significant connection this week, because that's a healthy behavior for me. I want. And I need to flip around because we don't tell people to ask me. We say, I'm going to report to you if I'm engaging in exercise because that's a healthy habit for me. And now I'm Checking in on things that keep me healthy, rather than waiting till I'm falling off a cliff and think, now I need accountability. Because as so many of us discovered, waiting like that never works so good.

Nick, I. I'm currently in a relationship and I feel like I'm having to learn this all over again. I was just recently talking with my Pure desire counselor and he said, john, recovery is really easy when you're single. And I'm like, wait, what? Like, that's not the current narrative, right? For most single guys, they're like, recovery would be so easy if I was married and having sex and da, da, da, da. And he's like, no, no, no. Recovery is really easy when you're single because it only impacts you. He goes, most often when guys get into a relationship, they have to go through recovery again. And even in this episode, I'm like, oh my gosh. Like, my mind is just so alive to the thought of a new set of three circles or a new matrix of addiction. Because the game has changed. It's no longer ignoring, right? Just masturbation or porn user obviously destructive. Now the game is stewarding desire. Well, which of course from a marriage context is probably pretty similar. But I was even just thinking back when it came to my three circles having consequences to certain behaviors in that crash. And I know that's more. The recovery action plan was really helpful for me when I first got into a group. I think a lot of the lies that singles believe are, well, there isn't enough consequence or pain for me to really change. I just don't think that's true for me. I got to associate certain levels of acting out behavior with some really, like, in significant consequences for me. If I watched porn or masturbated, I was going to contact my mentor and ask to spend a night on his floor. Like, Like, I don't want to have to sleep on my mentor's floor. And in my recovery process in that first 10 months, there was a moment where I was on a page that had pornographic content. Though I didn't watch a video, I didn't watch it, I simply saw it. So I slept on the floor for three nights, called my mentor, didn't have to sleep on his floor. And because somewhere in my brain I'm like, I don't want to sleep on my mentor's floor. And so ended up sleeping on my floor for three nights even if I hadn't watched the video. So even just associating some consequences with this, like, I knew that if I had sex because I Was working in a ministry context, though sex has not been a part of my story, that if I had sex, I would resign from my job. I put a level of consequence here that was significant. It wasn't the loss of a marriage or divorce or separation, but it was this idea of calling and identity and something that God had invited me into. Just seeing the gravity to our choices.

Yeah. Gravity of consequences can keep us on the road we need to be on.

Absolutely.

Well, Stuart, we started to talk a little bit about accountability, but let's jump into that a little more. How could we use tools like the arousal template and the three circles as a foundation for better accountability probably than most of us have been accustomed to so far.

Yeah. So I love the word vulnerability, because I think our accountability can only take us as far as what we're willing to be vulnerable to. And so we kind of. Like, Joe, when we said accountability before, like, it has its limitations. Like, it has its limitations of what we're willing to share and disclose. And so these tools, as we're talking about three circles and as we're talking about arousal template, that is incredibly vulnerable to share these things. And that's where, like, having your trusted group members, having the group leader, it is so incredibly helpful to have that established trust where we know we're coming to group. We know we're seen, we know we are heard. We're. No, we're like, those wounds and that trauma that we're coming in with, like, as Kurt Thompson says, it's, like, seen, safe, soothed. Like, once those are there, like, then we have the security to do all those things. And I think once we have the security, then we can move into that level of vulnerability. But, like, these are the parts where we get to, like, name the emotional drivers. And, Nick, I love how you asked the question, like, okay, what happened before that? Okay, what happened before that? Because this was, like, the part where, for my own story, it was understanding, like, rejection, stress, and temptation. When those three things came together like that, for me, was a pivotal point of my understanding. When I went through the arousal template of understanding when those three things had occurred in my marriage or in my life, I was at one of my weakest points. And that led to my last relapse, which was almost six years ago. And then I had an experience, and whether it was the enemy, you know, we can get into, like, whether that's the enemy tempting us, or there are moments where, like, God does put us in moments where we can find ourselves, where we are either in a test, a Trial or a temptation. And a year later, from that exact moment, what was their rejection, Stress and feeling triggered. And yet it was a different response because I had done the work in seven pillars and then had a different outcome.

