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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.
Tryna 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
and the healing begins.
No front, no mask, 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.
Uh.
Yeah
Speaker 5: Welcome to another
episode of Unashamed, Unafraid.
We are unashamed of sexual
addiction recovery and unafraid
of coming unto Christ for healing.
It feels like we haven't done a
story episode in a little bit, and
it's someone who you guys might
know if you listen to our show.
We introduced Austin.
He came on a Live Unashamed episode with
me and Chris, and most of you probably
didn't know who this Austin guy was,
he just randomly hopped on the show.
He's a good friend of mine.
I was introduced to him through
Mason, and he's here with his
wife, Becca, to record with us.
So welcome, Austin and Becca.
Chris: Thank you.
Bekah: Thank you.
Chris: Happy to be here.
Speaker 5: We're excited
to have you guys on here.
So if you guys remember, Austin is the one
Chris: that went to, uh, the campuses
and held up signs, and then Austin and
Sam went downtown and held up signs of,
"Hey, I'm a porn addict, talk to me about
it," or whatever it was that you said.
So- Mm-hmm ⦠that'll jog your memory
a little bit about who Austin is.
Speaker 5: Which we've been so busy,
we still haven't gone back and done
a second time, but it was, like,
a fortifying experience for me.
Austin: Transformative.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I, I loved the way I felt
after I got done, so great to have you on.
So guys, where do you wanna start?
Austin: In the past, you guys have
s- done, like, you know, "When
was the first time you saw porn?"
But I think I'll start with the
wound that caused the reason for a
porn addiction in the first place.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I've recently come to terms with
this and realized it, but when I was
about nine years old, I had a family
relative that was staying over at my
grandma's house, and she was around
my sister's age, and we would go
over there to spend time with her.
I was sexually groomed by this individual.
At the time, I didn't realize it.
It was just a lot of physicality,
a lot of things that would be
inappropriate with a nine-year-old.
I didn't understand what was going on.
I didn't understand that
anything bad was happening.
All I knew was that it felt good
to my body, so I wasn't fighting
it, I wasn't pushing against it
but I couldn't give consent due to my
age, and it looks like kissing under a
blanket and lots of touching or having
me lay on top of her, that kind of stuff.
Nothing crazy, but it
was, it was progressing.
It was getting more and more each
day, becoming more secretive.
She would say, like, "You can't tell
your mom, you can't tell your dad because
then we can't do this anymore, and you
won't be able to see me anymore, and,
you know, and you'll get in trouble."
And so my first experience with sexuality
was that sexuality was a secret.
Speaker 5: Hmm.
Austin: Yeah.
That it couldn't be told,
that it had to be hidden.
And, you know, after about a week,
she ended up leaving, but I know
that it was heading towards abuse.
I mean, one could even argue
that what happened was abuse.
A few years after , I discovered
pornography, and- Something clicked
in my brain where I was like, "Oh,
this is the same feeling that I
experienced with her, but more
importantly, I have control over it."
I didn't realize it in the moment,
but with my first experience with
sexuality with this relative,
I didn't have any control.
I had zero control over the situation.
So when I experienced pornography for
the first time, I have that control.
I can choose when I watch it, how I
watch it- Hmm ⦠what I do with it,
what I do when I'm watching it, all the
things, and so I just latched onto it.
I was addicted from the
moment that I saw it.
And when I first saw it, I was at a
sleepover at a friend's house, and he
took me into his dad's office, got on
the computer, gets on a website, types
in a login and password, and it's a
site where it was just all pornography.
And he told me his dad had shown it to
him and given him the login password.
And we're like 9, 10- ⦠11,
right around there.
But that's how his dad decided to
expose him to that world and be,
like, trying to control it and being
like, "This is a controlled way in
which you can experience sexuality."
That's how I was exposed to pornography,
and I was locked in the second I saw it.
I'm 31.
I can still see those images
that I saw on that screen when I
was 10 years old, crystal clear.
I can see all of them.
I could have seen that and walked
away and been fine, but because I
had gone through this trauma when I
was a kid of sexual abuse, of sexual
grooming, I was wounded and hurt and
needed to find control in my life.
And That's what it grabbed onto.
Sam: Wow.
Yeah, it's interesting how that, that word
control just keeps coming back . Does.
There's a wound there.
Austin: And it grew 'cause I'm
not telling anybody about it.
I'm also a member of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
We're like 12, 13 years old, and we're
sitting in Young Men's, and theyâ¦
You know, our leaders are up there, and so
they give us the law of chastity lesson,
you know, and they, they take more of
the approach of like, " "we gotta scare
these kids into not looking at porn."
And so they're like throwing all these
scriptures out and saying, you know, "If
you lust in your heart after a woman,
you've, already committed adultery.
There's murder and then there's adultery."
You know?
And they're like, boom, boom, boom.
Like, "If you're looking at porn,
you're lusting after a woman, therefore
you've committed adultery, which
is just under the step of murder."
We're 12 years old.
There's like 13 of us . 90%
of us are looking at it.
It was too late for that conversation,
but we're all looking at each
other like, "We're going to hell."
Yeah.
Like, that is what we thought.
Chris: So I better not tell anybody.
Austin: Anybody.
So I continue to keep it a secret.
I continue to shove it down.
I continue to act like it's not a problem.
Right around then, in that, when maturity,
sexual maturity's starting to come around,
that's when I discover masturbation, and
naturally pair the two together and, you
know, and then it just gets so much worse.
It's compulsive.
I can't control it.
It's every day.
That was kind of the tone.
Put on a face, pretend like it's
not a problem, do not talk about
it, and just live your life.
But when I was like 15 is
when I met my wife, Becca.
We were in- Ah, what, what was, what?
Was it ninth
Bekah: grade?
We, we technically didn't
meet until ninth grade.
We had a class together in eighth
grade, but we met beginning
of our ninth grade year.
Okay.
Science Class.
Austin: Yeah.
So we met then and-
Chris: He just liked you then.
Bekah: Oh, no.
Austin: I d- Oh, no.
Chris: He did not.
Bekah: He, He knew how to play the field.
We'll just put it that way.
He was a year older than me, so he dated
a lot of girls the year older than me,
and I was very much the person that I
was not going to date until I was 16.
The For Strength of Youth pamphlet
specifically said, "No dating, no
kissing until you're 16 years old."
Had it highlighted, like
it was a big deal for me.
So in comes Austin in his glory,
and there were a lot of other
girls going on when we first met.
