Every Man’s Battle Podcast

Announcer: Welcome to the Every Man's Battle podcast, brought to you by New Life Ministries. In this podcast, you'll hear honest conversations and encouragement for living a life of sexual integrity.

In every episode, licensed marriage and family therapist JJ West and licensed professional counselor Doug Barnes break the silence around sexual integrity struggles that millions of men face but rarely discuss openly. Each episode offers practical strategies and genuine hope to dissolve the shame and isolation that keeps men trapped in destructive cycles. Let's get to today's episode.

JJ West: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Every Man's Battle podcast. This is season three. We're kicking off season three. Doug, I'm so excited. Happy podcast day.

Doug Barnes: Happy podcast day to you. I am itching to get going here. We've got some great material and I can't wait to jump into it.

JJ West: I can't wait as well. Every season we've tried to add new things. Season two, we went from just audio to video. Season three, we are adding a new feature for those of you who are subscribers to the Every Man's Battle podcast email, which is EMBpodcast@newlife.com.

Everyone who's a subscriber, you have the opportunity to receive bonus content. All you have to do if you want to be on that list to receive that bonus content is just send an email to EMBpodcast@newlife.com and put in the subject line "bonus content." You'll be put on that list and you'll receive that bonus content when it comes out once a month or so.

We're going to be sending out special content for just those subscribers. Thank you for listening, thank you for participating, and thank you for giving us feedback. We really need to hear from you as we said in season one and in season two and we'll say it at nauseam in season three. We want this show to meet the needs of the listeners and we can only know what those needs are if we hear from you.

Thank you so much for giving us that feedback, giving us suggestions, and giving us questions to answer. Continue to do that and we'll continue to shape the show in terms of what you guys are sharing with us. Doug, let's jump right back in. We're going to kick off season three today.

We're going to start off our first episode of season three talking about what's really worked in recovery. What's helped? What's allowed us to move further? Doug and I are going to share from our own stories and our own experiences. Here are some of the things that we have found to be helpful.

As you know, any of you who have been to the Every Man's Battle intensive, you know we are not going to be sharing the silver bullet, the secret sauce, or the magic formula that's going to make it all work and heal you and you'll never struggle again. What we're going to share with you are the things that we have found to be helpful that have moved us a little further down the path.

When we're talking about what's helped along the path of recovery, I love that imagery of a path because it reminds me of a verse from the Old Testament from Jeremiah chapter six, verse 16. It says this: "This is what the Lord says: Stand at the crossroads and look. Ask for the ancient paths. Ask where the good way is and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls."

Listen guys, we want you to find rest for your souls and God brings other people along with us to help us find those ancient paths. We want to ask people who've already walked the path, "Hey, which is the good way so I can walk in it?" That's what we want to offer today—some things that we have found. Doug and I didn't create these things. We didn't come up with these ideas. These were things that were handed down to us from other people.

What we want to do is just continue to do the same thing. We talk about evangelism as one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. It's the same thing in recovery. We are a couple of beggars who have stumbled on some bread because somebody else pointed it out to us. So we're saying, "Hey guys, there's food over here to eat." That's what we want to do.

In order for us to walk the ancient path and to find the good way, we talk about the things that are helpful. I want to start with you, Doug. What are some things that you have found in your own story of recovery that have been helpful to you and that have helped you stay on that good way?

Doug Barnes: As we were talking through this and how we were approaching this, when we talk about the ancient path, at EMB invariably we talk about how this is not a sprint. It's really a marathon. It's a great metaphor to talk about the path we're on. We're going to be on this path for a long time.

What I bring today is really tactical and practical day-to-day operational tools that may have morphed and changed a little bit along my way. But there are a lot of things that I still do today, still think about, and still get involved in. I've got like four or five little bullet points here. Stop me when you need to and we can talk about whatever we need to.

The first thing is knowing my boundaries. Whenever we get off the path, we've crossed a boundary. What are my integrity boundaries? What are the things that I know that when I do them, I will lose my integrity and I will have acted out again?

