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Speaker 1: I got away with a lot until things started getting found.

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Speaker 1: Really but that was easier to well, that was easy

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Speaker 1: to keep secret. Everything was really easy to keep secret

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Speaker 1: until the shame started affecting just everything in my life,

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Speaker 1: and until you know, I get to the point where

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Speaker 1: I'm just this mess. I have an addiction, my marriage

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Speaker 1: is falling apart, I hate myself. The right person comes

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Speaker 1: along at the right time and says the right things,

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Speaker 1: and you start to just see how this doesn't happen overnight,

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Speaker 1: you know, like nobody wakes up one morning and says,

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Speaker 1: you know what, I'm gonna have an affair and I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna wreck my family in my ministry.

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Speaker 2: Life audio. Hello, Hello, and welcome to the Confessions of

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Speaker 2: a Christian Alcoholic podcast. I am your host, John Seidel.

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Speaker 2: This is your home for real stories, radical vulnerability, and

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Speaker 2: remarkable comebacks. In the end, this podcast is a place

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Speaker 2: for the desperate, the downtrodden, the destitute, and especially the drunk.

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Speaker 2: But it's also a place of hope and healing. I

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Speaker 2: know that firsthand because I'm the Christian who became an alcoholic,

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Speaker 2: not the other way around. Today, I've found sobriety after

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Speaker 2: decades of struggling. But more importantly than finding sobriety, I

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Speaker 2: found Jesus. My prayer is that as I interview people

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Speaker 2: just like you and just like me, along with professionals

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Speaker 2: in the fields of trauma, faith and addiction recovery, you

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Speaker 2: will find the peace that is available to you through

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Speaker 2: Christ on the other side of whatever you're going through

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Speaker 2: and whatever addiction that might be, because let's face it,

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Speaker 2: we're all addicted to something so welcome, let's get radically

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Speaker 2: vulnerable as we explore what it looks like to be

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Speaker 2: on this journey of MESSI sanctification. We'll be right back

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Speaker 2: after this. If you're listening to this, I think there's

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Speaker 2: one thing that I can bet that you have felt

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Speaker 2: or are feeling, and that is that being open and

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Speaker 2: honest about what you've done or what you're doing is

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Speaker 2: pretty much one of the worst things you can imagine.

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Speaker 2: Doing gives you like a pit in your stomach. And

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Speaker 2: today's guest felt that, And what he is here to

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Speaker 2: explain and tell you is that actually that was the

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Speaker 2: first step to freedom, and that the weight that was

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Speaker 2: lifted off of him was so enormous, and that the

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Speaker 2: feeling that he got of confessing what he had done

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Speaker 2: and what he had been doing was worth it. And

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Speaker 2: so that's why I'm excited to introduce you to Andy.

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Speaker 2: Andy's addiction was not solely alcohol. It was really a

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Speaker 2: sexual addiction. He had, in a sense, a co abuse

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Speaker 2: of alcohol. So he is he is uh when he

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Speaker 2: talks about sobriety, it's not just sobriety from sex, but

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Speaker 2: also alcohol, because he decided to give that up as well.

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Speaker 2: But Andy was a pastor at a massive church, and slowly,

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Speaker 2: because he had never fully dealt with things from his past.

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Speaker 1: He.

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Speaker 2: Started to give in to sexual desires and that culminated

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Speaker 2: in an affair. And he is going to tell that

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Speaker 2: story in great detail, not gratuitous detail, but he doesn't

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Speaker 2: hold back. He's very open and honest about what happened,

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Speaker 2: and he's gonna walk us through the turmoil in his life.

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Speaker 2: How he finally got to the point of realizing he

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Speaker 2: had to confess it, and finally getting the point to

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Speaker 2: realize that he had three options. He could either take

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Speaker 2: the secret to his grave, but that was killing him.

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Speaker 2: He could end it all and get relief that way,

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Speaker 2: or he could confess. And what he realized is that

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Speaker 2: confession was the route, and so hopefully as you listen

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Speaker 2: to this, you realize in your own life that confession

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Speaker 2: is there out and then maybe you can identify with Andy.

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Speaker 2: If you've already done that, you will feel the relief

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Speaker 2: that he felt, or you will know what it feels

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Speaker 2: to feel the relief that he felt. So really really

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Speaker 2: honored that Andy would open up in the way that

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Speaker 2: he does today real quickly. If you I want to

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Speaker 2: know what it looks like to combat shame, if you

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Speaker 2: want to know what it looks like practically some steps

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Speaker 2: that you can take to walk through healing, I would

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Speaker 2: be honored if you picked up my book, Confessions of

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Speaker 2: a Christian Alcoholic. It's available now. Came out in the fall,

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Speaker 2: and I've just been blown away by the emails and

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Speaker 2: the things that I'm hearing from people who are finding

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Speaker 2: freedom not because of the book, but because of Jesus

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Speaker 2: and what we what I talk about in the book

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Speaker 2: regarding Jesus. So pick up Confessions of a Christian Alcoholic.

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Speaker 2: You can go to Christian Alcoholic dot com Christian Alcoholic

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Speaker 2: dot com. So, without further Ado strap In this is

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Speaker 2: an amazing, amazing podcast episode. I think it's probably our

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Speaker 2: longest podcast episode, and there's a reason for that. So

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Speaker 2: let's talk with Andy. Andy, thank you so much for

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Speaker 2: joining the podcast today. Man, I have a lot of

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Speaker 2: respect for you. I know that this isn't always easy,

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Speaker 2: and so you know, even I've gotten quote unquote used

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Speaker 2: to sharing my story, like, there are still times I'm like,

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Speaker 2: am I really doing this right? You know? And and

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Speaker 2: so I really appreciate you joining.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I appreciate you just letting me share the story,

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Speaker 1: not because it makes me look good, but because I

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Speaker 1: think it makes look God look really good. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: his grace looked really really good. So appreciate it.

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Speaker 2: And I think what I say this at the end

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Speaker 2: of a lot of episodes, but that if people are

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Speaker 2: listening and they have a story to reach out to me,

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Speaker 2: you did that. Yeah, So I can tell you that

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Speaker 2: I'm not just blowing smoke when I say please, if

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Speaker 2: you have a story of addiction, whatever it is, right,

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Speaker 2: because yours isn't alcohol or drugs, But if you have

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Speaker 2: a story of addiction, please reach out to me. You

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Speaker 2: can fill out the form on the website, and which

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Speaker 2: is exactly what Andy did. And if you know, if

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Speaker 2: we kind of he sent me a video. I kind

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Speaker 2: of got to know it a little bit and I

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Speaker 2: was like, yeah, man, we're doing this so yeah, so

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Speaker 2: please do that if you're listening, so Andy, I let's

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Speaker 2: give people just quickly a little bit before we get

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Speaker 2: into the nuts and bolts of your story. Just give

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Speaker 2: people a little background. You know, who you are, what

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Speaker 2: you do, where you where you're from.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So currently just a dad, a husband, trying to

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Speaker 1: be a good dad, trying to be a good husband,

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Speaker 1: trying to be a faithful follower of Jesus. I used

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Speaker 1: to be a pastor but just got sucked into, well

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Speaker 1: not really sucked into, but addiction was going on, you know,

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Speaker 1: throughout my life. It got worse. I didn't deal with it.

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Speaker 1: I kept it in the shadows. I stuffed it down,

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Speaker 1: and eventually it came and it defeated me. Found myself

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Speaker 1: in an affair and got to a point where it

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Speaker 1: was basically, either I live with this the rest of

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Speaker 1: my life, this this secret, this shame, or or I

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Speaker 1: end my life. That was kind of the choice I had.

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Speaker 1: And I decided or confess. And I decided, you know what,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna confess. I'm gonna get out from under this

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Speaker 1: and that's what I did, and God gave me the

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Speaker 1: courage to confess. And since then, that was about seven

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Speaker 1: eight years ago. Since then, been on a road of recovery,

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Speaker 1: dealing with addiction, but also just dealing with all the

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Speaker 1: other issues that I wasn't dealing with in my life,

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Speaker 1: which you know we'll get into, and and kind of

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Speaker 1: learning how to follow Jesus uh without without ministry, as

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Speaker 1: just a faithful follower with all my mess, with all

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Speaker 1: my stuff, learning how to have actual male friendships, male

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Speaker 1: relationships right, and just figuring all that out and trying

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Speaker 1: to be a dad, trying to be a husband. And

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Speaker 1: it's been a journey, but God's been real good. And

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Speaker 1: you know, marriage is doing amazing. Were different people in

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Speaker 1: the same marriage. Now you know, God did a good

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Speaker 1: work on her, huge work on me and breaking you know,

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Speaker 1: breaking that generational sin that's been going on my face

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Speaker 1: family for a long time. So that's that's just yeah.

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Speaker 2: That's the readers I just heard. I think, I think,

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Speaker 2: by the way, not to get it on tangent, but

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Speaker 2: you said something there that I think is really important

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Speaker 2: to highlight. It's like you're like, you know, we are

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Speaker 2: different people. I can't tell you how many people that

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Speaker 2: I've heard justify divorce, you know and say, well, we're

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Speaker 2: just different people. And I'm like, well, of course you're

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Speaker 2: different people. Like I'm not the same person I was

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Speaker 2: when I got married at twenty two, you know, like

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Speaker 2: I've changed and in your case, you're like, good thing

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Speaker 2: that I changed, right, Yeah, And and I think like

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Speaker 2: we we like that sanctification process. If it's real, we

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Speaker 2: will be different people.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I hope.

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Speaker 2: So we're thirty six, thirty eight, forty five, fifty sixty two, right.

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Speaker 2: So anyways, I just had to I just had to

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Speaker 2: highlight that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's like and I'm sure we can talk

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Speaker 1: about it, but yeah, I mean you you have to change,

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Speaker 1: you know, all the challenges, the difficulties that we go through. Uh,

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Speaker 1: they can discourage you, or they can lead you back

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Speaker 1: to to grace, to God's grace, to his power, to

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Speaker 1: others to help you become, you know, someone different, because

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Speaker 1: I do think we all need to become someone different.

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Speaker 1: I was a boy, I was immature, I was man,

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Speaker 1: I was a mess, and that that's not that's not

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Speaker 1: where God wanted to keep me obviously, and it wasn't

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Speaker 1: good for anyone around me. It wasn't good for me.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, thank god, thank god. All right, so

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Speaker 1: let's get into the story. You talked about generational, right

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Speaker 1: that this in a sense, these addictions are generational. So

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Speaker 1: take us, you know, start wherever you want to start.

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Speaker 1: If you want to start in utero, please you can.

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Speaker 1: You can go back that far.

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Speaker 2: If you want to start at eight, if you want

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Speaker 2: to start at twenty eight, but take us back to

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Speaker 2: the beginning, and explain to us how you became, you know,

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Speaker 2: the pastor with a secret addiction.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think anytime you're talking about addiction, you

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Speaker 1: do have to start with childhood. You know. For me,

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Speaker 1: the term I use is limp. That's where you develop

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Speaker 1: the limp that you walk through in life. And if

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Speaker 1: you don't learn how to deal with the limp, you struggle.

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Speaker 1: And my childhood it wasn't the worst thing ever, right,

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Speaker 1: I think it was actually like a typical boy growing

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Speaker 1: up in a divorced home. Parents had their own things,

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Speaker 1: and parents weren't working on their things. Mom had struggled

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Speaker 1: with alcohol, Dad had a struggle with work and just

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Speaker 1: weren't really there. And so what happens I think in

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Speaker 1: that kind of family is you have two people. They're

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Speaker 1: doing the best they can, but their best isn't great.

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Speaker 1: And that boy me really just kind of developed and

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Speaker 1: tried to make sense of the world around him, and

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Speaker 1: that was it became a story of shame. Really, you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm not No one's interested in me, No one really

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Speaker 1: cared about me. If you grow up in a messy home,

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Speaker 1: I didn't trust people. You know, if your parents don't

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Speaker 1: take care of you, you kind of just don't. You learn

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Speaker 1: to not trust others people, right, You kind of put

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Speaker 1: up a wall, you keep people at a distance. And

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Speaker 1: then of course as a boy, though, like you have

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Speaker 1: this void in your life. I had a void in

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Speaker 1: my life and it was no one was really I

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Speaker 1: didn't have a sense of value, worth, love, no validation,

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Speaker 1: no acceptance, none of that. And you have to fill

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Speaker 1: that void. We have to we chase things that fill

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Speaker 1: that void because we can't just exist with this hole

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Speaker 1: in us. And that's what I did. And for me,

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Speaker 1: you know, I kind of chased everything as I grew up,

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Speaker 1: and I didn't I didn't go to church as a kid,

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Speaker 1: so we'll get there, but I just kind of chased

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Speaker 1: whatever made me feel either alive or worthy important, whatever

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Speaker 1: it was, I gravitated towards that. One one of the

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Speaker 1: things was was women. You know, like it was if

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Speaker 1: if a girl liked me, I knew I was okay.

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Speaker 1: If a girl you know, showed me some kind of

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Speaker 1: level of affection, it was like, oh I'm loved, I

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Speaker 1: am okay. And you know, as I grew up, I

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Speaker 1: did chase that and and it wasn't just a relational thing.

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Speaker 1: It turned into a sexual thing. You know. It was

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Speaker 1: either the shame was so bad that I used you know,

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Speaker 1: things like sex or alcohol or you know, eventually work

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Speaker 1: different things to numb it. Or I used people and

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Speaker 1: these other things to give me that sense of validation

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Speaker 1: that I I mean, I desperately desperately needed. Yeah, validation.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: So that was kind of my my childhood, my upbringing,

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Speaker 1: just just chasing things. If anyone's been in that, they

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Speaker 1: know eventually you get to a point you're just like,

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Speaker 1: what is the point? Like it's all temporary and it

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Speaker 1: doesn't satisfy and it doesn't lead to happiness. And for

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Speaker 1: me that came in my twenties. I got to this

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Speaker 1: point I was just like, what is the point of

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Speaker 1: all this what. You know, nothing makes me happy. I

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Speaker 1: get out of college. Work didn't make me happy. You know,

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Speaker 1: relationships were not helping me. Alcohol was just becoming more

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Speaker 1: and more of a problem. Like I really just had

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Speaker 1: all these issues and nothing was happening. And at the

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Speaker 1: same time, God was working in the lives of my

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Speaker 1: I have two older siblings and they started going to church,

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Speaker 1: and it just kind of became a thing where I

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Speaker 1: was like, you know, maybe this is something I ought

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Speaker 1: to check out, right, And I had moved back home

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Speaker 1: and just started going to church. My sister went to

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Speaker 1: and over the course of a year, I kind of

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Speaker 1: had a lot of I'll call him like intellectual hurdles, right,

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Speaker 1: just from being a guy who didn't grow up in

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Speaker 1: this world, in this culture, just kind of like, well,

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Speaker 1: what about this? What about this? What about this? A

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Speaker 1: lot of those questions got answered through books like C. S. Lewis,

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Speaker 1: Tim Keller, those kind of things, right case for Christ,

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Speaker 1: I mean, resources that a lot of people talk about

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Speaker 1: for good reason because they answer a lot of those questions.

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Speaker 1: And it really just became a heart thing like is

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Speaker 1: this is am I going to believe the Gospel? And

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Speaker 1: I got to put them like, yeah, I want this.

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Speaker 1: I mean, this is what this is what the heart wants,

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Speaker 1: this is what I made for. And so it was

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Speaker 1: kind of a it was a year of all that

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Speaker 1: and then you know, twenty six, I think got baptized,

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Speaker 1: started following Jesus and it was like a radical transformation

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Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, passion all of a sudden, there,

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Speaker 1: all of a sudden, a sense of right and wrong

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Speaker 1: that I honestly didn't have most of my life right.

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Speaker 1: So just kind of looking at my life and realizing like,

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Speaker 1: oh man, what am I doing here? What am I

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Speaker 1: doing there? What am I you know, and just started

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Speaker 1: learning how to follow Jesus. Fortunately, I was in a

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Speaker 1: church that I had a lot of great leaders around me,

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Speaker 1: great like mentor type people, and a lot of opportunities

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Speaker 1: to to learn, to grow, to develop some relationships, but

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Speaker 1: also be mentored. And it was just a matter of

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Speaker 1: years before the opportunity was presented like hey, do you

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Speaker 1: want to come on staff? And you know, I made

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Speaker 1: that leap. I was. I was in the corporate world

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Speaker 1: kind of and miserable, and I'd been volunteering with youth

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Speaker 1: for a couple of years. Loved it, loved teaching them,

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Speaker 1: loved hanging out with them. It was amazing, and I

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Speaker 1: was like, yeah, I want to do this. I had

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Speaker 1: a knack for it that I didn't even know I

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Speaker 1: had teaching gifts and just you know, the things in ministry.

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Speaker 1: I just was very strategic and very just you know,

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Speaker 1: all these different things that meshed really good in this church.

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Speaker 1: And so got into ministry right at the same point

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Speaker 1: I got married. So I start ministry, I get married,

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Speaker 1: and here we are, We're on this journey, and everything

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Speaker 1: was great until until a lot of that immaturity that

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Speaker 1: was in me and these wounds from childhood that have

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Speaker 1: never been dealt with, never been brought into the open.

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Speaker 1: You know, I didn't. I didn't. I did safe confessions

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Speaker 1: right when I was getting into ministry and stuff. I

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Speaker 1: talked about this stuff that's okay to talk about. And

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Speaker 1: in Wisconsin it's okay to talk about alcohol, that's for sure,

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Speaker 1: and it's almost like you're you're weird if you don't.

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Speaker 1: So it's like, you know, it was it was like

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Speaker 1: safe confessions and uh, safe level of vulnerability where it's like,

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Speaker 1: oh yeah, and he's just like us.

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Speaker 2: And that's what I did where you were did you

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Speaker 2: talk a little bit about like some of the sexual

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Speaker 2: like did you talk about it in just terms of

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Speaker 2: like lust or.

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Speaker 1: I talked about it. Yeah, it was more of a

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Speaker 1: that's where I was, that's my past. I did not

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Speaker 1: talk about it. That's where I was currently. Too scary

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Speaker 1: and too risky to me, and I think in my mind,

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Speaker 1: and this is kind of the thing, right you start

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Speaker 1: to see all that stuff start to affect me, is

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Speaker 1: I didn't trust people. And you you know, as a follower,

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Speaker 1: you have to let people know you. You have to,

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Speaker 1: especially when you're young and you're immature and you're you're

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Speaker 1: getting into this. But I was just so guarded. I

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Speaker 1: didn't really let people know certain things, not because they

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Speaker 1: gave off like a level of being unsafe, but it

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Speaker 1: was just it was just rooted deep, deep distrust in people.

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Speaker 1: Couldn't let people know me. Fear rejection, fear failure. All, oh,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna get booted out of this church, my wife's

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Speaker 1: gonna leave me, and my life is over right because

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Speaker 1: things were great, and as an addict, you chase great feelings,

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Speaker 1: You chase the relief, you chase the high and the

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Speaker 1: escape all of it. And you know, ministry started to

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Speaker 1: kind of become an outlet for validation as well.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 1: It's of course, when I became a follower of Jesus,

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Speaker 1: I looked to him and the Gospel as a source

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Speaker 1: of validation, a source of value. I am love, but

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Speaker 1: there was still just this piece of me, just from

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Speaker 1: from my old life, that just hung onto this idea

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Speaker 1: that God was not interested in me. He loved me,

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Speaker 1: but I don't think he liked me like that was

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Speaker 1: something I think I didn't realize it at the time,

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Speaker 1: but it just kept me as a He's a father

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Speaker 1: who's just distant like mine. You know, it becomes a

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Speaker 1: lens and it just it starts to just unravel in

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Speaker 1: my life, and it's not great. It starts to get hard,

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Speaker 1: marriage starts to get hard. After a couple of years,

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Speaker 1: then we have two kids real close to each other,

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Speaker 1: and that just you know, if anyone's been there, it

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Speaker 1: just drives a wedge, and it does drive a wedge

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Speaker 1: into your relationship with your spouse. And neither of us

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Speaker 1: knew what we were doing, you know, we didn't have

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Speaker 1: good models growing up in this kind of thing, and

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Speaker 1: so we started to struggle as a couple big time

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Speaker 1: with parenting in our marriage. And that's really the time

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Speaker 1: when I'm looking at it and like the shame is

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Speaker 1: just starting a compound. Now I'm a bad dad, I'm

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Speaker 1: a bad husband. But you know what works great, So

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Speaker 1: I'm just gonna pour myself in the ministry and so

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Speaker 1: that gives me the sense of the validation. But then

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Speaker 1: at the same time, you know this, this relationship with

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Speaker 1: with my wife is breaking down, and so I start

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Speaker 1: resorting to old patterns, old habits, these old sexual sins

356
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Speaker 1: of my youth. You think they're gone, They're not. They're

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Speaker 1: not gone because they were never healed. They're not just

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Speaker 1: having to haven't really truly confessed them or brought them

359
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Speaker 1: into the light never. Right. Yeah, it's it's not a

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Speaker 1: I like to say, it's not a you don't have

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Speaker 1: behavior problems. You have belief problems. You have issues with

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Speaker 1: shame and you have to deal with that stuff. I

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Speaker 1: just kind of went through a great period of life.

364
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Speaker 1: When life is good, you don't really lean on your

365
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Speaker 1: addiction as well.

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Speaker 2: Right, you know, I talk about this like I wrote

367
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Speaker 2: a best selling book in twenty twenty one on faith

368
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Speaker 2: in mental health. Right because life was good? Yeah, and

369
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Speaker 2: like like I had gone through hardest part of my

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Speaker 2: life up to that point, and I was and and

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Speaker 2: things things were in a really good spot. I wrote

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Speaker 2: in my first book, I have to watch how much

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Speaker 2: I drink, you know, And I and and I was

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Speaker 2: until I was watching it increase and increase, it increase, right.

