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Unashamed Unafraid is a show dedicated to being unashamed about sexual addiction recovery and unafraid of coming unto Christ for healing. Pornography and sexual addiction are not something you are stuck with to manage your whole life. We share real stories of recovery, the best resources, information from experts, and answer anonymous questions with those who know. All to help you on the path of being 100% healed from pornography and sexual addiction.
Yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Unashamed, unafraid. I'm trying to walk the walk. Truth on the mic. No shame here. Just real talk came from the outside. Never fit in. Now we tell the story in the healing beginnings. No front, no mass, just telling the truth. Keep it real. Keep it raw. Speaking straight from the booth. If you feeling like an outsider, this one's for you.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Welcome to another Unashamed, unafraid episode. We are bringing something back from the dead today. It is the q and a. Woo. We finally started getting questions from you guys. Thank you for reaching out. Only 'cause we asked again. I know. Yeah. So y'all were always ready to answer. That's not true because questions.
We've actually had a ton more emails lately. We've had a lot of emails. We have, yeah. And we didn't six months ago. Yeah. So we'll take it. Keep sending your emails. Yeah, keep reaching out. Thank you. Ask questions. Yeah, so some of these questions are from the list that was generated. Kaitlyn sent out an email.
You guys responded. We also added a few questions from emails that have been sent. Which one do you guys wanna start on? What question, Sam, do you wanna get answered for yourself? 'cause you're like, I kind of have this same question.
Yeah. How about that? Here's the one that really stuck out to me. I thought it was deep. Would God ever hold off on helping someone fully recover from addiction in order to keep them humble and dependent on him, or to teach them a needed lesson like faith? You'd have to ask God that question.
Simple answer. Like, I mean, obviously there's teaching moments. Like there's, there's teaching moments in everything that we do, right? Yeah. That we can, we can learn from and, and experience. Like there's so many men out there that are praying to God and they're like, God, just help me take this away. Help me, you know, surrender this, help me stop my addiction.
And then within an hour. There's temptation there. Mm-hmm. Here's your chance, homie. Turn to him. Right. That's, that's your, that's your turn. That's your chance to, to turn to him. And, and then 30 minutes later when it's back, you turn to me again. And then you keep turning to him. And that, I mean, how do I know?
Because that's exactly what was happening for me over and over again. And it would, temptation would come back and I'm like, I thought I surrendered this and I was feeling good. And then it's right back. And continuing to keep surrendering over and over again. I didn't feel like God was like withholding his love for me for help.
I would return from him for sure, and many times I would totally turn away from him because I just felt like I, you know, just the, the shame that I'd feel or whatever, and didn't want him to, I mean, he knew obviously what I was doing, but I don't know the question kind of, it, it's a tricky question because like.
You could easily take a question like that and start to like make up the character of God, of like, yeah, God's just kind of a manipulator. Yeah. And so to me that's more of a question of like, well, who is God and what's he like? And so to me it's like he's not transactional, he's not playing games, he's not trying to manipulate us.
Well then if he's relational, what does relational mean? It means he cares about having a relationship with you. Mm-hmm. It means that part matters to him. As a parent, he's invested in you, your happiness, your growth, your joy God's like, yeah, I'm just not gonna help you with that.
'cause son, you're just too dang proud and you need some humbling. You know what I mean? That could very quickly turn into some kind of punishing a-hole, God, you know? Right. Happens to a lot of people, right? Here's what I do know about God.
That God will make beauty from ashes, that God is good. And when I talk about beauty from ashes, us looking at porn as the ashes, but look at the good that God will do with men who are struggling with porn and turn to him. He'll turn their lives into something beautiful and he'll use that opportunity to teach you.
I think God's super opportunistic. He's like, ah, you stepped in that mess. But guess what? Let me just show you how awesome I am and how much I love you, even though you keep stepping in the same pile of crap every day. Yeah. Again, it's a really tricky question because that's something where we can try to put mortal.
Manly or earthly characteristics on a being who sees the beginning to the end and we're like, I'm only seeing my pain right here, right now. So to me tread very gently and carefully with who you're making God out to be and step back into like, what's the true character and nature of God.