And so I think he did like me and-
Austin: I did,
Bekah: Yes.
You did.
Sam: I did like you.
Well, tell us, tell us your
story leading up to that point.
What did that look like for you?
Bekah: i'm the youngest of five kids.
It's me, I have three older
brothers, and then my oldest
sister, and there's a five-year gap
between me and my closest brother.
So I was kind of like the lone
wolf at the end of the pack- Yeah
a little bit.
But when I was six years old, my parents
took my sister to England on a study
abroad trip, and we got left with my
cousins, and I was sexually abused by
my cousin for that full time period.
Every day, two weeks it would happen,
and I, at first I was very confused.
It was introduced as, "We're playing
house, and you're the mom, I'm the dad."
I've always been a very maternal person.
I've always longed to be a
maternal figure, and so, like
I always wanted to be the mom.
Always wanted to be the mom.
You're like, "I got this role."
Yeah.
I was like- Yeah ⦠"That's, that's me."
Like, I always fought for that role.
And so that's how it was
introduced was like, "All right.
Well, it's bedtime.
Like, you and I, mom and
dad go into this room."
Sent my cousin off to another
room, and she would go off and
play, and he would, you knowâ¦
It was never full rape, but
it was definitely enough where
I knew s- stuff was wrong.
Like, he would lay on top of me,
ask me to touch him, threaten me.
"You need to not scream.
You can't tell anybody."
It was always very secretive,
and I could not tell anybody.
Chris: Hmm.
Bekah: And- I was worried
about the safety of my cousin.
I was worried about the
safety of my brothers.
Like, there was a lot of pressure there.
And so-
Sam: Wow.
Speaker 5: What Was it like to deal
with that completely on your own?
Bekah: It was very hard.
I actuallyâ¦
So I recently am going through this
experience with my parents where I'm
sitting down with them one-on-one, and
I'm asking them to tell me their story.
I'm like, "I want you guys to
tell me your story and how you
experienced all these things."
'Cause growing up, my family
has a lot of complex trauma.
My grandpa was a POW in the Vietnam War.
My dad got blown up in a gas
explosion when I was 18 months old.
Like, there's a lot of big, heavy trauma
in our family, and we don't talk about
it . And so I've been going through this
experience with them, and we hit the
timeline where this was all happening,
and I was like, "Yeah, and so then you
guys got home, and I told you about it."
And my mom was like, "No, you
didn't . You didn't tell us
about it right when we got home."
She was like, "It was about a
year after this all happened."
And so I internalized everything.
All my life, I've looked at
myself pre-abuse and post-abuse.
Pre-abuse, I was so outgoing.
I was the tomgirl that would
go out and play flag football
with the boys at recess.
I was the youngest of three boys, and
so I had to prove I could do whatever a
boy can do, and I had this fire in me.
And then I look at my life
after, and I was so anxious.
I have memories in school where a
teacher would call and ask me to read
out loud, and I would just run out of
the room and go to the bathroom and cry.
And they thought I had ulcers.
Like, it was this whole thing where we
were in and out of the doctor's office
trying to figure out what's wrong with
me, and it was from literally just holding
all of that inside and not telling anyone.
We're not meant to hold that weight.
Chris: But you were also
scared, so you're like, "I'm
Bekah: not gonna talk about it."
I was terrified.
So- You know, he did the classic,
like, "You know, I know where you live.
I know where you sleep.
I know where your family lives."
After I talked to my parents about it,
they did something I would not recommend
anybody do, 'cause it was about as
damaging as the abuse itself, but they
made him come over to the house- Mm-hmm
with his parents, 'cause they
wanted to confront him about it.
And, you know, he told
them, "I didn't do it.
Like, I don't know what
she's talking about."
And he lied to their faces, to my face.
I was terrified, 'cause it was the first
time I'd seen him since it all happened.
But I was very open with my mom
I remember sitting on the kitchen table,
and we would be making cookies, and I
would just randomly be like, "You know,
I don't think it was okay when he did
this to me ." Like, I would just kind
of work through it out loud with her,
and it became this very safe space.
And so I just became very okay
with talking about it out loud,
which was a huge gift that she
gave to me, 'cause I'm sure those
weren't easy conversations to have.
But I remember having one with her
where I was like, "You know what?
He was only 13 or 14 years
old, about how old I am."
And I was like, "He's not that
old when this is all happening,
and there's no way that he just-
Chris: Decided one night-
⦠Bekah: decided he wanted
to do that ⦠certain
Chris: night.
Bekah: It's like- Right?
So the concept of hurt people hurt
people became very real for me in that
moment, and that's when I really started
to forgive him and, like, understanding
that I'm sure he went through something
fairly similar, and that's how he was
trying to work through his own experience
with abuse and sexuality and all of that.
So it's a very hard thing to live through.
It's a very hard thing to carry.
But also, I understand
people so much better.
I understand the pain.
I understand the weight, and, and it
helps you understand Christ so much more.
I got this little drop in my bucket
compared to what Christ had to go
through, but if I can even understand
and lighten someone else's load
just a little bit, it's so worth it.
Chris: With the experience that
you had, and, and this, uh, will
actually go for both of you, what
did it do to your view of sexuality?
Bekah: It was very scary.
Like, I had a lot of hope
when it came to relationships.
Like, I felt the twitterpation.
I felt the intense love and sexual
emotions and all of that, but
there was also this underlying
tone of, "You don't go there."
It was really hard in our relationship
'cause he was a pusher, right, to stay
in control, and I was the boundary
where I was like, "Absolutely not."
Speaker 5: Mm.
Bekah: Like, "We're not going there."
And that caused a lot of
tension in our early years.
Um-
Speaker 5: Yeah, tell us the story
from the time that you guys met because
that's quite a place to lift off from.
Bekah: Yeah.
So yeah, so we met in ninth grade.
We got introduced by a friend
that was friends with both of us.
And we, I mean, we kinda just as
friends hit it off really well.
He kinda drove me crazy.
Like, he would steal my
stuff out of my locker, and-
Austin: I was, I was 15
⦠Bekah: he was 15.
They, they had this- That's
the way it goes, right?
They had this- If you like somebody,
Chris: you steal all their stuff.
Yeah.
Bekah: Yeah.
They had this game called breastketball
where they would try to, like,
throw little pieces of paper down
our shirts during math class.
Um-
Chris: I'm playing that
with Autumn tonight.
Bekah: Yeah.
Chris: Hey, I learned a
new game on the podcast.
God.
