A Word To The Wise
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A Word To The Wise
137. The Addiction People Are Too Scared To Talk About (Part 1) Ft. Patrick Eilers
In this episode, we explore the often silent battle with sexual and porn addiction.
Our guest, Patrick, holds a Master’s degree in counseling from Moody Theological Seminary-Michigan, specializing in the intersection of psychology, therapy, and theology. He is a licensed professional counselor in Michigan with a focus on sexual addiction since 2020.
Patrick is affiliated with various professional organizations such as the American Counseling Association (ACA), AACC Professional Life Coach Certification, Green Cross Member of Traumatology (GCAT), Gottman Level 1 trained, Michigan Counselors Association (MCA), and the American Association of Christian Counselors (AACC).
Today's discussion marks the first part of a two-part series delving into the complexities of porn and sex addiction, topics often brushed aside due to societal taboos. Despite its prevalence, many individuals hesitate to seek help for fear of judgment or ostracization.
Statistics from Psychology Today reveal that the average age of first exposure to porn is 13, setting the stage for a potential lifelong struggle. Shockingly, around 80% of men and 30% of women (45% when considering women who watch with their partners) engage with porn on a weekly basis.
It's crucial to recognize that sexual and porn addiction is more widespread than commonly acknowledged. Our aim in discussing this issue is to break the silence, provide education, and extend resources to those grappling with this addiction.
In my conversation with Patrick we discuss
- What causes porn addiction
- How to tell if you’re a sex addict and or porn addict
- How social media affects or promotes porn addiction
- How therapy can help with recovery
- How emotions and mental health correlate with compulsive sexual behaviors
- How porn addiction affects romantic relationships and,
- How faith and religion play a role in recovery
Where to find Patrick/resources:
https://northpoint.buzzsprout.com/
www.northpoint-counseling.com
www.treatsexualaddiction.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-eilers-ma-lpc-csat-310036b9/
Instagram: rated_pge
Time stamps:
0:00 Intro/Exploring Porn and Sex Addiction
14:02 Understanding Factors Influencing Sexual Behavior
20:47 Navigating Relationships and Sexual Addiction
26:45 Navigating Betrayal and Trauma in Relationships
37:10 Brain Pathways and Overcoming Addictive Behaviors
42:06 Understanding Addiction and Triggers
54:20 Overcoming Shame and Embracing Identity
1:02:11 Outro
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Hello everyone and welcome back to the A Word to the Wise podcast, a space where we curate conversations around mind, body, spirit and personal development. I'm your host, shumi Moses. Before we get into today's show, I want to take this moment to let you know that this episode is not suitable for minors because we'll be touching on sensitive topics. So if you're listening to this episode on speaker, if you're in a car driving and a minor is present, please make sure that you take this episode off speaker or listen to it at a different time when the minor is not present. Okay, so on the show today is Patrick Eilers. Patrick is a master's level condition, receiving his degree from Moody Theological Seminary, michigan. He works at the intersection of psychology therapy and theology. He's also a licensed professional counselor in the state of Michigan and has been working in the field of psychology since 2016 and as a specialist in the field of sexual addiction since 2020. He is a member of the American Counseling Association. Patrick also has a professional life code certification. He is also a Green Cross member of Traumatology. He is part of the Michigan Counselors Association and the American Association of Christian Counselors.
Speaker 1:So today's conversation is part one of a two part series where we dive into porn and sex addiction. This addiction is a pretty common addiction but yet nobody really talks about it, mainly because there's a lot of shame around this addiction and a lot of people are not forthcoming about it because a lot of people might shun them or think that they're weird. According to psychology, today age 13, on average, is when most people watch porn for the first time. For most boys and an increasing number of girls, it's the beginning of a lifelong habit. Around 80% of men and 30% of women consume porn weekly. So again, this is a very common addiction that most people deal with, but nobody's really talking about it and nobody's really talking about the resources out there for people who are struggling with it. That's why I thought it was very important to have a specialist come on the show who specializes in porn and sex addiction, to talk more about the addiction, how it affects people, how it affects relationships, and to also offer guidance and resources on how to overcome this addiction if you find yourself struggling with it. So in my conversation with Patrick, we discuss what causes porn addiction, how to tell if you're a sex addict and or a porn addict, how social media affects or promotes porn addiction, how therapy can help with recovery, how emotions and mental health correlate to compulsive sexual behaviors, how porn addiction affects romantic relationships and how faith and religion play a role in recovery, and much more. This was a very insightful conversation with Patrick. I hope that you learned from this conversation and, if you are struggling with this addiction, I hope that this conversation offers you guidance and you can find some resources to help you move through this addiction.
Speaker 1:Here's my conversation with Patrick. Patrick, welcome to A Word to the Wise. It's really nice to have you on the show. You're a licensed professional counselor and a lot of your work is at the intersection of psychology therapy and theology. I was very fascinated by the theology aspect because I haven't come across a lot of mental health professionals who add that as an element to their work or therapeutic approach. I'm curious to know why adding theology as part of your approach towards mental health services is important to you.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Thank you, jimmy, for having me today. That's a great question and it's something that is absolutely part of my a little bit, mostly the educational background I went to. I graduated from Moody Theological Seminary in Michigan, which is associated with Moody Theological in Chicago. The background of our program is really about trying to bring yes, there's a mental health component to things, but also bring the spiritual component into that and emerging those.