Stuart, you said accountability can only take us as far as our vulnerability. Wow. Well said. And I think that's been my, like, biggest gripe. If I have a gripe, I don't even know. You don't usually use that word. But if I have a gripe against accountability, most often it's that we're not really saying anything, right? You show up to that group, and it's like, I. I tripped, I fell, I stumbled. What does that even mean? We got all these dudes and gals in the church who are falling over, apparently. It's like you're attempting to say something, and I want to honor that. Like, you're showing up, you're trying to put in the work. But to your point, Stuart, it takes a certain level of vulnerability to really dig down and understand the patterns, understand what's happening emotionally, to begin finding traction again. The only relapse we don't or the only relapse we lose from is the one that we don't learn from. And I think for so often, we just haven't been given the language to learn from what's happening because there's this fear of, like, well, I can't think about it. I just. I need to move forward, right? Forgetting what's behind me and moving forward. It's like, no, no, no. Confession. Literally, in the Greek. The Greek word is homologeo. Same word. Homo, meaning same. Logos, meaning word. And so to confess is simply to speak the truth. And the truth will what, set you free. I tripped, I fell, I stumbled. That's an honorable attempt. But you're not telling me what actually happened. Tell the truth, right? What happened? What happened before that? What happened before that? It's like, we've got to do this work. But unfortunately, so many of us have never been given tools or competent resources, like a faster scale or like the three circles or like the matrix of addiction to begin making sense. And I'm not trying to come forward with judgment. I'm trying to just simply say, man, I lived in that, and it didn't work for me. And it wasn't until I was given the language of compassion that says, why does that make sense? That I began to find traction as I began digging underneath the surface to find so much help above the surface.

I think a key to accountability is the difference between, am I Trying to avoid relapse or establish healthy behaviors. And to me, it's the illustration of like in my lawn and I hate weeds in my yard and I'm always trying to get rid of them. But if my whole focus is like spraying weeds, pulling weeds, getting out the roundup, but I ignore my grass and my grass is trash and I don't water and it's got bare spots, you know what? I'm going to keep getting weeds eternally because weeds thrive in an unhealthy yard or in just a bear patch. Right. Like, if you just see a bear patch, is it filled with grass or weeds? Always it's filled with weeds. Weeds find the way to grow and grass takes cultivating. Well, healthy habits take cultivating. But the greatest prevention we can have of relapse is healthy habits in our life that leave no room for the weeds of relapse. And so accountability in the three circles, tool and in the arousal template is really being accountable around my healthy habits so I can stay healthy, stay in a good place. And then there's just, there's not a need for relapse because I've got all the right stuff happening. And yes, we do want to guard against relapse. Yes, we need guardrails, so we don't go there. But the main point I think of accountability needs to shift to keeping our life healthy so that relapse just isn't on our radar.

I love that. Grow grass and pull weeds and if you grow more grass, you're not going to have to pull many weeds. Yeah, I love that. It's a great analogy. Stuart, what role does self compassion play in the process of establishing sobriety? And how can people balance being honest with themselves while still offering grace in their recovery?

One of those tools or just one of these processes within group. This was the hardest for me of just being compassionate with myself. It took that wake up call. I think I said this earlier of my wife asking, like, okay, God's forgiven you, I've forgiven you. When are you going to forgive you? And this was later on in Pillars. I know we're kind of like dancing around 4 and 5 right now. But it was more towards the end of Pillars when I got to address, like, what do all the lies that I've believed because of all the things that have happened to me, and when we got to replace those with like the prophetic promise exercise, like, that truly is where things started to shift in my mind and I could truly be compassionate because that was the first time and sadly in a lot of my story where I truly realized God's compassion towards me. And John, you had said this earlier. When it comes to confession, like, I love Romans 2, it's God's kindness that leads us to repentance. And I think, like, my upbringing of God was not that God was a kind God. And I had to remove some of those misconceptions of who God was because I was carrying some lies about my father that I really had, not even my heavenly Father that I carried into my adulthood of who I believed him to be. And once I was able to know and truly experience God and his. His love for me and the fact that I got to rebuke the lie that I was a mistake or I was a pervert or he made me wrong.