Bekah: So It was very much like,
like he felt like a brother at
first, which I think is what
created the safety that we both had.
'Cause it was pretty shortly
after we met that he came to me.
He was at a park, invited me over.
I had to have my dad drop me off
'cause I wasn't 16 yet, right?
And we were hanging out at the
park, and he's like, "I have
something I need to tell you."
And I'm very used to the heavy talks
at this point in my life, and so I
was like, "Okay, like, let's do this."
And we were sitting in his car,
and he just was like, "I, I
am addicted to pornography."
And I was like, "Oh, okay
." , Chris: Like, it
Bekah: wasn't- So you guys
aren't even dating at that point.
No, we weren't.
Like, you're just, you're just friends.
Yeah, we were
Chris: just friends.
Bekah: So why did
Chris: you even like, "Hey,
I'm gonna tell her about this"?
Austin: I have no idea.
I mean, I, I liked her, and I knew that
if we did start dating, if, 'cause I
would, wanted to date her, I knew that
it'd be unfair for her to get into
a relationship with me and not know.
You know, I was young, so I
was like, "I'm just gonna get
ahead of it and just do it."
You know, I would not recommend doing
that right off the bat with most
people, but, you know, I just- Well,
Chris: there was safety
that was created there
⦠Austin: there was safety.
And it just felt right.
Was in a spot in my addiction where
I didn't wanna be silent anymore.
I couldn't be silent anymore.
I was hurting, and I needed to tell
someone 'cause I didn't have anyone, and
she was, the safest thing that I knew.
And so- I took a huge leap
and told her, and it was the
best decision I've ever made.
Chris: Hmm.
Austin: And that's where I learned,
like, the beauty of vulnerability within
addiction, of being the one to step
forward and say, "I'm having this problem.
I'm struggling in this aspect
of my life, and this is why."
And then watching people also
step forward and find the bravery.
Because you were willing to be brave, so
many other people are willing to be brave.
Like, Chris's shirt right now
says, "Recover loudly so others
stop suffering silently."
That's what I learned
in that exact moment.
Chris: That's why I wore the shirt.
I knew you
Austin: were gonna do it.
You nailed it.
But yeah, I told her, and she followed
up and told me about her sexual
abuse, and we had this very beautiful,
intimate moment where we- It was
Bekah: a sacred moment-
Austin: Yeah
I would say.
We saw e- we truly saw each other.
Chris: Super cool.
Austin: And, you know, peopleâ¦
Being in the recovery world, people are
like, "Oh, when did you tell your wife?"
And I'm like, "I was 15."
And they're like, "What the heck?"
Like, yeah.
But yeah, you know, that
moment was sacred, but there
were lots and lots of bumps.
Because of my need to control my
sexuality, like, that was every
relationship I was ever in with a girl.
I had to be in control.
I'd push and push and push, and then
whoever I was dating at the time
would be like, "Let's slow down.
Like, we're moving a little fast."
And I'd just lose it.
Like, I'd crash out because
all of a sudden, I was this
nine-year-old boy again in my- Yeah
grandma's basement with no control
because somebody put a boundary.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Austin: A healthy boundary.
Speaker 5: Right.
But,
Austin: but-
Speaker 5: But when you
don't know healthy, it just
feels like a lack of control.
Austin: Exactly.
Rebecca and I ran into
that quite a few times.
When she turned 16, we dated
as much as, you know, two
16-year-olds could at that point.
We went to prom together . We
did all that stuff.
Junior year, I dated somebody else,
and then senior year, we dated
our entire senior year, and then
I went on a mission, and she wrote
me the whole time I was out there.
But honestly, even getting on a
mission, though, was a problem.
Like, it was hard.
That was when I finally started to
enter recovery for the first time,
I would say, or at least sobriety.
I'm not even gonna say recovery
'cause I hit my junior year, halfway
through, I was like, "Oh, my gosh.
I can't go on a mission . Like,
they won't let me go on a mission
with the addiction that I have.
Like, I'm not worthy," was the thought.
And so I was like, "I gotta fix
this," so I really buckled down and
started doing all the things that
I thought I was supposed to do.
Really, I just white-knuckled it
for a year, got my mission call- And
white-knuckling only gets you so far.
And so I get my mission call, and I
crashed out and get in trouble with
a girl, and I had to push my mission
back, which was really embarrassing,
especially being in Davis County.
That was justâ¦
That was really shameful.
It was a lot of shame, and I ran away.
I found a job in Alaska and moved to
Alaska for six months, and then came
back, and then left on my mission.
I get on my mission, and I was
doing pretty good sobriety-wise,
but still white-knuckling.
I just had never really learned what
recovery actually was, you know?
And so I was on my mission, going and
going and going, and just grinding,
and kinda just got beat down to the
point of where I, I crashed out again.
You know, started relapsing,
looking at porn, masturbating.
And my mission was a test pilot for iPads.
We were the first
missionaries to have iPads.
There were a few other missions
in the country- You should
Chris: have told them, "Don't
introduce them to missionaries."
Austin: For real.
So, so yeah, here's the deal.
Yeah.
So we, we have these iPads, and they
have security- ⦠systems on there,
but you can just delete the security,
and then you just have a normal
iPad, and then you can reinstall the
security software, none the wiser.
So we have them for five months, and then
the church sends all the missionaries
who have iPads, so five missions, it's
about 1,000, 1,200 missionaries, an email.
Every single missionary gets
this email with one question.
It's anonymous, and it says, "Have
you ever sought out pornography
on your church-issued device?
Yes or no?"
You answer it, go on with your life.
A few months later, my mission
president at a mission leadership
conference- And you answered?
I answered yes, because I had.
We get the results.
My mission president's
like, "We got the results.
You guys wanna hear it?"
We're like, "Yeah."
And he said, "Out of 1,200-ish
missionaries, 98% said yes."
That's- And
Chris: the other 2% were lying.
Austin: Exactly, exactly.
So that's elders and sisters.
So that just shows that, you know,
Everyone was struggling, but especially as
a missionary, you don't talk about that.
And so I was spiraling hard, being
a missionary, having this addiction,
relapsing constantly, where exact
obedience is preached to a fault, where
it's if you go to bed late, you're
told that you've broken rules and
that you're losing blessings from God-
because you were disobedient, or it's
98 degrees outside and you decide not to
wear your suit coat that day 'cause you're
riding a bike- that's against the rules,
you lose out on blessings, you know?
And so I'm like, I'm, I'm looking at porn.
Like- Like- Like, you're not so
worried about going to bed late.