Before you go jumping in and answering that question. I did. I love how you just, you know, said, you know, he's not a transactional God. And I think that that question even kind of says, Hey, maybe I think he is a transactional God. And that's what I feel right now is that this may be a transactional God.
And so I, I mean, I, I did that for years. Yeah. Something would go wrong in my life, so I'm like, oh, it's because. I looked at porn. Right? Right. Or it's because I started this affair, or it's because I did this or whatever. And so it was always like, yeah, God's punishing me. Yeah, yeah. God is totally punishing me.
Right. And so the question, it begs the question of, as this person's praying, are they wanting a transactional God, God, I want you to take away this porn from me, and so if I jump through all the hoops, will you do that? That sounds like a transaction. It's the if then statement, right? Then it's a little tricky because then we'll read in the scriptures things like, if you love me, keep my commandments.
Yeah. And so we're like, well wait a minute, is God transactional? And so again, we have to step back from this world essentially is transactional and the way that a lot of us deal with ourselves each other. Like we kind of enter into this transactional mindset. Really, it's like I've gotta start with some super big picture views of who God is.
If we look at the scripture like God is love, so I have to take that as a core and start to expand myself , what does that even mean? And what does a being who is love really motivated by? How do they behave? How do they act? How would they treat me and how would they treat everyone else?
And, and then all of a sudden you run into the quick paradoxes of how is a god of love? Let people suffer. You have to, now you have to deal with that paradox and figure that out I love the question, but to me that's a philosophical one that, you know, that's, that's hours and years of personal study and relationship building with your higher power.
My mind goes back to the Garden of Eden, and if you can establish the underlying truth that God. Jesus Christ is a relational being who wants to have a relationship with you. Knowing that we would have to experience some level of sin and trial in order to suffer and know something of his suffering and overcome and become more like him in our lives.
There's also the truth that God and Satan handle that two different ways. Satan says, hide. God says, come onto me. I think that love that the lie underneath that is that God wants me to experience deeper sin and more aloneness in order to develop a relationship with him. I don't think that addiction ever, ever can occur unless someone feels alone in their life, unless they've accepted , the shame scripts that Satan has given them to carry.
That's just not God's way of doing it. Right? God never wants an addiction to happen. That does not accomplish his purpose of saving us and changing us through his grace. That's my thought on it, is I think that that question opens up, like you were saying, James, I thought you said that really well.
This is a question about the nature of God what we know about him from Jesus' life. Is that he is in relentless pursuit of our hearts and he will never stop chasing us. So he's not interested in us being alone in that battle. Yeah. Or for it to get harder or more difficult in ways that don't involve him.
That's my thought. Yeah. I love what our boy, Josh here said. He's like, just because God can teach us from a difficult situation doesn't mean he necessarily gave it to us. Right. Love that. That's, a good way of kind of talking about that beauty from Ash's principle. Well said. Love that.
Awesome, awesome question. Do we, are we good on that one? Yeah. Next question. Can you make a real talk podcast about masturbation? Well, we've talked about that in previous podcasts. We're not gonna make it its own episode, but we will answer that question right now. What do you guys think? I'm excited to have a conversation, particularly with Chris
I have pondered on this for a long time. For the last, when did we start talking about this, Chris? It was last time I came to Warrior Heart, which was May in May. So it's been So it's now October? Yeah, it's almost been six months. Why don't you share your thoughts and then we'll have a healthy debate on it.
Totally. So I think it, it comes down between you and God or you, you got, you, God and your spouse. And, there can be a healthy way of masturbation that can occur. For me, as for myself, it's not okay for me, but for others, sure. It can be a way for them to explore their sexuality and understand their sexuality.
It can be a way for them to connect to that. God created us to be sexual beings. That's not all we are, but we are sexual beings, right? If you think of women, there is one part that the only thing its function is, is for pleasure. That's it. Right? We're designed to be sexual beings. If we're open about that and we're like, you know, say we're married and we're openly talking about it and being like, Hey, just wanna let you know I'm thinking about you.
I'm gonna masturbate, or I did, or whatever that looks like, and, or you're traveling and you video call with each other and you guys are both agreeing upon it and it's okay that you guys both feel comfortable with it. Sure. I think that's, totally fine. That's up to you. Your spouse, it's up to you, between you and God and what you feel is okay for you.