Speaker 2:I found with me that it's a little bit more of my perspective on how to help people or how we get to certain or arrive to certain things in mental health. I think the other side of that too is that, also as an extension to what I do for clients coming in who are interested in exploring that aspect of more about their life or about their relationship with God and those kind of things, I think that's really where you can add that as an extension, as far as helping people make sense of not only their physical place and some things we know from science, but also then going back to the theological component, is that ultimately all comes back to where we put our faith and where does our faith stand within our life and those kind of things. It is nice to have that perspective, but again, it's kind of something really it's client to client, because I usually try to let that be in the client's hands as far as how far they would like to go with that. So, but certainly part of my background of education.
Speaker 1:That makes sense, that you'd kind of put it in the client's hand and see if they're comfortable with that aspect of your work. So why specialize in sex and porn addiction recovery Something that a lot of people are struggling with but it's not a space where I see a lot of mental health professionals kind of specialize in. So what led you to specializing in that form of addiction recovery?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yeah, the biggest thing you know, kind of going back to, you got to go back in time a little bit here to 2020, and during the pandemic I was working at a startup clinic and so I was kind of more of a general practitioner. I've been a general practitioner most of my career until I came here to North Point, and when I had an opportunity to come here, the way I saw it was that, you know, there was a lot of different. There's a big need for this particular type of help for folks. Right, this is, you know, beyond just the church. There's a lot of part of this in the culture. That's absolutely been. A lot of people are suffering with it. They don't even know it or they also maybe even I'm sure how to necessarily get help in that way. So there's a very there's also very few therapists, like you mentioned, who are specializing in. So I felt like this is an opportunity. I see a need. Let me see if I can meet that need and see kind of how that's gone. So that was almost four years ago, so now I have an opportunity.
Speaker 2:Since then that I've really been learning a lot about. You know how to help people, not only with the addiction piece, but then also in their own life, kind of what is healthy, what's unhealthy, sexuality and that kind of idea. And I know for even from my own experience, like what it really does that look like throughout my life growing up and there was a period in my life where certainly adolescents and early, early, you know, young adulthood, I struggled with porn too. So I was in that same kind of boat. I kind of know what people have gone through with that aspect. So I did have some relational connection in that way my own story. But then also just to knowing, seeing this is a need and knowing, you know, hey, like when there's a need, if I can meet that need, let me use the skills that God gave me. Maybe I'll do that. So that's kind of where I was wanting to step into that space as far as you know, being able to specialize in it.
Speaker 1:Do you have a number in terms of the amount of men that suffer from sex and porn addiction and or not number, but I should say statistic on the number of men that suffer with porn addiction versus women, because when I hear of sex or porn addiction it's usually men that comes to mind with who struggle with that type of addiction, but I presume women are also affected by this.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely and there's, there's more, it's growing that there's more women that are starting to suffer with it Absolutely and there probably has always been to some degree. It's just usually in the past it was more what they called love addiction or more relational addiction rather than necessarily the porn piece or maybe even, like you know, multiple, you know relationships, that kind of thing. Majority of the people I work with are men, for number one because I'm a man, so a lot of men feels comfortable talking with men. So our man, so that's the majority of why I have mostly men and then and then I know, but other colleagues here that work they do have in the practice. They are a lot of. Some are female colleagues and they work with other women, so we do have women that do come in. It's not as predominantly, like you said, mostly known for being kind of a man's particular, you know, concern, but they're also women who are struggling with it too. Statistic wise, I mean I've kind of looked at some different things that I don't have any personal like immediate statistics I can tell you that most of the majority of all my clients are that I work with are men. But I've found in the Mayo Clinic about in 2019, their research was about 68% of the population.
Speaker 2:In the United States, about 24 million people are considered to be sex addicts.
Speaker 2:Now, whether or not that actually means that they're diagnosably addictive, that's one that's here and there, because ultimately it's probably more than 24 million people are struggling with some type of compulsive sexual behavior. So, again, going back to either, whatever your masturbation, pornography use, whatever the case might be, so there we also don't know a lot of this. Also from the perspective of there's a lot of people who don't report, so we also. There's a perspective of people that the 68% seems a little low to me just because there's a lot of people that don't report. So there's probably much higher than that. But there are sort of statistics for based on anybody who is watching pornography 11 plus hours a week, and it can vary, you know, depends on people's stories, but certainly that aspect of usually being a weekly or daily use user of pornography or unhealthy sexual behavior of any kind is pretty common. So from that perspective, to have that number be 68% seems a little bit low, and it's also 2019. So the stats are not super recent, but the most recent I could find.
Speaker 1:That makes a lot of sense where you said a lot of people are not reporting their addiction to pornography or sex because there's a lot of shame that goes, or there's a lot of shame that comes with it, and that maybe a lot of people are not even aware that it's an addiction, and I want to talk about that a little bit later. But I want to know the sex addiction and porn addiction. Do they go hand in hand? I'm sure some people have porn and sex addiction, but are they categorized differently? Are they the same thing or are they? Do they have two different characteristics?
Speaker 2:I wouldn't say they have different characteristics. I think the one way I would look at it is that I always think a compulsive sexual behavior is am I using sex in a way that is to their cope with something that's going on with my life, deal with unhealthy or maybe uncomfortable emotions in my life? Using sex in a way that's self-serving would be another way of kind of put that in that sense. So basically I'm using sex as kind of the vessel, similarly to you might see with alcohol or drugs or something like that, where you're still getting away from that particular, your particular emotions you're trying to avoid. So there's that aspect of that that's certainly at play.