I'm like, what?
You know, I'm like, I'm, I'm screwed.
You're going to bed late because
Sam: you're watching porn.
Austin: Yeah.
It was ridiculous.
. And so, you know, not great
for the mental health.
So I get through most of my
mission, and towards the very
end, same thing, crash out.
Just kind of just can't handle it anymore.
I'm burnt out on everything , and
start flirting with some of the
sister missionaries pushing, testing
the waters, having kind of th-
uh, relationships with two sister
missionaries while I was out there.
Which then turned to just, you know,
'cause we, we had our iPads, we
could just message back and forth
constantly without any oversight.
Flirting slowly turned to sending fantasy
messages back and forth, to starting
to send some pictures back and forth.
And it got a little provocative, and
you know, you push it, you push it,
push it, which evolved into sexting.
And then I go home.
I, you know, my mission's over.
I head home and continue
that with these two sister
missionaries and- So you didn't
Chris: disclose any of this with- No
your mission president?
No,
Austin: didn't tell my mission
president, didn't tell anyone.
I was locked down on this.
I wasn't gonna tell a soul.
And that was the part of the
problem with the mission is I hadâ¦
You have no control on a mission.
Right.
You're dealing with people's agency.
Yeah.
You're, you have all these
rules put on you, and, like,
you don't have any control.
And so it's like, I found this outlet
of having some control in my life, and
that was porn, masturbation, and women.
And everything was digital,
but still not appropriate.
And when I get home, one of the
other sisters is home, meet up,
things got physical over the clothes.
But then we cut it off after that.
We were both kinda like,
"Eh, that wasn't great.
Let's be done ." But around then,
Becca and I really started dating and
focusing on our relationship and to
the point where we were like, I think
we're both like, "We wanna get married."
And Becca was like, "I wanna
get married in the temple."
I'm like, "Oh, I cannot get
married in the temple right now.
I gotta take care of
some stuff before then."
And so I reach out to my stake
president, reach out to my bishop,
schedule this, these conversations
to talk about what happened on my
mission, what happened after my
mission, these digital relationships.
We were, We were already
engaged at this point.
And so I go to them knowing
it wasn't gonna be great.
Like, I broke the rules.
I understand that.
I'm not gonna pretend I didn't but,
like, my bishop freaked out more than
I was expecting him to, you know?
So, you know, I tell this whole
thing, kinda what I just told you
guys, I tell them that And, you know,
he was just like, "This isn't good.
This is bad.
You know, we're gonna have
to involve General 70s.
We're gonna have to call
your mission president.
We're gonna have to do all this stuff."
And I'm like, "Okay,"
like, "let's get it done."
I just- I want to repent, and I wanna get
married, and I wanna do it the right way
Chris: so I, I just wanna speak into
that real quick because if you are
an ecclesiastical leader listening to
this podcast your job is to keep the
composure and show up for that individual
because they are coming to you- Mm
with something so vulnerable that
they've been hiding for years and years.
And so if you can't keep it together,
maybe you shouldn't be the bishop or the
stake president, whatever it is, right?
Your job is to be like,
"Hey, you know what?
Thanks for coming to me.
Let's work through this together
like, I love that you're here.
Thanks for coming to me.
Let's rock and roll."
Austin: That would've
been a great response.
That would've been
Chris: fantastic.
So, so that's my, that's my-
Bekah: It would've changed
Chris: a lot ⦠little
two cents on, on that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
For any ecclesiastical leader, doesn't
matter if you're the LDS church or
any leadership like that, that's
your job is to show up for them.
Austin: Yeah.
Chris: They're in a time of need.
Austin: Yeah.
And so, my- Yeah, but,
Speaker 5: but instead you gotâ¦
Austin: Instead, I got so much shame.
So this bishop, he straight up
told me, he's like, "Don't even
think about getting married in the
temple for a minimum of a year."
And I'm like, "Whoa, okay."
And, like, you know, he, they do all this
stuff, they come back and he tells me,
he's like, "So we talked to your mission
president, we talked to these, these other
sisters," and he's like, "And we learned
that one of those sisters, after you guys
did your thing, she went off and started
doing things with other missionaries, and
some of that got physical on the mission."
Chris: And that's none of your business.
Austin: So, and, and that's the thing.
Right?
I was like, "Why are you telling me this?"
And so he said, this, this
is how it all went around.
He's like, "You corrupted this
young woman, and she went off and
did things with other people."
And he's like, "You've created
a sex ring in your mission."
He's like, "This is the
work of a sexual predator."
Word for word, that is what he said to me.
"This is the work of a sexual predator."
Mason wanna
Speaker 5: punch the dude in
his fricking thyroid, man.
This gets me so fired up.
So fired up.
I just can't imagine a more
shaming response than that.
And you know what?
Hopefully, he's listening to this
podcast and he can hear us say that
y- like, you're past that and, and
you probably have some compassion for
that now- Yes ⦠after the healing.
But what a hard thing to go through, dude.
I can't even imagine the
responsibility that you had to bear.
Yeah.
And, and you sh- you
shouldn't have had to.
And it's not doctrinal either.
I mean, we believe that men are
punished for their own sins, not
for Adam's transgressions, right?
That's pretty clearly laid out
in our doctrine.
Bekah: Well, and having someone who's
supposed to stand in for Christ-
Speaker 5: Yeah
⦠Bekah: right, say something like
that to you, the level of betrayal
that- Yeah ⦠you feel in that
moment is- Totally ⦠deep,
Austin: yeah.
And so, you know, I, it was
just so, I was so confused.
I'm like, I'm, I'll own my stuff for sure.
What I did was not right.
What I did broke the rules.
I get it.
But I'm like, "Why am I being blamed
for someone else's agency and choices?"
So they did a disciplinary hearing,
and I was disfellowshipped from
the church, which , if you don't
know what that is, it's essentially
just a step below excommunication.
And so that was- Which
Speaker 5: means you're not kicked
out, but you do lose some privileges.
Austin: Yeah.
Okay.
Lose privileges.
I'm not allowed to pray publicly at
church or speak publicly at church.
And so, yeah, that was hard and rough.
And I was justâ¦
I was so fed up at this point,
and part of my repentance process
was that I have to go to therapy.
"You gotta get this fixed."
And so they send me to LDS
Family Services, which is the LDS
Church's- Mm-hmm ⦠therapy clinic.
And-
Bekah: Which there's nothing
wrong with that, right?
Austin: No, no, no, no.
Bekah: Sure.