Can it be excessive? Sure. Just like anything else if it's too much of one, too much of something, then maybe you know how you need to get it in check. So I have an opposing view on that, and it'll be fun to kind of go back and forth on this. What I think now, and I, I wasn't quite sure until I spent a lot of time talking to other people about this and praying about it and thinking about it.
I don't think that just stripping the shame outta masturbation actually solves the problem itself. I think that deeper than that in my mind, is that people generally masturbate in order to cope, and I just don't think that that is a. A coping mechanism that connects you and is helpful in the long term.
I think that if you start to rely on masturbation as a coping mechanism instead of relational coping mechanisms, then it's not going to have a positive impact in your life. And so I think you, you might say to that, Chris, well, what does it have to be a coping mechanism? That's probably where we just disagree because I do think that masturbation by definition is a way that we cope with really strong feelings.
It's tied into the identity and the deep, deep sexuality of our beings like you said, we were, we were endowed by our creator with those things. We are sexual beings. I think he intended it for relational purposes and. The emotions that are tied into the sexual piece of masturbation.
I think that because those two things are so closely tied, I don't think that you can masturbate without coping to cope. So that's, that's my thoughts. Hmm. Roughly. And, one thing I've noticed and, this is what's interesting to me is you've said, Hey. I think that masturbation is okay in a very specific context.
That's what you said in the past. I've talked to Steve. He's got a similar opinion. What's interesting to me though is that the two of you have both decided for yourselves that you don't masturbate, right? I see many, many people who say. Like, let's trip the shame out of it and, and not make it this experience where I'm hiding it from people and I'm disconnecting.
But those same people that I've met in my experience, the small sample size that I have of this world are also all saying I choose not to masturbate. And that makes me think deeper than that, it's because we know it's not healthy for us. I may be wrong about that, but that's my current stance..
And I could argue with you that you run in circles of people who struggle with sex addiction. That's where I was gonna go to. Mm-hmm. And so you're asking people, and that's your experience and that's the experience of people that you're around. And so when you're running, when those, with those circles, and as those people are the ones that are like, yeah, for me, I've figured out that because I'm a little too close to that compulsive part of me, that's my favorite coping mechanism.
For me, that doesn't work out. So it might be your anecdotal experience based off of my, my small sample size? Yeah, your sample size. I actually responded to an email about this question. Yeah. Here's how I responded . And this was in reference to, this topic of healthy masturbation that's referenced in no more Mr.
Nice guy. The book No more Mr. Nice Guy. Yeah. There's a chapter in there where talks about what healthy masturbation might look like. I just responded and said, look, I've tried to process this chapter that you referenced and I've given it a try in my recovery.
I've also met other people who have tried to implement this for myself. I found that even when I tried to intentionally, thoughtfully. Carefully engaged in the practice. I still walked away wondering if there wasn't a part of it that wasn't still compulsive, or if there was just a part of me that just didn't want to have that difficult conversation with my wife
or if there was a part of me that may have just been coping with some unprocessed emotions. So I'm left asking myself, can I as a person who has struggled with sexually compulsive be behavior, even engage in healthy masturbation? That's a really good caveat, I think. Right. So that should be talked about.
My answer is currently I am not sure that I can Me, james. I am not sure that I can, and when I talk to other people who say they have tried to implement this again because I run in circles that are dealing with sexually compulsive behavior. They also couldn't confidently tell me that there wasn't a small bit of a compulsive component for them.
Still but that's my sample. Or if there wasn't a part of them, that didn't wanna have the conversation with their wife or that didn't want to have a difficult conversation with themselves. For example, I really was just kind of negotiating with my addiction.
Mm-hmm. Right, right. Or if there wasn't a part of them that was using it as a coping mechanism. 'cause they had some , unprocessed emotions. And again, this is because I'm not dealing with a lot of people that have had healthy sexuality their whole lives. So in terms of sobriety about recovery, I just said I am all about recovery, not sobriety.
Sobriety is just a natural byproduct of recovery, so I don't know what to tell you. There we do have an episode about sobriety versus recovery, so check that out. But for my recovery process, I did try to engage in healthy masturbation and I never landed in a place where it felt healthy enough for me.