Speaker 2:The one difference between kind of porn and sex addiction a little bit is that porn can escalate. People's behavior doesn't necessarily mean it's going to, but sometimes it does so. Sometimes what you'll see is people will start watching porn. Eventually they'll turn in, translate into other unhealthy sexual behavior. Sometimes it's the other way around. Sometimes you have the set. The sex addiction is also another way people act out with porn. So I wouldn't say they correlate, but it may be a maybe a sort of a spectrum if you think about in that way. So on one side. You kind of have fantasy sex and then all the way down to what they call exploitative sex. You kind of a large range of behaviors, and so certainly porn fit, falls into that category. That that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yes, what you said makes a lot of sense and, as you were talking, I couldn't help but think about what triggers potential sex or porn addiction within people, and I know that you mostly work with men. So what are some of the reasons that you're seeing them develop these addictions? Is it related to self esteem? Is it some sort of trauma that they had to endure? What are some common threats that you've noticed as to what could be trigger points for people who develop these sex important addictions?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. There are probably about 10 things 10 you want to call them symptoms we would typically look for. What I will say is I want to touch on a few of those because they're very there. Some are kind of common for folks and some are not so common folks, depending on their story. I think when I matter of it's men or women.
Speaker 2:There's the first part of it is you know, how early was your exposure to sex, meaning, how early did you start to experience either porn or viewing some type of material, eroticism, erotic, like erotic stories, those kind of things? A lot of folks nowadays, especially with the way the Internet is and the way we have a lot of these connections with with the Internet, is that this can be starting. For some folks that is really is five and six years old. When you have an exposure, it doesn't mean that you're going to be clinically diagnosable as being an addict at five years old, but it means that you're going to be starting to have an exposure at that age. That that's something that's common for people. So we do see a lot of this, this early exposure for folks, that something. Again, it could be that you ran across pornography accidentally, could be that you intentionally with that, but the reality is you have some type of early exposure that tends to make a like a thumb. If you think a thumb print in a paper, right, that's when you put ink on your thumb and you press against that paper, that's a pretty good thing and the earlier ages, the earlier ages have that imprint that's going to stick with us. So that's a. Really that's a pretty big impact. That first impact we've had.
Speaker 2:Nothing that we look for is, again, you mentioned abuse scenarios and sometimes that is part of people's story and fortunately people have some had some type of an abuse in their story. Doesn't necessarily mean that, again, that that's for everybody or everybody's story, but certainly part of some people's experiences. And our thing we might look for is that they come from a background that it's very rigid, very the structure of the family is very rigid and so sex is something that's not talked about. So it's almost. On one side of the extreme is that you're kept, it's kept under wraps so much that there's a there's a curiosity to that, there's a wanting to know more about it, and so that kind of leads them into this behavior.
Speaker 2:On the other side of pointing at people who were overexposed to have. People on the other side were very early on Porn's accepted porn's normalized, just like the person who may be struggling with alcohol is the same kind of thing. If the home life is their alcohol is normalized, they're gonna probably be pretty comfortable on alcohol, just like they would be a brown porn if that's part of their experience. So those are a few things you might look for it. The other one that I would also say is that they've had some type of so in that early exposure aspect there are, you know what has been some rather relational things that are going on, especially when you talk about, you know, unhealthy sexual behavior.
Speaker 2:You know as far as masturbation goes, it's sex with yourself. So you know how sex is defined very early for folks is a big part of also kind of that development of how you see it, what it looks like for you, how you know what that is, those kind of things. So that's that's an. Our part of it, I would say, is a. It's kind of in that, in that same range of things that we typically look for. You also believe that a lot of people are not aware of sexual behavior.
Speaker 1:You also believe that a lot of people who struggle with this type of addiction, do you think it's also related to self esteem issues? I know we talked a lot about early exposure and potentially growing up in a very rigid household. I know some people who grow up in a very rigid household, really, especially a very rigid religious household, and they're basically told that any sort of sexual thought or impulse is really wrong. So they have to kind of hold that within themselves. But I mean, they end up finding it, they end up using point as an outlet to express that. But do you also find that people who develop this addiction have issues in terms of relating to other people, in terms of romantic interest, or potentially have self esteem issues? So it's just easier for them to turn to something on the computer rather than actually interact with a regular person? Absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 2:So belief system is huge. So belief system of in regards to what do I think about myself? How do I think about you? Know where do I fall if you're talking about kind of a religious aspect or theological aspect. You know where do I fall within. How does God see me? You know what some of those kind of things I think absolutely from the perspective of you. Know, if my, if I don't think I'm worthy that's the one that comes up quite a bit Right, I'm not worthy, if I don't feel like I'm worthy and probably not going to do the things are going to be healthy for me because my thought life is going to be affected by that.
Speaker 2:I tell people all the time that your thought life has really got a lot to do with what your behavior is going to be, and so there's two parts to working on things. One is what am I thinking about? And then how's that translating into what I'm doing? And so, ultimately, my thought life is a big part of why I might be acting out. If I think a lot very negatively about myself, or I really earlier you mentioned the shame, if I will shame about myself, I'm going to be focused on that particular thought and I'm probably going to more likely do unhealthy things in that way. I think the other thing you mentioned as well is really, really I see this is more of a younger folks but certainly the idea that why would I want to risk having a relationship with somebody who could hurt me, when I could just go over here and get my needs met. You know whether or not that's in hookup culture or if that's in pornography, because I don't know what I'm going to do, or if that's in pornography, because I don't need to have a relationship with anybody. So I close myself off to that.
Speaker 2:Intimacy is really about being all like completely known by somebody else, and so the example I give is the old show home improvement that Tim Allen, his neighbor, had this really high fence and part of the comedy was that you can only see the guy's eyes. So it was like this, and that's a reflection of, to some degree, a person doesn't want to be intimate, right? They don't really want anyone to know what's going on in their yard and they don't want to keep completely isolated by themselves. So typically what happens is when people want to be that way, they tend to sort of try to find the way they're going to meet their needs, because we all have needs in that sense, to be relational beings that's ever created to be so. When we're not getting that need, that ends up creating a lot of isolation, loneliness.