Wow.

That I truly got to experience compassion for the first time. And that helped me to be compassionate with myself.

Yeah.

That's so beautiful. I. I think of how in my story, I really believe I had misunderstood grace as really a form of perspective permissiveness. Because I would use the line like, I'm not perfect. Nobody's perfect. I can't be perfect. You know, are we expecting me to be perfect? That's unrealistic. And yet that was misplaced grace because my wife. And even for myself, I was asking that in certain areas, I could commit to avoiding these behaviors. But where I needed grace was actually more in acknowledging these points of powerlessness that I could not help but go back into old patterns if I got to certain places. And that's where I was beating myself up of, why am I so weak that I need that? Why do I keep falling into this? I must just be so messed up, and I'm so tired of this. And I would really beat myself up over those needs. But that's where I needed grace. Go. You know what? This does not change my value, worth or identity. This isn't because I'm a bad person. It's because I've gotten into some bad habits and my brain has been trained in some unhealthy ways. And actually, it's very manly that I'm choosing some really high structure so that I can honor my commitment to God, my wife, and others. It's actually very wise that I'm avoiding behaviors that, yeah, maybe everybody else I see and know goes and does these things, but I practice something says, I don't do that. That's actually wisdom, not foolishness. And those are some areas where it took me some time to unearth the lack of grace I had there because I was, frankly, ashamed and Embarrassed how many boundaries I needed. And that might be my word of encouragement to someone that's going through this realizing, like, man, I just feel like my list of guardrails has to be never ending right now, because I'll just act out like, that's where you need grace for yourself. Because if that's where you're at, that's your reality, but it does not change your value, worth, or identity. And if you're choosing to follow those guardrails, that's a sign of your wisdom and your maturity that you're willing to do that. And so give yourself some. A pat on the back. You know, I'm doing some hard work to unlearn some really destructive patterns.

Yeah, I've forgiven you. God has forgiven you. When are you going to forgive you? I think the whole podcast would be worth it for that line right there. Like, I need to hear that. That. That, I think, is the core question. It's like, if First John 1:9 is true, when we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us. James 5:16 is true. When we confess to others, we get to lean in and experience healing. Right. That's what she's saying. She's like, hey, God's forgiven you. I feel like we've done enough work to the point where I've forgiven you. The question is, are you going to take yourself off of the cross that somehow we've now hung ourself on? And man like Stuart, what a. What a question. We could have a whole nother podcast of that journey for you. Like, what did forgiveness look like for the broken, weak parts of you? Right. At least that's how we might see them or categorize them. But, you know, God sees as lovable, as made in. In his image, as worthy of dignity, honor, and respect. And going back to those pieces of you that you thought were, to your point, sexually broken or perverted and finding the beauty and the truth of that's not how God sees you. It makes me think of your summit session last year, Nick, of, you know, how we see ourselves and how God sees us. And for unfortunately, so many of us have this inaccurate view of how God sees us and then subsequently how we see ourselves.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We can get such. So trapped in that voice of self condemnation. We actually think that's how God speaks to us. And that's a big learning curve to say that's not actually how God speaks to me. He may be working really diligently in my life to eradicate sin, but his opinion of me is so much higher, you know, than we can really imagine. So, Stuart, this has been so good. As we wrap up today, what would you say to someone who, you know, they're. They're listening to this point, but there's a part of them that's just like, it's too much. This is too difficult. I've tried too many times. I keep relapsing. I don't know that I can actually be sober. What encouragement would you offer to them to help them take their next step?

Yeah, it's. I've been in your shoes. I have had those exact same thoughts. In fact, I think about, like, before sobriety, before recovery. The best case scenario my addict brain could come up with that. I would grow old, no one would discover my addiction, and eventually I would die. And the best case scenario that I could come up with is that I would die and no one would know. I didn't even believe freedom was possible. I didn't believe that I could find healing. I didn't find. I believe I could have restoration. And so my encouragement for you is like, if you feel hopeless, like, I've been there too. And I hope, like, the stories that you hear on the podcast, like, my story, John's story, Nick's your story, everyone who's been on, like, if we do nothing else other than give you hope, like, that is what I long to do is because I've been that hopeless person before.