I engaged in masturbation where the only person I thought of was my wife as a way to break free from porn and break free from fantasy about porn when masturbating. In that regard, it did help actually serve as a healthier purpose for a short season in my recovery. One might argue that during that time I was engaging then in healthy masturbation.
I think I was learning recovery and that happened to be a coping mechanism I used along the way. If it's something that you want to engage in, then I believe certain aspects need to be in place as to some safeguards against negotiating with your addiction. One, I think your wife should know about it and knows that you plan to engage in it.
Meaning beforehand? Before it. Yeah. This ensures that you're both talking about and working through both of your shame scripts about sex. Engaging in sexual dialogue rather than avoiding the topic altogether. It also gives her the option to engage with you sexually or not. Hmm. Okay. Two. It's never compulsive.
It's planned well ahead of time, every time that creates intentionality and self-care around that approach. Three. You don't need it at all, meaning you don't need the climax. You're not just there seeking the high end release of orgasm four no fantasy because it's the fantasy part of that escape that compulsivity or the coping mechanism that usually is outside of our value system.
Hmm. So again, I haven't done a bunch of research outside of my own experience and the experience of those who run in these circles with me. Take that for what you will. As someone experiencing addiction, I look at that list and I say, I don't know that I would ever want to masturbate if I had to adhere to those rules.
I think that brings up the question. It Well, the second piece of that is I, I, I liked how, I liked how that response, kind of like juxta, I can't even say that word. It's too fancy. Juxtaposed, juxtaposed the two different positions, which is I don't know what that would be like for someone who was raised in a home with healthy sexual scripts.
Mm-hmm. But your lived experience and, my lived experience. Yeah. And , I'm assuming Chris's lived experience is that for those of us who weren't, what we're all finding is that it tends to be too tied together. Sure. It tends to be way too tied together. Yeah. And, and the way that I kind of like.
Kinda loosely think about that. It's kind of that person. So like my dad was an alcoholic. He just knew for a fact that like he couldn't be a social drinker someday. And that's kind of the way I was trying, like he couldn't healthily drink alcohol. Right. And there's a bunch of people in our, on our planet that can healthily drink alcohol.
Totally. You know, they can have a glass of wine once a week and they're good. So if you want to liken that to this of like, yep, I could healthily, I could engage in masturbation once a month and. Or once every three months and I'm fine 'cause it's not tied to that and it never was. Whereas for us where it was already tied to a compulsive place and I, you know, like I could probably get to a place where I could masturbate every, once every three months and make it all in my own. Negotiating with my addiction. I could sit and make that look good all day long from the outside.
And I could explain it away all day long, but in the end I'm gonna be like, Hmm, am I actually just trying to cope with some underlying emotions that I don't want to face? Am I really just avoiding having a hard conversation be about our sexuality? Am I avoiding my own self? And the conversations I had need to have with myself about how honest I'm being about my sexual shame
and it's, this one's I think, also dangerous to blanket because I think that there are people, for example, that probably. I believe in people that experience sexual abuse as children that would not have an understanding of what healthy touch even felt like. Literally the only safest way to experience healthy sexual touch might be with themselves because they're in control.
Right. So I am very hesitant to really blanket statement any of this. I am with you, Chris. It is a very individualized thing, to say that I think for most or everybody, it's a coping mechanism. I disagree with you, Sam. , Guys, send us an email. Tell us what you think. I would really like to know what people out there are thinking.
Love your thoughts guys. Thank you. Yeah. And, and have you, do you do exercise and, and practice in healthy masturbation? What does that look like for you? Are you planning it out? Are you open with your spouse maybe you're single and what does that look like for you? Just some detail.
We don't need details, but we don't need picture. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Please don't.
Oh man. See, this is why we love these anonymous questions. They're so fun. They take us to some deeper levels that are awesome. question. What's the first question? The very first question on the list. The very first question on our list is how can I live my sexuality when there are some days I just want to have sex?
I think he or she meant how can I love my sexuality? Yeah. I think how can I love my sexuality when there are some days I to have sex? My body just asks for it, but I don't wanna masturbate since my church does not have a public statement about it, and every person has a different opinion about it. Sure.
