Every Man’s Battle Podcast

New Life: 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 Burns 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: Welcome back to the Every Man's Battle Podcast. We are so glad that you're with us. We hope that you've already listened to last week's episode where we got to know Bob Sklar, who's on with us again. He's agreed to stay with us to continue the discussion from last week. Doug, hey. Bob, hey. Happy podcast day, guys.

Doug Burns: Happy podcast day.

Bob Sklar: It is a happy day to be here talking about one of my favorite subjects, which is Sustained Victory.

JJ West: We're going to hone in today on the topic of the importance and the impact of Sustained Victory. For those who don't know, Sustained Victory is our aftercare program. Those who attend the Every Man's Battle Intensive, it's the follow-up program. It's how we take all the things that we learned at the workshop and now apply them week in and week out for the rest of our lives.

What does that look like? Doug and Bob have been leading Sustained Victory groups for basically almost as long as we've had Sustained Victory. Together, I think they lead close to two thousand groups a week. I'm not sure if the numbers are completely accurate there, but something close to that. You're in good hands getting to hear their experience with Sustained Victory because these are the experts here. Bob, you had talked about in our last episode how going to Every Man's Battle was a major shift for you in terms of going from sobriety to recovery. Can you share a little bit more on that? What happened at the workshop that shifted for you, and then how does Sustained Victory play a role in that?

Bob Sklar: One of the things I learned in the weekend and one of the core values is connecting with God, self, and others. One of the things that in our Sustained Victory groups we do is on a weekly basis, we practice those principles of connecting with ourselves and connecting with others. On our groups, we don't just sit around and chat for an hour. We're actually learning how to do "In To Me See."

We're checking in with things that have to do with our recovery and being accountable, which I'd like to come back to about what good accountability is and what bad accountability is. Good accountability and then in real-time, one of the things we allow in our groups that's different than being in a community group is we do cross-talk. It's not cross-advice. It's men speaking into each other's lives, talking about their feelings, and helping challenge other people. Through that process of healing and learning how to be intimate, we learn those skills that we're able to take into our community, into our marriages, and into our relationship with God.

JJ West: Exactly. It's the laboratory where we develop those skills so that we then take it into all of the relationships that are important to us out in our real world, our real life.

Bob Sklar: On the weekend when the guys are attending, we do breakouts. We start the basics of learning of what it's like to be in a group and being transparent and vulnerable. All scary words. By the end of the weekend, the guys really get the value of being fully known and what it's like to have someone support you and challenge you.

Learning to live my life in a connected manner is revolutionary. My best thinking got me here. Using collaborative thinking and collaborative living, being connected to others, is transforming. It's so different. Growing up, when I had a feeling or a situation I didn't know what to do with, I would avoid, shut down, or hide. When I have something that happens to me today, my first reaction now is to call Doug, call somebody. I connect where I used to connect to my addiction.

Today when I have an intrusive thought or a temptation or a conflict with my wife that I don't know what to do with or if I'm in a struggling place, that's an indicator light on my dashboard. One of my systems is off, and I need to connect with somebody to help me figure that out. I do that. Where I've learned to do that is in the context of my group, my Sustained Victory group, which initially started with my relationship with Doug and Jim working on the weekend and doing Sustained Victory with each other. Then that moved out as we did groups, and that's what we brought into our groups.

JJ West: I love that analogy of the light on the dashboard. Addiction is: I see the light on the dashboard, and I put a piece of tape over it. I want to ignore that. Recovery and Sustained Victory in recovery is going and getting the diagnostic tool and finding out what that indicator light indicates is wrong that needs to be repaired. I do that through relationship.

Doug Burns: Which involves other men, other healthy, safe men. It's not other women or social media. It's other healthy, safe men. That's what Sustained Victory really teaches. It's the on-the-ground tactical and practical. How do I live this life that we talk about in integrity? What does that even look like?

We talk about that at Every Man’s Battle in our breakouts, and with Sustained Victory, then that starts the training ground for what we want to do, which is live in integrity. You say that at the close of every show: Let's continue walking in integrity. I can't walk in integrity by myself. I need others. I need other healthy, safe men.