Like, nothing wrong- Nothing wrong
⦠with saying, "There's an issue.
We're gonna help you figure this out.
Let's send you to therapy."
Austin: Yes, so I- they send me to this
therapist, like, "H- this is where you go.
This is who you meet with," so I go and
do, you know, the classic onboarding
where you sit down with the therapist,
you meet, you talk, you figure out
if this is gonna be a good fit.
And so I sit down, and this lady's
like, "Tell me everything in as
much detail as possible," 'cause she
knew I was sent there for a reason.
And I'm like, "Okay, I guess this
is how therapy works," so, you know,
tell her the same thing that I told
my bishop and my stake president.
Tell 'em all the things.
Tell her all the things.
And she sits there and looks at
me dead in the eyes and she says,
"I would be so disappointed in my
sons if they did what you did."
And I was like, "What the heck?"
Kicked me while I'm down.
At this point, like, on the scale of
shame- Yeah ⦠from a slap on the
wrist to a rear naked choke hold,
I got the sledgehammer to the face.
Like-
Chris: So if anybody wants to know
what shaming someone looks like-
Austin: Yeah.
⦠Chris: this would be a good example.
Multiple examples of what
that would look like.
Good
Bekah: reading.
Exactly.
Austin: Yeah, so everyone I've told
this story up to this point has
metaphorically spit on me, kicked
me, shamed me, made me feel like the
scum of the earth, and so why would
I keep telling people about this?
Chris: I was gonna say, that wasâ¦
you probably, like, went right back to
be like, "Oh, this is why I didn'tâ¦
I'm not supposed to tell anybody."
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Exactly.
Chris: And so- So what was this like
for you, going through all this, Becca?
Like, you're experiencing this w-
l- right along with him, and so
what's going through your head?
Bekah: I wasn't experiencing
it right along with him.
So heâ¦
So we got-
Chris: I'm so glad I asked, because-
Bekah: Yeah.
⦠Chris: you're engaged and you're
not experiencing this with him.
Yep.
So.
Bekah: So I knew, I knew all of it
was happening, but I didn't know why
and I wasn't a part of the process.
Chris: Mm-hmm.
Bekah: Right?
'Cause we weren't married.
So we get engaged and- You
know, our wedding date, we
got engaged end of January.
Our wedding date was set for May 28th.
It was the anniversary of our first
kiss, so it was, like, a big deal for me.
I was like, "Ah, perfect date."
Chris: Oh, this is so cute.
We'll just make it happen.
Bekah: Yeah, it was
gonna be perfect , right?
And he comes to me over a
month into our engagement.
Like, we had already gotten some deposits
down on locations and stuff like that.
Like, we were trying to get
through quick, 'cause it was a
pretty quick turnaround, right?
January to May.
So balls were moving.
My mom also had breast
cancer during this time.
Like, it was a heavy,
heavy time in our lives.
But we..
We're just driving home one weekend for
a family gathering, and he just kind of
tells me, he's like, "I've, I've got some
stuff I need to take care of, and it might
affect when we're able to get married."
And I was like, "Okay."
You know, like, I, I
know about his addiction.
I had no idea anything was
happening on his mission.
I thought he, you know, was clean two
years, coming home from his mission.
I'm like, sure, anyone would
crash out coming home after that.
Like- And
Chris: were, were- ⦠that makes sense
to me ⦠you doing pretty good at
this point when you guys got engaged
or, or were you still acting out?
Do you remember?
Austin: It was the best I had
done in years, like sobriety-wise.
Um, I was still acting
out pretty occasionally.
I would say a few times a month.
But for me, that was like- That was a
big deal ⦠that was like God tier.
Yeah.
I was like, "I am killing this right now."
Bekah: Up to this point, he had
never come to me when, you know,
when he had a setback or anything.
Like, I could just tell when
things were harder based off of
how he behaved, and he'd get a
lot quieter, a lot more withdrawn.
And so I kind of figured that out a little
bit up to that point in our relationship.
So seeing him like this, I was
like, "Okay, like, something
pretty serious must have happened."
So I was like, "Yeah,"
like, "I'll come with you."
Like, "Let's do this."
So I walked with him to his
appointment, and his bishop asked
me to stay out in the hallway.
And I was like, " Okay ." So I sat out
in the hallway the whole time he had that
meeting with the bishop, and he comes out,
and I could tell something was not okay.
He wasn't talking to me.
Like, we had toâ¦
He walked me home.
He didn't say anything on the walk home.
And I was like, "Okay," like,
"this, something happened."
And so I was just like, "Do
you wanna talk about it?"
And he gave me the minimal amount of
information that he felt comfortable
giving me, which was stuff happened
on his mission and stuff happened
after he got home from his mission.
Never told me what it was.
And he's now has to go do disciplinary
and could be excommunicated.
And I was like, "Okay."
And I'm pretty naive.
Like, I don't know what that means.
Like, what, what qualifies someone
for excommunication, right?
So my head is like, I have no idea on
the scale where he was, and he wasn't
telling me, and I wasn't gonna push for
it I wanted to be that safe space for him.
And so again, I sat out in the
hallway on his disciplinary council,
wasn't invited in, wasn't part
of any of those conversations.
Mm.
Was told that we couldn't get married,
that we didn't know how long it would be
until we could get married, which that's
a really hard thing to be told when you're
in the middle of planning a wedding.
Chris: Right.
Bekah: You're like, "Uh, okay.
Well, I need a date."
Like, the whole point of planning
a wedding is that you have a date
and a goal to aim for, and weâ¦
They wouldn't give that to us.
Chris: Hmm.
Bekah: And so I kind of felt
like I was getting dragged
behind a tow truck a little bit.
Yeah.
I did not wanna push him.
Like, I wanted to keep him safe.
There was a lot of codependency in
our relationship to the point where
I did not wanna do something that
would cause him to run away, right?
So stayed quiet, stayed
safe, stayed supportive.
But I had no idea.
It wasn't until four, five years into
our marriage when we finally had a
disclosure- Mm-hmm ⦠about all of it.
Speaker 5: Wow.
So Becca, talk to us about kinda the
process of getting married and how
you've had, n- not just during the
engagement, but, uh, throughout the
marriage as well, the courage to continue
to support Austin and heal yourself.
'Cause you were dealing with a lot.
Bekah: It is a lot.
And so I have not been able to
really start experiencing healing
for a lot of my personal traumas
until he has started his recovery.
