He Didn’t Know This Was the Last Time She’d Wait

I encourage you to open up with the guys about it, because where there's empathy, shame struggles to exist. So all that shame that you feel, when you open up about it and you get nothing but empathy from the guys, it's going to significantly reduce the shame that you feel. And believe it or not, you'll probably give another brother permission to do the same thing. Because 7 out of 10 guys have had some type of unwanted sexual experience in their life and they've never talked about it. But it takes one bold, courageous guy like you to do that, to break the ice. All right, Tony, welcome to the show, brother.

Thank you, thank you.

Glad to have you on. Talk to me.

I think I've talked about this in, in some of the calls before, and I'm a recovered alcoholic and drug addict. And when I was 12 years old was the first time I ever Tried smoking weed and, uh, and I, I was immediately addicted and I feel like there's something that happened to me or there's some reason why I was immediately chasing that when nobody else that I've ever met has had that experience. And I've been, I've been digging into it and can't find a specific moment, but I'm starting to figure out some pieces to it. But I need some help with, I don't know, maybe getting it out of me or, or helping me remember. I don't know. Right. Okay.

That's a good start. So to understand this, it's important that you understand the neuroscience behind addiction. Drugs and alcohol don't cause drug and alcohol addiction, right? Just because you try drugs and alcohol doesn't mean that you'll become addicted, right? Nobody argues that a pack of cards causes gambling addiction or that sex causes sex addiction, right? So drugs and alcohol don't cause drug and alcohol addiction. So you're on the right track with that. Now, in order to struggle or suffer from addiction, you have to be predisposed or vulnerable to addiction. And what creates a vulnerability to addiction is a vulnerable brain, meaning the first time you put drugs and alcohol in my brain and body, my brain and body responds as it's a form of self-medication as opposed to just recreational use. Now, yeah, what creates a vulnerability to The substance abuse, what creates a vulnerability to addiction and the vulnerable brain itself is primarily created by stress, cortisol, and adrenaline that disrupts normal brain chemistry. There was a study done in the 1990s by Kaiser Permanente, the Centers for Disease Control, and it was run by a gentleman named Dr. Vincent Felitti, and they studied 17,000 middle-class Americans. So these weren't people off the streets, these were middle-class Americans, a third of the people had been to college and they measured them based on 10 categories of what they call adverse childhood experience. So it was abuse, physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, neglect, physical and emotional neglect, and then an area called household dysfunction. So it was parental separation or divorce, mental illness in the home, substance abuse in the home, criminal behavior in the home. Divorce, domestic violence in the home, criminal behavior in the home, substance abuse in the home, mental illness in the home. They basically, when they measured these people based on these 10 categories of adversity, what they found was remarkable. If you had 4 or more of those experiences, you were 7 times more likely to become an alcoholic. If you had 4 or more of those experiences, your risk of early initiation for drug and alcohol abuse, meaning trying drugs and alcohol at an earlier age, goes up 2 to 4 times. For each of those experiences, your risk of relapse goes up 17%, and two-thirds of injection drug use can be attributed to those events. And if you have 5 or more, I had 7, if you had 5 or more, you were 7 to 10 times at greater risk of developing a substance use disorder. So it's right there in the literature, so you're right on point. But it's not really the trauma that creates the addiction, it's the lack of relationships. Because when you go through things that are traumatic, you need relationships to buffer the stress. So when you say you think something happened, but you don't know what it is, are you saying that you're trying to discover something and force something? Or are you saying that you believe you're living in denial, and there's a block that you have?

I think there's something that I've either blocked out of my mind that happened, or it's because I had— of all those categories that you mentioned, I don't have I mean, I didn't, my, I didn't have substance abuse. I didn't have violence. I didn't, my parents were married. I mean, my, my parents were good parents. They did the best they could, but they didn't, like, there was no neglect. I mean, I, I, that's why I'm so confused is to, to what it could have been, unless it's something that I, I blocked out that like some type of sexual abuse that I blocked.

But now, now when you say blocked out, That, that means that you obviously have thought about this for a long time. So yes, you obviously have some degree of an idea of what that could be. So what is it?

Well, I think it's something sexually.

Okay, now when you say you blocked out something like a form of sexual abuse, that tells me that there had to have been something that happened to someone you know or something happening around you for you to come to that conclusion.