I think about all of the things that we learn in our groups. I think about how to be connected with my wife better, how to live my life better. Things I never would have thought of, I hear other men sharing week to week. It's going to be the one-year anniversary of my betrayal of my wife. I need to do something, and I may need to not get the apology greeting card for that day. All those things that you learn from being in the group.

I also want to make a comment going back to my story that I shared. Most of my injuries occurred in community from the people around me, my family, and that stuff. Healing comes from being in community. The way place my wounds are healed is in healing relationships with other men that bridges out into my wife and into my community and my God.

JJ West: To both of your points, it has to be good, safe men because where you experienced the wounding was from people that you thought you could trust and they turned out not to be trustworthy, at least in those areas, at least in those interactions. They turned out not to be trustworthy. But we have to identify the men in our lives who are trustworthy, who are good, safe men, where we can learn to practice real community, real intimacy, where we can be known so that we can be loved.

Doug Burns: That takes us to a different level because most of our wounds, and Bob, this is a question for you just to talk to our audience here, so many, and we hear this not only on the weekend but we also hear it in our practices, all three of us do, that the wounds began way back in family of origin, in childhood, our 6 to 16. Why do I need to go back to my childhood and address what those wounds or even to look at what those wounds are? Bob, why do we need to go back and look at that in such detail?

Bob Sklar: Last week when I shared about my story, one of the things that I talked about is there are templates and patterns that come from our experiences and our traumas. It's important to know that when I'm going back there, I'm not looking at that stuff so I can be a victim of my past and I can blame my past. I'm identifying patterns and hurts that help me today to know what are my triggers, where are my challenges in relationships, and why do I have these reoccurring emotional things? Those emotional storms are triggers. That's what I medicate.

Going back and looking at my history is data. It's not blame. It's not to be a victim. It's data that helps me currently identify what are the patterns and the triggers in my life and then also places I need to grow.

Doug Burns: And so going back to cross-talk, when I get into Sustained Victory, those other guys in my life who are now hearing me talk about these patterns and these triggers, they can then come in with accountability and say, "Remember, your story says this is a trigger to go in this direction and to get our attention to pull us back into the herd that we create from the weekend." It can be very protective and safe when we allow ourselves to go back there and learn those patterns and triggers as you say and then bring those in and share those to our group, and then they can help us stay together as a herd.

Bob Sklar: Good accountability. We're only as accountable as we make ourselves. It takes rigorous honesty on my part. I'm not going to help myself by hiding. I've got to be out there. And then I need the guys in my life not to be nice to me. Don't be a nice guy. I need you to tell me the truth. That requires listening well, because I'm going to give you all kinds of data about my life and my relationships and these wounds, and I need you to follow up with those better questions than, "I'm going to pray for you. Gee, that's too bad." I need you to remember, "This person's a power person, and every time you get around a power person, you do this. Have you thought about this?" That's what I need, and that's what we get in Sustained Victory.

When you're paying a little bit of money and you've got a professional person in the group, the chances of your doing better in your recovery is exponentially higher. I think if you ask anybody that leads a group, how many of the guys in your group have got an above-average staying sober? Guys that are out in regular recovery land, those statistics aren't great. I can just report from my experience with my guys; they do a lot better. That's not just a plug for Sustained Victory, but I think is great. I think it's because of what we're talking about here.

I'm not just showing up and complaining about my life and my wife every week. We wouldn't allow that in our group. No. It's like, "What are you going to do?" I think that challenge, the safety, having other men that you're learning real connection with, your ability to be sober goes up. You guys also know that being sober is not the most important thing. It's really important. Growing up in my life is equally as important. Becoming safe for my spouse is paramount. I've got to not only behave safely; I have to be safe. I learn that in this community.