375
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Speaker 2: But it's because I things were okay, the healthy I

376
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Speaker 2: was operating mostly out of the healthy parts of myself,

377
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Speaker 2: the parts that I'd given over to Jesus that I

378
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Speaker 2: confess that had been redeemed. But to your point, it's like,

379
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Speaker 2: but then I actually then I hit an even harder

380
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Speaker 2: time in my life, and then it was like, oh crap,

381
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Speaker 2: what am I going to turn to you? And alcohol

382
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Speaker 2: is easy, sex is you know, it's easier. There's a

383
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Speaker 2: reason you get addicted to it because it does give

384
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Speaker 2: you that high and that relief.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it it And that's that's really what what I

386
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Speaker 1: think of as addiction. It's it's a relief, you know.

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Speaker 1: I think the misconception is people are chasing like pleasure.

388
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Speaker 1: I don't think so. I think people just don't want

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Speaker 1: to feel pain. Who wants to feel pain? And this

390
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Speaker 1: is usually these things, you know, we run to them,

391
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Speaker 1: and we lean on them and become they become such

392
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Speaker 1: an ingrained piece of how we dealt with life in

393
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Speaker 1: the past when we were kids. And you know, life

394
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Speaker 1: is hard if it's hard for everyone, like to a degree,

395
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Speaker 1: and we develop these habits and these tendencies, life gets good,

396
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Speaker 1: we don't necessarily lean on them, and then life gets hard.

397
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Speaker 1: And that's when I started to then lean on these

398
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Speaker 1: things where it's like I thought I was done with this.

399
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Speaker 1: The problem is with all these behaviors and all these actions,

400
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Speaker 1: it just compounds the shame. And if you're not talking

401
00:22:35,200 --> 00:22:37,440
Speaker 1: about this stuff, you're not bringing it into the light.

402
00:22:37,960 --> 00:22:39,639
Speaker 1: You're stuck with trying to deal a shame on your

403
00:22:39,640 --> 00:22:41,520
Speaker 1: own and you're stuck trying to handle your sin on

404
00:22:41,560 --> 00:22:45,040
Speaker 1: your own. You can't, like I can't. I don't know

405
00:22:45,040 --> 00:22:48,879
Speaker 1: anyone who can. Paul would say he can't, right like, man,

406
00:22:49,080 --> 00:22:51,920
Speaker 1: it's I mean, this is like Roman seven type stuff,

407
00:22:52,000 --> 00:22:55,040
Speaker 1: right Like I know, I know, and I desire and

408
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Speaker 1: I can't. So that's what started happening, and it was

409
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Speaker 1: just again, can't deal with this, can't tell anyone about this.

410
00:23:04,720 --> 00:23:06,399
Speaker 1: And there was moments, I mean I look back, and

411
00:23:06,440 --> 00:23:09,520
Speaker 1: there was moments where I wanted to confess and I

412
00:23:09,560 --> 00:23:11,920
Speaker 1: wanted to disclose what was going on inside me because

413
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Speaker 1: it was it was like starting to come out, like

414
00:23:14,480 --> 00:23:17,359
Speaker 1: I couldn't hold it in and out of fear, uh,

415
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Speaker 1: just suppressed it and doubled down on hiding.

416
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Speaker 2: And and I'm not asking you to get into gratuitous details,

417
00:23:26,280 --> 00:23:27,720
Speaker 2: but when you talk about that, like what does that

418
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Speaker 2: look like? Did that look like you know, going like

419
00:23:31,800 --> 00:23:34,679
Speaker 2: was that porn was that strip clubs? Like what did

420
00:23:34,720 --> 00:23:35,760
Speaker 2: that look like for you?

421
00:23:36,480 --> 00:23:40,720
Speaker 1: Yeah? For me, it would be so the I guess

422
00:23:40,720 --> 00:23:44,639
Speaker 1: they call it like the tripod of like sexual addiction

423
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Speaker 1: and things like that would be pornography, fantasy and masturbation, right,

424
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Speaker 1: So for me it really was like that kind that

425
00:23:53,840 --> 00:23:59,720
Speaker 1: kind of thing. It was just escaping in your head

426
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Speaker 1: to another place, to to a place that's not reality

427
00:24:02,840 --> 00:24:07,600
Speaker 1: because my reality sucked and you know, so it was

428
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Speaker 1: you know, lust, however you want to describe it. It

429
00:24:10,880 --> 00:24:14,480
Speaker 1: was just running there instead of dealing with the reality

430
00:24:14,480 --> 00:24:17,520
Speaker 1: in front of me. And that's that's really the the

431
00:24:17,560 --> 00:24:19,640
Speaker 1: thing that most guys struggle with is they think it's

432
00:24:19,680 --> 00:24:22,760
Speaker 1: just a behavior thing, but it's not. It's it's in

433
00:24:22,800 --> 00:24:26,960
Speaker 1: your head. It's it's a behavioral thing, but there's a

434
00:24:27,000 --> 00:24:30,359
Speaker 1: chemical soul right and in your soul because it because

435
00:24:30,359 --> 00:24:32,760
Speaker 1: it is a good thing. And and that's that's ah,

436
00:24:33,080 --> 00:24:36,119
Speaker 1: you know, it's a gift. Sex is a gift from God.

437
00:24:36,440 --> 00:24:38,920
Speaker 1: And sometimes the most dangerous things are the good things

438
00:24:38,920 --> 00:24:41,480
Speaker 1: that we turn into goddas you know. And and that's

439
00:24:41,480 --> 00:24:45,199
Speaker 1: what it is. So that's really that's really what it is.

440
00:24:45,240 --> 00:24:49,399
Speaker 1: It's just escaping through through sexual behaviors and stuff. But

441
00:24:49,440 --> 00:24:51,600
Speaker 1: it always starts in the head and it's it goes

442
00:24:51,640 --> 00:24:55,720
Speaker 1: to the heart and then you're hooked. And it's hard

443
00:24:55,760 --> 00:24:57,439
Speaker 1: to explain, I think, but I think a lot of

444
00:24:57,440 --> 00:25:03,159
Speaker 1: people understand, like it's not just escaping to pleasure, it's

445
00:25:03,240 --> 00:25:06,439
Speaker 1: escaping the pain. And just started taking really root in

446
00:25:06,480 --> 00:25:09,640
Speaker 1: my life more than it was, like what is this?

447
00:25:10,480 --> 00:25:13,880
Speaker 1: But life is falling apart. That's becoming a crutch. At

448
00:25:13,880 --> 00:25:16,080
Speaker 1: the same time, alcohol is becoming more and more of

449
00:25:16,119 --> 00:25:18,320
Speaker 1: a crutch. I would describe that as like a secondary

450
00:25:18,720 --> 00:25:23,119
Speaker 1: type of addiction. That was that was purely to numb

451
00:25:23,160 --> 00:25:27,679
Speaker 1: the feelings, to numb the shame and what to not feel.

452
00:25:27,960 --> 00:25:30,480
Speaker 1: Oh man, that was drunkenness every night?

453
00:25:30,600 --> 00:25:31,679
Speaker 2: Did that? What did that look like?

454
00:25:32,040 --> 00:25:35,320
Speaker 1: Yeah. It it looked like getting away with what I

455
00:25:35,359 --> 00:25:40,800
Speaker 1: could that was I guess tolerable to my spouse and

456
00:25:40,840 --> 00:25:42,639
Speaker 1: even the people around me. You know, again, I am

457
00:25:42,640 --> 00:25:45,119
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin, so there is kind of like a higher

458
00:25:45,200 --> 00:25:48,600
Speaker 1: level of just I mean, what people think is fine,

459
00:25:48,880 --> 00:25:53,440
Speaker 1: and you know, I mean, you can't deny it. But

460
00:25:53,440 --> 00:25:57,200
Speaker 1: but then it turned into but I am a pastor, right,

461
00:25:57,440 --> 00:26:00,520
Speaker 1: and so if I need to go get alcohol, I'm

462
00:26:00,600 --> 00:26:03,320
Speaker 1: driving to maybe a place where people won't know me.

463
00:26:04,600 --> 00:26:08,280
Speaker 1: You know, I'm hiding things in the house. I'm drinking.

464
00:26:08,359 --> 00:26:11,800
Speaker 1: It's not just beer, you know, because at that time,

465
00:26:11,880 --> 00:26:15,320
Speaker 1: it was like there was just this thing in Christianity

466
00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:17,960
Speaker 1: and like the church culture of like craft beer.

467
00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:20,840
Speaker 2: You know, crafter was great, dude, I talk about that

468
00:26:20,880 --> 00:26:25,480
Speaker 2: in my book. Yes, like around you totally right there,

469
00:26:25,960 --> 00:26:28,320
Speaker 2: and it was and then it was okay because if

470
00:26:28,320 --> 00:26:30,600
Speaker 2: it was craft beer, it was an excuse like it

471
00:26:30,680 --> 00:26:34,000
Speaker 2: was fine and it's like whatever, like it's just a

472
00:26:34,040 --> 00:26:36,560
Speaker 2: game we play because we're enjoying it and we have

473
00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:38,840
Speaker 2: a we're so sophisticated blah blah blah.

474
00:26:38,960 --> 00:26:43,439
Speaker 1: But honestly, it but it you know, it turned into

475
00:26:43,640 --> 00:26:47,920
Speaker 1: just straight up you know, liquor and again, I could.

476
00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:50,600
Speaker 1: I could drink quite a bit, and I thought I

477
00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:53,600
Speaker 1: could hide the effects pretty well, and I got away

478
00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:56,919
Speaker 1: with a lot until things started getting found. Really, but

479
00:26:57,000 --> 00:26:59,600
Speaker 1: that was that was easier to well, that was easy

480
00:26:59,600 --> 00:27:03,480
Speaker 1: to keep everything was really easy to keep secret until

481
00:27:03,880 --> 00:27:08,120
Speaker 1: the shame started affecting just everything in my life. And

482
00:27:08,359 --> 00:27:11,880
Speaker 1: until you know, I get to the point where I'm

483
00:27:11,960 --> 00:27:16,439
Speaker 1: just this mess. I have an addiction, my marriage is

484
00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:21,840
Speaker 1: falling apart, I hate myself. The right person comes along

485
00:27:21,840 --> 00:27:23,840
Speaker 1: at the right time and says the right things, and

486
00:27:23,920 --> 00:27:28,960
Speaker 1: you start to just see how this doesn't happen overnight,

487
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:31,040
Speaker 1: you know, like nobody wakes up one morning and says,

488
00:27:31,040 --> 00:27:32,199
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm gonna have an affair and I'm

489
00:27:32,200 --> 00:27:34,840
Speaker 1: gonna wreck my family. In my ministry, it's a to

490
00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:39,480
Speaker 1: Z and it's baby steps, and it's it's just it's

491
00:27:39,560 --> 00:27:43,280
Speaker 1: just things like maybe maybe just showing too much attention,

492
00:27:44,040 --> 00:27:48,800
Speaker 1: you know, maybe showing a woman maybe too much affirmation

493
00:27:49,160 --> 00:27:53,760
Speaker 1: or support or whatever. And it's just slowly crossing boundaries

494
00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:55,840
Speaker 1: until all of a sudden you're a why and you're

495
00:27:55,840 --> 00:27:58,359
Speaker 1: just looking at Z. And it's not a it's not

496
00:27:58,440 --> 00:28:02,800
Speaker 1: a stretch. It's that easy and That's what happened to me,

497
00:28:03,119 --> 00:28:06,879
Speaker 1: you know, and that went on the whole time. It

498
00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:09,639
Speaker 1: was going on. It's like you're living in two different worlds.

499
00:28:10,520 --> 00:28:13,680
Speaker 1: Fantasy land where you can escape to and it's fine,

500
00:28:13,800 --> 00:28:20,400
Speaker 1: and then reality where you absolutely hate yourself. And that's

501
00:28:20,440 --> 00:28:23,240
Speaker 1: the world I was living in. I mean for almost

502
00:28:23,400 --> 00:28:25,320
Speaker 1: it wasn't quite a year, but almost a year. Just

503
00:28:25,480 --> 00:28:27,560
Speaker 1: I hated myself. I hated who I was, I hated

504
00:28:27,600 --> 00:28:31,359
Speaker 1: what I was doing. I felt like an absolute hypocrite.

505
00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:36,080
Speaker 1: I'm on stage, you know, at church, teaching teens and

506
00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:38,680
Speaker 1: teaching on the weekend at a pretty big church, just

507
00:28:38,760 --> 00:28:42,880
Speaker 1: talking about things like faithfulness, you know, just going home

508
00:28:42,920 --> 00:28:46,600
Speaker 1: and just feeling sick, hating yourself, but also how do

509
00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:50,640
Speaker 1: I get out? How do I get out of this again?

510
00:28:50,680 --> 00:28:52,440
Speaker 1: And that's kind of where I started to think, like

511
00:28:52,880 --> 00:28:54,920
Speaker 1: I either take this to the grave, and I didn't

512
00:28:54,920 --> 00:28:57,680
Speaker 1: see how that was possible just with how I felt

513
00:28:57,680 --> 00:29:01,600
Speaker 1: and how was affecting me physically too, right, Or I

514
00:29:01,640 --> 00:29:06,280
Speaker 1: take my own life right, or I confess well, I'd

515
00:29:06,280 --> 00:29:09,840
Speaker 1: seen kids in my youth ministry who's whose dad had

516
00:29:09,920 --> 00:29:12,840
Speaker 1: taken their life, had taken his life, and it you know,

517
00:29:13,120 --> 00:29:14,719
Speaker 1: if you're in the church, and you see that it's

518
00:29:15,200 --> 00:29:18,680
Speaker 1: it's the worst. It's so sad, you know, that's that's

519
00:29:18,680 --> 00:29:21,400
Speaker 1: someone who had no hope and they didn't think there

520
00:29:21,480 --> 00:29:23,160
Speaker 1: was a way out. And I've seen the effects of it,

521
00:29:23,160 --> 00:29:26,320
Speaker 1: and I was like, I can't do that. So I

522
00:29:26,440 --> 00:29:30,080
Speaker 1: kind of just started to I'm going to counseling. At

523
00:29:30,080 --> 00:29:32,240
Speaker 1: this time too, I started to get into counseling because

524
00:29:32,520 --> 00:29:35,200
Speaker 1: it was again it was kind of like just half

525
00:29:35,400 --> 00:29:38,280
Speaker 1: half measures, like maybe if I do this, that'll alleviate

526
00:29:38,320 --> 00:29:39,680
Speaker 1: the shame and I can get out from it, just

527
00:29:39,880 --> 00:29:41,840
Speaker 1: you know, if I could just if I could just

528
00:29:41,920 --> 00:29:43,800
Speaker 1: do some of the right things, you know, I really

529
00:29:43,920 --> 00:29:45,880
Speaker 1: kind of bought into this idea of if I just

530
00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:48,200
Speaker 1: listen to the right sermons, or if I just read

531
00:29:48,240 --> 00:29:50,760
Speaker 1: the right book, if I just find the the one

532
00:29:50,880 --> 00:29:53,760
Speaker 1: way to think about the Gospel, or the one way

533
00:29:53,800 --> 00:29:56,880
Speaker 1: to like just the knowledge whatever it was. I'm in

534
00:29:56,920 --> 00:30:00,200
Speaker 1: seminary at the time too, like I'm doing everything. I'm

535
00:30:00,240 --> 00:30:05,960
Speaker 1: checking all the boxes except being known. Nobody knew me,

536
00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:07,560
Speaker 1: you know, And so I kind of start to let

537
00:30:07,560 --> 00:30:10,880
Speaker 1: my counselor know me, and we're working together, and it

538
00:30:10,960 --> 00:30:14,760
Speaker 1: becomes clear pretty quick there is only one way out

539
00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:15,720
Speaker 1: of out of this.

540
00:30:15,880 --> 00:30:18,360
Speaker 2: Were you honestly your counselor about what was going on.

541
00:30:18,600 --> 00:30:19,760
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after.

542
00:30:19,560 --> 00:30:25,400
Speaker 1: This, not not right away, yeah, not right away again.

543
00:30:25,680 --> 00:30:30,280
Speaker 1: Trust And I mean we met together for years and

544
00:30:30,320 --> 00:30:34,400
Speaker 1: I look back, he is the safest person I've ever

545
00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:37,320
Speaker 1: known up until that point. For sure. I mean, he

546
00:30:37,400 --> 00:30:40,040
Speaker 1: was totally. He wouldn't have told me to do anything.

547
00:30:40,680 --> 00:30:43,080
Speaker 1: A good I think a good counselt doesn't really make

548
00:30:43,120 --> 00:30:45,640
Speaker 1: your choice for you, right, they may help, they help

549
00:30:45,720 --> 00:30:48,120
Speaker 1: you make the choice. You have to make the choice,

550
00:30:48,400 --> 00:30:50,600
Speaker 1: because then you own it. I didn't know that at

551
00:30:50,600 --> 00:30:52,360
Speaker 1: the time. I thought, Oh, he's going to tell he's

552
00:30:52,400 --> 00:30:54,120
Speaker 1: going to tell my pastor, right, he's going to tell

553
00:30:54,120 --> 00:30:57,080
Speaker 1: my boss. I'm going to get fired again. A ministry

554
00:30:57,120 --> 00:30:59,600
Speaker 1: was such an idol because it was giving me the validation.

555
00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:03,240
Speaker 1: I couldn't let that go. I couldn't find my way

556
00:31:03,240 --> 00:31:05,320
Speaker 1: out of shame. I couldn't get you know, I couldn't

557
00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:08,520
Speaker 1: break the habits of addiction. I was just I was

558
00:31:08,560 --> 00:31:11,240
Speaker 1: a mess. And it became clear the only way out

559
00:31:11,560 --> 00:31:15,120
Speaker 1: is confessing, is getting it into the light. That was it.

560
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:18,120
Speaker 1: And I mean I remember the day when when I

561
00:31:18,160 --> 00:31:22,800
Speaker 1: started to realize this, I'm like, uh he he. So

562
00:31:22,920 --> 00:31:26,239
Speaker 1: I started to I'll back up a little bit. I

563
00:31:26,280 --> 00:31:29,920
Speaker 1: did tell my wife and my counselor. I'm like, I'm

564
00:31:29,960 --> 00:31:32,960
Speaker 1: struggling sexually. You know, that's kind of what I said,

565
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:36,120
Speaker 1: not saying I haven't having an affair, but I'm struggling sexually.

566
00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:38,240
Speaker 1: And I think I'm drinking too much. I like tack

567
00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:39,760
Speaker 1: that on for good measure or something.

568
00:31:40,400 --> 00:31:44,320
Speaker 2: And so it actually seemed like you're really being honest.

569
00:31:44,520 --> 00:31:46,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well I really I really let you know

570
00:31:46,560 --> 00:31:50,920
Speaker 1: something about me, not everything again half measures. And so

571
00:31:51,480 --> 00:31:54,680
Speaker 1: he's like, you know, I will work with you, but

572
00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:57,240
Speaker 1: you need to go to recovery group. You need to

573
00:31:57,240 --> 00:31:59,600
Speaker 1: go to a twelve stuff group. And I'm like me

574
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:02,360
Speaker 1: go to like how, like what does this even look like?

575
00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:04,680
Speaker 1: And I remember coming home and talking to my wife

576
00:32:04,720 --> 00:32:07,680
Speaker 1: about it, and I just kind of had this real

577
00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:10,480
Speaker 1: realization like I need to do this. I need to

578
00:32:10,520 --> 00:32:12,920
Speaker 1: go this is this is a way out. And so

579
00:32:13,040 --> 00:32:15,520
Speaker 1: I go and it is. You know, this is kind

580
00:32:15,520 --> 00:32:19,440
Speaker 1: of where things really started to change and I started

581
00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:23,080
Speaker 1: to become convinced that there's only one way out of this.

582
00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:26,640
Speaker 1: I met with these I went to my first church

583
00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:29,720
Speaker 1: basement you know, twelve step type meeting and was.

584
00:32:29,640 --> 00:32:32,240
Speaker 2: It an AA group? Was an essay was it was?

585
00:32:32,520 --> 00:32:36,080
Speaker 1: It was an essay group? Yeah, okay, yeah, and awesome

586
00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:38,120
Speaker 1: group of guys. What I've realized is my counselor had

587
00:32:38,160 --> 00:32:42,040
Speaker 1: basically referred people there for like years, and so we

588
00:32:42,080 --> 00:32:47,040
Speaker 1: all kind of had this framework. He totally was and

589
00:32:47,080 --> 00:32:49,800
Speaker 1: we all had the same like language of talking about shame.