Okay.

Uh, so how did you come to that? How did you come to that conclusion?

I don't, I don't know exactly. I've been, because it's, it's just been something that's been on my mind and it, it's like, I, I, I don't wanna say I feel like I, that's what happened because it doesn't make sense, but I just know there's something I'm missing. And, and my, my fear is if I don't figure it out, that I'm not going to be able to grow. Like I'm not going to be able to get the growth that I need. And, and so I'm trying to— I've been praying about it a lot. I've been— I even, I actually talked to my best friend's mom right before this call to see if she remembered anything, and, and she doesn't know of anything, but she suggested I call my best friend. And that's— that, that kind of makes sense that It would be something to do with him. Like, I can feel it in my body that there's something there.

Okay. So you're saying like a child, like a child on child molestation, like he reenacted something with you?

Yeah. Or we did it with each other. Cause it made me, when, when she said, ask him, I, I could feel something in my body change. Like something like the something's trying to come out.

Now you need to be sensitive about the way that you approach him because usually that's called the smoking gun. And what I mean by that is usually if, if he was doing that with you, that means that somebody did it with him and it potentially could have been an adult. Yeah. And he could have been abused. So you want to make sure.

When I asked her, his mom, how I should approach him to talk to him, she was very— she wanted me to ask him as a, as a question of him helping me rather than me trying to help him, basically. Like, he's, he's recently trying to quit drinking again, and so she's afraid he's gonna go back and drink if I approach him the wrong way, which I'm kind of afraid of that too. So, but I, I'm— my body is telling me that it's something to do with him. And okay, so I don't know if there's some way that we can get this out of me, but I would love to.

Yeah, I, I don't know if this will help you, but I had a very similar experience by a babysitter that I had, and she had mental illness, and my parents were aware of it. And it was one of my first memories as a child was being abused by this girl, uh, in a closet. And, uh, I had that suppressed for many, many, many years. So I would say this, like, also be, be very compassionate and gracious with yourself, because what you basically said right now on this call is that you know that that's there and you know what happened, but you're just— you're— look, to me it seems like you know, but you're looking for validation. Okay, like you're doubting yourself and you're looking for validation, like you need somebody else to give you that, you need somebody else to give you the green light.

Yeah, basically that's what it seems like.

Okay, if you were to make a bet, where are you at on a scale of 1 to 10 whether or not something happened and this is what happened?

I'm at a 10.

Okay, well there you go. So then what do you need from somebody else?

Um, maybe verification, or maybe, maybe you're right, just validation. I don't, I don't know.

But why?

I don't know.

Don't, don't say I don't know. I don't know is a defense mechanism. Don't say I don't know.

You do know.

Why?

So I don't feel alone and like I did something, like I did something, like it was my fault, or that I'm a bad person.

Or, okay, and that would be, that would be what type of perception?

A negative perception?

Well, a childlike perception.

Yeah, childlike perception. Yes.

So that, that tells me that there's probably definitely something there. If you feel toxic shame and you go back into, it's my fault, I did something wrong, I should have done something, I should have known better, That's not what you were thinking as a kid. You didn't understand what was going on as a kid.

No, but that's as long as I can remember, I felt that way since, you know, especially since I've been in, in, in this program and, and actually looking at it, like I've always felt deep-rooted shame and, and like I was always hiding something.

And I think Go ahead.

I, I think that's— and I think that's why whenever I was finally introduced to drugs, it was my escape from me. It was my escape from that. And, well, absolutely. I remember, yeah, I describe it as being able to breathe for the first time.

Yeah, yeah, being able to breathe. It's like a warm hug, right? So The reason that we fall into these addictive patterns is because we're predisposed to it. Now, you initially in the beginning of the call said, I think that there's something there. And now here we are in a conversation where you said there's definitely something there. I'm a 10 out of 10 on the scale. But to me, it's less about that and it's more about some form of guilt that you feel about something that you did and you don't see the through line and you have, have a lack of clarity about your role. Were you the perpetrator? Were you the victim? Were you an innocent bystander? And to me, it's more about that.

No, I don't know.

Okay, well, let me ask you this. What do you believe happens when you find this out?

I can ask God to forgive me, or I can— I don't know. I mean, I hate, hate that I say I don't know. Um, I, I want peace, and I want I just, I just want peace, and I, I feel like that's, that's my missing piece.