Speaker 2:That you said, self esteem concerns beliefs that I'm not worthy again, kind of going back to that and so what we see for a lot of folks is that that is a driving force for people why they might choose to act out, because, again, to risk being with somebody else is a risk, and a lot of people feel that pornography is this safe space for them to be able to express what they're feeling with their thinking. And look how let that out, but all that really does is it alters your mind to thinking that sex is now about you, right? Sex is completely about yourself rather than being about a relationship, and so you're unfulfilled. And you continue to be unfulfilled as you as the further you go down that trail.
Speaker 1:So the nature of the world that we currently live in definitely promotes a lot of. It creates a lot of opportunity for people to turn to pornography or addiction Rather than actually work hard to make those connections. I saw a recent statistic that said that porn use skyrocketed during COVID 2019 or COVID 19, when everybody was at home and under a lot of stress and not really getting a lot of those social interactions. So that makes a lot of sense and, as you were talking, I kind of want to dive deeper into what are some traits. If I was listening to this episode and I'm trying to figure out, am I just randomly hooking up with people because I think it's fun, versus is this actually a problem? And I have some sort of addiction, whether it's watching too much pornography or hooking up with tons of different people? How can I tell the difference between exploring sex or sexuality versus oh, this is actually a problem?
Speaker 2:And I get this question a lot and it's it's somewhat tough to kind of put into into sort of a you know. Here's the things you look for as far as because a lot of times for a lot of people, especially if they really truly are struggling, they're usually in a lot of denial, they're usually very minimizing the behavior, they tend to sort of think it's not affecting anybody. You know, even if it is affecting anybody, it's only affecting me, like we talked about earlier. If I don't have a lot of self esteem or a lot of belief that I'm worthy, I'm probably going to try to avoid again. It's not going to affect me whether or not I'm doing this for five hours or for, you know, five days. So I would say is back to kind of the hookup ideas. Yes, there is an aspect for people you know certainly want to explore the relationships and understand that and I think the part of it where I would go back to is that, yes, are my just getting together for the sex or am I really legitimately trying to find a way to connect with somebody? So, going back to that risk idea, how much am I willing to risk in these relationships or am I just sort of putting myself in a position where this girl or this guy is really hot and so I really want to get to get with them sexually, feel good and kind of move on. And so I think there is certainly a cultural trap of that where the idea is that right like dating is not like. There's. No, there's not a lot of courtship and dating anymore. People don't try to pursue relationships for connection. They pursue, hey, this person's attractive, I feel good around them, and that's pretty much the depth of what that looks like. So part of it is, I think you know what, what, what really, ultimately, is your, your goal of dating or your goal of going out and looking for a relationship? Are you looking to find somebody to really connect with and be more vulnerable with? Are you being more vulnerable? In that processes you get to know more people.
Speaker 2:I think the other part of that is I was going to go back to thought life. You know how much am I thinking about sex, how much am I thinking about that porn that I watch, how much am I objectifying the people around me. I hear all the time people reported on a regular basis that preoccupation, which is those thoughts that we cannot break from those same fantasies that are rolling in our head. You know, the person we see jogging down the road, or the person we see at the grocery store, or the person that's the coworker, whatever those people are, just they keep playing. You know, to use a use, a phrase the kids use, right? So let's live it in my head, rent free, right? So it's keep keeps just playing around in my mind. And so, because I'm not able to break from that, that's where I'm gonna probably be much more willing to fantasize about stuff that I'm gonna look for online. So that's going to probably drive me more into pornography or pornographic material.
Speaker 2:Again, social media plays a role in that as well, because a lot of stuff that's on social media which is not meant to be sexual is sexualized. I mean, I can. I mean you go Instagram, you look up anything about hiking. Most of those hiking things, even though they're not meant to be sexual, have a sexualized material in them to some degree, whether it be the clothes, whether it be the pop poses, whatever might be. So one of the things I think we need to consider in that as well as that.
Speaker 2:Okay, so if, if I've said I don't want to do this behavior anymore, but I continue to compulsively do it. I feel sad, I feel anxious, I feel whatever, and then I'm going to respond by going and acting out, using porn or finding someone to fill that void. That's an ever, never ending pit that I cannot fill up and so, no matter how many times I do that, I'm never going to be able to be satisfied. If you're going to talk about earlier and so those would be maybe some things if you're talking about kind of signposts of you know there's a possibility that this is something that's going down a path that's going to end up being unhealthy for you in the long run and then ultimately, you know, kind of going back to, like the relational piece. Do I see relationships, as you know, self-serving or do I see them, as you know, opportunities for vulnerability and connection? I think that's where you talk about in that aspect. Like you said, unhealthy sexual behavior almost always is self-serving.
Speaker 1:It's interesting that you said that a lot of what we see online now is so sexualized, and I could not agree more.
Speaker 1:I mean, even things that are not supposed to be sexy are super sexy and you know, I think having this critique sometimes could come off as if you're trying to be super conservative with your ideas, because we're definitely living in an era of soul liberation, people being able to express themselves.