I carried a lot of the weight of
holding our family together and keeping
a safe space, and trying my best to
work through my problems, 'cause my
sexual abuse had really affected our
sexual relationship in our marriage.
Mm-hmm.
Like, I knew that going into marriage.
I was like, "All right.
I know I'm gonna hit something
and it's gonna cause problems."
Up to that point, I felt like I had
processed my trauma pretty well.
I could talk about it.
I felt good.
I talked to lots of other women
who'd gone through similar
situations, and we were good.
But when I knew that the
physicality of it, the body was
going to have issues, right?
And there was a lot of talking things out,
a lot of fights, a lot of him feeling like
I was neglecting him, a lot of me feeling
like I was white-knuckling it, right?
I took on the role of if I don't
take care of his sexual needs- Hmm
he's gonna go somewhere else.
Speaker 5: Hmm.
Bekah: And I don't wanna be the
reason that he goes somewhere else.
And honestly, I didn't know h- how
deep his spiritual pain was from
all of the trauma he went through
after his mission until maybe a
year or two into our marriage.
Like, I knew there had to be
something, but I didn't know any of
the conversations that had happened
with his bishop or with the c- with
the therapist that he's met with.
I had no idea.
And so there wasâ¦
Our first few years of marriage
felt really good, like we got
this, but there was a lot.
Like, we ended up going up to Alaska
again to run away from the problems,
and like we did- Did you go with him?
Yeah.
Yeah, we were gonnaâ¦
He was gonna transfer up to
Alaska for college, and then-
I pursued my further education in Colorado
instead, and so we just like spent a
few years of just kind of like going in
the wind wherever God needed us to go.
Speaker 5: Sure.
Bekah: And we did eventually land
back into Utah and- Well, it sounds
Speaker 5: like there was just
a lot that got stirred up-
Bekah: Yes.
Speaker 5: Mm-hmm ⦠when you got
married that took quite a while to settle.
Bekah: Yep.
On a, on an emotional level, I
would say our marriage was pretty
superficial the first couple years.
It wasn't until we started dealing
with like infertility issues where
we really started to get into the
nitty-gritty and the deeper stuff.
I think it kind of took thatâ¦
I mean, I don't know, would you say,
'cause we did have a miscarriage,
and that's when I got kind of hit in
the knees and I was like, "All right.
God, I can't do this," right?
"I cannot do this on my own."
And I don't know if that
was when you felt the same.
I don't know what caused you to
kind of come to God and say, you
know, "I gotta, I need to change."
Austin: I didn't start that journey
till after we'd had our first kid.
I think I just got tired Like I
had spent seven years- Tired of
Chris: hiding?
Austin: Tired of hiding,
tired of being angry.
So it's like, 'cause I, I went through,
you know, this, this disfellowshipment,
this shame cycle, this, all this
thing, all the shame being put on
me, and I couldn't even begin to
even process the thought of telling
Becca about this because everybody
I told, like attacked me and- Yeah
spit on me.
And I had put her on a pedestal, and
her validation was more meaningful
to me than anything in the world.
And to have lost that would
have been catastrophic toâ¦
I, I don't know if I would've made it.
, So I, I, you know, we, we
did end up getting married.
I moved out of that ward,
moved into her ward, and had
this bishop that just got it.
, I tried to tell him, like, ", the
old bishop said that I couldn't
get married for a year."
He cut me off, and he was
like, "I don't wanna know."
He's like, "He's not your bishop anymore.
I am."
And he's like, "I am in charge, but
more importantly, God is in charge."
And so he told me, he's like, "This
could, this disfellowshipment could be
three weeks, it could be three years,
it could be the rest of your life."
He's like, "It's all dependent on
your relationship with God and Christ,
and when you feel like you're ready."
And you know, that,
that was the atonement.
That, it was beautiful.
And so because of him,
I stayed in the church.
Because of him, we ended
up getting married.
Bishop Jasper- Wow ⦠he was amazing.
But-
Chris: Go Bishop Jasper.
You're a
Bekah: GO.
Chris: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah.
Bekah: It was nine months.
Austin: It was nine months in total.
Bekah: That was the full process, yeah.
Austin: But I go the next seven years
just s- jaded, holding on to that
shame, holding on to the things that
were said to me, holding on to that
pain, and just increasingly becoming
more and more angry towards God, more
and more angry towards religion, more
and more angry towards the church.
You couldn't even talk about religion
around me without me getting upset.
Speaker 5: Hmm.
Austin: And by that, by seven years, I
was just, I kinda hit this point where I'm
like, "I can't, I can't do this anymore.
I'm completely numb when I go to church.
I'm not even present."
And so we had this long conversation.
She's like, "You gotta go to therapy."
And I'm like, "Well, that's
part of the problem."
'Cause she didn't know that, that part.
And so, you know, we, I-
Chris: Let me tell you about
my experience with that.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
So that's hard when all the authority
figures and all of the, the resources that
you've gone to have caused even more pain.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 5: I mean, I can't imagine anyone
going through that without developing
a pretty, large sense of cynicism.
Austin: Yeah.
Bekah: Well, we, we were lucky.
So after, after our miscarriage,
I got pregnant again pretty
quick, and we had our first son.
And the postpartum of
that hit me really hard.
And I, like, my bishop just showed
up at our house one day, and I was
like, "Hey," like, "what's up?"
I was in the Relief Society presidency.
And, he's just like, "I just wanted
to come in and check on you."
And I was like All right, well, God
told you to come here 'cause I need
to be released and I need help.
And he was like, "Hey, I got a guy.
Like, let's do this."
So he set us up with, uh, Doug Nelson.
Speaker 5: Mm.
Bekah: And- Dougie
Speaker 5: Fresh.
Mm-hmm.
Bekah: Yep.
And it was the best thing.
I mean, he'sâ¦
That was honestly what started me
on my personal healing, really, with
my th- with my own personal trauma.
And, you know, healing with your
inner child kind of a concept, like
that's what introduced that all to me.
And I think that was the first step,
was that we kind of did a couples
therapy along with that, and Austin
kind of got to see what therapy kind
of is supposed to actually look like.
Right.
And he was able to build a little bit
of trust in that relationship with Doug.
And so when we reached this
point where I was like, "Hey,
like, I can't help you with this.
I can't be the one to save
you in this situation.
Like, you need someone else,"
and that's when he was like,
"All right, I'll go see Doug."
Like-
Austin: Yeah.
And, and the most beautiful thing of
all of it, um, with that experience was,
you know, I told Becca, I was like, "I
don't know where this is gonna take me.