What do you need peace from?

From my brain.

What, what do you need peace from? What do you need to be forgiven for?

I guess being— I'm trying to— my mind's racing right now. I know there was— so I know that, like, my sister and her friends basically molested me whenever I was real young, and that's starting to come up too. Um, I don't think I was the perpetrator, but I think I was a willing participant. I don't think it was with him, but it was at his house, and it, it was with one of the girls that was staying there. And I remember taking her into the closet. I don't remember exactly what happened after that, but I do know that we took our pants off.

And you guys were how old?

5, 6, maybe 7.

The—

no, it had to be before 5 because I, I— this was whenever his mom used to take care of us. So I went into— it would have been after first grade, because whenever we stopped going over there It was a child-on-child thing. Yeah, but I think that's it. I, I've got— on my way home from Dallas today, God told me to call his mom. Like, I could feel it, and I talked to her for like an hour before I got on this call. But I think that was— I, I didn't— I, I can— I think I, I can remember going into the bedroom on the left And into the closet.

Now, with a child-on-child thing like that, is it you guys just playing and that happens? Because to me, that's something that you had to been exposed to in some form or fashion, not something that a kid just does and thinks up himself.

Well, if, if so, I, I think that the thing with my sister happened after that. And then I do know there was, like, I do remember later on some stuff happened with me and him and a couple other boys, but I've known about that for a long time.

Or I remember that you weren't exposed to like pornography or something like that prior to this happening.

Probably. Yeah. I, I was, I, I, I was exposed to pornography at an early age. Through friends.

That would explain why you went in the closet.

Yeah, that— yeah, I mean, I, I don't, I don't remember. I don't, I don't remember it. This seems like the first incident to me. This is like the one that I haven't done inventory on or remembered before.

What's coming up for you?

Some relief and guilt. And wondering if it affected her in any way. But it's, it's a relief to know, like, to remember. Would this ex— would this explain, like, sex addiction too?

100%. 9 out of 10 times, absolutely connected to sex addiction. The root cause of most sex— 9 out of 10 sex addictions is molestation.

Okay, well, I've, I've, I can Like there, I don't think I was the perpetrator on that one, but I can explain a lot. Do normal men think about, do they want to have sex with their wife every night? Is that normal?

Is there? Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, I would say that's healthy. Okay.

All right. Yeah. I just didn't know if that, I, I thought maybe at my age it would finally go away, but it doesn't.

No, that's healthy. That's— it's healthy to have— to be passionate and want to be intimate with your wife on a daily basis.

Okay.

That's just not realistic for a lot of guys, but that's absolutely healthy. If you were having lustful eyes for every woman that you saw and wanting to sleep with them every single second, and then your wife on top of it, then that would be worth exploring.

Yeah, no, I, I don't— I mean, I even— I, I, I quit watching porn as soon as I started this program and haven't even thought about it.

That's great. But, um, job, huge win.

Thank you. And I, I, I actually pray in the morning. A part of my normal prayer is to look at my wife as God's child and not as a sex object to try to— man, I did that because a lot of— I started years, about a year ago doing that because I was— we weren't having a lot of intimacy, so I was always obsessed over it. So that helped. Okay.

So what's your biggest struggle in your marriage right now?

Or what brought me in here was anger, invalidation, defensiveness, and lack of intimacy, emotional and physical. We were, I mean, we were still, she was basically biting the bullet and still having sex with me, but I could tell there was no connection in it, which was the— which didn't help that much. But mostly because I could not— I couldn't connect to her emotionally. I, I ran away when she got emotional.

Yeah, why? How do you think what you went through is connected to that?

Shame.

Yeah, I mean, what have you been— you said you run away when she gets emotional. And what else have you been running away from?

My past. Like, I didn't— I wouldn't— I wouldn't let her in out of fear that she would leave. And I also, I felt like if I let— if I let her in completely, that if she left, it would— it would destroy me.

And that you've been running away from your own emotions.

Well, yeah, I don't even know. I didn't even know how— I didn't even know but 2 or 3 emotions before I got here. I knew, I knew anger, I knew fear, I knew sadness, and I knew happiness. I didn't, I, I didn't know how to identify insecurities and, and all that until the feeling wheel. Like, I've, I've probably got 7 feeling wheels in this house. And 2 in my truck. Like, I'm, I'm always trying to figure out how I feel, which, by the way, has been a game changer for, for me.