Speaker 1:But I do think that it's done a little bit too much and I think, as a young person on social media, I could not imagine certain images or being exposed to certain things as a teenager or an adolescent, right, and I think a lot of young people, a lot of kids, a lot of teenagers just really exposed to hyper-sexualized content, whether it's covertly or explicitly, just in your face. So I do think that plays a huge role and you know to your point in terms of characteristics of people, kind of using sex or porn as a way to avoid intimate relationships, as kind of like a guidepost of okay, this potentially could be a problem. It also makes me think about people who are in relationships with people who struggle with sex addiction and porn addiction, and I kind of want to talk a little bit more about. How does this type of addiction affect relationships?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and this is something where you know. So I'm going to speak to what I know from my experience on the one side of it. I mean, I'm not a partner trauma specialist, but that would be the terminology we would use right? So when you're a partner who's been betrayed whether or not it be a physical relationship or it's, you know, pornography a lot of the same results happen for the partner. So one of the things that happens for partners typically is they will start to experience very similar to PTSD or actually diagnosable PTSD symptomology. So I'll give you some examples. So the one thing is what they call hypervigilance. Hypervigilance is just a fancy term for detective work or kind of sort of focusing on the details or trying to find out where the person catch the person in a lie, almost in some ways, right. So if I am betraying my partner, my partner is going to come very hyper focused on what am I lying about? What am I not lying about? That's one aspect of it. In some ways, the partner actually becomes almost obsessed with the behavior themselves and they become hyper focused on people around them as well, right, so they're looking for all the danger you know sort of people around them that can potentially. You know their partner that has just betrayed them is focusing on. So you see a lot of these type of play out. They play off one another, one that went in a really negative way.
Speaker 2:The examples I give I give there are two examples I think about. The first one is you know relationships at fish tank. So we've got a bunch of living organisms in the fish tank and if you put water in the fish tank, that's what's going to keep everything alive. When you introduce a betrayal, you just drop the couple drops of red food coloring in the water. The water now is red. This relationship, in order for it to move forward, continue in a healthier, regardless way, if it's going to continue, you have to learn how to adapt with the red water, and so a lot of times, what people look happens is partners will say to their partner who's betrayed them. Hey, you go talk to Patrick and you work out your stuff. I'm not interested in doing any therapy. I'm not interested in doing anything. This isn't my problem. In some ways they're correct about that, but in other ways they've been affected by something that they may not even be aware of, and so one of the things for partners is that we're always very encouraging that this is something that's now relational. It's not just the person who's struggling with the addiction, this is something that is now affecting the partner most likely, and in order for the relation to move forward, they have to come together and work on that together.
Speaker 2:The other thing I think about the analogy I used for partner trauma is you know a person who goes through some type of PTSD. You know they don't know where their mind is going to take them. So I think about if you're standing on top of the Hoover Dam and the Hoover Dam bursts, you're going to go, the river is going to take you someplace. You had no idea where you were going to go, and so that's what's like kind of to some degree in your mind to go down this river, that you have no idea where it's going to take you, and so all you're doing is trying to grab onto something to get to some solid ground.
Speaker 2:And that's what a lot of partners are trying to do. They're trying to grab onto some level of reality, because they don't really know what reality is, because for some people they may have been, you know, betraying them for years. It could be you know five, 10, 12, 15 years that this is happening and they're just trying to get some level of reality. So this really is something that's all encompassing in the relationship, and it's very rare that we see a partner not be affected in some to some degree by some type of betrayal whether or not be some pornography or extramarital fair or extra fair outside the primary relationship.
Speaker 1:Right, so it sounds like what you're saying. In order for them to kind of move forward, they have to work through the addiction together. The partner who does not have the addiction, if they want to stay in a relationship, has to support the partner who's struggling with that in order for them to move forward but also potentially recognize their PTSD or how they're suffering from this new reality of their partner Having this addiction.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I wouldn't. I don't know if I'd use the word support the addiction. I think so. I know what you're saying. I think they have.
Speaker 2:There has to be a recognition and an acceptance that this is something that now is in our relationship. But as a partner, are you willing, are you willing, against the question I ask all the time Are you willing to then go and learn about you and how this has affected you? It's not fair, it's not, it's not right, it's not correct. We understand it. There's a lot of things there and not to minimize it, but as a partner, now, what can you learn about how you're being affected by this behavior? Once that process is, once you're starting to do that process and your partner is willing to do recovery or willing to do some type of work on themselves, there comes a point where typically what we and again I'm not part of these, but we do hit them here at the practice is what they call disclosure process, and so that's really an opportunity to for the addict, so to speak, or the betrayer, to lay all that out there, and again, it's done very therapeutically, it's done in a way that is very respectful for both the partner and for the addict, and so, again, that's something to help again build reality.
Speaker 2:You need evidence, as the person who's been lying, that you are now telling the truth, and so how are you going to do that? And so there's a process to that in some degree. So one of the things is that we want the relationship to be healed, but the relationship cannot necessarily be healed right after betrayal by just going to a couple's counselor and saying, hey, we got some issues we got to work out A lot of times. And again, this is no knock on our therapist, but if you're not trained in understanding partner trauma, you're going to work and I say this also work, have a work with couples. You're going to be looking for stuff that is not going to necessarily be the right tools to help. And so it's really important for both the person who's struggling with addiction and a person who's betrayed to look for therapists that are going to be able to help address those specific behaviors, because other therapists you know, when I was a general practitioner, same kind of thing I wouldn't have been able to most adequately help a person in that sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I've also heard about situations where people who are dating people struggling with such addictions they end up suffering with severe self-esteem issues because the partner, who has either sex or porn addiction, is kind of projecting this image of imperfection with how their partner looks. Because they're looking at you know images or they're probably hooking up with people who appear to have the perfect body or have certain characteristics. All of a sudden they're projecting that onto their actual partner and the partner in the situation starts to feel really bad about themselves and feeling really unloved and unwanted and I think through therapy some might discover that it's not about them, it's about the addiction.
Speaker 2:And just to speak to that too, there's sometimes that you know again why people are acting out. I think a lot of times because the way the brain changes, you're become very self-focused. You can't see how it's affecting other people. Part of that's the denial we were talking about earlier, and so one of the things I think that comes up sometimes for folks is that a partner or even an addict might feel like well, it's, you know, I'm just a selfish person, I can't really think about our people, I can't be empathetic.