590
00:32:50,120 --> 00:32:54,400
Speaker 1: And also, I mean, really incredible is that most the

591
00:32:54,440 --> 00:33:01,880
Speaker 1: guys in these groups and stuff are believers for whatever reason. Yeah, yeah,

592
00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:06,600
Speaker 1: he would, Yeah, And so there was always that like framework,

593
00:33:06,800 --> 00:33:08,960
Speaker 1: which I think is key. I don't know how to

594
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:12,080
Speaker 1: deal with shame without grace, you know, I think you

595
00:33:12,120 --> 00:33:14,240
Speaker 1: have to lie to yourself otherwise, but grace is really

596
00:33:14,240 --> 00:33:18,200
Speaker 1: the only thing. So we have that framework. And I'm

597
00:33:18,280 --> 00:33:21,280
Speaker 1: going to this meeting for the first time, and honestly,

598
00:33:21,440 --> 00:33:24,320
Speaker 1: just to kind of keep it short, it was the

599
00:33:24,320 --> 00:33:27,600
Speaker 1: first time I felt known, you know, I let a

600
00:33:27,640 --> 00:33:30,160
Speaker 1: lot more out in that meeting than I had in

601
00:33:30,200 --> 00:33:32,640
Speaker 1: other places. And I remember this guy just putting his

602
00:33:32,640 --> 00:33:34,640
Speaker 1: hand on my knee and I was like, hey, me too,

603
00:33:35,200 --> 00:33:38,400
Speaker 1: I struggle with this stuff too. I'm in ministry. And

604
00:33:38,440 --> 00:33:40,760
Speaker 1: I was blown away because up until that point, I

605
00:33:40,800 --> 00:33:44,800
Speaker 1: thought I'm the only one. I'm the worst, right, and

606
00:33:44,880 --> 00:33:47,880
Speaker 1: there's no hope for me. And I left and all

607
00:33:47,920 --> 00:33:51,040
Speaker 1: those lies started getting broken down. I'm not the only one,

608
00:33:52,080 --> 00:33:55,800
Speaker 1: I'm not the worst. I'm normal, and there is hope.

609
00:33:55,920 --> 00:33:58,840
Speaker 1: And that was the beginning. I'll call it the beginning

610
00:33:58,840 --> 00:34:02,040
Speaker 1: of the end, right, like the party was about to end.

611
00:34:02,320 --> 00:34:04,680
Speaker 1: And that was an amazing thing. It took it took

612
00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:07,080
Speaker 1: months in recovery to get to the point where I

613
00:34:07,200 --> 00:34:12,480
Speaker 1: just fully confessed, but I started working with these guys,

614
00:34:12,480 --> 00:34:15,120
Speaker 1: and what they showed me, what I really discovered down

615
00:34:15,160 --> 00:34:20,680
Speaker 1: there was a all those things right, you're not alone.

616
00:34:20,840 --> 00:34:22,919
Speaker 1: This is a normal thing that many men deal with,

617
00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:25,680
Speaker 1: many Christian men and men in ministry are all dealing with.

618
00:34:26,760 --> 00:34:29,240
Speaker 1: But there's hope. And what hope looks like. It started

619
00:34:29,239 --> 00:34:31,839
Speaker 1: to paint a picture of how I get out of this,

620
00:34:32,320 --> 00:34:35,359
Speaker 1: and it was going to be through connection. That's that's

621
00:34:35,400 --> 00:34:38,480
Speaker 1: the best way I describe her, right, Connecting to other guys,

622
00:34:38,520 --> 00:34:41,640
Speaker 1: connecting to God, connecting to myself. I mean, you know

623
00:34:41,680 --> 00:34:46,080
Speaker 1: how it is if you're just in addiction for so long,

624
00:34:46,480 --> 00:34:49,680
Speaker 1: you you disconnect from a piece of yourself. Oh, it

625
00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:53,080
Speaker 1: does not get any attention, right, Like you just you

626
00:34:53,080 --> 00:34:56,440
Speaker 1: don't know what you're feeling. You're not dealing with those

627
00:34:56,440 --> 00:34:59,640
Speaker 1: old wounds from when you're a child all that stuff,

628
00:34:59,640 --> 00:35:02,800
Speaker 1: and so you know, this is what kind of started

629
00:35:02,800 --> 00:35:06,400
Speaker 1: getting worked out in the basement with my counselor. And

630
00:35:06,480 --> 00:35:09,479
Speaker 1: I was just like starting to see like path forward

631
00:35:09,520 --> 00:35:12,440
Speaker 1: is confession. And the way I tell it is I

632
00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:16,000
Speaker 1: I go to a meeting and I'm ready, Like the

633
00:35:16,400 --> 00:35:17,600
Speaker 1: shame is intense.

634
00:35:18,400 --> 00:35:20,680
Speaker 2: I want to get going to meetings before you get

635
00:35:20,680 --> 00:35:23,240
Speaker 2: to this point.

636
00:35:23,480 --> 00:35:28,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, about five months? Okay, about five months? Yeah, slow, slow, stubborn.

637
00:35:30,600 --> 00:35:33,160
Speaker 2: I mean, can I ask you one question before you go? Yeah,

638
00:35:33,200 --> 00:35:35,360
Speaker 2: go for it, because I think I think there's people

639
00:35:35,360 --> 00:35:39,040
Speaker 2: listening to this is can you take us back to

640
00:35:39,719 --> 00:35:43,120
Speaker 2: that first time, that first meeting, and even if you're

641
00:35:43,120 --> 00:35:44,960
Speaker 2: listening to that, I mean I didn't do toilve steps right,

642
00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:46,759
Speaker 2: So if you're listening to this, it doesn't have to

643
00:35:46,800 --> 00:35:49,040
Speaker 2: be that way. But I just like take us to

644
00:35:49,080 --> 00:35:51,319
Speaker 2: that point where you go to your first meeting and

645
00:35:51,360 --> 00:35:55,919
Speaker 2: you start opening up. Ay, how specific did you get

646
00:35:56,080 --> 00:35:59,799
Speaker 2: at least at that point? And b I think that's

647
00:35:59,840 --> 00:36:01,920
Speaker 2: a domino for a lot of people and even though

648
00:36:01,920 --> 00:36:04,399
Speaker 2: it took five months, you could also say, I mean

649
00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:07,960
Speaker 2: five months is not a long period to some people, right,

650
00:36:08,800 --> 00:36:13,040
Speaker 2: And so getting to that first point of opening up,

651
00:36:13,040 --> 00:36:15,040
Speaker 2: whether that's at a meeting, whether that's to a friend,

652
00:36:15,040 --> 00:36:18,480
Speaker 2: whether that's do whatever. I think that the fear of

653
00:36:18,520 --> 00:36:20,920
Speaker 2: what happens there keeps a lot of people. So take

654
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:23,520
Speaker 2: us back to that first meeting, that first time. What

655
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:25,200
Speaker 2: did you do and how did you get over that?

656
00:36:26,280 --> 00:36:29,759
Speaker 1: Yeah? So, I mean it was basically, you need to

657
00:36:29,880 --> 00:36:31,440
Speaker 1: I will work with you. This is my counselor I

658
00:36:31,480 --> 00:36:33,480
Speaker 1: will work with you. You have to go to a

659
00:36:33,520 --> 00:36:37,959
Speaker 1: meeting because you need to be able to talk about

660
00:36:38,040 --> 00:36:41,600
Speaker 1: this stuff with as many people as you can. Nobody

661
00:36:41,680 --> 00:36:44,360
Speaker 1: knew me, so I I go to this meeting. I

662
00:36:44,400 --> 00:36:47,480
Speaker 1: remember pulling up and I'm just like, I have no

663
00:36:47,600 --> 00:36:49,759
Speaker 1: idea what to expect. All we know is what we

664
00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:52,200
Speaker 1: see in media, and it's not really like that.

665
00:36:52,320 --> 00:36:52,520
Speaker 2: You know.

666
00:36:53,560 --> 00:36:58,080
Speaker 1: I walk into this old church and it really is

667
00:36:58,200 --> 00:36:59,600
Speaker 1: like the basement.

668
00:37:00,200 --> 00:37:01,000
Speaker 2: Are a Lutheran church.

669
00:37:01,760 --> 00:37:03,840
Speaker 1: It is, it is right, and it's got like the picture,

670
00:37:03,920 --> 00:37:06,440
Speaker 1: like that old school picture of Jesus. We all had one,

671
00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:08,439
Speaker 1: we all grew up with one of those, and it's

672
00:37:08,520 --> 00:37:10,120
Speaker 1: that and then it's like a sign that's like, you know,

673
00:37:10,160 --> 00:37:13,239
Speaker 1: don't steal. It's like, oh god, there's like a fish tank.

674
00:37:13,320 --> 00:37:16,440
Speaker 1: It is, and it's just all different kinds of chairs,

675
00:37:17,440 --> 00:37:19,560
Speaker 1: metal folding chairs. I've kind of adopted the symbol of

676
00:37:19,560 --> 00:37:22,200
Speaker 1: a metal folding chair because it's it just reminds me

677
00:37:22,320 --> 00:37:27,319
Speaker 1: of this place. It's not flashy, it's not special, but

678
00:37:27,320 --> 00:37:29,480
Speaker 1: what goes on there, and the people down there are special.

679
00:37:29,760 --> 00:37:33,759
Speaker 1: And I walk in and you know, some guys just like, hey,

680
00:37:33,840 --> 00:37:36,080
Speaker 1: you here for the meeting, and I'm like, yeah, you know,

681
00:37:36,120 --> 00:37:38,520
Speaker 1: I'm I have no idea what to say. I'm like yeah.

682
00:37:38,600 --> 00:37:40,640
Speaker 1: So he's like, oh, just come sit down, and you know,

683
00:37:40,800 --> 00:37:43,439
Speaker 1: they start the meeting. In twelve step meetings, they're they're

684
00:37:43,480 --> 00:37:47,799
Speaker 1: pretty structured actually, you know, and they're not flashy. It's

685
00:37:47,880 --> 00:37:50,520
Speaker 1: there's usually just reading. Every everyone is different and I

686
00:37:50,560 --> 00:37:54,320
Speaker 1: only know my own experience. I don't know other types

687
00:37:54,320 --> 00:37:56,480
Speaker 1: of groups and how they do it. But everyone kind

688
00:37:56,480 --> 00:37:59,480
Speaker 1: of reads from different materials, different materials but some of

689
00:37:59,520 --> 00:38:01,799
Speaker 1: the same. And so there's a reading and people just

690
00:38:01,840 --> 00:38:05,879
Speaker 1: go around and they introduce themselves and I mean, I'm

691
00:38:05,880 --> 00:38:08,400
Speaker 1: starting already to get blown away because people are talking

692
00:38:08,400 --> 00:38:12,520
Speaker 1: about being sober, which here is you know, no sex

693
00:38:12,520 --> 00:38:15,680
Speaker 1: outside of marriage with anyone besides your spouse. So it's

694
00:38:15,760 --> 00:38:18,520
Speaker 1: I mean, it's basically what goes on in a marriage

695
00:38:18,560 --> 00:38:20,759
Speaker 1: between a husband and a way. Yeah, and people are

696
00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:24,560
Speaker 1: talking about being sober for years, and I'm like years,

697
00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:26,200
Speaker 1: how is that even possible?

698
00:38:26,560 --> 00:38:29,240
Speaker 2: Like, because how often were you engaging in the affair

699
00:38:29,320 --> 00:38:30,480
Speaker 2: at this point?

700
00:38:31,120 --> 00:38:34,600
Speaker 1: Oh? Man? I mean it was someone who I don't

701
00:38:34,719 --> 00:38:37,040
Speaker 1: I don't share too much information, right, but it was

702
00:38:37,080 --> 00:38:38,959
Speaker 1: someone who was in my life, so it was hard

703
00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:44,239
Speaker 1: to avoid this person and it was yeah, it was

704
00:38:44,400 --> 00:38:47,640
Speaker 1: just we saw each other quite a bit, and so

705
00:38:47,719 --> 00:38:50,719
Speaker 1: it was hard to not even if it wasn't you know,

706
00:38:51,360 --> 00:38:55,360
Speaker 1: acting out in a certain way, it was an emotional

707
00:38:55,400 --> 00:38:57,520
Speaker 1: thing as well. It was it was all of that,

708
00:38:57,760 --> 00:39:01,959
Speaker 1: right ye, So but not just that, like just going

709
00:39:02,040 --> 00:39:04,879
Speaker 1: back years of just like childhood stuff and all the things.

710
00:39:04,920 --> 00:39:07,879
Speaker 1: It's like years of sobriety. What does that even mean?

711
00:39:07,920 --> 00:39:13,080
Speaker 1: How does that? How's that even possible? And so they're

712
00:39:13,120 --> 00:39:14,719
Speaker 1: going around and it gets to me, you know, and

713
00:39:14,760 --> 00:39:17,319
Speaker 1: I'm just like, I'm Andy, and you know, and I

714
00:39:17,400 --> 00:39:19,759
Speaker 1: say what I say, and they have a newcomer meeting

715
00:39:19,760 --> 00:39:22,160
Speaker 1: and today because that like that, what do you say?

716
00:39:22,280 --> 00:39:25,279
Speaker 2: Because people that that that's what freaks them out. They'll

717
00:39:25,320 --> 00:39:26,719
Speaker 2: even be like, I don't know if to say, so,

718
00:39:26,760 --> 00:39:27,480
Speaker 2: I'm not going to go.

719
00:39:28,800 --> 00:39:32,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, I said, uh, and I think this is the key.

720
00:39:32,120 --> 00:39:36,880
Speaker 1: I said, what was true? I'm I'm Andy. I struggle

721
00:39:36,920 --> 00:39:40,759
Speaker 1: with this. You know, you could say sex addiction or

722
00:39:40,800 --> 00:39:43,680
Speaker 1: sex addict or sex aholic. There's all these different terms. Sure,

723
00:39:44,280 --> 00:39:48,280
Speaker 1: I'm andy, I'm this. Uh, this is my first meeting

724
00:39:49,760 --> 00:39:52,400
Speaker 1: and I've been you know, sober, and you throw at

725
00:39:52,440 --> 00:39:54,280
Speaker 1: a number. But I mean at that point I really wasn't,

726
00:39:55,560 --> 00:39:58,680
Speaker 1: you know, not not in their definition. But you throw

727
00:39:58,719 --> 00:40:01,440
Speaker 1: something out and people are like, welcome. No one really cares,

728
00:40:01,800 --> 00:40:04,920
Speaker 1: you know, they don't expect anything of someone like that.

729
00:40:05,040 --> 00:40:08,160
Speaker 1: And now, almost eight years later, being on the other

730
00:40:08,200 --> 00:40:10,279
Speaker 1: side of that and seeing people, it's like, I know

731
00:40:10,360 --> 00:40:14,200
Speaker 1: exactly where they are. They're terrified, they're terrified, and all

732
00:40:14,239 --> 00:40:19,239
Speaker 1: I want them to know is that you're courageous for

733
00:40:19,360 --> 00:40:22,759
Speaker 1: literally stepping in this room. You know, courageous you are,

734
00:40:24,400 --> 00:40:27,719
Speaker 1: and just because to be there is really that first

735
00:40:27,719 --> 00:40:30,759
Speaker 1: step of admitting to yourself like I have a problem

736
00:40:30,880 --> 00:40:35,120
Speaker 1: that I cannot fix on my own. Uh, that that's

737
00:40:35,160 --> 00:40:37,200
Speaker 1: a big step for a lot. I mean, that is

738
00:40:37,280 --> 00:40:40,000
Speaker 1: the step if you if you can't admit you have

739
00:40:40,040 --> 00:40:42,920
Speaker 1: a problem that you can't fix on your own, right,

740
00:40:42,920 --> 00:40:45,680
Speaker 1: You're you can say you have a problem, but if

741
00:40:45,719 --> 00:40:49,880
Speaker 1: you think you can handle it, you're stuck. You're stuck forever,

742
00:40:49,960 --> 00:40:54,960
Speaker 1: right and unless something happens. So you know, I look

743
00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:57,320
Speaker 1: at it now and I'm like, I don't even remember

744
00:40:57,360 --> 00:40:59,799
Speaker 1: a lot of the things, but I just remember going

745
00:40:59,840 --> 00:41:04,120
Speaker 1: around being amazed by the guys who were there, and

746
00:41:04,719 --> 00:41:06,800
Speaker 1: they they pulled me into they call it a newcomer

747
00:41:06,840 --> 00:41:10,200
Speaker 1: meeting and they basically two guys share their stories. And

748
00:41:10,360 --> 00:41:12,279
Speaker 1: after that I felt safe. I felt like, well, I'm

749
00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:14,520
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna share some of my stuff. I again,

750
00:41:14,560 --> 00:41:16,840
Speaker 1: I kept the affair secret up until the day I

751
00:41:16,880 --> 00:41:19,600
Speaker 1: confessed it to my wife, so nobody knew about that.

752
00:41:20,560 --> 00:41:22,920
Speaker 1: It was the half measures. It was you know this,

753
00:41:23,400 --> 00:41:25,919
Speaker 1: and here it was safe to let a lot out

754
00:41:26,239 --> 00:41:29,560
Speaker 1: and I did that, and that's where it was just

755
00:41:29,680 --> 00:41:33,640
Speaker 1: like You're you're in the right place. You are struggling

756
00:41:33,680 --> 00:41:37,040
Speaker 1: with the exact same things I struggle with. It was

757
00:41:37,120 --> 00:41:43,520
Speaker 1: just amazing, and there is something powerful about confessing face

758
00:41:43,560 --> 00:41:48,120
Speaker 1: to face and like see when you say something horrible

759
00:41:48,239 --> 00:41:52,040
Speaker 1: about yourself that you think is horrible and you do

760
00:41:52,160 --> 00:41:56,000
Speaker 1: not see condemnation on someone's face. That is the beginning

761
00:41:56,040 --> 00:41:58,960
Speaker 1: of shame starting to break down. You know. It's we

762
00:41:58,960 --> 00:42:01,640
Speaker 1: we we are forget and we are saved and we

763
00:42:01,680 --> 00:42:03,960
Speaker 1: are you know, grace comes from God, but I think

764
00:42:03,960 --> 00:42:05,520
Speaker 1: we really experience it through people.

765
00:42:06,280 --> 00:42:09,319
Speaker 2: You know. It's funny, you know, because the I tell

766
00:42:09,360 --> 00:42:14,600
Speaker 2: people that the most healing thing for me and for

767
00:42:14,719 --> 00:42:18,960
Speaker 2: my marriage and whatnot was not when I got to

768
00:42:19,120 --> 00:42:22,480
Speaker 2: rock bottom. It was when I relapsed about a month

769
00:42:22,560 --> 00:42:28,239
Speaker 2: later and was talking to my wife about it, and

770
00:42:29,040 --> 00:42:32,680
Speaker 2: her response was, of course, relapsed. I totally get it.

771
00:42:32,960 --> 00:42:37,200
Speaker 2: I know why you relapsed. You're you're you're finally talking

772
00:42:37,239 --> 00:42:39,239
Speaker 2: about things that you never wanted to talk about. You're

773
00:42:39,280 --> 00:42:41,799
Speaker 2: finally bringing things to like that you thought we're going

774
00:42:41,840 --> 00:42:44,880
Speaker 2: to take to your grave. You know, you're finally digging

775
00:42:44,960 --> 00:42:47,560
Speaker 2: into the reasons. She's like, yeah, I get she goes,

776
00:42:47,600 --> 00:42:50,200
Speaker 2: I'm not excited about it, but I get it. And

777
00:42:50,280 --> 00:42:53,600
Speaker 2: it was just like it was like just that that

778
00:42:53,640 --> 00:42:56,000
Speaker 2: whole like Jesus, you know, like when he's like, you know,

779
00:42:56,040 --> 00:42:59,160
Speaker 2: where are your accusers? You know, I don't condemn you,

780
00:42:59,160 --> 00:43:02,440
Speaker 2: you know, and I was just like that single conversation,

781
00:43:02,680 --> 00:43:07,879
Speaker 2: her single that, her response to that, I think did

782
00:43:07,920 --> 00:43:10,000
Speaker 2: the most for setting me on the path that I'm

783
00:43:10,000 --> 00:43:10,600
Speaker 2: in now.

784
00:43:11,640 --> 00:43:15,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just incredible. We we need people to convince

785
00:43:15,719 --> 00:43:19,120
Speaker 1: us about what's true because we just i mean, we've

786
00:43:19,160 --> 00:43:23,320
Speaker 1: just gotten so used to believing lies, usually about ourselves.

787
00:43:23,920 --> 00:43:26,719
Speaker 1: I'm so horrible, I'm this, I'm that, I'm this, and

788
00:43:27,160 --> 00:43:30,200
Speaker 1: just that, you know, with other people, it's they're going

789
00:43:30,239 --> 00:43:32,839
Speaker 1: to reject they're going to reject me. It's we don't

790
00:43:32,880 --> 00:43:36,000
Speaker 1: just see ourselves wrong. We see everything wrong. We see

791
00:43:36,000 --> 00:43:38,200
Speaker 1: God wrong, and we see others wrong. And then someone

792
00:43:38,239 --> 00:43:41,520
Speaker 1: comes along and proves us wrong, like no, I am

793
00:43:41,680 --> 00:43:46,640
Speaker 1: I am in this with you. That's a powerful thing, right,

794
00:43:47,080 --> 00:43:51,360
Speaker 1: and experienced it there for one of the first times

795
00:43:51,880 --> 00:43:54,920
Speaker 1: in that basement, and it really just I mean, that

796
00:43:55,000 --> 00:43:57,319
Speaker 1: was that had such an impact on me. I mean

797
00:43:57,360 --> 00:44:01,399
Speaker 1: clearly I started, I went back, and I kept going

798
00:44:01,440 --> 00:44:05,360
Speaker 1: back because because grace, I mean experiencing grace from someone,

799
00:44:06,120 --> 00:44:10,080
Speaker 1: especially as a guy who never really let anyone know me. No.

800
00:44:10,239 --> 00:44:16,360
Speaker 1: Intimate male relationships, man, we need those men need intimate

801
00:44:16,400 --> 00:44:19,160
Speaker 1: relationships with other men, which you know is kind of

802
00:44:19,160 --> 00:44:21,520
Speaker 1: maybe foreign to some people. Even hear someone say intimate

803
00:44:21,600 --> 00:44:24,799
Speaker 1: relationships with a man, it's just another guy who he's

804
00:44:24,880 --> 00:44:26,719
Speaker 1: just in a he's in a relationship with you, and

805
00:44:26,760 --> 00:44:29,160
Speaker 1: he knows everything about you, and he's not he's not

806
00:44:29,320 --> 00:44:31,840
Speaker 1: like I can't handle you. It's not all about advice

807
00:44:31,920 --> 00:44:34,440
Speaker 1: or it's not all about accountability. It's about just andy,

808
00:44:34,480 --> 00:44:38,560
Speaker 1: I love you no matter what. Okay, So it's powerful stuff.