Like, this might take me closer to God.
This might take me away
from the church completely.
Like, I don't know where
I'm gonna go with this."
And, you know, she, she gave me the
most beautiful gift anyone could,
where she just sat me down and
she was like, "Just go and heal.
Wherever you end up, we will be there.
We're not going anywhere.
Just go- Beautiful ⦠and heal."
And, like, that, that was huge,
to go and not have this agenda
of, "I have to get back to church.
I have to heal with God."
It was just , "Go and heal
yourself," and it was amazing.
And,
Speaker 5: uh- Oh, that was probably
the first time in your life,
I bet, where you feel like you
could just let go of the control.
Austin: Yeah.
That's a v- a very
beautiful way to say it.
It was.
I was really surprised, but it
started pulling me back towards
God, the work that I did.
Doug spent, like, three years trying to
get me to go to Warrior Heart Boot Camp.
I mean, I'd just be like, "Dude,
I don't need your man camp.
Like, I'm fine."
Bekah: Like, that sounds kind of weird.
But whatever.
Austin: Yeah.
He was persistent.
He got me to go, and it changed my life.
Chris: I remember that boot camp-
Very well.
I remember that boot camp.
Brought you over on
stage, and it was awesome.
Austin: Yeah.
That changed my life.
That's where I really
started to heal with God.
I didn't realize how much
anger I was holding onto God
until I went to boot camp.
Usually, when I tell this story, I
tell people, like, yeah, you know, it
felt like nobody got on their knees
during this disfellowshipment thing.
No one got on their knees and just
said, like, "What does he need?"
Hmm.
"Why is he here?"
No one asked God.
It just felt like, "This
is what the handbook says.
We're gonna throw it right at his head."
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Austin: And it just felt like, you
know, God wasn't part of the equation.
And then I go to boot camp, and we're
doing this moment of meditation and
silence, and I just had the, that thought
came into my head, and then it clicked.
You know, talking to God, praying,
and I'm just like, "Where were you?"
In hindsight, was he there the whole time?
Yes, but I was in so much pain, and
so much suffering, and so much shame.
Like, I was alone.
And I just got pissed , and
start yelling at God.
So many expletives that I cannot say
on this But it was the first genuinely
real conversation I had with God in
probably my whole life, to be honest.
Yeah.
Chris: And, and look at, look
at how that started, man.
That's what God can do.
He can take it.
Mm-hmm.
Like, tell Him that you're mad.
Tell Him you're pissed.
It's gonna create this, this beautiful
dynamic between the two of you.
Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
Chris: Just like it did for you and
numerous guys that I've talked to
that have had that very conversation
with God, and it's opened their eyes,
and they're like, "Okay, now I just
need to get all that out, and now
we can do this relationship, God."
Yeah.
And it's been beautiful.
Austin: It has.
Well, and that, that was my experience.
I got it all out, and then God
literally was just like, "Thank you.
This is what I've been waiting for.
Let's talk."
And then, like, the next day,
Chris randomly calls me up on
stage and was like, "What's your,
like, what's your agreement?
Like, what's the thing you, you hold
onto more than anything in the world?"
And I'm like, you know, I'm just
standing there in front of 140 guys.
I'm like, "That I'm unredeemable."
And, you know, he does the most
beautiful thing where he's just like,
"Okay, we're gonna fix this right
now," and then walks me through this
prayer in front of everyone, and gets
to the point where he makes me say I'm
redeemed or that I know I'm redeemable.
I couldn't say it.
I just stood there and sobbed.
'Cause I physically could not say
the words that I am redeemable.
I was holding onto that with
every fiber of my being.
Chris: It was part of your identity.
It
Austin: was.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
It was.
And then I finally get the words out,
"I'm redeemable," and physically my
shoulders, like, dropped, and I just-
felt this weight and tension just
let go, and I've never experienced
anything like it before or since.
It was one of the most beautiful,
amazing gifts that God has ever given me.
It was huge.
It was huge to experience that, to
experience for the first time in my
life, God saying like, "Hey, I see you.
I'm here for you, and I'm showing up."
And I saw it.
I can look back in my life, and he's
shown up so many times, but that's
the first time that I saw it and
experienced it in the exact moment.
Speaker 5: So I'd imagine there was a
major shift in your own personal life
and in your relationship after that.
That point up to the present, how
have the two of you healed together,
and what does recovery look like now?
Bekah: We're definitely
still doing it, right?
We're right in the middle of it.
A big piece of it for me was I
needed to understand, 'cause he came
home from that boot camp changed.
It was the first time I had
seen light in his eyes in years.
The man that I thought I had
married was finally in front of me.
And so I was like, "All
right, like, this is good.
This is good."
And he- I like this
Chris: boot camp thing.
Bekah: Yeah.
And he was like, he's like, "Well, you
know, they have a girls version of this."
And I was like, " Okay ." So
I had a connection.
I kind of had heard about it before, and I
went, and just having a shared vocabulary
right off the bat was really helpful.
Like, he could talk, and I could
understand what he was saying, right?
Recovery, I knew what that meant.
He talks about Adam and Eve.
I knew what that meant.
We had this common ground that we
kind of started on, and- That was huge
because I think a lot of the times in our
early marriage, like, we're both kinda
talking two different languages, right?
You're not quite on the same wavelength.
You're both trying to help, but
it's not ever really connecting.
So we had this shared, uh,
foundation to jump off of, right?
Which was huge.
And from there, it was like we
could talk, and he could come
to me and, like, I'd neverâ¦
I worked really hard to
never be not safe, right?
For him to come talk to me.
If he came and told me that he
relapsed, I was like, "Okay,"
like, "Let's talk about it."
Like, "What's going on?
How are you feeling?
How can we improve?
Do you need anything from me?"
Like, we would have those conversations,
but now it was more like, "Okay,"
like, "Thank you for coming to
me, and I understand what's going
on, and we can do this together."
And we'd have moments where he
needed to recover and moments when
I needed to recover, and we were
able to have that communication.
Just a lot of talking,
a lot of walls, right?
You hit a wall, and you're
like, "We can't get past this."
Like, "This is so infuriating."
And you work through that, right?
You feel those emotions.
You validate those emotions.
You talk to each other
and say, "You know what?"
Like, "I need a minute.
Can we come back to this tomorrow?"
And that's okay, right?
Like, e- everyone's emotions
through these processes are valid
because you're feeling them.
Chris: Hmm.