Speaker 2:When, when a lot of times it's about either learning some of those we talked about the intimacy piece. If you don't have a lot of practice with that, you're not gonna know how to have that skill or you know the empathy is a skill, so you can learn how to do that, you know as you work through therapy. But part of what I think comes up a lot of times is people feel that they're just selfish and again back for a partner, like Again that you said the comparison is huge, right? So now the comparison I'm not good enough, and so now you have two people who are struggling with some type of worthiness and self-esteem in the relationship. So it definitely snowballs and it's something I think that you know. People I I would say a lot of people don't really realize how much it impacts both parties.
Speaker 1:For sure, Is talk therapy Effective when it comes to helping people get over this addiction?
Speaker 2:I Think in the right context. So again we what we have at our practice on part of an outpatient recovery program. So what that means is that we kind of a three-pronged approach it's. It's based on a program developed by a man named Dr Patrick Carnes and he is a kind of the world-renowned, he's kind of the original guy who did a lot of research when it came to sex addiction. His research started in the 80s and so he's developed a lot of programs around sex addiction. So our program really is the. His program has three approaches to it.
Speaker 2:So you have the individual work, which is, you know, working one-on-one with the therapist. You have a group that's part of that, a recovery group, what they call a process group, and that group is a little bit different than like a fellowship, like a 12-step it's. It's therapist led and it's working through some of the material together as a group. And so you're starting to build those interpersonal relationships with this group. And then also usually a sponsors include an ass sponsors, somebody who's gonna kind of mentor the person one-on-one in the program. So you have kind of therapist, they'll end of it. You have the group. Then you have kind of practicing the relationship aspect to me too. So there is some talk involved in that there. Obviously, as you know conversations we're having and you know we're trying to get to a deeper root there. But it's not the traditional type of talk therapy from the perspective of the person comes in and we go okay, what's our roadmap? And kind of the program is sort of our roadmap, right, so there's gonna be certain tasks. We're gonna. We're gonna be working on.
Speaker 2:Dr Kern's program is what they call a 30-task model, meaning that 12-step program is 12 steps, the 30 tasks is 30 tasks. It's 30 steps basically. So you have a much deeper Program so it's much longer. Usually is it's gonna involve much deeper work in that sense. So that's kind of you know it does, it is effective, but it's effective in the right context. I think if you just go to, you know and again all respect to all our therapists, I've worked with our people out there you know if you go to see the average therapist, general practitioner, they're probably not gonna recommend that type of route and they're probably just gonna kind of work on the typical type talk, talk, therapy type thing. So you might not be able to have the same amount of effect as you would be if you're working with a specialist.
Speaker 1:That means a lot of things. I spoke with another therapist out of New Zealand, dr Luke Smuski, and we briefly touched on it. He's a somatic therapist and he actually works with a lot of meant struggle with Cornediction as well, and he, his approach, is more on the somatic side of therapy, which is body based therapy, if I'm describing that correctly. So that's part of the reason I asked and I also, you know, wanted to know do you consider this type of addiction a disease? Because I hear people talk in General, I've heard the term that or I've heard the saying that addiction is a disease, once an addict, always an addict. I Find I struggle with that because I think that kind of labels Someone and doesn't give people much hope. But I just wanted to hear from your perspective, do you think this type of addiction is a disease?
Speaker 2:I Also struggle with that same idea that you know, once you're an actor, always an act I will say it like this is that Diseases, when we have a physical disease in our body, some diseases alter what our body Genetically is part of right, so we there's a change in that, and so I Can't think of a great one on top of my head. But if, let's say, if I have a cold changed me for the rest of my life, meaning that my genetics changed for having a cold, would I truly be a per? Would I always have a cold for us in my life? Probably not, right? I wouldn't have the symptomology, for it's similar.
Speaker 2:In the same idea, when we're talking about how the brain is altered and so there's a lot of different things out there, and the way I use my, my analogy I think about, is that you know, we have the way the brain communicates with itself and the way it interacts with the different things in the world is like we have a Bunch of little freeways in our brain, so we have a bunch of like. You know you go from point A to point B. You think about Google Maps. You know if you look up you want to go traveling across the country. You know, from New York to LA You're going to have three different routes. Typically that's gonna take you. You know it's gonna be a fastest route, you know, maybe a scenic route and then a route that is going to be, you know, somewhere in the middle. No kind of deal. If we think about the brain, the same context is that the things we do over and over again, our brain loves to streamline. So what ends up happening is there's things that our habits, that everybody has, that feel very organic and feel very like I'm flipping the switch on. I just get to go and do them and they don't have to think a lot about it. All right, those are the, probably the pathways in our life that are very much entrenched. Those are the eight lane freeways, where there's a lot of traffic. It's very easy for us to go down there, it doesn't take a lot of effort, right? We just automatically kind of go down that place.
Speaker 2:Pornography and other types of addictive behavior I would. I would tend to lean more toward the, what they call the process addiction, so more so the food addictions in the, in the sex side of it, rather than the substances, because the substances I can remove and Then you know again, I probably can. I hit the reset and I kind of reheal from that and that's about trying to stay away from that, that substance, because food and sex are both part of who we are as people. Those pathways, particularly that, are in our brain. They're and just like anything that was in our brain, though, those pathways remain there, they remain, they're always going to be in our brain. Now, when we choose to do a different behavior, our brain actually has to build a new freeway now in order for it to do that, it has to start out as a walking path and it becomes a bike path, then it becomes a two-lane road and then a four-lane road, etc. So eventually that becomes the way we're eventually gonna. Our intention turns that, turns that into a new pathway.