809
00:44:38,840 --> 00:44:41,200
Speaker 1: You're five months into it, Yeah, and.

810
00:44:41,680 --> 00:44:44,960
Speaker 2: That type of accountability, that type of intimate relationships with

811
00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:49,279
Speaker 2: other men, starts really working on you and bring us.

812
00:44:49,320 --> 00:44:53,359
Speaker 2: Now fast forward five months to kind of you know,

813
00:44:53,480 --> 00:44:54,400
Speaker 2: where everything comes.

814
00:44:54,239 --> 00:44:57,120
Speaker 1: To a head. Yeah, I would say, like, what what

815
00:44:57,360 --> 00:44:59,600
Speaker 1: happened to me during those five months? Besides you know,

816
00:44:59,719 --> 00:45:02,759
Speaker 1: just the like we can week out, like starting to

817
00:45:02,800 --> 00:45:05,080
Speaker 1: work a program kind of thing and starting to deal

818
00:45:05,120 --> 00:45:07,120
Speaker 1: with stuff and I'm I'm dealing with stuff with my

819
00:45:07,160 --> 00:45:09,719
Speaker 1: counselor as well, like we're going through specific stuff. Now,

820
00:45:10,440 --> 00:45:14,200
Speaker 1: what happened to me is I started to see the

821
00:45:14,280 --> 00:45:17,480
Speaker 1: way forward. You know, I started to believe if all

822
00:45:17,520 --> 00:45:19,719
Speaker 1: these guys have done it, I can do it. I'm

823
00:45:19,719 --> 00:45:22,520
Speaker 1: gonna be okay. I'm gonna be okay, And I know

824
00:45:22,640 --> 00:45:25,920
Speaker 1: they're okay because God took care of them. God's going

825
00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:28,440
Speaker 1: to take care of me too. And so I get

826
00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:31,680
Speaker 1: to this point where I'm just I mean, I'm I'm

827
00:45:31,719 --> 00:45:36,239
Speaker 1: a disaster and I must have been just ready, you know,

828
00:45:36,239 --> 00:45:37,920
Speaker 1: I was at the end of my rope. And I

829
00:45:38,160 --> 00:45:42,799
Speaker 1: I love telling this story. It's after a meeting, I'm

830
00:45:42,800 --> 00:45:46,000
Speaker 1: in my sponsor's car. It's raining, it's depressing, it's all

831
00:45:46,040 --> 00:45:48,439
Speaker 1: of it. It looks like a scene out of a movie. Yeah,

832
00:45:48,440 --> 00:45:50,360
Speaker 1: and he just starts, he just starts preaching to me.

833
00:45:51,000 --> 00:45:54,279
Speaker 1: And I don't remember everything he said, but I know

834
00:45:54,360 --> 00:45:59,680
Speaker 1: the verse and he just kind of walked me through. Basically, Luke,

835
00:45:59,680 --> 00:46:02,919
Speaker 1: fifth fifteen seven is the verse you know, there will

836
00:46:02,960 --> 00:46:07,000
Speaker 1: be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents

837
00:46:07,400 --> 00:46:10,880
Speaker 1: than ninety nine righteous people who don't need repentance. And

838
00:46:11,160 --> 00:46:13,759
Speaker 1: it just he's just talking to me about how good

839
00:46:13,840 --> 00:46:17,680
Speaker 1: it is to basically just be free of shame and

840
00:46:17,719 --> 00:46:19,480
Speaker 1: be free of all this stuff and turn to God,

841
00:46:19,520 --> 00:46:21,759
Speaker 1: turn to his grace, because that's what it is. It's

842
00:46:21,760 --> 00:46:25,200
Speaker 1: turning to God's grace and believing. I really do think

843
00:46:25,200 --> 00:46:27,879
Speaker 1: you're good, I really do think you love me. I'm

844
00:46:27,880 --> 00:46:31,680
Speaker 1: gonna trust you. It's the prodigal son running back to

845
00:46:31,719 --> 00:46:34,560
Speaker 1: his dad and his dad just embracing him. And I

846
00:46:34,719 --> 00:46:37,360
Speaker 1: had this picture in my head. I was like, you

847
00:46:37,400 --> 00:46:42,120
Speaker 1: know what, I'm gonna come clean and Heaven is going

848
00:46:42,160 --> 00:46:46,760
Speaker 1: to flip out. They're going to lose their minds. They're

849
00:46:46,840 --> 00:46:48,759
Speaker 1: just gonna be like fist pumping. And this is the

850
00:46:48,800 --> 00:46:50,920
Speaker 1: image I had in my mind because like you know,

851
00:46:50,960 --> 00:46:53,560
Speaker 1: I've been to a Brewers game in the playoffs where

852
00:46:53,600 --> 00:46:56,479
Speaker 1: they won, and it is the craziest celebration I've ever seen.

853
00:46:56,760 --> 00:46:58,640
Speaker 1: You know, anyone up at like Lambeau to pack or

854
00:46:58,719 --> 00:47:03,400
Speaker 1: go same thing, It's crazy. I imagined that in Heaven

855
00:47:04,000 --> 00:47:07,440
Speaker 1: over me confessing and I knew it's like, you know what,

856
00:47:07,840 --> 00:47:11,560
Speaker 1: I'm gonna blow up my life. I'm gonna basically dropped

857
00:47:11,560 --> 00:47:15,520
Speaker 1: this bomb on my wife. It's gonna hurt her, it's

858
00:47:15,560 --> 00:47:19,480
Speaker 1: gonna wound her, it's gonna be the beginning of a

859
00:47:19,480 --> 00:47:21,480
Speaker 1: lot of pain. But Heaven is going to be like

860
00:47:21,600 --> 00:47:25,120
Speaker 1: finally he did it. And it just it was just

861
00:47:25,239 --> 00:47:28,799
Speaker 1: it stuck with me all week and it happened. I

862
00:47:28,840 --> 00:47:31,680
Speaker 1: remember the day of I just felt like this is

863
00:47:31,719 --> 00:47:33,560
Speaker 1: the day, this is the day. It was a couple

864
00:47:33,680 --> 00:47:37,120
Speaker 1: days later, I'm just gonna do it. I felt like

865
00:47:37,200 --> 00:47:39,440
Speaker 1: God gave me the courage to do it because it's

866
00:47:39,440 --> 00:47:42,840
Speaker 1: the scariest thing. This is the you know, if anyone's

867
00:47:42,920 --> 00:47:46,040
Speaker 1: out there that has gone through this, they know it's

868
00:47:46,120 --> 00:47:52,520
Speaker 1: it's it's terrifying. And I look at it as this

869
00:47:52,880 --> 00:47:57,160
Speaker 1: was the first time I trusted God with the outcome

870
00:47:57,200 --> 00:48:01,000
Speaker 1: of my life. I mean, I had a backpack. I

871
00:48:01,000 --> 00:48:02,440
Speaker 1: didn't know if I was going to be married. I

872
00:48:02,480 --> 00:48:04,399
Speaker 1: didn't know if my kids were you know, four and three.

873
00:48:05,000 --> 00:48:07,800
Speaker 1: I had no idea. But I just knew I cannot

874
00:48:07,840 --> 00:48:09,759
Speaker 1: do this anymore. I cannot live in the shame. I

875
00:48:09,800 --> 00:48:13,520
Speaker 1: can't live under the accusers like Thumb just controlling me forever.

876
00:48:13,960 --> 00:48:17,759
Speaker 1: I want to follow Jesus. And I just believed I'm

877
00:48:17,760 --> 00:48:20,960
Speaker 1: going to do this. Heaven is going to celebrate. It

878
00:48:21,000 --> 00:48:23,520
Speaker 1: could be horrible for a while, but I just truly

879
00:48:23,560 --> 00:48:26,120
Speaker 1: believe this is it I'm going to get out from.

880
00:48:26,160 --> 00:48:28,560
Speaker 1: And that's the real relief, right that's the real that's

881
00:48:28,600 --> 00:48:30,959
Speaker 1: the actual relief. We want to get out from shame.

882
00:48:32,320 --> 00:48:36,160
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I went I went home. You know,

883
00:48:36,160 --> 00:48:38,719
Speaker 1: I'm still working at this church, and I mean I

884
00:48:38,760 --> 00:48:42,040
Speaker 1: looked at my office that day, as if this is it,

885
00:48:42,320 --> 00:48:45,279
Speaker 1: like I don't think I'm seeing this place again. And

886
00:48:45,360 --> 00:48:48,840
Speaker 1: I went home and she came in, and you know,

887
00:48:48,920 --> 00:48:51,759
Speaker 1: I told her just what was going on.

888
00:48:52,160 --> 00:48:54,400
Speaker 2: So I mean literally like you were just sitting in

889
00:48:54,440 --> 00:48:56,319
Speaker 2: the in the in the text.

890
00:48:56,440 --> 00:48:57,880
Speaker 1: I texted her right like, hey, I want to talk

891
00:48:57,920 --> 00:49:00,680
Speaker 1: to you when you get home. And she comes in,

892
00:49:01,160 --> 00:49:03,279
Speaker 1: I mean to paint a picture of what this looks like.

893
00:49:04,120 --> 00:49:07,000
Speaker 1: She comes in and my kids run in first, and like,

894
00:49:08,000 --> 00:49:10,560
Speaker 1: you know, I'm thinking about this. I mean, I broke down.

895
00:49:10,880 --> 00:49:15,840
Speaker 1: I mean not like weeping, like I melted. It just

896
00:49:16,360 --> 00:49:19,400
Speaker 1: said anything before I said anything, Before I said anything,

897
00:49:19,440 --> 00:49:22,799
Speaker 1: I just started losing it. And she sat down next

898
00:49:22,800 --> 00:49:25,120
Speaker 1: to me and put her arm around me, and I

899
00:49:25,200 --> 00:49:27,359
Speaker 1: told her, I was like, you know, I've been having

900
00:49:27,360 --> 00:49:30,080
Speaker 1: an affair. I filled in some of the gaps, and

901
00:49:30,280 --> 00:49:32,719
Speaker 1: the first thing she says is I want to work

902
00:49:32,760 --> 00:49:37,960
Speaker 1: this out. I want to stay with you. And it

903
00:49:38,120 --> 00:49:42,680
Speaker 1: was it's hard to even understand, like how powerful that is,

904
00:49:42,920 --> 00:49:46,720
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, that's the first good news I got.

905
00:49:48,120 --> 00:49:49,480
Speaker 1: And then it was a matter of moments where it

906
00:49:49,560 --> 00:49:53,319
Speaker 1: just started hitting her and it got very painful, very bad.

907
00:49:54,000 --> 00:49:56,680
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember that. I remember just how uncomfortable

908
00:49:56,719 --> 00:50:01,160
Speaker 1: it was, and but I wasn't laving. We were going

909
00:50:01,239 --> 00:50:03,520
Speaker 1: to work through it. And it was weird because it's like, well,

910
00:50:03,560 --> 00:50:05,680
Speaker 1: now what and it's like, well, now we still have

911
00:50:05,680 --> 00:50:06,840
Speaker 1: a four year old and the three year old, we

912
00:50:06,840 --> 00:50:08,279
Speaker 1: still have to put in bed, We still have to

913
00:50:08,280 --> 00:50:11,680
Speaker 1: be adults. But now we were just two adults that

914
00:50:11,760 --> 00:50:16,280
Speaker 1: were clearly you know, I was the betrayer. She was betrayed.

915
00:50:16,680 --> 00:50:21,880
Speaker 1: Our marriage is broken. What do we do? Thankfully, I

916
00:50:21,920 --> 00:50:24,799
Speaker 1: had a really good counselor who then the next day

917
00:50:24,800 --> 00:50:27,560
Speaker 1: I go and I tell him everything. And I started

918
00:50:27,560 --> 00:50:31,080
Speaker 1: just telling everyone that I had met, from my my

919
00:50:31,120 --> 00:50:34,960
Speaker 1: twelve step groups, everything. So I had a great support network.

920
00:50:35,960 --> 00:50:39,319
Speaker 1: I don't know how I would have navigated that, you know,

921
00:50:39,440 --> 00:50:42,319
Speaker 1: period of time without people supporting me. I don't know

922
00:50:42,360 --> 00:50:45,560
Speaker 1: how I could have. And I think that was one

923
00:50:45,600 --> 00:50:47,720
Speaker 1: of the unique things is I had this great support

924
00:50:47,800 --> 00:50:51,359
Speaker 1: network who could handle everything I was telling them. Were

925
00:50:51,360 --> 00:50:54,800
Speaker 1: they surprised? Were they probably disappointed that I was lying? Maybe?

926
00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:58,479
Speaker 1: But they again they understood that they've all been there.

927
00:50:59,239 --> 00:51:02,960
Speaker 1: And so you know, I tell my wife, I tell

928
00:51:03,000 --> 00:51:06,440
Speaker 1: my family, and then I go into work the next Monday,

929
00:51:06,640 --> 00:51:10,239
Speaker 1: and I tell my boss. He gets up, he comes around,

930
00:51:10,280 --> 00:51:15,000
Speaker 1: he gives me a hug, which is amazing, and I

931
00:51:15,040 --> 00:51:18,080
Speaker 1: wrote a residen Yeah, it was my executive pastor, right,

932
00:51:18,120 --> 00:51:20,360
Speaker 1: And I remember it because I was just terrified I

933
00:51:20,719 --> 00:51:23,040
Speaker 1: had just lived with this lie that I would be out,

934
00:51:23,960 --> 00:51:27,399
Speaker 1: I would be kicked out of here. And I mean,

935
00:51:28,040 --> 00:51:34,560
Speaker 1: to my church's credit, they handled it so so well.

936
00:51:32,560 --> 00:51:34,160
Speaker 2: Because I think there's a lot of people whose churches

937
00:51:34,680 --> 00:51:37,240
Speaker 2: have not maybe they're listening to this in their churches

938
00:51:37,320 --> 00:51:39,120
Speaker 2: or the jobs have not. What does handling it well

939
00:51:39,120 --> 00:51:39,480
Speaker 2: look like?

940
00:51:39,880 --> 00:51:42,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I've seen it handled not well from my

941
00:51:42,760 --> 00:51:47,640
Speaker 1: perspective of I saw this unfold before it happened to me.

942
00:51:48,400 --> 00:51:53,400
Speaker 1: And I think sometimes there's it's public, and I mean

943
00:51:53,440 --> 00:51:56,480
Speaker 1: it's tough because if you're in a pastor role, you're

944
00:51:56,520 --> 00:51:58,560
Speaker 1: in a public role. You can't hide this, and the

945
00:51:58,600 --> 00:52:01,160
Speaker 1: church shouldn't wide it. Really, I don't think they should

946
00:52:01,200 --> 00:52:04,239
Speaker 1: hide it. But to what level of details do you share?

947
00:52:04,239 --> 00:52:07,440
Speaker 1: And I don't know the right answer, but I know

948
00:52:08,080 --> 00:52:12,480
Speaker 1: I've seen the pastor put out there and they give

949
00:52:12,560 --> 00:52:15,600
Speaker 1: descriptions and they give you know, this is what happened,

950
00:52:15,600 --> 00:52:19,160
Speaker 1: this is what he did. What I know about that is,

951
00:52:19,200 --> 00:52:22,200
Speaker 1: it puts a lot of shame on the wife, and

952
00:52:22,239 --> 00:52:23,960
Speaker 1: that can be really hard. You know, she didn't ask

953
00:52:24,000 --> 00:52:25,520
Speaker 1: for that, and she didn't ask for all these things

954
00:52:25,560 --> 00:52:30,080
Speaker 1: to be named, and that makes it difficult. I've seen churches.

955
00:52:32,840 --> 00:52:35,080
Speaker 1: Probably the worst was just you could tell they were

956
00:52:35,120 --> 00:52:37,960
Speaker 1: really trying to protect themselves from like any kind of

957
00:52:38,080 --> 00:52:41,080
Speaker 1: lawsuit or something, you know, and it was really throwing

958
00:52:41,120 --> 00:52:43,200
Speaker 1: the guy under the bus. And that was sad to watch.

959
00:52:43,680 --> 00:52:46,920
Speaker 1: My church handled it well. They let me write my letter,

960
00:52:47,840 --> 00:52:51,120
Speaker 1: my resignation letter that they read, and they didn't tell

961
00:52:51,160 --> 00:52:55,160
Speaker 1: the details. They said, Andy, you know, has admitted here's

962
00:52:55,200 --> 00:52:59,080
Speaker 1: his let he's he's resigning, and here's what he has

963
00:52:59,120 --> 00:53:02,480
Speaker 1: to say about it. And they read my letter. People

964
00:53:02,520 --> 00:53:07,520
Speaker 1: could probably piece things together. To be honest, I don't

965
00:53:07,560 --> 00:53:12,759
Speaker 1: even I did not. I did not, you know, I

966
00:53:12,960 --> 00:53:16,920
Speaker 1: I assumed they were going to spill the beans on me.

967
00:53:17,000 --> 00:53:21,040
Speaker 1: I guess it was clear that it was uh, it

968
00:53:21,080 --> 00:53:23,320
Speaker 1: was a moral failure, right, which is kind of the

969
00:53:23,960 --> 00:53:26,600
Speaker 1: term a lot of people use. Again that leaves it

970
00:53:26,680 --> 00:53:29,840
Speaker 1: up to the imagination. But it allowed me. What I

971
00:53:29,840 --> 00:53:32,920
Speaker 1: think is it allowed me and my wife to heal

972
00:53:33,320 --> 00:53:36,200
Speaker 1: in a degree where people were like Okay, Andy's going

973
00:53:36,200 --> 00:53:40,000
Speaker 1: through something. He needed to resign. Clearly, you know in

974
00:53:40,040 --> 00:53:42,279
Speaker 1: my letter, I don't remember, I haven't. I haven't read

975
00:53:42,320 --> 00:53:47,320
Speaker 1: it since since I sent it, but it was, you know, apologizing,

976
00:53:47,400 --> 00:53:50,680
Speaker 1: and I wrote it in a in a pretty vulnerable

977
00:53:50,680 --> 00:53:53,440
Speaker 1: state to a pretty low state, So I don't know everything,

978
00:53:53,880 --> 00:53:57,359
Speaker 1: but they read it, and I'll tell you they they

979
00:53:57,360 --> 00:53:59,440
Speaker 1: took care of us financially for a while, which is

980
00:53:59,440 --> 00:54:02,160
Speaker 1: awesome because I mean, you leave ministry, you don't have

981
00:54:02,760 --> 00:54:06,480
Speaker 1: something to just fall into. And you know, I'm fortunate

982
00:54:06,520 --> 00:54:08,439
Speaker 1: where I have a background in accounting, so I could.

983
00:54:08,480 --> 00:54:11,680
Speaker 1: I ended up finding something and you know, have a

984
00:54:11,719 --> 00:54:13,640
Speaker 1: career and that's fine, but a lot of people don't.

985
00:54:13,680 --> 00:54:16,399
Speaker 1: A lot of guys don't. They this is all they've

986
00:54:16,400 --> 00:54:19,480
Speaker 1: ever done. And clearly, like you're a good leader in church,

987
00:54:20,080 --> 00:54:21,759
Speaker 1: you can do a lot of things, but people don't

988
00:54:21,840 --> 00:54:25,359
Speaker 1: understand that, and it's really hard. So financially there's there

989
00:54:25,400 --> 00:54:28,759
Speaker 1: was stress that they helped alleviate. But we had to

990
00:54:28,760 --> 00:54:31,279
Speaker 1: find a new church, and you know, because it's just

991
00:54:31,440 --> 00:54:33,719
Speaker 1: too many memories, too many things, we had to go

992
00:54:33,760 --> 00:54:37,759
Speaker 1: somewhere to heal someone where Andy wasn't leader. You know,

993
00:54:37,840 --> 00:54:42,839
Speaker 1: it wasn't pastor. He was just a broken dude found

994
00:54:42,880 --> 00:54:46,080
Speaker 1: that place. But yeah, it they just did a lot

995
00:54:46,080 --> 00:54:48,200
Speaker 1: of things, and I mean I was able to meet

996
00:54:48,440 --> 00:54:51,120
Speaker 1: with so many people one on one right away and

997
00:54:52,000 --> 00:54:56,160
Speaker 1: just apologize and ask for their forgiveness and just I

998
00:54:56,200 --> 00:55:01,880
Speaker 1: mean people were so people surprise me by how kind

999
00:55:02,280 --> 00:55:05,640
Speaker 1: they were, you know, and it affected different people differently.

1000
00:55:05,680 --> 00:55:09,960
Speaker 1: I was a youth pastor, right, so teens can be

1001
00:55:10,080 --> 00:55:13,799
Speaker 1: very forgiving sometimes, you know. But I mean, it wasn't

1002
00:55:13,840 --> 00:55:16,000
Speaker 1: just teens. It was families, it was the church as

1003
00:55:16,040 --> 00:55:17,680
Speaker 1: a whole, it was staff, it was you know, it

1004
00:55:17,719 --> 00:55:19,680
Speaker 1: was a lot of people. And I've had to you know,

1005
00:55:19,800 --> 00:55:23,120
Speaker 1: I'm still having those conversations years later, you know, working

1006
00:55:23,239 --> 00:55:24,400
Speaker 1: if you were through the steps, you have to make

1007
00:55:24,440 --> 00:55:27,000
Speaker 1: amends to people, and I'm still I'm still in that process.