But we also have what we call secondary boundaries and those are considered like warning shots across the bow. If I'm going to know myself, then I'm going to know what situations, what people, places and things, what media, what songs, what movies, or what TV shows can get me to a place of arousal that I don't need to be in or that I'm trying to avoid. I don't avoid arousal, but I want to live with integrity.

JJ West: I only allow myself to experience arousal in the appropriate venues and I guard my heart when it would be inappropriate for me to experience arousal.

Doug Barnes: Exactly. That's the first thing that I thought of. The second thing was I need to understand my triggers. That was one of the best things for me to know since we know this is not about sex. We misuse our sexuality outside of God's will and desire.

What triggers me to want to go to a behavior that does not honor God, nor my wife, or family, or significant other, or girlfriend, or whoever I happen to be with? It's not something I give into.

JJ West: That's so important, Doug, because it's not just the external triggers. It's not just the person in line in front of me who's wearing the miniskirt. It can be that, but there's also all of those internal triggers that are going on that also invite me to cross primary and secondary boundaries. I have to be aware of those.

Doug Barnes: Right. When I'm walking outside my house, I need to have already thought through what my integrity game plan is. When I'm going to a venue, when I'm going to a game, when I'm going to church, or when I'm going to the grocery store, what is my integrity game plan going to look like so I keep those boundaries safe and secure? I need to know what triggers me into that cycle of the thoughts and the preoccupation and all of that cycle that we talk about—the acting out or the acting in cycle.

The third thing on my list is the structure and routine, especially of the battle plan that we talk about at EMB. There are 12 components there that I could look at like a checklist. I could look at those like a to-do list. I check it off today, check it off today, nope didn't do that today, yeah I'm doing that this week, no I'm not doing that this week. I can look at it like a project management list.

However, as do our listeners and those who watch, we both know that our walk is not about a checklist. It's about the sanctification of my character and how my heart changes. I'm doing these things as a way to dive into where my heart is. What is the state of my heart today?

Yesterday's over. I can't worry about tomorrow. Where am I today? What kind of man is God calling me to be? When I live in that structure, I feel safer and grounded in my integrity and in my plan so that I'm not veering off the path.

JJ West: I love that idea that it's not just a checklist. It is a checklist in the sense of it gives me some very practical, tangible expressions of what I'm working on and how I know that I'm working. It's like Richard Foster's celebration of discipline; it gives me all of the things to be working on. But then Donald Whitney's the spirit of the disciplines shows that I'm not just looking at it as a checklist, but why I am doing these things.

Doug Barnes: Right. It's more of a texture of how I am using these things to change the direction of my heart. I have two more and I'm done. These are probably the most important in my life. These are the most important tools that I've used. One is check-in calls—calling a brother. Not calling a brother when I'm in trouble, but calling a brother and making a call to check in and check up.

In recovery, I am my brother's keeper. I want to check in, not only as a way of being accountable, but as being a brother and a source of one cord of three strands. I want to be connected to other brothers in this walk because they get me. They know what I'm going through. They know what I'm struggling with when I struggle and they know my victories when I'm victorious. It's a great way to get to know another man's heart, which is not really in vogue in our culture and society. But that's what recovery is. It's getting to know other men and their struggles so that we can walk this together.

JJ West: And them getting to know you. You being vulnerable to share what's going on in your world and in your heart.

Doug Barnes: Right, which is a great segue to the last one, which is my community. I am allowing other men to love me and know me and know my heart. That was the hardest part for me in the very beginning. It wasn't that I couldn't be a part of other men's lives, but it was allowing other men—whom I trust, whom I know, I know their story, they know mine—allowing other men to love me with that heart like David and Jonathan. We have that kind of a closeness of brotherhood where when they would get in my face, it was because they loved me, not because they wanted to hurt me.