JJ West: Exactly. We don't learn that just by being sober. Sobriety is just a cessation of behavior. "I'm not looking at porn anymore. I'm not masturbating anymore. I'm not going to the strip clubs anymore." Whatever my thing is. "I'm not doing that anymore." But I've never learned how to be a safe person for my spouse or my children. I've never learned how to be approachable and humble and kind and generous and all of those things because I never looked at the patterns.

As you talked about the data, part of that data that we pick up is I'm not just looking at the harm that was done to me. I'm not responsible for the sin that was done to me. But I am responsible for my sinful response to the sin that was done to me. That's what I learn in these communities. As you said, Doug, that's why we go back to the stories of our upbringing to look at those patterns and go, "Oh, yeah. When I'm with a power player, I react a certain way." Or, "I tend to react a certain way when I'm in a situation where I feel like I'm the least masculine in the room."

I respond a certain way when I'm in a situation where I feel powerless. I want to power up, and I might power up through anger. I might power up through sexuality. But I have to have people in my life who know those patterns as well as I know those patterns so that they can ask me those questions so that they can push me and not just be the nice guys who go, "You'll be okay. Just try harder."

Doug Burns: You're exactly right. Hopefully, we'll learn how to take that, I call it getting out in front. We're getting out in front of our recovery to know ourselves. I didn't know myself. I'm still learning about myself. Isn't that wonderful? All these years? It's getting out in front so that I can now see myself when I get into a room of a power player and go, "Okay. Power player. What do I do to manage myself, my recovery, and the little kid inside of me, little Rusty, if you will, for those of you who know, you'll know what that means." It's managing that little kid inside of me so that I can be appropriate, maybe to make a check-in call or a phone call or shoot out an SOS text or maybe later write in my journal, "This is what happened to me. This is what my feelings were. This is what I needed to do. This is how I handled it." Good recovery then spreads to all the other areas and all the other relationships of our lives. That's where we get into Sustained Victory, and we start to out-recover each other, so to speak, in the way that we are connected together like we've never been, like I never had been. It's an awesome thing to be a part of.

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Bob Sklar: A lot of your groups have been together a long time, and I've got some guys on my group that have been in there for nine years, ten years. A long time. They've got a lot of good. We get a new guy in, and it's good for those old guys to look at what that was like. And then, you know what? It is the safest place for that new guy to grow because they've got not just me directing the group; they've got all these guys that have got some great experience who are going to be very safe for them as they're learning the ropes and they've got lots of great stuff that they can give to them.

Like Doug was saying, walking into a situation that I know might be challenging, some of those guys are going to tell me, "You know, that's going to be a challenging situation. Have you thought about that? You're just going to vacation at the beach. Wake up. You've been proactive here." I think that's one of the things that the guys do is we move each other from being passive to being active in our recovery. Not in just our recovery but active in healing, being a part of our wife's healing.

That's one of the big challenges and gifts that I've gotten to learn is I can come into the group and say my wife just dumped all this stuff and asked me these questions that I don't know how to answer. I've got guys who are going to help me learn how to come with an empathetic statement to reconnect. I can't tell you how many times Doug has asked me, "What kind of husband do you want to be, Bob?" I go, "Okay. I'm going back in."

Them challenging me, you recognize how selfish and how much you're thinking about that as a "me" versus a "we" and learning how to change the way I see myself in relationship.

JJ West: Man, that is so good. We could go on. But I want to ask one more question before we wrap up. Is there one thing that you would do differently if you could redo your recovery, redo your experience of Sustained Victory? Would you do anything different than what you've done?

Doug Burns: Other than start earlier? Start earlier and learn how to listen. For me, start earlier and learn how to listen. And I don't mean just listen. I mean listen to other men who are actually trying to pour into me. I was like every time somebody wanted to pour into me, I'd put a lid on myself real quick and go, "I don't really need that." And so it all splash out all over the place and I'd walk away. Just to have people pour into me and to actually listen to what they were trying to say and apply it. That's me. Bob, I don't know about you.