1008
00:55:27,719 --> 00:55:30,840
Speaker 1: But it's good. People are very receptive from that church

1009
00:55:31,080 --> 00:55:36,400
Speaker 1: and we're awesome to us, which because of how they reacted,

1010
00:55:36,840 --> 00:55:39,600
Speaker 1: I think that helped us a ton moving forward to

1011
00:55:39,600 --> 00:55:40,040
Speaker 1: to heal.

1012
00:55:41,800 --> 00:55:46,640
Speaker 2: Maybe there's people listening to this who are in that situation.

1013
00:55:47,440 --> 00:55:54,520
Speaker 2: And I think another potentially fearful thing that keeps people

1014
00:55:54,600 --> 00:56:02,520
Speaker 2: from coming clean in this area is m how do you,

1015
00:56:02,600 --> 00:56:05,839
Speaker 2: how do you break it off with the other person? Right,

1016
00:56:05,960 --> 00:56:10,279
Speaker 2: Like I've heard that, Like, well, I mean, sure, I'm

1017
00:56:10,320 --> 00:56:13,200
Speaker 2: ready to I'm ready to confess and repent, but now

1018
00:56:13,200 --> 00:56:17,040
Speaker 2: I'm going to blow this other person's life. Like how

1019
00:56:17,080 --> 00:56:18,239
Speaker 2: does that process work?

1020
00:56:18,920 --> 00:56:22,759
Speaker 1: Yeah? I got I mean I got a lot of

1021
00:56:22,800 --> 00:56:27,040
Speaker 1: boundaries given to me by my counselor who you know.

1022
00:56:27,080 --> 00:56:28,839
Speaker 1: He kind of stepped in and he's like, you need

1023
00:56:28,880 --> 00:56:31,480
Speaker 1: boundaries in your life. You never talked to this person

1024
00:56:31,480 --> 00:56:33,160
Speaker 1: ever again, and.

1025
00:56:33,160 --> 00:56:35,000
Speaker 2: So do you literally just tech that person say, hey,

1026
00:56:35,000 --> 00:56:36,359
Speaker 2: I confess to my wife, I'm done.

1027
00:56:36,880 --> 00:56:41,160
Speaker 1: No nothing, nothing, you just stop. Just culture just yeah,

1028
00:56:41,600 --> 00:56:44,239
Speaker 1: it's it's drug dealer, right, So like that's that I'm

1029
00:56:44,680 --> 00:56:46,440
Speaker 1: not But that's how you have to think about it.

1030
00:56:46,520 --> 00:56:47,880
Speaker 1: You have to think about it like I'm never going

1031
00:56:47,960 --> 00:56:49,400
Speaker 1: to go to my bar again. I'm never going to

1032
00:56:49,440 --> 00:56:51,200
Speaker 1: go to my drug dealer again. I'm never going to

1033
00:56:51,280 --> 00:56:55,120
Speaker 1: have any connection with them. You it is, it's it's

1034
00:56:55,200 --> 00:56:57,920
Speaker 1: not a good relationship, it's not a healthy relationship. It's

1035
00:56:57,920 --> 00:57:03,360
Speaker 1: an idol. And and yeah, there's uh, there's no like

1036
00:57:03,640 --> 00:57:07,160
Speaker 1: nice way to uh I think end an affair. You

1037
00:57:07,320 --> 00:57:11,279
Speaker 1: just do it and you and by doing it, uh,

1038
00:57:11,440 --> 00:57:14,440
Speaker 1: I think that starts building trust with the only relationship

1039
00:57:14,480 --> 00:57:16,920
Speaker 1: you have to worry about, you know, which is my spouse.

1040
00:57:17,760 --> 00:57:20,120
Speaker 1: That's what it was from from that moment where I

1041
00:57:20,280 --> 00:57:22,560
Speaker 1: told my told my wife and I'm talking to my

1042
00:57:22,600 --> 00:57:28,280
Speaker 1: counselor he's like done nothing, and you know, helps helps

1043
00:57:28,320 --> 00:57:31,800
Speaker 1: me start to establish things like you know, got like

1044
00:57:31,840 --> 00:57:34,040
Speaker 1: an app on my phone like Life three sixty. Right,

1045
00:57:34,040 --> 00:57:38,960
Speaker 1: So I start building trust with your spouse. She knows

1046
00:57:39,000 --> 00:57:40,880
Speaker 1: where I am all the time. If she's like you

1047
00:57:40,920 --> 00:57:43,520
Speaker 1: can't go there, I don't go there, right If you know,

1048
00:57:43,680 --> 00:57:46,320
Speaker 1: if if she called me and she's like, uh, where

1049
00:57:46,360 --> 00:57:48,880
Speaker 1: are you? I have to FaceTime or something, you know,

1050
00:57:49,080 --> 00:57:51,640
Speaker 1: like yeah, you you build trust by doing what you

1051
00:57:51,720 --> 00:57:53,080
Speaker 1: say you'll do. Do you still do that.

1052
00:57:53,040 --> 00:57:54,560
Speaker 2: To this day? Like does that still some of the

1053
00:57:54,600 --> 00:57:55,360
Speaker 2: boundaries you have?

1054
00:57:55,480 --> 00:57:58,320
Speaker 1: Or yeah, still have the boundaries because it's it's no

1055
00:57:58,440 --> 00:58:01,080
Speaker 1: longer to build trust. I don't even have to think

1056
00:58:01,080 --> 00:58:05,960
Speaker 1: about it. It's it's more of a I know, I

1057
00:58:06,000 --> 00:58:08,320
Speaker 1: know she's not lying, and she knows I'm not lying,

1058
00:58:08,640 --> 00:58:10,760
Speaker 1: and we have this thing in place where it's like

1059
00:58:11,200 --> 00:58:15,160
Speaker 1: we're good, you know. So yeah, the bound the boundary

1060
00:58:15,160 --> 00:58:19,560
Speaker 1: thing just didn't exist. Uh, we love We love boundaries

1061
00:58:19,600 --> 00:58:21,320
Speaker 1: in the church, but the way I think of them

1062
00:58:21,440 --> 00:58:24,160
Speaker 1: is they're usually more about perception help people see us

1063
00:58:24,880 --> 00:58:29,280
Speaker 1: rather than actually protecting ourselves, and we need that, Like

1064
00:58:29,400 --> 00:58:33,280
Speaker 1: we shouldn't be trusting ourselves with certain situations.

1065
00:58:33,320 --> 00:58:36,440
Speaker 2: Man, our heart is deceitful.

1066
00:58:36,520 --> 00:58:39,000
Speaker 1: Yeah right, we're saved sinners. Yeah, we're saved sinners. We

1067
00:58:39,040 --> 00:58:41,080
Speaker 1: got we got the flesh and the spirit battle in

1068
00:58:41,120 --> 00:58:44,280
Speaker 1: it out and we will we will give into that

1069
00:58:44,360 --> 00:58:48,640
Speaker 1: because that's the limitation, right, Like, I'm limited. I do

1070
00:58:48,720 --> 00:58:50,840
Speaker 1: not have the power in me on my own to

1071
00:58:50,840 --> 00:58:53,280
Speaker 1: say no to these things. Yea, but with the help

1072
00:58:53,320 --> 00:58:55,600
Speaker 1: of God, with the help of others, I can. I

1073
00:58:55,640 --> 00:59:00,560
Speaker 1: can get through this stuff. But I mean, yeah, so.

1074
00:58:59,640 --> 00:59:01,840
Speaker 2: So what did well? First of all, let me say, like,

1075
00:59:01,920 --> 00:59:08,040
Speaker 2: you know, even though my struggle hasn't been sexual sin right,

1076
00:59:10,280 --> 00:59:12,560
Speaker 2: is like my wife at any point can pick up

1077
00:59:12,600 --> 00:59:17,680
Speaker 2: my phone and she thumbs through my text messages. She

1078
00:59:17,720 --> 00:59:20,840
Speaker 2: has access, like she has my Instagram account on her

1079
00:59:20,880 --> 00:59:24,200
Speaker 2: phone and it's which sometimes I kind of joke, I'm like, hey, baby,

1080
00:59:24,240 --> 00:59:26,840
Speaker 2: you followed that person from my account. I'm like, you

1081
00:59:26,840 --> 00:59:28,840
Speaker 2: should follow that. I don't think I should be followed

1082
00:59:28,920 --> 00:59:30,360
Speaker 2: that person, but you've followed.

1083
00:59:30,040 --> 00:59:32,520
Speaker 1: That phone or something.

1084
00:59:32,600 --> 00:59:38,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, And but but you know, I think, and

1085
00:59:38,480 --> 00:59:40,479
Speaker 2: are there times I'm not gonna lie, there are times

1086
00:59:40,480 --> 00:59:42,200
Speaker 2: like she picks up my phone and I'm like not

1087
00:59:42,320 --> 00:59:45,480
Speaker 2: because I think I have something to hide. But it's

1088
00:59:45,560 --> 00:59:49,720
Speaker 2: just like it's never like the most comfortable thing for

1089
00:59:49,760 --> 00:59:53,440
Speaker 2: you to get under the microscope. But I also know

1090
00:59:54,640 --> 00:59:59,880
Speaker 2: that even though my specific struggle wasn't like what you're

1091
01:00:00,080 --> 01:00:04,400
Speaker 2: talking about, that I am still continuing to rebuild trust

1092
01:00:04,480 --> 01:00:07,760
Speaker 2: with my wife. And so if one of those ways

1093
01:00:07,880 --> 01:00:10,520
Speaker 2: is that she picks up my phone and has complete

1094
01:00:10,520 --> 01:00:14,520
Speaker 2: that like yes, one hundred percent right, And and so

1095
01:00:14,680 --> 01:00:16,880
Speaker 2: I think it's a good habit and practice for us

1096
01:00:16,920 --> 01:00:21,320
Speaker 2: all to just you know, to be engaged in. Okay,

1097
01:00:21,400 --> 01:00:28,280
Speaker 2: so you confess, you start healing, bring us from you know,

1098
01:00:29,680 --> 01:00:34,160
Speaker 2: like what did healing look like? And what did accountability?

1099
01:00:34,560 --> 01:00:36,160
Speaker 2: I mean you talked about that a little bit, but

1100
01:00:36,200 --> 01:00:38,480
Speaker 2: what what did it grow into? What does it look

1101
01:00:38,520 --> 01:00:40,720
Speaker 2: like today? Then we'll be right back after this.

1102
01:00:44,520 --> 01:00:47,919
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that was about seven and a half years ago.

1103
01:00:49,600 --> 01:00:54,640
Speaker 1: And yeah, what really happened during that time? I mean

1104
01:00:54,680 --> 01:01:00,600
Speaker 1: immediately for for six six months a year, it was hard.

1105
01:01:01,000 --> 01:01:06,080
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we made the commitment to stick together.

1106
01:01:06,160 --> 01:01:08,560
Speaker 1: But then we had to do the work of healing,

1107
01:01:09,120 --> 01:01:12,840
Speaker 1: and we both had so in terms of our marriage, right,

1108
01:01:12,920 --> 01:01:15,520
Speaker 1: let's start with that. So like in our marriage, we

1109
01:01:15,560 --> 01:01:20,840
Speaker 1: started going to a counselor and she was great and

1110
01:01:20,880 --> 01:01:23,479
Speaker 1: she kind of helped us do some of the things

1111
01:01:23,520 --> 01:01:25,280
Speaker 1: you have to do with this kind of stuff. Like

1112
01:01:25,280 --> 01:01:27,760
Speaker 1: I had to. I had to tell my wife what

1113
01:01:27,800 --> 01:01:30,960
Speaker 1: it was like for me in the midst of an affair.

1114
01:01:31,760 --> 01:01:33,439
Speaker 1: And I had to tell her that because she didn't

1115
01:01:33,520 --> 01:01:36,360
Speaker 1: understand why and how and all this stuff.

1116
01:01:36,440 --> 01:01:38,120
Speaker 2: Right, well, what do you mean by that? You had

1117
01:01:38,160 --> 01:01:39,240
Speaker 2: to tell her what it was like?

1118
01:01:39,640 --> 01:01:44,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, like what was going on in me the whole time?

1119
01:01:45,520 --> 01:01:48,320
Speaker 1: And you know I told her, I'm like I was alone,

1120
01:01:48,720 --> 01:01:53,040
Speaker 1: I was ashamed, I was desperate for relief. I was

1121
01:01:53,080 --> 01:01:55,560
Speaker 1: desperate for someone to tell me this, this, this That's

1122
01:01:55,560 --> 01:01:58,280
Speaker 1: hard stuff to say, but that's what was going on

1123
01:01:58,360 --> 01:02:02,440
Speaker 1: inside me. And I remember her response. She was upset

1124
01:02:02,680 --> 01:02:04,760
Speaker 1: because she's like, I thought you were just going to say,

1125
01:02:04,880 --> 01:02:06,960
Speaker 1: you know, she was she was young, and she was

1126
01:02:07,000 --> 01:02:10,320
Speaker 1: attractive and you were horny, and it's like, no, I'm

1127
01:02:10,400 --> 01:02:12,760
Speaker 1: exposing the fact that I am a man who's broken

1128
01:02:13,400 --> 01:02:19,600
Speaker 1: and hurting and lonely and uh, struggling and that and

1129
01:02:19,920 --> 01:02:22,640
Speaker 1: so two completely different stories going on in our heads,

1130
01:02:22,720 --> 01:02:24,600
Speaker 1: right and now, so she's like, wow, this is where

1131
01:02:24,640 --> 01:02:27,800
Speaker 1: he's coming from. This isn't this isn't about I think

1132
01:02:27,840 --> 01:02:31,560
Speaker 1: what it gets painted as where it's like this external thing. No,

1133
01:02:31,720 --> 01:02:34,480
Speaker 1: this is these are like there's a great quote like,

1134
01:02:34,720 --> 01:02:36,280
Speaker 1: you know, every man who knocks at the door of

1135
01:02:36,280 --> 01:02:40,520
Speaker 1: a brothel is looking for God. That I mean, that's true.

1136
01:02:41,240 --> 01:02:44,040
Speaker 1: This is again, this isn't a behavior. There's behavior things

1137
01:02:44,040 --> 01:02:47,640
Speaker 1: that behaviors are bad. Behaviors have consequences. But this is

1138
01:02:48,040 --> 01:02:50,120
Speaker 1: this is deep down. This is belief stuff. This is

1139
01:02:50,120 --> 01:02:53,640
Speaker 1: shame stuff, lies. All the stuff had to come out.

1140
01:02:53,720 --> 01:02:57,240
Speaker 1: And so she starts seeing the man she was married

1141
01:02:57,240 --> 01:03:00,439
Speaker 1: to through a different lens because I didn't I didn't

1142
01:03:00,440 --> 01:03:01,960
Speaker 1: tell her any of this, right, I didn't tell her

1143
01:03:02,000 --> 01:03:04,160
Speaker 1: along the way I'm lonely. I didn't tell her along

1144
01:03:04,200 --> 01:03:07,080
Speaker 1: the way that I'm hurting. So she had to hear

1145
01:03:07,080 --> 01:03:10,840
Speaker 1: that for the first time, and you know, she had

1146
01:03:10,840 --> 01:03:14,640
Speaker 1: to just let me have it in a safe place.

1147
01:03:14,680 --> 01:03:16,920
Speaker 1: You know. The counselor kind of serves as like a

1148
01:03:16,960 --> 01:03:19,520
Speaker 1: third person to guide conversations in that kind of setting.

1149
01:03:19,880 --> 01:03:21,640
Speaker 1: We had to go through that and it was amazing.

1150
01:03:21,720 --> 01:03:24,120
Speaker 1: We had homework, we had to have a ton of

1151
01:03:24,160 --> 01:03:27,080
Speaker 1: hard conversations, and that was kind of the thing, you know,

1152
01:03:27,640 --> 01:03:31,520
Speaker 1: realizing the hardest conversation I've ever had was out of

1153
01:03:31,520 --> 01:03:34,440
Speaker 1: the way. Now, whatever we talk about it, it's not going

1154
01:03:34,480 --> 01:03:36,560
Speaker 1: to be as bad as that. But there's still the

1155
01:03:36,680 --> 01:03:39,720
Speaker 1: fear of there's still the fear of do I really

1156
01:03:39,720 --> 01:03:41,120
Speaker 1: want to rock the boat? Do I really want to

1157
01:03:41,120 --> 01:03:44,520
Speaker 1: be honest? And we had to be and it got

1158
01:03:44,560 --> 01:03:47,160
Speaker 1: to the point where, you know, my wife forgave me.

1159
01:03:47,200 --> 01:03:48,560
Speaker 1: She sat me down and she told me, She's like,

1160
01:03:48,560 --> 01:03:50,720
Speaker 1: I forgave you a while ago, but I just I

1161
01:03:50,760 --> 01:03:53,800
Speaker 1: couldn't tell you. And she finally told me. I mean,

1162
01:03:53,840 --> 01:03:58,320
Speaker 1: I'm like breaking down every every month just realizing, you know,

1163
01:03:58,440 --> 01:04:00,960
Speaker 1: by God's grace, and I mean, I'm feeling things that

1164
01:04:01,000 --> 01:04:04,240
Speaker 1: I haven't felt my whole life from childhood. So there's

1165
01:04:04,320 --> 01:04:07,280
Speaker 1: you know, I'm working through a lot of family of

1166
01:04:07,280 --> 01:04:10,720
Speaker 1: origin stuff. She's working on family of origin stuff because

1167
01:04:10,720 --> 01:04:14,240
Speaker 1: she's her own family. You know, she didn't have the

1168
01:04:14,240 --> 01:04:17,160
Speaker 1: same struggles I had, didn't have the same generational stuff

1169
01:04:17,200 --> 01:04:20,480
Speaker 1: I had, but she was half of the marriage and

1170
01:04:20,520 --> 01:04:23,520
Speaker 1: the marriage broke down. You know, I took it to

1171
01:04:23,560 --> 01:04:26,160
Speaker 1: where it went, but she was part of that marriage.

1172
01:04:26,160 --> 01:04:28,880
Speaker 1: So we both had to heal, We both had to mature,

1173
01:04:29,360 --> 01:04:33,320
Speaker 1: both had to grow. And you know, I knew things

1174
01:04:33,320 --> 01:04:39,760
Speaker 1: were going to be okay when after just so many conversations,

1175
01:04:39,760 --> 01:04:41,520
Speaker 1: but one that really stuck with me and she's like,

1176
01:04:41,560 --> 01:04:45,320
Speaker 1: it's so nice that you know everything about me. I

1177
01:04:45,400 --> 01:04:48,480
Speaker 1: know everything about you, and we're choosing to stay together.

1178
01:04:49,240 --> 01:04:52,680
Speaker 1: And I'm like that, I feel like that I got

1179
01:04:52,680 --> 01:04:55,840
Speaker 1: this glimpse of that's actually what marriage is, right, Like

1180
01:04:56,000 --> 01:04:57,880
Speaker 1: cause it's two people. They start, you don't know jack

1181
01:04:57,920 --> 01:05:02,760
Speaker 1: about each other, not not not the bad stuff. You

1182
01:05:03,080 --> 01:05:06,440
Speaker 1: see what the other person presents. You get a glimpse

1183
01:05:06,440 --> 01:05:09,160
Speaker 1: of some of that stuff, but at a certain point

1184
01:05:09,520 --> 01:05:13,240
Speaker 1: you get the full picture and you make a choice.

1185
01:05:13,640 --> 01:05:16,240
Speaker 1: And choosing to stay with them debts. That's like the

1186
01:05:16,320 --> 01:05:19,400
Speaker 1: unconditional thing flipped on, Like, this is unconditional. Now, this

1187
01:05:19,480 --> 01:05:22,600
Speaker 1: isn't about how we feel. It's about a commitment. And

1188
01:05:22,920 --> 01:05:24,600
Speaker 1: I mean we never would have got there, which is

1189
01:05:25,040 --> 01:05:29,760
Speaker 1: which is amazing. Right, So marriage heals and begins to

1190
01:05:29,800 --> 01:05:34,680
Speaker 1: get better, Like we began to actually have and experience

1191
01:05:35,080 --> 01:05:38,720
Speaker 1: a good relationship like a good marriage where you talk

1192
01:05:38,800 --> 01:05:41,880
Speaker 1: to the person, you support the person. She supports me.

1193
01:05:41,960 --> 01:05:44,960
Speaker 1: I support her and you know now she is it

1194
01:05:45,320 --> 01:05:48,040
Speaker 1: blows people away, But she's the most encouraging person in

1195
01:05:48,040 --> 01:05:50,800
Speaker 1: my life, like because she knows everything about me, she

1196
01:05:50,880 --> 01:05:53,160
Speaker 1: knows the lies I believe and all the stuff, and

1197
01:05:53,640 --> 01:05:56,800
Speaker 1: she has compassion on me. I can still drive her crazy,

1198
01:05:56,880 --> 01:06:01,280
Speaker 1: you know, because we're still again, right, sinner, you know, sinners,

1199
01:06:01,320 --> 01:06:03,720
Speaker 1: you know, sinners in a saved world, but still falling.