That's been my experience over my life. You're getting in my face because you want to hurt me, not because you care about what's just happened. Those have been the tactical, really impressive tools for me to continue this journey today.

JJ West: What a great helpful list. Doug, thank you for sharing that. I'm quite certain our audience is benefiting from that. I hope they're taking notes because those are gold. How did you make that transition from someone who is acting in and stiff-arming the world to embracing the idea of community?

Doug Barnes: That's a great question. I answer that in a couple of ways. Being the recovering vacillator that I am, I had to get past the all-good, all-bad creation in my heart and in my head. I had to get past that so I could see someone else's humanness. I could see their frailties, I could see their brokenness, and it would be okay.

I had to take that risk in every relationship that we have—that risk of rejection. I just sat down and said, "Okay, I need to do this because it's good for me, not because of what I'm going to get." It was just a risk and I just risked over and over until I got to a point to where it was a place of comfortability.

JJ West: That is so important to say. "Look, I'm not going to feel comfortable with it the first time I try this. I might not feel comfortable with it several times into trying this." But I keep doing it until I get to the place where it's comfortable and then I keep doing it because I'm enjoying it. It's good for me. Early on, it's going to feel uncomfortable, unnatural, and clumsy. It's going to be a mess early on, but I keep doing it so that I get to the place where it's comfortable and I'm benefiting from it.

Doug Barnes: Right, and it has worked very beautifully over the last 20 years. This didn't happen overnight for me. Some guys it does, but for me it didn't because of my history. I get that now. It's trying and really knowing that when there is that negative reaction or that rejection, they're not rejecting me. That was where I kept getting detoured. I would get the sense that they were rejecting me and it wasn't about me. When I found those guys that embraced me, those are gold. Those are my gold mine. Those are so valuable to me even to this day.

JJ West: What a great list. Doug, thank you. I'm quite certain our audience is benefiting from that and enjoying that. I hope they're taking notes because those are gold.

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Doug Barnes: So let's turn the page, so to speak. You and I talked about this beforehand and at Every Man's Battle you bring up a fantastic list of books that you have found helpful and information that has impacted you. Could you share a little bit about those things?

JJ West: I would love to share that. I do share with the guys at EMB that brief list, but this gives us a platform to maybe dig a little bit deeper and share a little bit more of why those books in particular have been helpful in my recovery journey.

I'll start with a book called "The Last Addiction" by Sharon Hersh. This book has helped me understand, probably more than any other book maybe except the Scriptures, more fully why I can't fix my broken self with my broken self. My goodness, that's the addict motto: "I got this. I can handle it. I can fix this. I can do this." And I can't. That book really does help highlight that truth—that I need to look outside of my broken self to God and to others in order for my broken self to be healed. I can't emphasize or advertise it enough. It's such an incredible resource.

The other thing that that book really highlights is the gift of getting caught. We don't think of it as a gift. We certainly don't think of it as a gift before it happens. We think, "Oh, if I got caught, that would be the worst thing possible." When we get caught, it's very hard for us to see it as a gift. But it actually is a gift from God and so it uses the story from John chapter eight of the woman who is caught in adultery.

The passage tells us that the Pharisees come and they bring this woman and throw her down in front of Jesus at the temple and they say, "This woman was caught in the very act of adultery." So she's caught. In her being caught, as the story unfolds and Jesus says, "Listen, whoever among you is without sin, let him cast the first stone."

He's kneeling, which is a really powerful illustration—that he's kneeling before this woman. He says to her, "Where are your accusers?" She says, "There are none." And so then Jesus says to her, "Neither then do I accuse you or condemn you. Neither do I condemn you." But then he says to her, "Go and sin no more."

That gift of getting caught was her opportunity to now live in freedom, in holiness, and in integrity and sanctification. That's what God does for us. He allows us to experience it. We have the opportunity to humble ourselves and disclose and admit our wrong. But if we don't choose the path of humility, then we end up choosing the path of humiliation, which is getting caught. But it's still a gift because it leads us to freedom. It leads us to not living in that broken world anymore. So, "The Last Addiction" by Sharon Hersh is fantastic.