Absolutely. So when you run away from your emotional world, when she gets emotional, you run away from her emotional world because you don't know how to handle it.

Absolutely. Yeah, I've never— I, I did. I, I run away when my daughter cries, you know, like, I, I don't— before this, I would, I would have to leave the room. I just couldn't handle it. It would, I, it would, it would dysregulate me so much that, that I would have to walk away.

So you can see the importance of digging deep on this stuff like you have right now, because it translates into your marriage on a massive level. This is a great start, man. I'm proud of you for having the courage to dig deep on this.

I, I appreciate you sitting with me on it.

It's—

yeah, I can't believe I remembered it.

Well, it was ordained by God. God clearly wanted you to see this, and I think one of the main reasons that he needed you to see it is because it's important that you see the through line. You're your innocence was exploited when you were shown the pornography, which caused you to then replicate and play that out with somebody your age, and then caused you to then further rehearse it with other people, which created a lot of toxic shame. And, you know, God wants to show you where that all began, to show you that it didn't begin with you.

You know something else that happened, Tim, And, and this might be something that new for you to hear. I don't know. But one time my dad left his safe open and, uh, me and my, my, my other best friend got one of the videos out and, and watched it. And that some of it, and it was my mom and my dad. And that was, I had, I, I think that for a long time as a kid, I lost a lot of respect for my mom because of it.

Um, sure.

But that was that. And to have it happen with your friend there was, it was so humiliating. And so, I mean, I've looked at that one before too. I remembered that, but that's, there's a sitting here with you right now. I've had a lot of, it's been a lot of sexual trauma and in my childhood.

Absolutely.

I never really pieced it all together until now. No wonder I'm so ashamed. But this is, this is good stuff. I can, I can move forward now. What do I do now?

I encourage you to open up with the guys about it, because where there's empathy, shame struggles to exist. So all that shame that you feel when you open up about it and you get nothing but empathy from the guys, it's going to significantly reduce the shame that you feel. And believe it or not, you'll probably give another brother permission to do the same thing, okay? Because 7 out of 10 guys have had some type of unwanted sexual experience in their life and they never talked about it. But it takes one bold, courageous guy like you to do that, to break the ice.

Is there, um, a worksheet or homework that I can go through?

Yes. Yeah, I have some stuff. What I'm going to do is I'll send you over some stuff and, uh, we'll go from there.

Okay. Thank you.

Thanks for coming on, man, and thanks for being open. I know this is definitely going to help somebody. I just want to honor you for your vulnerability and your courage and your strength, man.

I appreciate it. Um, I'm very grateful that— honestly, I'm glad that this call was today because That's what God— I thought we were just going to do like, you were going to tell me what was going on and then we were going to schedule another time to do it. And so it's— I think it's— I mean, it's God's— it's what God wanted. So thank you for being open to letting me do this.

Yeah, well, let's pray. Let's seal this.

Okay.

Father God, just thank you so much for Tony and just his courage and vulnerability. You say iron sharpens iron, God, like you tell us in Proverbs. And God, um, I just thank you that Tony was vulnerable today and that somebody else is going to be liberated from the chains and the bondage of their past and their shame through Tony's story. God, thank you for bringing revelation and clarity to Tony today. God, I just thank you that you got a great plan for Tony, a plan to prosper him, not to harm him, to give him a hope and a future. We come against anything demonic and negative attacking Tony, his mindset, his marriage, um, any area of his life. God, we ask to put a hedge of protection around Tony. God, we pray that you would continue to walk Tony down the journey of healing and overcoming this massive wound of these experiences in his life that have created toxic shame and guilt, confusion, inadequacy, and ultimately led him to situations in his marriage where he became avoidant and he became invalidating and defensive. And God, I just thank you so much for, uh, Tony connecting the dots, you connecting the dots with Tony and letting me be a part of that today. And Lord, we just lift up our brother Tony right now in the mighty name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Amen. Thank you, Tim.

You got it, bro.

I appreciate it.

Got it. Stay strong and, uh, see you tonight in group.

All right, sounds good.

You got it. See you, Tony. All right, bye.