1200
01:06:03,880 --> 01:06:06,800
Speaker 1: And so that's all going on. But it's like, this

1201
01:06:06,840 --> 01:06:08,720
Speaker 1: is what it's really supposed to be like and probably

1202
01:06:08,760 --> 01:06:11,480
Speaker 1: also you know, just just to share, probably for the

1203
01:06:11,520 --> 01:06:14,360
Speaker 1: first time in my life, actually experiencing sex in a

1204
01:06:14,400 --> 01:06:18,080
Speaker 1: way that got intended. Never experienced it that way before,

1205
01:06:18,440 --> 01:06:20,360
Speaker 1: where it's more of a thing of giving rather than

1206
01:06:20,440 --> 01:06:24,960
Speaker 1: just receiving. You know, it's guys are and women, but

1207
01:06:25,080 --> 01:06:27,200
Speaker 1: men and women grown up in a world where things

1208
01:06:27,200 --> 01:06:31,360
Speaker 1: are just so twisted and messed up, and just it's

1209
01:06:31,480 --> 01:06:34,120
Speaker 1: it's doing a number on all of us, right, did

1210
01:06:34,160 --> 01:06:38,000
Speaker 1: a number on me, And that's amazing. But like in

1211
01:06:38,080 --> 01:06:42,040
Speaker 1: terms of Andy, as like a guy, as a believer,

1212
01:06:44,120 --> 01:06:47,160
Speaker 1: so many things started to just get like wrung out

1213
01:06:47,160 --> 01:06:50,880
Speaker 1: of me, this work addiction that I had. I ended

1214
01:06:50,960 --> 01:06:53,280
Speaker 1: up in a job I didn't matter. I was just

1215
01:06:53,320 --> 01:06:56,920
Speaker 1: a person. I was just doing this simple task, no importance.

1216
01:06:57,000 --> 01:06:59,000
Speaker 1: All that validation just got wrung out of it, like

1217
01:06:59,000 --> 01:07:01,200
Speaker 1: you ain't getting it here, you ain't getting it here.

1218
01:07:01,240 --> 01:07:04,080
Speaker 1: And I remember days when I would just sit there

1219
01:07:04,080 --> 01:07:06,000
Speaker 1: and be like, gosh, I wish I was back in ministry.

1220
01:07:06,800 --> 01:07:09,240
Speaker 1: And it wasn't because I wanted to be serving people.

1221
01:07:09,320 --> 01:07:11,480
Speaker 1: It was because I missed the validation and I missed

1222
01:07:11,480 --> 01:07:15,280
Speaker 1: the praise. You know, like it people, I mean they

1223
01:07:15,320 --> 01:07:18,240
Speaker 1: probably see it, but like for someone in ministry, like

1224
01:07:18,400 --> 01:07:23,320
Speaker 1: when you're told, oh, change my life, that message, I mean,

1225
01:07:23,360 --> 01:07:24,680
Speaker 1: I feel like you were speaking to me. All the

1226
01:07:24,680 --> 01:07:28,280
Speaker 1: things that people say, I with good intentions for a gut,

1227
01:07:28,320 --> 01:07:31,880
Speaker 1: for a boy with a validation gap in his life

1228
01:07:31,880 --> 01:07:35,160
Speaker 1: and who desires affirmation and all that. Man, that's potent.

1229
01:07:35,720 --> 01:07:39,880
Speaker 1: That's potent when you're this broken person. Oh it is,

1230
01:07:40,160 --> 01:07:43,400
Speaker 1: it is right. And so I found myself just sitting

1231
01:07:43,400 --> 01:07:46,920
Speaker 1: in this desk job just like longing, you know, longing

1232
01:07:46,960 --> 01:07:49,680
Speaker 1: for those days. And I had to like wrestle with

1233
01:07:49,720 --> 01:07:54,320
Speaker 1: that and realize, like, man, do I want minister like

1234
01:07:54,560 --> 01:07:57,520
Speaker 1: do I love ministry or do I love people? And

1235
01:07:57,560 --> 01:07:59,000
Speaker 1: I got to the point where I had to admit

1236
01:07:59,240 --> 01:08:05,960
Speaker 1: I love ministry. I need a change. And God started

1237
01:08:05,960 --> 01:08:08,480
Speaker 1: to work in me that way, right, which is kind

1238
01:08:08,520 --> 01:08:10,400
Speaker 1: of how I got here in terms of like what

1239
01:08:10,560 --> 01:08:13,800
Speaker 1: I do. But like before I got there, like God

1240
01:08:13,920 --> 01:08:18,000
Speaker 1: had to just heal so much in me, you know,

1241
01:08:18,120 --> 01:08:22,479
Speaker 1: this childhood stuff. I really had to wrestle with my

1242
01:08:22,600 --> 01:08:26,479
Speaker 1: mom and my dad and being there, being their son.

1243
01:08:28,120 --> 01:08:32,040
Speaker 1: I had to forgive them and I did, thankfully. Like

1244
01:08:33,040 --> 01:08:35,280
Speaker 1: you know, I went to I went to mom, and

1245
01:08:35,360 --> 01:08:38,280
Speaker 1: I went to Dad and told him. I'm like, this

1246
01:08:38,439 --> 01:08:42,519
Speaker 1: is what it was like to be me, explained it that,

1247
01:08:43,720 --> 01:08:48,680
Speaker 1: you know, mostly well I think, you know, with my

1248
01:08:48,880 --> 01:08:53,160
Speaker 1: dad and you know, both my parents are alive, and uh,

1249
01:08:53,240 --> 01:08:58,400
Speaker 1: you know, I have a relationship with them. It's it's

1250
01:08:58,439 --> 01:09:00,240
Speaker 1: it's probably not perfect. It's probably not like a lot

1251
01:09:00,280 --> 01:09:05,240
Speaker 1: of other people's relationships, you know, but I did forgive them.

1252
01:09:05,600 --> 01:09:09,000
Speaker 1: And what it was like with with my dad, you know,

1253
01:09:09,120 --> 01:09:13,920
Speaker 1: I saw for a while the remorse I could see

1254
01:09:14,040 --> 01:09:16,680
Speaker 1: kind of just like he felt guilty about things. He

1255
01:09:16,720 --> 01:09:18,680
Speaker 1: saw my life kind of fall apart, and I think

1256
01:09:18,680 --> 01:09:20,680
Speaker 1: he took on a lot and I think he was

1257
01:09:20,760 --> 01:09:23,479
Speaker 1: trying to apologize, trying to apologize, and finally I was like,

1258
01:09:23,520 --> 01:09:26,640
Speaker 1: you know, Dad, I forgive you when you're he he

1259
01:09:26,720 --> 01:09:28,679
Speaker 1: lives in a different state, but when you're when you're back,

1260
01:09:29,000 --> 01:09:32,840
Speaker 1: let's talk. And he did. He visited and we talked

1261
01:09:32,840 --> 01:09:34,640
Speaker 1: and I explained like, this is what it was like

1262
01:09:34,680 --> 01:09:37,479
Speaker 1: for me to grow up. I've forgiven you. I want

1263
01:09:37,520 --> 01:09:40,400
Speaker 1: you to know what I've forgiven you for. And he

1264
01:09:40,439 --> 01:09:45,280
Speaker 1: took it really well. You know, I do think, yeah, yeah, yeah,

1265
01:09:45,320 --> 01:09:47,400
Speaker 1: And he's actually administering to people now. So like he

1266
01:09:47,439 --> 01:09:49,880
Speaker 1: lives in like a senior a senior living community and

1267
01:09:49,880 --> 01:09:53,600
Speaker 1: he's doing that and for which is amazing because like

1268
01:09:53,600 --> 01:09:55,719
Speaker 1: again my family, we didn't grow up going to church,

1269
01:09:56,080 --> 01:09:59,640
Speaker 1: so all my siblings and my parents were all, you know,

1270
01:10:00,120 --> 01:10:05,760
Speaker 1: to tenders love Jesus. It's kind of wild. So yeah,

1271
01:10:05,800 --> 01:10:08,439
Speaker 1: he it was a good conversation. And I do think

1272
01:10:08,520 --> 01:10:11,320
Speaker 1: there's just something between a son and his dad that's

1273
01:10:12,240 --> 01:10:16,400
Speaker 1: it's it's a relationship that's just so I mean, the

1274
01:10:16,520 --> 01:10:20,240
Speaker 1: son can be so impacted by a dad. To to

1275
01:10:20,479 --> 01:10:24,280
Speaker 1: heal that relationship and reconcile, it was really good for me,

1276
01:10:25,240 --> 01:10:29,800
Speaker 1: really good for him. But during that whole process, you know,

1277
01:10:30,040 --> 01:10:32,200
Speaker 1: just kind of realize like I need to be fathered

1278
01:10:32,240 --> 01:10:35,960
Speaker 1: by God and going through this process of just seeing

1279
01:10:36,000 --> 01:10:39,600
Speaker 1: how God sees me, learning to see God as he is,

1280
01:10:39,720 --> 01:10:42,559
Speaker 1: not through this lens that I had adopted from like

1281
01:10:42,640 --> 01:10:46,000
Speaker 1: childhood or God's distance. He's not interested, I pray to

1282
01:10:46,040 --> 01:10:48,880
Speaker 1: God now like he's interested in me, Like he wants

1283
01:10:48,880 --> 01:10:51,160
Speaker 1: to hear my purse. What would you say to someone

1284
01:10:51,200 --> 01:10:54,120
Speaker 1: who wants to hear your person, wants to love you,

1285
01:10:54,240 --> 01:10:57,559
Speaker 1: wants to be good to you. That's a god we have, right.

1286
01:10:58,320 --> 01:11:01,320
Speaker 1: I think becoming a dad and watching my kids grow up,

1287
01:11:01,400 --> 01:11:05,200
Speaker 1: especially my son grow up, I mean that has a

1288
01:11:05,280 --> 01:11:07,760
Speaker 1: huge impact on you, you know, like it just it

1289
01:11:07,880 --> 01:11:09,960
Speaker 1: changes you. You become a parent, You've become a new person.

1290
01:11:11,479 --> 01:11:16,439
Speaker 1: So they he took it really well. Our relationship isn't,

1291
01:11:16,640 --> 01:11:19,320
Speaker 1: you know, probably what it could have been, or you know,

1292
01:11:19,439 --> 01:11:24,519
Speaker 1: in an ideal world is. But we've reconciled and I've

1293
01:11:24,520 --> 01:11:27,200
Speaker 1: forgiven him and I and I I think that had

1294
01:11:27,240 --> 01:11:32,120
Speaker 1: a huge weight off his shoulders, you know, because I

1295
01:11:32,200 --> 01:11:34,920
Speaker 1: knew he was feeling the shame and the guilt. So

1296
01:11:35,640 --> 01:11:41,240
Speaker 1: with my mom, it's tough, you know from my mom.

1297
01:11:41,640 --> 01:11:45,479
Speaker 1: Uh still struggles in a lot of ways. I think

1298
01:11:45,479 --> 01:11:48,400
Speaker 1: it was harder for her to see how you know,

1299
01:11:48,720 --> 01:11:51,920
Speaker 1: she was a single mom, so again I think she

1300
01:11:51,920 --> 01:11:55,599
Speaker 1: she had a deck stacked against her. She did her best,

1301
01:11:55,960 --> 01:11:59,640
Speaker 1: and I acknowledge that, you know, a lot of the

1302
01:11:59,720 --> 01:12:01,200
Speaker 1: things that I see in her are things that are

1303
01:12:01,240 --> 01:12:04,040
Speaker 1: in me. So I've learned to be compassionate on her right.

1304
01:12:04,439 --> 01:12:07,080
Speaker 1: And then you start to see the family tree stuff

1305
01:12:07,200 --> 01:12:11,680
Speaker 1: like my grandparents, Holy cow, you know, like you go

1306
01:12:11,720 --> 01:12:14,000
Speaker 1: to family things and people start talking about stuff and

1307
01:12:14,000 --> 01:12:16,559
Speaker 1: you're like, whoa, Well, can you just like explain that

1308
01:12:16,600 --> 01:12:20,600
Speaker 1: real quick? You know, but yeah, I mean up the

1309
01:12:20,640 --> 01:12:27,120
Speaker 1: family tree gambling, addiction, alcoholism, you know, really messy parenting

1310
01:12:27,200 --> 01:12:31,320
Speaker 1: stuff like a lot of just baggage. And you you

1311
01:12:31,400 --> 01:12:33,800
Speaker 1: have to forgive your parents for what their parents did

1312
01:12:33,800 --> 01:12:35,960
Speaker 1: to them, you know, you start to see your parent

1313
01:12:36,720 --> 01:12:40,000
Speaker 1: as a kid. That's where I start. So like, if

1314
01:12:40,000 --> 01:12:42,640
Speaker 1: anyone has to learn how to forgive their parents, and

1315
01:12:42,640 --> 01:12:46,280
Speaker 1: I think we all do, because none are perfect, right, Like,

1316
01:12:46,600 --> 01:12:48,000
Speaker 1: we're all going to grow up, We're gonna have to

1317
01:12:48,080 --> 01:12:49,040
Speaker 1: forgive our parents.

1318
01:12:49,160 --> 01:12:51,960
Speaker 2: And I'm gonna have to seek forgiveness for my kids.

1319
01:12:52,000 --> 01:12:54,200
Speaker 2: Even though I know all the stuff that you're talking about.

1320
01:12:54,240 --> 01:12:57,200
Speaker 2: There are still things that that I'm like, there's going

1321
01:12:57,240 --> 01:12:59,840
Speaker 2: to be a day where my daughter, especially's the oldest one, right,

1322
01:12:59,880 --> 01:13:02,200
Speaker 2: so she's probably come to me first and she's gonna say, Dad,

1323
01:13:02,439 --> 01:13:04,720
Speaker 2: this really hurt me or you did this, And my

1324
01:13:05,040 --> 01:13:08,479
Speaker 2: prayer is that I'll be like, I'm so sorry. I know,

1325
01:13:08,840 --> 01:13:10,479
Speaker 2: I know, I'm so sorry.

1326
01:13:10,720 --> 01:13:15,320
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, guaranteed, right, that goes out of my mind,

1327
01:13:15,360 --> 01:13:20,439
Speaker 1: you know, goes and I think bottoming out being a wreck,

1328
01:13:21,080 --> 01:13:24,760
Speaker 1: it humbles you and you start to see like who

1329
01:13:24,800 --> 01:13:29,600
Speaker 1: am I? Who am I to hold this over someone's head?

1330
01:13:30,040 --> 01:13:34,719
Speaker 1: You know. The conversation was really difficult for me. I think,

1331
01:13:34,880 --> 01:13:36,599
Speaker 1: you know, I've always said the only things I really

1332
01:13:36,640 --> 01:13:38,800
Speaker 1: want from my parents is I want my mom to apologize,

1333
01:13:38,800 --> 01:13:41,879
Speaker 1: and I want my dad to basically say he's interested

1334
01:13:41,920 --> 01:13:45,720
Speaker 1: in me. You know, Dad is where I see love.

1335
01:13:46,160 --> 01:13:48,040
Speaker 1: I just want to be you know, I want my

1336
01:13:48,040 --> 01:13:49,720
Speaker 1: mom to apologize for what she did. I want my

1337
01:13:49,800 --> 01:13:54,800
Speaker 1: dad to just say I'm interested in you. And I

1338
01:13:55,080 --> 01:13:57,360
Speaker 1: feel like I got there, you know, and that was

1339
01:13:57,400 --> 01:13:59,519
Speaker 1: that was healing from me. I'm hoping it was healing

1340
01:13:59,520 --> 01:14:02,600
Speaker 1: for them, even though I know that was difficult. But

1341
01:14:02,680 --> 01:14:04,240
Speaker 1: I think just in the back of our minds. We

1342
01:14:04,280 --> 01:14:07,280
Speaker 1: all know how we've wronged people, especially as a parent,

1343
01:14:07,320 --> 01:14:11,120
Speaker 1: like you just said it right, and so to do that,

1344
01:14:11,280 --> 01:14:13,439
Speaker 1: I think is just that. That's one of the ways

1345
01:14:13,479 --> 01:14:15,800
Speaker 1: I look at honoring them is I'm not gonna hold

1346
01:14:15,840 --> 01:14:17,559
Speaker 1: some grudge or resentment on him. I can't do that.

1347
01:14:18,880 --> 01:14:22,080
Speaker 1: You know, God's forgiven me much I have to forgive

1348
01:14:22,120 --> 01:14:24,240
Speaker 1: other people, and that absolutely includes the parents. That was

1349
01:14:24,280 --> 01:14:28,280
Speaker 1: a big step I feel like in my healing because

1350
01:14:28,400 --> 01:14:31,880
Speaker 1: so much stuff from childhood affected me. Now when I

1351
01:14:31,960 --> 01:14:34,880
Speaker 1: go to like family events or whatever, it's just not

1352
01:14:35,280 --> 01:14:37,599
Speaker 1: I don't get as triggered like. I don't get angry

1353
01:14:37,800 --> 01:14:40,320
Speaker 1: like I did before. I don't like start to get

1354
01:14:40,360 --> 01:14:43,479
Speaker 1: bothered by everything. And I think I don't because I

1355
01:14:43,560 --> 01:14:46,360
Speaker 1: talked about it with tons of people. I just rehashed

1356
01:14:46,360 --> 01:14:48,599
Speaker 1: my childhood with as many people so I could feel

1357
01:14:48,600 --> 01:14:51,080
Speaker 1: the stuff and then I could heal, and then I

1358
01:14:51,320 --> 01:14:55,160
Speaker 1: reconciled and I'm free of it now, like it happened.

1359
01:14:55,240 --> 01:14:57,519
Speaker 1: It's real, but here's where I am now, Like it's

1360
01:14:57,560 --> 01:15:00,120
Speaker 1: part of my past now became part of how and

1361
01:15:00,160 --> 01:15:03,519
Speaker 1: he got here. You know, God's using that. And and

1362
01:15:03,680 --> 01:15:05,719
Speaker 1: the more I talk to people the more I realize

1363
01:15:07,120 --> 01:15:08,960
Speaker 1: a lot of guys have dad issues, a lot a

1364
01:15:09,000 --> 01:15:12,439
Speaker 1: lot of people grew up in messy holmes. So again

1365
01:15:12,479 --> 01:15:16,600
Speaker 1: it's another another instance of like, I'm not the only one. Yeah,

1366
01:15:16,840 --> 01:15:17,519
Speaker 1: pretty normal.

1367
01:15:20,080 --> 01:15:24,400
Speaker 2: So so three three, three questions as we can start

1368
01:15:24,520 --> 01:15:30,760
Speaker 2: coming to the end here, one would be how have

1369
01:15:30,920 --> 01:15:31,719
Speaker 2: you still seen?

1370
01:15:31,800 --> 01:15:32,040
Speaker 1: You know?

1371
01:15:32,439 --> 01:15:35,120
Speaker 2: Part of what I talk about is is grace is

1372
01:15:35,160 --> 01:15:38,320
Speaker 2: available to you, it's available to me. And yet, like

1373
01:15:39,080 --> 01:15:42,240
Speaker 2: you know, I don't think the message of grace is

1374
01:15:42,280 --> 01:15:44,680
Speaker 2: not that there aren't consequences for our actions. And I

1375
01:15:44,680 --> 01:15:48,400
Speaker 2: think one of the reasons that in the Christian community,

1376
01:15:48,400 --> 01:15:50,880
Speaker 2: even though yours was really loving and accepting, I think

1377
01:15:50,880 --> 01:15:53,519
Speaker 2: that's not the case for for people, for for everyone,

1378
01:15:54,680 --> 01:15:57,320
Speaker 2: is that they feel like, well, if I if I

1379
01:15:57,400 --> 01:16:00,840
Speaker 2: say I may or I may say that grace for Andy,

1380
01:16:00,840 --> 01:16:03,240
Speaker 2: but I'm still gonna treat Andy like a pariah, or

1381
01:16:03,240 --> 01:16:05,120
Speaker 2: I'm still gonna put a scarlet letter on him, or

1382
01:16:05,160 --> 01:16:07,439
Speaker 2: I'm still gonna look at him as kind of less

1383
01:16:07,439 --> 01:16:10,400
Speaker 2: than And it's because if I am to welcome and

1384
01:16:11,080 --> 01:16:15,120
Speaker 2: embrace Andy and John, well, then I am saying that

1385
01:16:15,400 --> 01:16:18,880
Speaker 2: it's ok like what they did was okay, right, And

1386
01:16:18,960 --> 01:16:24,800
Speaker 2: so how do we reconcile the fact that grace is available,

1387
01:16:24,840 --> 01:16:27,160
Speaker 2: but yet there are still consequences for our actions. And

1388
01:16:27,200 --> 01:16:30,000
Speaker 2: how do people who haven't, who aren't you and me,

1389
01:16:30,920 --> 01:16:34,679
Speaker 2: but who are around people like us, you know, show

1390
01:16:34,840 --> 01:16:40,080
Speaker 2: grace and and still say but I'm not like condoning

1391
01:16:40,080 --> 01:16:41,360
Speaker 2: what they did. You know what I mean? Do you

1392
01:16:41,439 --> 01:16:42,520
Speaker 2: understand that dichotomy?

1393
01:16:42,640 --> 01:16:49,559
Speaker 1: Totally? I think it's really hard. Something something I post.

1394
01:16:49,640 --> 01:16:52,880
Speaker 1: I post my story out online, you know, videos or

1395
01:16:52,920 --> 01:16:54,800
Speaker 1: different places. Whenever there's like a story of like a

1396
01:16:54,840 --> 01:16:58,680
Speaker 1: pastor who fails, I like to leave a comment and

1397
01:16:58,720 --> 01:17:01,000
Speaker 1: remind people like this guy's going through a hard time,

1398
01:17:01,040 --> 01:17:03,519
Speaker 1: his family's going through a hard time, his church, pray

1399
01:17:03,600 --> 01:17:07,680
Speaker 1: for them, love them, it'll help them. And then I

1400
01:17:07,680 --> 01:17:09,800
Speaker 1: share a little by own story that I think gives hope.