Well, again, if we're looking to be connected, truly connected to ourselves, to God, to our partner that's the deeper work you need to do with your own self of being connected to your mind, body, spirit, God. Choosing around that. Can you engage in your sexuality with integrity?
'cause sure. There's days I just want to have sex. Sure, yeah. Sure i'm a sexual being and . I want to have sex with my wife. Yeah. And sometimes that doesn't line up with the day that she wants to. Yeah. And so then now it's a matter of, Hey, this is on my radar. Can you get there in the next 48 hours? Yep. But it's having that dialogue. And then to your point, can I ride the wave of desire for a minute and knowing that I'm not gonna die, but I'm just gonna ride the wave of that. It'll subside and, we can engage in that at a later time. Now if you're single,
let's say we go back to healthy masturbation. If this hasn't been a compulsive behavior for you in the past, you wanna ride the wave of that and then make an intentional choice around it, down the road between you and God it feels like it's within your integrity. And I get it's not simple.
That's gonna take some pondering, that's gonna take some prayer, that's gonna take some introspection am I just using it to cope with some stress that I'm feeling in my life. Rather than deal with the stress, I'd rather relieve it in the moment through masturbation. Oh, I'm really dealing with some anger.
So rather than just dealing with my anger, I am just gonna relieve that through masturbation or loneliness. Right? Mm-hmm. Again, this is a very personal question to me, like, you know, masturbation and sexuality is, it's very personal. These questions ' aren't easily answered.
Here's what we know some red flags are. At least, we know from our lived experience, hey, when you're using it to cope with your emotions because you're having hard emotions and rather, and you'd rather just avoid dealing with your heart emotions, let's have you do that instead.
Because masturbation actually isn't gonna fix the problem. Right. Let's actually just address the underlying issue. That's what's gonna Fix it, is meet the real need i'll just go to my lived experience. In order to step into this well and honor your own sexuality, you have to be aware of what your values are surrounding your sexuality.
Here's an example. I take a lot of personal pride in the fact that I adhere to very strict sexual standards. I don't believe in having sex before marriage and that that's a choice I've made. It's very personal and in between me and God, and it's aligned with my church as well, which has been the pivotal value system in my life that I've navigated
and I feel an incredible amount of satisfaction in that realm and being able to live in my sexuality. Like I really have felt, especially the last year as I've been getting my sexual behavior under control, like I felt good. I felt really, really proud of myself that I'm living within my value system.
A pivotal, part of this is understanding and getting clarity of what do I actually believe about this? What do I understand about myself and the way that sexuality operates in my life? Am I living intentionally in , honestly, in the way that I show up
The congruence in that area is, what helps you love your sexuality and live your sexuality? Whether or not you're in a relationship. So that was a lot of big words, but the best way I could describe it. Love it, man. Yeah. We are gonna go to the next question. I got it right here, Josh.
Just asking for a friend. I have a friend. A friend, I've got a, I have a friend, I've got a friend.
He's asking for a friend. Welcome Chris from the south. Well, I've been asked for most of my life, are you from the south? And I'm like, Nope. That's funny. I have a friend who has a 15-year-old son with a pornography addiction, he has some mental disorders that add to the difficulty . He has, autism ODD and was born with fetal alcohol syndrome. She has scheduled therapy for him, but he just doesn't show. She asked me if the church has any, addiction recovery programs for the youth, but they don't. The church recommends that youth works with parents and Bishop and a mentor with the limited resources church has on this issue and the individual complexities of her situation.
What resources would you recommend for her? How would you suggest she move forward with helping her son and how can you best help her child who needs help but is so resistant to any efforts being made to do so? There's a lot there. So let's see. That first question. So resources. Sam,
what resources would you recommend for her? Yeah, so I, I've worked, while I was getting experience in my undergrad, I worked with people who experienced high functioning autism for like three or four years. And I, I know a lot . Some of the things that have been really interesting to me to learn is that
because of the, the neuro wiring of someone who, who has autism, they will experience the world much different than most people. And their processing funnel, I guess we'd call that, is shaped differently. They can get as much input as you or I any given day. It, it can go into their brain.