Speaker 2:But the old freeways always remain. Those don't go away. They become dormant or they become kind of unused. You know, I live in Michigan so a lot of the freeways around here have giant holes and cracks in them and everything else. They're really unmaintained. So that's kind of like what happens when we don't use those other pathways. But it doesn't take much for us to go back to the old pathway and when we do that it smooths out really quickly because the breath of the brains very efficient, likes to get rid of stuff. They holds it up from that kind of efficiency. So there's a video out there of a guy they made this backwards bike. So basically when you turn left, the bike goes right and vice-versus, and took him eight months to learn how to ride the backwards bike but it took him 20 minutes to learn how to ride there. Work the bike the right though, the normal way, correct way, and that's just an illustration of how quickly it takes for us to jump back on that old pathway and how our brain can remember that very quickly.
Speaker 2:So what I always say when you're talking about Overcoming consistent compulsive behavior is what are your intention? Because intentionality takes a lot of practice and also takes a lot of hard work to do when the things that feel organic or natural are really usually kind of flip the switch and it's automatic. So when I want to change certain behaviors, I want to you know, again back to kind of question about is this a disease? I think if we're talking about it being, has it altered my brain to the point that that's something I'm always going to have to be aware of, then yes, it's a disease. If I feel like, is it always going to be the symptomologies always going to be there, does that make it a disease? I'd say that there's hope, that that there's hope in recovery and in the process of change, that would say that it's not a disease.
Speaker 2:So it depends on how you define disease. Do you find disease as Long term this is how my brain's been affected for the rest of my life Then yes, then I can see where you've been saying. I can see where you didn't say it is a disease. If you're saying it's symptomology, then I would say no, it's not a disease because the symptomologies can change and the symptomologies people are very. We've discovered over in the last probably 30 years or so that the brain is very malleable. It's very plastic. It has a ability to be. There's really nothing hardwired in our brain other than our genetics, and so our brain really has the ability to be able to be flexible and malleable. So if that's the case, then really we can work on changing anything we want about ourselves personal or our personality but it will take a period of time and it will take intentional work to do that.
Speaker 1:I'm curious to know Do you know much about neuro linguistic programming?
Speaker 2:I think that's might be the first time I've ever heard of it.
Speaker 1:It's really okay. So I'll let that go, because I actually spoke with um, a woman who actually works with men to overcome porn addiction. She was a sex addict herself and kind of healed through that and now she, you know, is certified in a few different areas, but one of the areas that she's certified in is this concept of neuro linguistic programming, and part of the reason I asked that as well, it's because I was thinking about um Rational recovery. I don't know if you've ever Heard of that book. I think it's for alcoholics, people who struggle with alcohol Addiction, and I also read this book called brain over binge and essentially, and which was related to food right. So to your point about their different types of addiction. Some are substance based and then their other ones like food. We can't get away from food. We need food to survive and and sex is part of that relational aspect of what it means to be a human being. But you know, in brain over binge, which was focused on food, she picked up some insights from rational recovery, which talked about the fact that A lot of addictions and when it comes to talk therapy, she found herself going in circles because they were telling her that her addiction Was because of how she felt about herself on the inside, while that might have triggered a lot of why she did what she did.
Speaker 1:The author of the book basically said that she was able to recover from her eating order after having it for about six to seven years, when she realized that she did not have to relate with her thoughts, because triggers are always going to be a part of life. There's always going to be something that will trigger A response she talked about. She ate when she was happy. She ate when she was sad. She ate when she was anxious. So if she's eating for everything, then the issue is not necessarily the emotions, because those are there. It's about how her brain is wired, like what you were talking about, because the more you do something, the more your brain. We're kind of like machines. We kind of go into autopilot. So that's why I asked that and I just kind of wonder in your approach, do you center a lot of the recovery based on the person's Emotions and what they're going through in life, or do you kind of talk about why their brain is responding to external stuff Rather than their emotions? I don't know if that's making sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, that's what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think you bring up a really good point. So there there's an aspect of this behavior and across the board I think what you made, the point you made about the idea that what's our relationship with our emotions I think about emotions on a railroad track that's simultaneous with our thoughts. A lot of people will be very uncomfortable if those don't align, because sometimes it'll just go way off track and then this will keep going straight and it doesn't make sense. So there is a little bit absolutely about the relationship that we have with our thoughts and with our emotions, and do those correlate? There's a lot of times they don't, but are we willing to sort of investigate that? A little more to what you're saying, to your point, I think that it depends.
Speaker 2:If you're someone who has experienced a lot of trauma, then you can go more along, and I'm not. I don't have a huge trauma background, so I can't really speak too much to this, but I know from my experience with working with addiction is that there are periods of there are some people who have had a lot of trauma in their life and so what ends up happening is that that's where you can really work more with the body. There's a book out there by a guy named Bessel Vander Cook. It's called the Body Keeps a Score. It's a relatively new book and they really kind of have a whole new look on trauma and really that's more where you can look at kind of the body physically reacting to certain things, and so that was much more.
Speaker 2:There's a different perspective you have to have with that than if you have with someone who may not have as much trauma but certainly has, like you said, more of the background, of the worthiness and kind of those internalized dialogue with themselves.