Bekah: And that needs to be honored,
whether it's anger, whether it's
sadness, whether it's betrayal.
Like, everyone needs
to honor those moments.
And when both people are able to
respect that without taking it
personally, like, his, his relapses
are not my fault Same way, when I
start to struggle with our physical
relationship, it is not his fault.
Chris: Right.
Bekah: To just take that off the
table and say, "You know what?
I see that you're having these
feelings, and I'm here for
you whenever you're ready."
Like, that's, that's huge.
Chris: So you found sobriety.
Austin: Yeah.
Chris: Right?
So you found sobriety how?
Austin: So about nine months
ago, I had a crazy hard relapse.
Crashed out, burned,
was really struggling.
Just being unashamed about it, like, I
had taken some of my favorite pictures
of her and altered them to be explicit so
that I could have my own little pictures.
What I did not realize is that
Google Photos was sending her all the
pictures that was, had her face in it.
And so she opened up
her phone and saw those.
It was bad.
Like-
Bekah: It was probably the
first time I wasn't safe-
Austin: Yeah
⦠Bekah: for him.
Austin: Well, and like, you
know, I, I was just so not in
an okay place addiction-wise.
I was at a point where I
thought I'd lost my family.
I thought I'd lost my marriage.
But it really made me look at myself.
There's this legend of Robert Downey Jr.
when he was stuck in his drug addictions
where he talks about how the thing
that made him change, it was like 3:00
AM and he went to Burger King and got
a Whopper, and it was, in his words,
the most disgusting burger he's ever
had in his life, to the point where
he looked at it, and he was just
like, "What am I doing with my life?"
Like, what, what brought me to this
point, outside of a Burger King at
3:00 AM eating this nasty burger?
This is my Whopper moment where I was just
like, "What have I been doing with my life
up to this point to bring me to here?"
And I'd done all this work trying
to connect with God again, that
this was the first time that I could
actually turn to him and just go
like, "I can't do this on my own.
I can't do this."
Chris: That surrender.
Austin: And I gave it to him.
That's the first time I ever
gave my addiction to him where
I was just like, "Here, take it.
I can't do this.
I cannot fix this on my own."
And so I, I entered, you know, what
I call a Christ-centered recovery,
and I leaned on him, entirely.
Surrendered myself to him.
Did everything I could.
And in the beginning w- I was trying
to, you know, fight for Becca's heart
and reach for her and do all the things,
and it was just pushing her away.
And I realized like, "Whoa,"
i'm not responsible for her,
she's not responsible for me.
We're only responsible for ourselves.
And so that's when I really clicked
on me where I'm like, "Okay, I'm just
gonna go all in on God and work on me."
And just every day praying and
working, just asking God, like, "Show
me how you see me through your eyes.
Let people see me through your eyes.
Let me see them.
Let me be the son that you
need me and want me to be."
And the more I strived and the more I
worked to become the son of God that
I believed that he wants me to be,
naturally I became the husband that
Becca deserved- Mm-hmm ⦠and the
husband that she needed, the father
that my children have always needed.
Someone who's present, someone
who's there, someone who's paying
attention, someone who is not consumed
by their own compulsive behaviors.
It was a very long, very rough, very
brutal, very hard road that we're
still very much in the middle of,
but for the first time, pornography
and masturbation, sexuality doesn't
have the vice that it had on me.
Like, when we first started venturing
back into being intimate with each other
after all this, like, I had all these
alarm bells going off, all of these things
just saying like, "We've got problems."
Like, "This feels wrong,"
like, "This feels different."
Kissing your wife feels different, being
intimate with your wife feels different.
It doesn't feel okay.
And I had to do some real internal
work and be like, "What's going on?"
That's when I realized
like, I'm not anxious.
I'm not experiencing anxiety.
You know, as NF says in his song
Happy, he's like, "I've been this
way so long, I feel like something's
off when I'm not depressed."
And that was the same way with this.
I was experiencing sexuality
without anxiety, and my brain
was saying, "This is not right."
I realized that I had these wounds from
this trauma from the very beginning
that I needed to face and have a
conversation with, and that my addiction
was simply, it was just a behavior.
I was experiencing emotions
that were bigger than the tools
that I had to manage them.
Chris: Hmm.
Austin: And so I started
just sitting in my emotions.
I stopped running.
I sat down, and I'd sit in
them, and usually I'd pray to
God and say like, "Please take
these big feelings away from me.
I just wanna relapse.
Like, just take it away."
And I changed that, and I
started praying, and I'd say,
"Don't you dare take this away."
Hmm.
Like, "Teach me how to sit in this."
Hmm.
"Teach me how to feel it.
Teach me how to experience this in healthy
ways, because these are just emotions
that I need to learn how to handle without
compulsively going to the easiest way
to numb out," which would be my phone
or, um, pornography or masturbation.
Um- And
Speaker 5: you've been
sober now for how long?
Austin: Almost six months.
You talk to me six months ago,
no way in hell would I tell
you that I could go six months.
Now, I fully believe I can.
Hmm.
I fully believe that I could go
the rest of my life If it happens,
if I do relapse, that's okay.
I'm now in a place where I'm okay to let
go of that and not feel the shame, where
I can say, "This is just the information.
What can we learn from it,
and how do we move forward?"
Mm-hmm.
But most importantly is keeping
her involved in my recovery.
Yeah.
'Cause it's not just my
recovery, it's our recovery.
Speaker 5: What's your guys' song?
Austin: I'm gonna switch it.
Originally, it was Running by
NF, but, we're gonna do Broken
Together by Casting Crowns.
Chris: Oh.
This'll get you . So I'd welcome
you guys to listen to this song,
and then go watch the actual video.
Yeah.
It's a good one, and it'll get you.
Speaker 5: Why is it your song?
I know Austin kinda made this
pivot last minute, butâ¦
Bekah: He did, which
surprises me, honestly.
So we, we hit a wall a few months
back, and it was, it was hard.
It was a hard night, right?
And the next morning, he just sends
me this song, and he's like, "I
know God's still here," because
when I opened the playlist, this
is what played this morning.
Chris: Mm.
Bekah: And I listened to it, and we
were both broken, we had both crumbled
down, and I wasn't willing to pick
up his pieces anymore, and he had
finally r- released and completely
let go, so we were both rock bottom.
And so we listened to this song the next
morning, and I was like, "This is us."
Like, we're two individuals going
through individual experiences together.
Chris: That's beautiful, guys.
Speaker 5: Thanks for watching.
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Here is Broken Together by Casting Crowns.