The one that we talk about a lot at the Every Man's Battle intensive is "Wired for Intimacy" by Dr. Struthers. In season two, we did a couple of episodes on what that book is about, which is the brain chemistry. I would invite you to go back and look at the neurobiology and the brain chemistry that's happening around addiction.

For me, that was a really helpful resource because I nerd out over those things and I recognize that. For me, it was really helpful because it allowed me to see that while my heart certainly is broken and in need of repair, there was also a truth that my brain was broken and needed to be repaired. When we read in Romans chapter 12 to no longer be conformed to the pattern of this world but be transformed by what? The renewing of your mind. That renewing of my mind is a part of the sanctification process for me. Me understanding what's going on in my brain and then choosing to think differently and choosing to focus on things differently really helped in my recovery and in learning about sanctification.

I'm not using it as an excuse, but using it as fuel and as material to understand myself, to connect with self. So that was really helpful. Jason Martinkus' "Worthy of Her Trust" is an amazing resource for lots and lots of reasons. But I'm going to highlight two. One is the call to no more lying, no more secrets, and no more hiding. His favorite phrase that he uses is, "I would rather lose you than lie to you." Me telling you the truth may lead to the consequence of a separation, a divorce, whatever, but I'm not going to live in these lies anymore. I'm going to be worthy of your trust by rebuilding trust with you.

Secondly, he lays out what's called an amends matrix, which is part of the process of rebuilding trust. It is being able to not only just admit what I've done wrong and what I've broken, but also how it impacts you. And then what things can I do differently to not only just not engage in that problematic behavior anymore, but to intentionally care for your heart when you're being triggered by something. That is so huge.

"Unwanted" by Jay Stringer is a huge, helpful resource because it helps us to understand the importance of unpacking our story of addiction. So often, guys when they're first starting or haven't yet started in recovery, the last thing they want to do is talk about the details of their sexual acting out. The last thing they want to do is share, "Well, what is it that you actually look up when you go to look for pornography? What are the themes? What's the type of pornography that you're drawn to?"

It's like, "Oh, let's just not. Is it enough that I can just say I look at porn and I don't want to anymore?" Well no, actually we need to talk about the kind of porn you're drawn to because that actually reveals the wounds of your heart that you're trying to self-medicate and it reveals what it is that you're looking for in terms of God, but you're looking for it in the wrong places. You're trying to meet legitimate needs in illegitimate ways outside of God's will and design by going to porn to meet needs that only God can meet and to heal wounds that only God can heal. So it's really helpful to try to start to unpack your particular story of addiction.

"Samson and the Pirate Monks" by Nate Larkin, I know it's a goofy title. But what Nate does in this book is a character study. He looks at two Old Testament characters who were both known for their sexual integrity issues. So he looks at David and he looks at Samson. One of the things that he highlights is the fact that David was restored at the end of his story of brokenness, but Samson wasn't.

What was the difference between these two guys? One of the things that Nate highlights is the fact that David had a community. David had men in his life who could speak truth to him and Samson didn't. Samson was a lone wolf. If we continue to live as lone wolves, it's very unlikely—I would say impossible, but very unlikely—that we are going to experience restoration. But if instead we will take a page from David's book and allow men into our world and to get in our face, that's a really important part of our healing. That's what's so really good about EMB—that we dive into that piece of community so that they can take that chunk home with them.

"How We Love" by Milan and Kay Yerkovich, I won't spend a lot of time on that. If you are interested in learning more about the book "How We Love," you should go to the Intimacy in Marriage workshop because we talk a lot about it. But it helps me understand my attachment style and that has implications for how I act out sexually. In fact, later this season, we're going to invite Mark Cameron to come in and talk to us specifically about the different sexual propensities of these different attachment styles. It's going to be a great episode so I'll save that for that episode.