1401
01:17:10,320 --> 01:17:12,240
Speaker 1: And I've gotten reactions to that, you know, some good,

1402
01:17:12,280 --> 01:17:17,439
Speaker 1: some bad. And what I've learned is if you don't

1403
01:17:17,520 --> 01:17:19,840
Speaker 1: understand why like a pastor fails, I just don't think

1404
01:17:19,840 --> 01:17:25,360
Speaker 1: you understand the human condition. We're just not special. We're

1405
01:17:25,400 --> 01:17:28,320
Speaker 1: special in we've been given a unique role, but we

1406
01:17:28,439 --> 01:17:32,120
Speaker 1: have not been given some extra dose of oh you're

1407
01:17:32,160 --> 01:17:38,000
Speaker 1: immune from all these things. No. In fact, I mean God.

1408
01:17:38,200 --> 01:17:42,720
Speaker 1: I think God keeps us weak because he loves us,

1409
01:17:44,000 --> 01:17:47,160
Speaker 1: because you know, thinking of like Paul's thorn, if God

1410
01:17:47,200 --> 01:17:50,360
Speaker 1: had removed that, Paul would have a reason to not

1411
01:17:50,400 --> 01:17:53,639
Speaker 1: trust in those moments, you know. And it's like, well,

1412
01:17:53,720 --> 01:17:57,320
Speaker 1: God has given me and you and everyone kind of

1413
01:17:57,400 --> 01:18:02,320
Speaker 1: unique things that I think draw us to Him and

1414
01:18:03,960 --> 01:18:06,800
Speaker 1: that's not a bad thing. There's bad things that can

1415
01:18:06,800 --> 01:18:09,240
Speaker 1: come out of them, but it's always an opportunity, you know,

1416
01:18:09,240 --> 01:18:11,599
Speaker 1: It's always an opportunity to run to God and grace.

1417
01:18:11,640 --> 01:18:15,960
Speaker 1: So the fact that these things exist is shouldn't scare us.

1418
01:18:16,640 --> 01:18:18,960
Speaker 1: I mean, we live in a Genesis three world, Like

1419
01:18:19,280 --> 01:18:22,599
Speaker 1: that's just the world we live in. Accepting that we

1420
01:18:22,640 --> 01:18:26,400
Speaker 1: live in that world isn't wrong saying oh you do that,

1421
01:18:26,439 --> 01:18:28,280
Speaker 1: and you do that, you do that, Yeah, that's different.

1422
01:18:28,360 --> 01:18:30,720
Speaker 1: But I don't know anyone that like people that love

1423
01:18:30,800 --> 01:18:34,200
Speaker 1: grace and are just constantly pouring out grace. I don't

1424
01:18:34,240 --> 01:18:35,760
Speaker 1: know any of those people that are like, oh, yeah,

1425
01:18:35,800 --> 01:18:39,200
Speaker 1: it's okay to sin right now. They know it's not

1426
01:18:39,240 --> 01:18:42,599
Speaker 1: okay to sin, and they know the only antidote is grace. Yes,

1427
01:18:42,680 --> 01:18:44,920
Speaker 1: that's why they're doing it. Because if I give you

1428
01:18:45,000 --> 01:18:48,240
Speaker 1: willpower and I say, you just need to care more,

1429
01:18:48,439 --> 01:18:50,280
Speaker 1: and you need to read your Bible more, and you

1430
01:18:50,320 --> 01:18:52,400
Speaker 1: need to like know more, and you need to double

1431
01:18:52,439 --> 01:18:54,759
Speaker 1: down on effort. I am setting you up for failure

1432
01:18:55,600 --> 01:18:58,120
Speaker 1: because on your own, like you're just going to become

1433
01:18:58,160 --> 01:19:02,439
Speaker 1: more prideful even if you succeed. Yeah, God doesn't want

1434
01:19:02,439 --> 01:19:04,400
Speaker 1: that for us. It doesn't. Oh yeah, I want my

1435
01:19:04,479 --> 01:19:07,840
Speaker 1: children to become more prival. Like does he welcome the

1436
01:19:07,880 --> 01:19:11,080
Speaker 1: prodigal home hoping? He then becomes like the older brother

1437
01:19:11,600 --> 01:19:14,880
Speaker 1: who's like, what about me? You know, I've done this

1438
01:19:14,960 --> 01:19:17,960
Speaker 1: my whole life, And he's like, don't you understand, Like

1439
01:19:18,600 --> 01:19:22,160
Speaker 1: your brother was lost and now I've accepted him and

1440
01:19:22,200 --> 01:19:26,600
Speaker 1: I've loved him and he's back. That's amazing. I just

1441
01:19:26,640 --> 01:19:31,639
Speaker 1: think grace is so counter flesh, you know, like there

1442
01:19:31,680 --> 01:19:34,360
Speaker 1: is just something in us that still wants to believe

1443
01:19:34,920 --> 01:19:35,360
Speaker 1: I got this.

1444
01:19:36,280 --> 01:19:36,800
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1445
01:19:36,840 --> 01:19:40,200
Speaker 1: And I think if we say to someone else like,

1446
01:19:40,800 --> 01:19:44,240
Speaker 1: oh I love you anyway, we have to we have

1447
01:19:44,360 --> 01:19:46,840
Speaker 1: to somehow also believe the same thing about us that

1448
01:19:47,040 --> 01:19:49,720
Speaker 1: we can't fix ourselves, that we can't climb, you know,

1449
01:19:49,840 --> 01:19:51,880
Speaker 1: out of the out of the gutter or you know,

1450
01:19:52,040 --> 01:19:54,200
Speaker 1: get ourselves out of this pit whatever. Like we have

1451
01:19:54,320 --> 01:20:00,240
Speaker 1: to admit in ourselves for a week. We're limited, and

1452
01:20:00,320 --> 01:20:03,559
Speaker 1: we're loved and we're accepted, right, and the cross is enough.

1453
01:20:05,040 --> 01:20:09,960
Speaker 1: It really is that. I just extending grace is not

1454
01:20:10,080 --> 01:20:12,439
Speaker 1: at all the same as tolerating sin.

1455
01:20:13,360 --> 01:20:16,440
Speaker 2: Yes, great, great line.

1456
01:20:16,600 --> 01:20:20,240
Speaker 1: It's just not right. It's so good. It's the only

1457
01:20:20,320 --> 01:20:23,960
Speaker 1: thing you can actually do. Wow, if there is no

1458
01:20:24,080 --> 01:20:26,880
Speaker 1: condemnation for those who are in Christ, why would you

1459
01:20:26,880 --> 01:20:28,759
Speaker 1: give them anything else? Why would you give them something

1460
01:20:28,760 --> 01:20:31,240
Speaker 1: that they did they're not.

1461
01:20:31,320 --> 01:20:35,640
Speaker 2: Oh wow, that is so good, you know, so go ahead.

1462
01:20:36,000 --> 01:20:39,680
Speaker 1: No, I just think it. It's just a challenge and

1463
01:20:39,720 --> 01:20:41,639
Speaker 1: it's what we just always have to keep coming back

1464
01:20:41,680 --> 01:20:41,880
Speaker 1: to it.

1465
01:20:43,960 --> 01:20:46,120
Speaker 2: Oh wait, I'm glad you brought up the prodigal son

1466
01:20:46,320 --> 01:20:48,759
Speaker 2: because I think what you know, people that are listening

1467
01:20:48,800 --> 01:20:50,360
Speaker 2: to this, I want to encourage you to go read

1468
01:20:50,400 --> 01:20:53,439
Speaker 2: that parable again because actually, what I think so many

1469
01:20:53,439 --> 01:20:55,640
Speaker 2: people miss is that the parable is really about the

1470
01:20:55,680 --> 01:20:56,200
Speaker 2: older brother.

1471
01:20:56,880 --> 01:20:59,120
Speaker 1: Like it's totally about the older brother. That's what Jesus

1472
01:20:59,200 --> 01:21:01,640
Speaker 1: is telling it. Yeah, right, Like the Pharisees are the

1473
01:21:01,680 --> 01:21:02,160
Speaker 1: older brother.

1474
01:21:02,400 --> 01:21:05,280
Speaker 2: Right, Like we left onto the prodigal part, which is great,

1475
01:21:05,320 --> 01:21:07,320
Speaker 2: and like there's still is a lesson in there. But

1476
01:21:07,520 --> 01:21:11,000
Speaker 2: the point is he's talking about it to like like,

1477
01:21:11,240 --> 01:21:12,599
Speaker 2: don't be the older brother.

1478
01:21:12,640 --> 01:21:17,439
Speaker 1: Right, don't become an older brother. Story. And it's so

1479
01:21:18,240 --> 01:21:21,439
Speaker 1: it's such like a easy thing that happens in the church.

1480
01:21:22,120 --> 01:21:25,719
Speaker 1: Whereas you enter as the prodigal son, right, the younger brother,

1481
01:21:25,840 --> 01:21:28,519
Speaker 1: and then you become the older brother. It's like that's

1482
01:21:28,800 --> 01:21:32,880
Speaker 1: now you just you just stay just accepting God's love.

1483
01:21:34,000 --> 01:21:36,479
Speaker 1: That's really it. It's it is tough, but yeah, I

1484
01:21:36,520 --> 01:21:42,040
Speaker 1: mean if if it's hard to show grace, I get it.

1485
01:21:42,080 --> 01:21:44,600
Speaker 1: I mean I can't show grace to some people sometimes,

1486
01:21:44,640 --> 01:21:49,960
Speaker 1: like it's just more evidence that oh, well I haven't arrived. Surprise, surprise,

1487
01:21:50,080 --> 01:21:52,679
Speaker 1: Like you can be just dragged through everything in life

1488
01:21:52,800 --> 01:21:56,000
Speaker 1: and still not arrive. But I think at the end

1489
01:21:56,000 --> 01:21:58,160
Speaker 1: of the day, when I stop and I you know,

1490
01:21:58,640 --> 01:22:00,600
Speaker 1: instead of putting a lens on them, I flip the

1491
01:22:00,600 --> 01:22:05,240
Speaker 1: mirror on myself, it's a lot easier to just accept people,

1492
01:22:06,320 --> 01:22:08,720
Speaker 1: meaning I'm not going to reject them. You know, when

1493
01:22:08,720 --> 01:22:11,160
Speaker 1: we talk about acceptance, I think sometimes we talk about

1494
01:22:11,160 --> 01:22:14,040
Speaker 1: it as what you're doing is okay, what you're doing

1495
01:22:14,080 --> 01:22:16,479
Speaker 1: isn't okay, And I can still love you, right, I

1496
01:22:16,479 --> 01:22:19,280
Speaker 1: can I can still not reject you. I can still

1497
01:22:19,360 --> 01:22:21,760
Speaker 1: keep you in my presence, in my company and put

1498
01:22:21,800 --> 01:22:23,800
Speaker 1: my arm around you and be like, hey, me too.

1499
01:22:24,600 --> 01:22:26,519
Speaker 1: It's easier if you have the me too add it

1500
01:22:26,560 --> 01:22:29,360
Speaker 1: to like the I am just like you. It's of

1501
01:22:29,400 --> 01:22:32,800
Speaker 1: course it's easier to do that. But I think if

1502
01:22:32,800 --> 01:22:36,599
Speaker 1: people are stuck in their shame and they're not willing

1503
01:22:36,640 --> 01:22:39,240
Speaker 1: to admit it and not it, it's hard, I think

1504
01:22:39,360 --> 01:22:43,000
Speaker 1: to go there. It's hard to love people when you

1505
01:22:43,040 --> 01:22:44,160
Speaker 1: hate yourself, right, Like.

1506
01:22:45,640 --> 01:22:47,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I think for a lot of us,

1507
01:22:47,000 --> 01:22:50,200
Speaker 2: we're like, you know, you know, Jesus tells us to

1508
01:22:51,280 --> 01:22:53,519
Speaker 2: love others, you know, like we love ourselves and we're like, wow,

1509
01:22:53,560 --> 01:22:54,760
Speaker 2: I hate myself.

1510
01:22:54,360 --> 01:22:56,720
Speaker 1: So yeah, you know, so what am I going to do?

1511
01:22:56,760 --> 01:22:59,400
Speaker 1: But I not even knowing what love is like, not

1512
01:22:59,520 --> 01:23:03,680
Speaker 1: receiving love, not receiving the grace? Really, how do you

1513
01:23:03,680 --> 01:23:06,160
Speaker 1: show it? What does that look like? It feels forced

1514
01:23:06,200 --> 01:23:10,879
Speaker 1: almost sometimes, but yeah, I mean it's it's amazing.

1515
01:23:11,080 --> 01:23:14,400
Speaker 2: Do you still struggle, like do you still have temptation?

1516
01:23:15,800 --> 01:23:15,920
Speaker 1: Like?

1517
01:23:16,160 --> 01:23:17,479
Speaker 2: And how do you deal with that?

1518
01:23:18,120 --> 01:23:22,479
Speaker 1: Yeah? That's an awesome question totally. It's it's different though,

1519
01:23:22,600 --> 01:23:25,040
Speaker 1: right because the way I describe it is I have.

1520
01:23:25,800 --> 01:23:28,479
Speaker 1: I have built up momentum now, you know, like my

1521
01:23:28,840 --> 01:23:31,960
Speaker 1: sobriety date is the day I confessed to my wife,

1522
01:23:32,040 --> 01:23:35,840
Speaker 1: which is phenomenal. I look at it in part of

1523
01:23:36,520 --> 01:23:39,040
Speaker 1: I have a great support network around me who helps me,

1524
01:23:39,160 --> 01:23:42,879
Speaker 1: who I can go to God's grace, but also just

1525
01:23:42,880 --> 01:23:47,000
Speaker 1: just the it's just proof that getting out from under

1526
01:23:47,120 --> 01:23:49,519
Speaker 1: that much shame. And I still feel shame. It still

1527
01:23:49,600 --> 01:23:52,439
Speaker 1: comes at me. But I mean I was, I mean,

1528
01:23:52,520 --> 01:23:54,719
Speaker 1: I was a slave. I was buried in it, right.

1529
01:23:55,439 --> 01:23:59,439
Speaker 1: Getting out from that allows you to then really experience

1530
01:23:59,479 --> 01:24:04,800
Speaker 1: God's grace way that you didn't before. So sober almost set. Yeah,

1531
01:24:04,800 --> 01:24:09,880
Speaker 1: seven and a half almost eight years now, still have

1532
01:24:10,080 --> 01:24:13,320
Speaker 1: all those tendencies in me too. I want to find

1533
01:24:13,360 --> 01:24:17,400
Speaker 1: relief right like, and I gave up alcohol shortly after

1534
01:24:17,439 --> 01:24:19,639
Speaker 1: that because it had to go too. I gave up

1535
01:24:19,680 --> 01:24:22,160
Speaker 1: things where it was like, if this is getting in

1536
01:24:22,160 --> 01:24:25,680
Speaker 1: the way of me growing up, it's gotta go. It's

1537
01:24:25,720 --> 01:24:28,479
Speaker 1: gotta go. So alcohol is removed from my life. Sober

1538
01:24:28,479 --> 01:24:33,839
Speaker 1: from alcohol, work has you know, kind of gotten unpacked

1539
01:24:33,880 --> 01:24:35,640
Speaker 1: a lot. I don't look to work the way I

1540
01:24:35,760 --> 01:24:38,880
Speaker 1: used to. But really recovery was focused on you know,

1541
01:24:39,040 --> 01:24:43,839
Speaker 1: sexual type stuff and learning how to deal with the triggers,

1542
01:24:43,840 --> 01:24:48,320
Speaker 1: the temptations, all that stuff. Best way I can describe

1543
01:24:48,320 --> 01:24:52,320
Speaker 1: it is because so much stuff is related to shame.

1544
01:24:53,240 --> 01:24:57,880
Speaker 1: If I focus on connection, I think the opposite of shame,

1545
01:24:58,000 --> 01:25:01,040
Speaker 1: like shame, is disconnecting. Right. We see it in the

1546
01:25:01,120 --> 01:25:04,720
Speaker 1: Genesis three is like the best example. Yeah right, They're

1547
01:25:04,800 --> 01:25:08,160
Speaker 1: they're naked and ashamed, they hear God, They're afraid, they run,

1548
01:25:08,200 --> 01:25:10,160
Speaker 1: they hide, they're covering up. This is what we do.

1549
01:25:10,600 --> 01:25:16,000
Speaker 1: We we fear because we're ashamed. We fear God. We run,

1550
01:25:16,200 --> 01:25:18,439
Speaker 1: we hide, we cover up with all kinds of modern

1551
01:25:18,479 --> 01:25:21,200
Speaker 1: day fig leaves. And you know, so if we focus

1552
01:25:21,240 --> 01:25:25,720
Speaker 1: on connection, that's kind of like the positive action to

1553
01:25:25,800 --> 01:25:30,000
Speaker 1: deal with shame. Right. So connecting to myself, connecting to

1554
01:25:30,040 --> 01:25:31,760
Speaker 1: other people so that they know me. So I have

1555
01:25:31,800 --> 01:25:34,280
Speaker 1: to know myself. I let other people know me. I

1556
01:25:34,280 --> 01:25:37,439
Speaker 1: connect to God through prayer and just I mean really

1557
01:25:37,479 --> 01:25:40,240
Speaker 1: just talking to them, right, And then I connect to truth,

1558
01:25:40,280 --> 01:25:42,400
Speaker 1: which is scripture. So I don't look at it so

1559
01:25:42,520 --> 01:25:44,280
Speaker 1: much as read your Bible. I look at it as

1560
01:25:44,479 --> 01:25:47,760
Speaker 1: go find the truth, find what's true, because we're we

1561
01:25:47,800 --> 01:25:50,439
Speaker 1: are getting attacked by lies every single day. Some of

1562
01:25:50,439 --> 01:25:53,280
Speaker 1: the lies are coming from me. Some of the lies

1563
01:25:53,320 --> 01:25:56,120
Speaker 1: are coming from other people, but it's the lie. It's

1564
01:25:56,240 --> 01:25:59,320
Speaker 1: usually a lie that has to do with your identity,

1565
01:26:00,320 --> 01:26:04,000
Speaker 1: who you are. You can have a great theological framework.

1566
01:26:05,040 --> 01:26:07,639
Speaker 1: You know. I didn't finish seminary, but I went through

1567
01:26:07,680 --> 01:26:10,439
Speaker 1: most of it before my life fell apart. So it's

1568
01:26:10,479 --> 01:26:12,439
Speaker 1: like I have a good framework, you know. I know

1569
01:26:12,520 --> 01:26:15,720
Speaker 1: I read the Bible regularly, that I have my beliefs.

1570
01:26:15,920 --> 01:26:18,200
Speaker 1: But what I'm talking about here is what you believe.

1571
01:26:18,280 --> 01:26:22,920
Speaker 1: Like functionally, moment by moment, connecting to all those things

1572
01:26:22,960 --> 01:26:26,799
Speaker 1: really is kind of like the It pushes back against

1573
01:26:27,120 --> 01:26:29,120
Speaker 1: shame when it pops up, you know, because I fail,

1574
01:26:29,200 --> 01:26:31,960
Speaker 1: I do something stupid, whatever it is, shame pops up.

1575
01:26:32,000 --> 01:26:33,479
Speaker 1: I have a way of dealing with it because I'm

1576
01:26:33,479 --> 01:26:36,640
Speaker 1: connected to people. I can bring it to God, I

1577
01:26:36,640 --> 01:26:38,479
Speaker 1: can bring it to another person. I can tell my

1578
01:26:38,520 --> 01:26:41,479
Speaker 1: wife whatever it is, I get it out. I literally

1579
01:26:41,560 --> 01:26:44,400
Speaker 1: just live in the light, is how I kind of

1580
01:26:44,439 --> 01:26:48,360
Speaker 1: describe it. Like I'm just an open book. Living vulnerably

1581
01:26:48,479 --> 01:26:53,080
Speaker 1: as much as possible will keep shame from controlling me

1582
01:26:53,320 --> 01:26:57,760
Speaker 1: because it's super powerful, it's super influential. So just doing

1583
01:26:57,800 --> 01:27:02,639
Speaker 1: all that, just being connected, being known all of that

1584
01:27:03,120 --> 01:27:07,040
Speaker 1: helps deal with that, which if you're not just buried

1585
01:27:07,040 --> 01:27:09,639
Speaker 1: in shame, these things aren't gonna run out of control.

1586
01:27:09,760 --> 01:27:13,200
Speaker 1: I don't think you know you have you see something.

1587
01:27:13,200 --> 01:27:15,200
Speaker 1: I mean, you can't. You can't help but see things.

1588
01:27:15,240 --> 01:27:19,240
Speaker 1: Like you know, there's no you can't discipline yourself out

1589
01:27:19,240 --> 01:27:22,639
Speaker 1: of sexual temptations, Like you can definitely remove things, but

1590
01:27:22,760 --> 01:27:26,120
Speaker 1: you're gonna see things, and you're gonna think things. You're

1591
01:27:26,120 --> 01:27:29,280
Speaker 1: gonna have all kinds of just moments that just trigger

1592
01:27:29,400 --> 01:27:32,360
Speaker 1: thought whatever it is, the best way to deal with

1593
01:27:32,400 --> 01:27:34,120
Speaker 1: that is just again to bring it into the light

1594
01:27:34,439 --> 01:27:37,280
Speaker 1: and also counter it with truth, Like I'll tell you

1595
01:27:37,320 --> 01:27:41,120
Speaker 1: one of the truths. So my biggest struggles are it's

1596
01:27:41,120 --> 01:27:43,360
Speaker 1: definitely like stuff around us, but it's also anger. Like

1597
01:27:43,400 --> 01:27:46,800
Speaker 1: anger was a huge issue I dealt with my whole life.

1598
01:27:47,240 --> 01:27:50,479
Speaker 1: So I have truth to battle those things. So like

1599
01:27:50,479 --> 01:27:51,760
Speaker 1: one of the things I tell myself is I'm not

1600
01:27:51,800 --> 01:27:54,960
Speaker 1: gonna say anything that makes my life better, like nothing,

1601
01:27:55,040 --> 01:27:56,960
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna see anything that makes my life better.