Bob Sklar: The one thing I would say is learn how to be a safe container for my wife's pain and her grief process. I can remember I had a very kind person one time, my wife and I were in a session together, and she was sharing about her pain. I'm raising my hand in the background because I wanted to correct her logic because it wasn't all right. The person finally said, "What's up?" I said, "When's it going to be my turn?" He said, "Bob, it's not going to be your turn the rest of today. You're going to learn to sit and hold her pain and her feelings."

That changed things for us. It was amazing because I learned that I needed to be there not logically but emotionally. I needed to be emotionally present and keep myself out of the way and hold her pain, listen to her, care about her, love her, be a part of her healing. I wish I would have learned that way earlier.

JJ West: Especially without going to shame, right? Because we have a tendency a lot of times to take that to the next level. "I'm an idiot. I'm a worm. I shouldn't be here." And suddenly it's all about me again.

Bob Sklar: I would sabotage that all the time by going into the shame spiral. The minute she'd start sharing her pain and her heart with me, it would make me feel bad about me, and then all I was thinking about was me, and I wasn't staying up for her. Learning how to contain but also not sink down into shame over that. It's not about me. It's about hearing her pain.

JJ West: Bob's not allowed to be back on the podcast ever again. It's too convicting. I'm just laughing at how many times I even do it today. She's sharing some pain with me, and I go to defensiveness. I go to shame. I go to anger. I go to isolation withdrawal. What she needs is for me to hold her pain, to be, as you said, that container for her pain so that she knows that she's heard and that she's loved and she's cared for. Bob, you're never invited back.

I literally wish this was a four-hour episode because I so enjoyed talking with you guys. I'm so privileged to get to benefit from the work that you guys have put in for decades. I'm so honored that I get to just hear from your wisdom, your experiences, and your lived-out integrity. Thank you, guys, for doing that.

Okay, so in the audience, you're listening, and I think one of two things. One, you've been to Every Man's Battle, and you decided, "I've got the information now. I can do this. I can handle this. I can fix my broken self with my broken self. I don't need Sustained Victory. It's just another thing. I'll be okay. I've got all the information now." And "Listen, we're going to stay in touch. We've all shared each other's phone numbers. We're going to stay in touch."

And now you're six months, a year, or more out from Every Man's Battle. You guys kept in touch for a couple weeks, maybe a month or two, and then it dropped off. Even when you stayed in touch, it was just, "Hey, how's it going?" "It's going okay." But you weren't sharing, you weren't challenging each other with the good accountability that Bob and Doug talked about today. You weren't experiencing that, and your recovery has suffered.

It's not too late. If you have been through Every Man's Battle, you can sign up for Sustained Victory at any time. I want to challenge you. Call 1-800-NEW-LIFE. Tell them, "I went to Every Man's Battle back in 2013, and I did Sustained Victory for a little while and I dropped out," or "I never did, and I want to get back in. I want to encourage you to do that."

Or you're the other person. You've actually never been to Every Man's Battle. You hear about these relationships, these conversations that Doug and Bob talked about today, and you think, "I don't have that in my life. I don't have men who know me at that level. I don't have men who ask me those kind of questions. I don't have men who challenge. I've got some nice guys in my life. I go to church with, that I'm neighbors with, that I play softball with, but I don't have those kind of conversations and I need that."

Sign up. What are you waiting for? It's available to you. It's available to you. You don't have to do this alone. Here's the secret: you can't do it alone. It's not going to happen. It's not going to work. It's all available to us, and it's the key. As Doug talked about earlier that I say at the end of every episode: Let's keep walking in integrity. You will not walk in integrity in isolation. It won't happen. Join with your brothers and together, let's walk in integrity.

New Life: Thanks for listening. This podcast is one of many ways we can encourage and help you. If you're looking for more help, visit us at newlife.com or call 1-800-NEW-LIFE. To receive bonus content exclusive to EMB podcast email subscribers, send an email to embpodcast@newlife.com with the words "bonus content" in the subject line. If you have a comment about this podcast, we'd love to hear from you, too. Drop us a line at embpodcast@newlife.com and please remember to review, like, and share the podcast as it helps others find us. See you next week.