Just makes me think, Nick, the. The invitation from Jesus, right? In this world, you will have trouble. Yes. And take heart, for I have overcome the world. There is hope. Like, with Christ, there is hope. And it's not just a spiritual bypass. It's not just a spiritual trope. Like, no, no, no. Like, Stuart, you, myself, like, we have all encountered the person of hope in the midst of our hopelessness. Like, to your point, Stuart, I would echo the same words. I thought freedom was impossible. I was angry when Ben Bennett told me that he had been living in freedom for seven years. I'm like, dude, you're a joke. You're lying. I don't believe you. Like, I can't believe you would tell me that. Because you don't know what it's like to be in my body. You know what it's like to have my eyes and my thoughts and my hormones and these behaviors. Like, I can't stop. I was so angry, right? Because I felt so incapable. And it wasn't until I think God really allowed me to feel unraveled by a counselor, by my group members, where they could hold my anger, all this frustration, and slowly, piece by piece, pull me apart and help put me back together to make sense of that story. And all of the anger got dismantled, that all of a sudden I began experiencing a level of sobriety I didn't think possible. They're like 90 days. I was like, not possible. They're like, you can't date until six months. I'm like, then I'm never going to get married. Like, oh, no. Lord, help. And just to say, five years later, like, it's been five years without pornography. It's been two and a half years without masturbation. Plus, like, I didn't think that was possible.

Yeah.

I just want somebody, whoever's listening today, I don't know where you are, but if you think it's impossible, you're looking at. And you're listening to three guys who have been exactly where you are. And we are on the other side. And it takes hard work, but please hear, it is possible. And there is hope in Christ. We are where we never thought we'd be.

Yeah, yeah.

And.

And John, you didn't get there all in one day.

Absolutely.

That was the accumulation of a day at a time doing the right things and walking recovery. And. And I think that's my encouragement. When we're trapped and we've been in this pattern, I think what happens is we look ahead and get discouraged. Like, I can barely get through today. How can I do this for five years or five months or five days? But it's to kind of bring it down to today and say, what do you need to do to walk in freedom today and then go and do it and then tomorrow, trust that his mercies are new every morning, that he's promised to give us all that we need, that His Holy Spirit walks with us, and that tomorrow is going to. You know, Jesus also said, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow is enough worries of its own. When tomorrow becomes today, you're going to get up and say, okay, Lord, today, what do I need to do to walk in freedom? And you're going to make a call to a group member or you're going to get enrolled in a group for the first time. You're going to start something, and then the next day is going to become today. And when that's today, ask again, okay, what do I need to do? And then I think you get to a point, you look back and go, Whoa, it's been 30 days or three months or three years. And if you'd have told me three years ago, I could do this, I'd have said no way. But I did it today. And one day at a time is the only way you can do recovery. So my question would then be, are you doing what you need to do today to make today a day of freedom? Because if you always think, well, later I'll do this and eventually it's never going to happen. You're going to stay stuck. What do you need to do today? Then go do it. Yeah, well, establishing sobriety is far beyond just stopping a behavior. It's about reshaping your life from the inside out. And as Stuart has shared with us, lasting freedom comes from intentional choices, healthy accountability and a deep sense of self compassion. Challenges will come, but with the right mindset, support and structure, you can move from surviving to thriving. If sobriety feels daunting, know this. You're not alone and change is possible. And I believe today you've gotten many tools, ideas that you could use in walking forward into your new future. And so Stuart, thanks so much for joining us. It was a great conversation. Loved having you on the podcast again.

Yeah, thank you guys.

Thanks for being here.

And if you're a fan of the content, if this is helpful to you, it will probably be helpful to somebody else. So subscribe, share it with somebody, write us a review. All of these are ways that more people can find this life giving content. And if you want more information on pure desire, groups, resources or counseling, visit us@primary puredesire.org Again that's puredesire.org Journey on my friends, you are not alone.