But there's this funnel where it catches because they can't process the same amount of input as they can output, that funnel is shaped differently. And so it creates what's called a processing deficit. And as soon as that funnel gets full with sensory stimulus or other things that are
Emotionally difficult it will happen more quickly. And what happens for someone who has autism in that moment is parts of their brain actually shut off like the the mirror neurons in the brain that help us socialize and mirror what other people are doing
those are one of the parts of the brain that turn off. So you can't go to someone who has autism and just try to coach them on social things. You have to understand there's actually some neuro wiring because of their neurodiversity that is causing their brain to function that way. The way that ties into sexual addiction is that a lot of the addictive piece may be related to this issue of processing
They're trying to find a way to cope where they're, they're getting shut down more quickly and they're going into defense mode and turning inward.
Here's my recommendation. You should probably find someone who has more experience in understanding. The nature of autism because the way that your brain works is going to shape how your addiction forms. The other piece is if someone is shut down, an unwilling to start recovery, there's only so much influence that you can have until they're ready to start making choices to get better.
What do you guys think? Well said, man. Thanks, Sam. . I have very little experience with that.
I think we have more question. This is a good one. I have a girlfriend and I'm worried that I have to break up with her in order to truly fight addiction for the right reasons rather than just for her. I love her so much and I don't want to end things, but I'm at a big fork in the road and I don't know what to do.
You don't have to break up with a girl to overcome pornography at the end. I've heard that thrown around there sometimes, like, oh, I don't, maybe it's better to recover on your own or whatever.
So look at that were you looking at the porn before she even came around? This has nothing to do with her. This has everything to do with unmanaged emotions and being able to. Get in a place where you can learn new, healthy coping mechanisms that help you in your life. New ways of dealing with stress and anxiety that are not using unhealthy mechanisms like porn, masturbation, and sex.
You listen to the stories on here, like a lot of the guys struggled with pornography prior to getting married, I think 99% of the guests that we've had on, I think we've had like one that. That were a couple that that picked it up after. Yep. But it doesn't change whether or not you can recover, whether you're single or not.
If that was the magic bullet, everyone would be like, I figured out the magic bullet. If you don't get married first or you don't have a girlfriend, but no, we are relational beings. If anything, a girlfriend or like getting married or whatever, all that's gonna do is. Force your hand at like, it's time to actually stop isolating.
It's time to start not deal, you know, using unhealthy coping mechanisms, it's time for you to get honest. It's, it puts you in the fire are you gonna be living healthy principles or not? And looking at pornography does not disqualify you from being worthy to be in a relationship with somebody.
That's making a mountain out of a molehill. Love that. If you love this girl and she loves you, and you're talking about the fact that pornography's a struggle for you, and that you currently use it as a coping mechanism to deal with stress, anger, boredom because boredom feels too difficult, stress feels too difficult, and anger feels too difficult right now.
It's like, oh, I need to actually learn how to deal with these emotions. Then actually being in a relationship is actually gonna up my level of stress, up my level of anger, up my level of, boredom. I don't know, probably not maybe. So what? You still have the same issues you gotta cope with anyway, but if you have somebody that you can do that with, that wants to walk with you in the journey,
she's gonna have stuff she's gonna need to deal with too. It doesn't make you unworthy to be in a relationship with people. And I'm just curious how much of that question came from a shame place. That was my response too. I'd be curious to know what you're doing in your relationship to create safety, not just you, but the two of you together.
'cause I've had a similar experience where I felt like my addiction got worse when I was in a relationship. And I've also had the opposite experience, where being in a relationship with my current girlfriend has meant everything to me. She has been so helpful. She has been someone who I can open up to about things in addition to my brothers.
And it's because I'm finally actually learning, not learned, but learning how to create safety for myself in a relationship. Hey, I'm feeling really overwhelmed and ashamed right now. Do you have a place right now in your heart where we could have that conversation?
Yep. Mm-hmm. One more question. Yeah, totally. So the, the last question, this is maybe the real last question. Maybe we have a second one. I don't know. Can you gimme some realistic timelines for recovery? I know everyone will be different, but I went into this thinking maybe a year or less, so it's hard to have patience sometimes when progress seems slow.