"Healing the Wounds of Sexual Addiction" by Mark Laaser—Mark does a great job of approaching this from a very clinical perspective. Some of you are not into clinical perspectives. I get that. But for some of us, it really is helpful to have a very clinical understanding of this addiction and how it plays out. So that can be a helpful resource, especially if you like me like to nerd out on stuff like that.

Let me say one more book and then I'll share a couple other quick things before we wrap up. The one other book that I would highlight is a book called "Fathered by God" by John Eldredge. The reason why I highlight that book is the fact that so many of us, our experience growing up was one of missing out. There were things that were missing in our relationship with our earthly father and because of those things that were missing, it's impacted our view of self, it's impacted the way we operate in the world, the way we relate to others, whether that's platonic relationships or romantic relationships. It impacts so much.

What John has done has helped us to connect with God as our Heavenly Father and allowing Him to father us in the ways that we weren't fathered growing up. So we read that book to help us to understand more of our own heart and our brokenness and to understand that God doesn't leave us there. God invites us into healing because He is our good Father who provides everything we need.

A couple final thoughts—these are just little gems. You talked about the gold mine. These are some little gems that really helped me. One was I went to this retreat called Men at the Cross and there's a phrase that they used there that went something like this: One man's work is another man's work. In other words, as you are encountering other men and they're sharing their own story of brokenness and recovery and what they're working on, even if they have a very different story than you do, as they share their story, as they're doing their work, you gain from that. You grow from that. One man's work is another man's work and that's why it's so important that we tell our story—that we don't just keep it to ourselves. No, I need to tell my story to a larger audience because it allows them and encourages them to do their own work.

Gem number two is this: I was at this retreat and it was all about guys who were in their 30s and 40s who were looking back on their selfish 20s and recognizing that that wasn't all that useful long-term and looking at what kind of legacy do I want to start to build because I can't wait until I'm in my 50s and 60s. I was listening to this guy Morgan Snyder and we were talking about the influence of mentors, of kings in our lives and the influence of good kings. He made the statement, "Good kings lead us to the Father," and then he went on to say, "bad kings"—and I thought for sure he was going to finish that sentence "bad kings drive us away from the Father."

But he didn't. Instead, he said, "Good kings lead us to the Father; bad kings drive us to Him." And oh my gosh, it floored me because I had been so focused on the brokenness of my own father's sexual integrity and the negative impact that that had had on my life and I was failing to see how that was driving me to my good Heavenly Father and driving me to healing. I don't know how much he intended that statement to have, what kind of impact he intended it to have, but it was revolutionary for me.

I hope that other men will find the same thing because you in the audience, I know there are many of you out there who've had some bad kings in your lives. You've had some experiences that were really painful, that were abusive even. It would be easy to allow the enemy to use that to point you away from the Father. But God uses those bad kings to drive you to Him, to drive you to His good care.

Doug, it's so good to be on with you again. I have missed this. We've got so much more work to do and man, I can't wait to dive headfirst into season three. We've got some great content lined up for you guys for season three. We can't wait to share it with you.

As I said before, please, please, please, let us know what's been helpful. Let us know if you have questions, let us know if you have suggestions. Send us an email to EMBpodcast@newlife.com and for those of you who are listeners to the podcast, if you've never been to the workshop, all you have to do when you sign up is use the code EMBpod and you'll get a discount on your registration fee.

We want you to use that because we want you to be at the workshop. We're getting ready to kick off one in Orange County this weekend and we're excited about what God has in store. But we don't want you to miss out and so sign up, find out more, call 1-800-NEW-LIFE, go to the New Life website, NewLife.com, to find out more about upcoming workshops in your area.

Well guys, thanks so much for listening. We can't wait to dive into all of the content that we have in store for you for season three. Next week we're going to be talking about the role of empathy in recovery. Can't wait to get to that topic. Can't wait to be with you again, Doug. Thanks again for listening and until we meet again, let's continue to walk in integrity.

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