1602
01:27:57,120 --> 01:27:59,320
Speaker 1: So I don't need, like I tell myself something that's

1603
01:27:59,320 --> 01:28:01,200
Speaker 1: true because it's like I want to look or I

1604
01:28:01,240 --> 01:28:03,680
Speaker 1: want to investigate, or I want to imagine, like Oh,

1605
01:28:03,720 --> 01:28:05,800
Speaker 1: I wonder who this person is and what their life's like.

1606
01:28:06,160 --> 01:28:09,760
Speaker 1: You know, like there's an easy path to get stuck in,

1607
01:28:10,400 --> 01:28:14,040
Speaker 1: let's say on Facebook or Instagram. You just start imagining.

1608
01:28:14,439 --> 01:28:16,360
Speaker 1: You start coming up with things like I wonder what

1609
01:28:16,400 --> 01:28:19,960
Speaker 1: their life's like? Whatever? It is a You block out

1610
01:28:20,000 --> 01:28:22,360
Speaker 1: of as much stuff that needs to go as you can,

1611
01:28:22,439 --> 01:28:24,679
Speaker 1: but when things pop up, you just tell yourself, I'm

1612
01:28:24,680 --> 01:28:28,920
Speaker 1: not gonna see anything that makes my life better. That's

1613
01:28:28,920 --> 01:28:31,120
Speaker 1: the truth. You need to connect to what does make

1614
01:28:31,120 --> 01:28:35,680
Speaker 1: me feel? What does make me? You know? And and

1615
01:28:35,760 --> 01:28:38,560
Speaker 1: if it's like there's a strong pull, why am I

1616
01:28:38,600 --> 01:28:39,320
Speaker 1: feeling this way?

1617
01:28:39,479 --> 01:28:40,000
Speaker 2: Yeah?

1618
01:28:40,080 --> 01:28:42,080
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think that's anything I ever asked

1619
01:28:42,120 --> 01:28:44,960
Speaker 1: ever in my entire life. Is why do I feel

1620
01:28:44,960 --> 01:28:45,599
Speaker 1: the way I feel?

1621
01:28:46,360 --> 01:28:46,559
Speaker 2: You know?

1622
01:28:46,840 --> 01:28:47,599
Speaker 1: Why do I feel?

1623
01:28:47,800 --> 01:28:47,960
Speaker 2: Yes?

1624
01:28:48,600 --> 01:28:51,920
Speaker 1: Curious, like investigat I talk a lot about emotions because

1625
01:28:51,960 --> 01:28:55,599
Speaker 1: I feel like really figuring out emotions, man, it just

1626
01:28:55,680 --> 01:28:58,320
Speaker 1: helps you. Like an emotion kind of acts as like

1627
01:28:58,360 --> 01:29:00,759
Speaker 1: a trigger to go to God or go to someone else. Really,

1628
01:29:02,920 --> 01:29:07,120
Speaker 1: and it's like, why why am I feeling so defensive?

1629
01:29:07,400 --> 01:29:10,720
Speaker 1: Why am I feeling so lonely? Well, maybe I haven't

1630
01:29:10,720 --> 01:29:13,280
Speaker 1: connected anyone in a while, you know, why am I

1631
01:29:13,280 --> 01:29:16,320
Speaker 1: feeling defensive? Defensitive? Shame? Why am I feeling shame? What's

1632
01:29:16,360 --> 01:29:19,400
Speaker 1: going on? You know what? Am Oh? This happened yesterday?

1633
01:29:19,800 --> 01:29:21,200
Speaker 1: You know I sent to seem I feel like an

1634
01:29:21,240 --> 01:29:23,519
Speaker 1: idiot and I'm beating myself up about it. Well that's

1635
01:29:23,520 --> 01:29:26,400
Speaker 1: what humans do, you know. So it's like I feel

1636
01:29:26,400 --> 01:29:29,960
Speaker 1: like instead of just how this is what I'll say

1637
01:29:29,960 --> 01:29:32,360
Speaker 1: in the church, I think how things like this are

1638
01:29:32,360 --> 01:29:37,080
Speaker 1: taught is to like, uh, put something over it where

1639
01:29:37,120 --> 01:29:40,639
Speaker 1: you you know, you you deal with the behavior. If

1640
01:29:40,640 --> 01:29:42,760
Speaker 1: you just deal with the behavior, you're not dealing with

1641
01:29:42,760 --> 01:29:46,000
Speaker 1: any of that internal stuff. You're not dealing with the

1642
01:29:46,000 --> 01:29:49,559
Speaker 1: the voids, you're not dealing with the wounds. You know.

1643
01:29:49,760 --> 01:29:52,160
Speaker 1: So all that stuff comes up, I just now have

1644
01:29:52,240 --> 01:29:54,639
Speaker 1: a way of dealing with it. It could be connecting

1645
01:29:54,680 --> 01:29:59,599
Speaker 1: with someone, It could be you know, just connecting to truth.

1646
01:29:59,680 --> 01:30:02,160
Speaker 1: It could just prayer as well, just like Goden, I

1647
01:30:02,160 --> 01:30:04,200
Speaker 1: don't know what I'm doing here, help me out here,

1648
01:30:04,320 --> 01:30:06,960
Speaker 1: you know, difficult situation. It's it's that kind of stuff.

1649
01:30:07,000 --> 01:30:09,680
Speaker 1: But that's the stuff you have to really you know,

1650
01:30:10,240 --> 01:30:12,680
Speaker 1: you don't want to get like obsessed with yourself, but

1651
01:30:12,720 --> 01:30:15,360
Speaker 1: you do have to know yourself pretty well. You know,

1652
01:30:15,720 --> 01:30:18,519
Speaker 1: like you gotta know, yes, what are the lies that

1653
01:30:18,560 --> 01:30:19,680
Speaker 1: Andy is feeding me?

1654
01:30:20,479 --> 01:30:22,720
Speaker 2: Okay, what are my proclivities? What are those? What's that

1655
01:30:22,800 --> 01:30:26,960
Speaker 2: fertile ground that these things can grow in? Right? Totally, right,

1656
01:30:27,040 --> 01:30:29,040
Speaker 2: I think it's absolutely.

1657
01:30:28,760 --> 01:30:33,040
Speaker 1: Tendencies, weaknesses, all the stuff, like a really good picture

1658
01:30:33,240 --> 01:30:36,000
Speaker 1: of yourself, because I do have I have strengths as well,

1659
01:30:36,160 --> 01:30:40,880
Speaker 1: like I have good qualities about myself and just getting

1660
01:30:40,920 --> 01:30:43,439
Speaker 1: a really good overall picture of this is what Andy

1661
01:30:43,560 --> 01:30:45,559
Speaker 1: is like, Like, this is what Andy and a Genesis

1662
01:30:45,560 --> 01:30:49,479
Speaker 1: three world is like, how does God see me? I

1663
01:30:49,520 --> 01:30:51,920
Speaker 1: heard someone say, if you could see yourself as God

1664
01:30:51,960 --> 01:30:54,479
Speaker 1: sees you, you won't even recognize it because He sees

1665
01:30:54,520 --> 01:30:58,719
Speaker 1: us in Christ like he sees us perfectly, Like I mean,

1666
01:30:58,840 --> 01:31:01,240
Speaker 1: he is just pleased with us Christ, which is amazing.

1667
01:31:02,200 --> 01:31:05,320
Speaker 1: He's looking at us, he's he's like, I love you

1668
01:31:05,479 --> 01:31:08,160
Speaker 1: no matter what. Yeah, it's just hard for us to

1669
01:31:08,200 --> 01:31:10,720
Speaker 1: do that. We don't have the lens, we don't have

1670
01:31:10,720 --> 01:31:13,960
Speaker 1: the ability right now. So yeah, it's just you know,

1671
01:31:14,000 --> 01:31:17,439
Speaker 1: I still of course deal with really anything. Anger is

1672
01:31:17,479 --> 01:31:20,600
Speaker 1: still probably the hardest thing honestly, you know, for me,

1673
01:31:20,720 --> 01:31:23,880
Speaker 1: anger is just mostly dealt with by telling myself don't care.

1674
01:31:24,200 --> 01:31:26,720
Speaker 1: Don't care so much, Andy, do not care about that

1675
01:31:27,000 --> 01:31:30,240
Speaker 1: care about the right things because anger is always tied

1676
01:31:30,280 --> 01:31:33,240
Speaker 1: to justice. Uh, there are things we should be angry

1677
01:31:33,240 --> 01:31:36,760
Speaker 1: about as Christians, but it's probably not all the things

1678
01:31:36,800 --> 01:31:39,800
Speaker 1: that people are doing wrong around me that are annoying. Uh,

1679
01:31:39,960 --> 01:31:42,479
Speaker 1: that's not it. So yeah, it's just connecting to the truth.

1680
01:31:42,520 --> 01:31:45,320
Speaker 1: It's just one more opportunity for me to grow up.

1681
01:31:46,680 --> 01:31:50,559
Speaker 1: I have a lot of opportunity, John, don't we I

1682
01:31:50,560 --> 01:31:52,720
Speaker 1: have not arrived. I have not arrived, But thank god,

1683
01:31:52,720 --> 01:31:54,120
Speaker 1: I'm not what I used to be. You know, That's

1684
01:31:54,120 --> 01:31:54,679
Speaker 1: what I say.

1685
01:31:54,840 --> 01:31:58,280
Speaker 2: So actificationification too? Right?

1686
01:31:58,560 --> 01:31:58,760
Speaker 1: Well?

1687
01:31:58,800 --> 01:32:02,760
Speaker 2: Andy, man, if people want to learn, like you know,

1688
01:32:03,040 --> 01:32:06,759
Speaker 2: you write and you've talked about that, you share your story.

1689
01:32:07,040 --> 01:32:10,840
Speaker 1: Where can they find you? Yeah, on the Internet. So

1690
01:32:11,080 --> 01:32:14,839
Speaker 1: primarily I put a lot of my stuff on YouTube.

1691
01:32:14,960 --> 01:32:18,720
Speaker 1: It's going to be the Church Basement with Andy. You

1692
01:32:18,800 --> 01:32:21,000
Speaker 1: got to look up the Church Basement with Andy, because

1693
01:32:21,000 --> 01:32:23,559
Speaker 1: someone wrote a song called the Church Basement and just

1694
01:32:23,600 --> 01:32:27,400
Speaker 1: destroyed my ability to be found. But I talk a

1695
01:32:27,439 --> 01:32:31,120
Speaker 1: lot about addiction and recovery as a Christian from a

1696
01:32:31,200 --> 01:32:33,960
Speaker 1: Christian perspective, I'm trying to I got a lot of

1697
01:32:34,000 --> 01:32:38,160
Speaker 1: ideas just about all the lessons I've learned through hitting

1698
01:32:38,280 --> 01:32:43,519
Speaker 1: rock bottom and healing and growing. Just I try to

1699
01:32:43,600 --> 01:32:46,519
Speaker 1: target men who are struggling. I want to help men

1700
01:32:46,520 --> 01:32:50,559
Speaker 1: who are struggling navigate life, because if I've gone through it,

1701
01:32:50,720 --> 01:32:53,960
Speaker 1: someone else has gone through it. So a lot of

1702
01:32:53,960 --> 01:32:57,360
Speaker 1: stuff on YouTube the church Basement with Andy, and then

1703
01:32:57,400 --> 01:32:59,800
Speaker 1: also on Instagram the church Basement. I think that's just

1704
01:32:59,840 --> 01:33:03,280
Speaker 1: the a hashtag. Or I have a great email address,

1705
01:33:03,479 --> 01:33:07,840
Speaker 1: Andy from the Basement, one single word at Gmail. Andy

1706
01:33:07,840 --> 01:33:11,240
Speaker 1: from the Basement at Gmail. You can email me, and

1707
01:33:11,280 --> 01:33:15,959
Speaker 1: people have emailed me. Surprisingly, I've gotten messages and emails

1708
01:33:16,000 --> 01:33:19,639
Speaker 1: from around the world of pastors and Christians who are

1709
01:33:20,080 --> 01:33:23,439
Speaker 1: in the midst of this stuff dealing with it. I

1710
01:33:23,520 --> 01:33:29,519
Speaker 1: do what I can, but it's amazing how much stuff

1711
01:33:29,840 --> 01:33:32,920
Speaker 1: people are dealing with in the dark, in the shadows,

1712
01:33:33,080 --> 01:33:37,200
Speaker 1: and it makes me sad that they're dealing with it

1713
01:33:37,240 --> 01:33:40,080
Speaker 1: on their own. And what I really hope to do

1714
01:33:40,200 --> 01:33:43,000
Speaker 1: is just shine a light on this stuff and bring

1715
01:33:43,040 --> 01:33:45,600
Speaker 1: it into the lights so that the church, you know,

1716
01:33:45,960 --> 01:33:51,360
Speaker 1: deals with it, that men help each other out, and yeah,

1717
01:33:51,439 --> 01:33:53,679
Speaker 1: start to start to get out from under this stuff,

1718
01:33:53,760 --> 01:33:57,400
Speaker 1: because I mean, God, God will use your past, like

1719
01:33:58,400 --> 01:34:01,320
Speaker 1: you come out of a messy past. There's purpose there

1720
01:34:03,200 --> 01:34:08,400
Speaker 1: if you've if you've hit rock bottom. I mean, God

1721
01:34:08,439 --> 01:34:11,840
Speaker 1: disciplines os, he loves And I don't know about you, John,

1722
01:34:11,840 --> 01:34:13,920
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know your whole story. You know,

1723
01:34:13,960 --> 01:34:18,280
Speaker 1: I've listened to a handful of your your podcasts, and uh,

1724
01:34:18,360 --> 01:34:19,840
Speaker 1: but I bet you could say, like, I bet there

1725
01:34:19,920 --> 01:34:21,439
Speaker 1: was times when you thought you were being punished.

1726
01:34:22,040 --> 01:34:27,160
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah absolutely, And those those are

1727
01:34:27,200 --> 01:34:30,040
Speaker 2: times I would drink it away, you know. But even

1728
01:34:30,040 --> 01:34:33,040
Speaker 2: since then, right, you're just like why you know? And

1729
01:34:33,040 --> 01:34:36,599
Speaker 2: and it really is like he is working those things

1730
01:34:36,600 --> 01:34:37,439
Speaker 2: for for our.

1731
01:34:37,320 --> 01:34:40,479
Speaker 1: Good and for your good. Yeah, he disciplines, ose loves,

1732
01:34:40,520 --> 01:34:42,720
Speaker 1: So if you're getting discipline, y, it's it's evidence he

1733
01:34:42,800 --> 01:34:45,519
Speaker 1: loves you absolutely, because that's what a good that's what

1734
01:34:45,600 --> 01:34:50,240
Speaker 1: a good dad does. So anyway, a little tangent, but yeah, YouTube,

1735
01:34:50,280 --> 01:34:52,920
Speaker 1: Instagram is going to be the best way to find me.

1736
01:34:53,000 --> 01:34:55,400
Speaker 1: I'm really trying to get more stuff out there too.

1737
01:34:55,840 --> 01:34:57,920
Speaker 1: I have found that if you talk about these things

1738
01:34:57,960 --> 01:35:01,519
Speaker 1: on YouTube, you don't get you don't get seen by

1739
01:35:01,560 --> 01:35:04,680
Speaker 1: a lot of people. So I'm kind of creating some

1740
01:35:04,760 --> 01:35:08,120
Speaker 1: channels that are just about the gospel and just about

1741
01:35:08,200 --> 01:35:11,439
Speaker 1: Jesus that are a little more. They're not going to

1742
01:35:11,560 --> 01:35:12,240
Speaker 1: hurt the algorithm.

1743
01:35:13,080 --> 01:35:16,800
Speaker 2: Algorithm is like, no, no, don't get me started on

1744
01:35:16,800 --> 01:35:20,599
Speaker 2: the algorithm. Oh my goodness. But well, Andy from the basement,

1745
01:35:21,280 --> 01:35:24,439
Speaker 2: thank you for your radical vulnerability. Thank you for dragging

1746
01:35:24,520 --> 01:35:26,759
Speaker 2: this into the light. Thank you for telling your story.

1747
01:35:26,960 --> 01:35:30,960
Speaker 2: I can't or I know that there are people who

1748
01:35:31,000 --> 01:35:35,800
Speaker 2: are listening to this who are going to find freedom

1749
01:35:35,840 --> 01:35:39,479
Speaker 2: because of your bravery. And it doesn't maybe that maybe

1750
01:35:39,560 --> 01:35:42,920
Speaker 2: if there's twenty steps into someone dragging into light, maybe

1751
01:35:42,920 --> 01:35:45,000
Speaker 2: this is step nineteen, maybe it's step twenty, maybe it's

1752
01:35:45,000 --> 01:35:46,920
Speaker 2: step two, but it's still going to be part of

1753
01:35:46,960 --> 01:35:50,120
Speaker 2: that journey in that process. So thank you for allowing

1754
01:35:50,160 --> 01:35:53,040
Speaker 2: the Lord to use this for your good in his glory.

1755
01:35:53,640 --> 01:35:57,439
Speaker 1: Yeah. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to faithfully present it,

1756
01:35:57,479 --> 01:36:00,840
Speaker 1: I hope. Yeah, And if anyone's out there, feel free

1757
01:36:01,160 --> 01:36:04,000
Speaker 1: to connect. I always wish I had someone to talk to,

1758
01:36:04,240 --> 01:36:06,679
Speaker 1: and you do so, Thanks John.

1759
01:36:07,080 --> 01:36:15,840
Speaker 2: Thanks Andy, wo w spell that backwards. That's how I

1760
01:36:15,880 --> 01:36:19,400
Speaker 2: feel after that episode. There were times I was emotional.

1761
01:36:20,920 --> 01:36:24,800
Speaker 2: You know, if you're one of those who watches these

1762
01:36:24,880 --> 01:36:28,920
Speaker 2: episodes on the Veritas day edit Veritas excuse me, the

1763
01:36:29,000 --> 01:36:33,160
Speaker 2: Veritas Daily dot com. Then you'll see some of that

1764
01:36:33,320 --> 01:36:36,320
Speaker 2: in my eyes. You probably then have noticed the time

1765
01:36:36,360 --> 01:36:37,400
Speaker 2: I almost jumped out of.

1766
01:36:37,360 --> 01:36:38,240
Speaker 1: My chair.

1767
01:36:39,439 --> 01:36:42,840
Speaker 2: Because as we were recording this today, I was talking

1768
01:36:42,880 --> 01:36:48,160
Speaker 2: to someone else about the fact that what leads pastors

1769
01:36:48,200 --> 01:36:50,920
Speaker 2: to fail time and time again is that they are

1770
01:36:50,960 --> 01:36:55,439
Speaker 2: not radically vulnerable. And I mean Andy is an example

1771
01:36:55,439 --> 01:36:57,600
Speaker 2: of that, right, Like, that's his story. I was not

1772
01:36:57,680 --> 01:37:00,840
Speaker 2: radically vulnerable. I was I was hiding, I was giving

1773
01:37:01,160 --> 01:37:03,960
Speaker 2: just enough. I was being vulnerable, but not radically vulnerable.

1774
01:37:04,560 --> 01:37:09,240
Speaker 2: And because of that, sin just kept festering in my

1775
01:37:09,320 --> 01:37:13,479
Speaker 2: life and led to the culmination of of what it did,

1776
01:37:13,520 --> 01:37:15,920
Speaker 2: which is an affair. And then there was also that

1777
01:37:15,960 --> 01:37:18,920
Speaker 2: part where Man when he talks about like an affair,

1778
01:37:19,160 --> 01:37:21,240
Speaker 2: the decision to have an affairs, You don't wake up

1779
01:37:21,240 --> 01:37:22,559
Speaker 2: one day and decide to have an afair. I mean

1780
01:37:22,680 --> 01:37:25,960
Speaker 2: I literally, like that's like something I say all the time, right,

1781
01:37:26,040 --> 01:37:27,920
Speaker 2: That decision to have an affairs not made the morning

1782
01:37:27,960 --> 01:37:29,599
Speaker 2: you wake up and wake up and have an affair.

1783
01:37:29,640 --> 01:37:32,560
Speaker 2: It's made in the hundreds of decisions leading up to

1784
01:37:32,600 --> 01:37:36,519
Speaker 2: that point. And that's Andy's story as well. I just man,

1785
01:37:36,560 --> 01:37:40,280
Speaker 2: I am so encouraged by him. Please go ahead and

1786
01:37:40,680 --> 01:37:44,679
Speaker 2: check him out. I have all the links down below,

1787
01:37:45,200 --> 01:37:49,320
Speaker 2: But if you are moved by his story, if you

1788
01:37:49,720 --> 01:37:52,280
Speaker 2: find yourself in that position, go ahead and email him,

1789
01:37:52,320 --> 01:37:56,080
Speaker 2: like he said, Andy from the Church Basement at gmail

1790
01:37:56,080 --> 01:38:01,920
Speaker 2: dot com, and he will. He'll definitely respond and help

1791
01:38:01,960 --> 01:38:04,599
Speaker 2: you out. So thank you all so much. Be sure

1792
01:38:04,640 --> 01:38:07,479
Speaker 2: to check out life audio dot com. Lifeaudio dot com

1793
01:38:07,560 --> 01:38:12,000
Speaker 2: is our podcast partner and it is because of them

1794
01:38:12,040 --> 01:38:14,599
Speaker 2: that this is possible, and so please go ahead and

1795
01:38:14,680 --> 01:38:16,680
Speaker 2: check them out and the other great podcasts that are

1796
01:38:16,720 --> 01:38:19,599
Speaker 2: available on the network. Until next time, Love you guys,