I would say I started recovery when I was 13. I would say I seriously started recovering about two and a half years now. Yeah, so I'm at least two and a half years into recovery, and I think that I am rounding a corner, but not quite sure where I am in that process. It could be four years, it could be 10 years.
I don't know. So I would just say to make it realistic, recovery is a lifestyle change. Yep. Do you know anybody that does a complete lifestyle change in a year or less? No, I don't. Right. And again, we're, you know, whoever's asking this question, this person's been living a certain way with certain attitudes in a certain lifestyle, certain thought patterns for 18 years at least.
To suddenly change 18 years of thought patterns, behavioral patterns, belief systems in, in a year or less. So my answer to this person is give yourself grace. Learn to be kind to yourself. And if your compulsion is masturbation and pornography, don't make a mountain out of a molehill.
Don't make it bigger than it is, 'cause that's part of the problem is the shame will make it feel super, super critical and so if you're in that pattern of it's like, yep, it's once a week or it's, or like mine once every three months, and all of a sudden you're thinking, oh, this is taking forever. Practice a lot of grace. If it's super uncontrollable and your life is unmanageable 'cause you're missing work. You're getting fired from jobs. Yeah, I get that. Let's get you some help, but. If you think you can flip that around in a year, if that's the degree to which you're needing it, is it to survive right now?
No, let's get you some help. And that might take a minute to learn new coping mechanisms. Yep. New patterns, new lifestyle. Yeah. Everything. Yep. That's why I've got three different sobriety dates and like for me, when I first started, yeah. I was like. Oh, I got this. I'll go into this. And me and my wife both thought, mm-hmm We'll be in this for a year and everything.
Everything will be awesome and beautiful and perfect. And here we are. I mean, it took me a long time to find sobriety, but like I've got the three different sobriety days. 'cause there was times when I stopped looking at porn and that was January of 2008. And then last time I was with a woman outside of my marriage was.
In April of 2008, and then masturbation was December of 2009. So almost two years from that, from pornography to masturbation was almost two full years. Chris is one of the fastest timelines I've ever heard of, by the way.
Yeah. So just for context, in my lived experience and. Literally talking to, at this point now, probably over a thousand men, probably more personally. Right. That's still one of the fastest recovery stories like timeline windows that I've, I've seen people experience from sober.
Sober. You know what I mean? But that whole lifestyle just 'cause the sober part happened. Recovery took a long time for Chris. Yep. To actually live a recovery lifestyle and do a bunch of other things to still implement that. Which is acknowledging that just the porn and the women in the masturbation wasn't the whole extent of the problem. I also like the piece there of, of sobriety dates, I'm wondering if this person is clear on their definition of sobriety and recovery. 'cause a lot of times I could see myself. Especially early in recovery, being like, how long is it gonna take me before I can stop looking at porn?
And if you look at the recovery journey of Chris versus the sobriety journey of Chris, the recovery journey has lasted well beyond the sobriety journey. 'cause it's my lifestyle and the way I live. Yeah. Yeah. My lived experience in that realm is that early on I did not realize that a lot of these things were built in as survival mechanisms for me, and I had to start dealing with some trauma and really poor emotional coping before I could get to a place where there was enough space that I had some freedom to choose in between there.
Not that you ever completely lose your freedom, but it's taken me a couple years now to get to the point. I remember I said like for the first time, like four months ago,, I feel like I have a choice. It was crazy. Mm-hmm. I genuinely felt like, oh my gosh, I have a choice now. And that took a couple years and I'm not there yet.
I relapsed a week and a half ago. But for me to say like a year ago that. That would've been crazy. And it's because of the recovery that's underneath that. So those two processes are working in tandem it sounds like it's generally years to change a lifestyle. Yep. Thank you so much for joining us for this q and a. Haven't done that in a while, if you have more questions and you you're curious about different aspects of recovery that you're not getting answers to, go ahead.
Shoot us an email, Sam chrisJames@unashamedunafraid.com. Thank you for listening. If this was helpful, share it with someone you know who could use it. Remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel and thanks again for watching. Continue to live unashamed. Yeah.