Speaker 2:And then also it kind of brings us back to some shame pieces, because how we respond to shame is a big part of how people will react to different things. Whether it be food, sex, whatever it might be that people are, there's a lot of shame people experience and so again, that's some of that internalized dialogue. But there can be shame that's associated with trauma, and so the trauma perspective is a little bit different than maybe somebody who might be looking at it from a more of an internalized perspective. And that's a little more of my background as far as kind of just in my, just my own worldview of that of like helping people kind of understand their own, their own internalized dialogue and their own emotions and those kinds of things. But I think you bring up a great point is that there's probably, as we move forward, as we continue to learn more about the body, the brain, there's gonna be different ways people are gonna be approaching this behavior and how to help people with this particular concern.
Speaker 1:Yes, I agree with that, and if you are working with them, they're doing well, but then they leave your office and see a billboard with someone in a bathing suit, right? What are some techniques that you offer to people struggling with this addiction on how to manage all these different sexual images? I know some people. They are no longer on social media, for example, because they're constantly seeing that. So is the suggestion that they completely get rid of their social media? Or, you know, how can they manage their reactions to living in such a hyper sexual society?
Speaker 2:Great question. So, yeah, so some people probably should seriously consider going on maybe a social media hiatus for a while, right, At least to give yourself a chance to kind of reset from it yourself. Personally, Couple things that I talk about as far as helping people break thought right, Go back to thought life. My thought life is really gonna be depending on what I'm thinking about, what I'm processing. We're all gonna have, we're definitely gonna have, trigger, triggers or you like to use the word stimuli, because there's a lot your trigger is overused word but basically stimuli that we're gonna have on the world, whether it be social media or in public or whatever. One thing you can use that people tend to find some success with is this idea, what they call ABC awareness break compassion. So basically the idea is I made awareness of the person or the image that's concerned for me. I'm breaking from it, I'm redirecting my mind to something else that I that you know again, brings peace, brings calm, I can think about, and then I have compassion toward myself or toward the other person. Sometimes that looks like self-talk. You know, I'm not this type of man anymore, I'm not this type of woman anymore. I'm gonna be somebody who's dedicated to living in a healthy sexual way. So that'd be kind of an example of compassion.
Speaker 2:One that sometimes people have success with is what they call fantasy contamination, and this is kind of similar to the drug. I don't know the drug specifically, but if you drink alcohol you'll get sick and vomit. So eventually there's association with that. Fancy contamination is very similar, Bringing something that you find that's gross, that's abnormal, that doesn't make a lot of sense for that particular image. I always think of something goofy, like you know there's a giant Twinkie or something in the you know holding hands with the jogger or whatever you know, something that just throws it off, so that I don't have to keep associating down that fantasy, Because the more I fantasize about that, the more likely that I'm gonna be drawn to going to act out some more or continuing to fantasize. But what I've also found to be kind of that I personally, if I've found to be successful at least some of the time for folks is to create lists of things that they know a lot about. Because as you make lists you're breaking that loop and it seems like fantasy kind of loops, very similar to anxiety does, and so it's a similar kind of way that you break that. You kind of put a bend in the track a little bit so that it doesn't keep going.
Speaker 2:I always like using NFL teams because they're really easy to remember. In divisions they're all in four groupings. So, like I'm in Detroit, so it's Detroit, Chicago, Minnesota and Green Bay. Those are our four teams in the North. So, and then you can keep going through that. Now, that's just one for guys. Sometimes that can be an easy one, but you could use the stuff that you know because you can remember it easier and you can kind of pull it up. So I've used sports teams. It could be baseball, it could be soccer, it could be basketball, anything like that, Music, cars, stuff that helps you to have that list. That can kind of help break some of those thoughts. So you're not focusing on what the stimuli might be.
Speaker 1:I respect a lot of people who struggle with these thoughts. These hypersexual thoughts could also potentially have mental issues related to OCD.
Speaker 2:I don't see much of a in my personal experience. I don't see a lot of correlation with OCD. Most of the time the correlation we see, the biggest one, is ADHD or ADD, some type of a tension. Because the number one thing that drowns out a lot of those kind of difficult, the constant flow of those thoughts is pornography. When we focus on pornography or something sexual our brain kind of just zooms right there and because it holds that much attention it tends to sort of drown out a lot of other stuff. So people with ADHD or ADD tend to sort of find that very soothing way to kind of approach that, so you can feel less numb, less of the thoughts in your head in that way. So ADHD and ADD are usually common ones. Sometimes ASD is one of them. So autism spectrum is one that we see a little bit occasionally. I haven't seen as much of those CD though, mostly those of there to ASD and ADHD ADD.
Speaker 1:Okay, so is there hope for full recovery? Have you worked with patients who have fully recovered and they're doing well? I mean, triggers are side but they're not acting on triggers. Do you have you worked with patients who've been able to fully recover?
Speaker 2:So I'm in a process because of what I started. Our program is anywhere between three to five years long, so I mean year four. So I haven't seen anybody, from start to finish, go all the way through. But I am working with people at different stages in the process and so there are people who definitely, at the end of this process, are able to heal from that. But I think we really need to look at what does it mean to be healed from this?
Speaker 2:A lot of times people will report to me very early in the process and they'll say I wanna be totally free from this, I never wanna have another thought about this, I don't want this to come up for me and those kind of things, and so they're a little bit unrealistic in that. Is it gonna be something that's gonna control your life? You can recover from that absolutely 100%. Is it gonna be something that you're gonna not be able to be aware of the rest of your life? 100% inaccurate. You have to always be aware of it because it's something that you're gonna always have to be aware of. These things that come around. So like just give you an example, one of the things that happens with people with the phone a lot of times that people take the phone. The bedroom and the bathroom those are two of the places where people most commonly act out, at least in my experience. So even just creating those boundaries around the phone and the bedroom and the bathroom if I don't take my phone in those things at least I'm eliminating opportunity to act out. So one of the things that down the road does that mean that, okay, when I fully recover, I can start taking my phone in the bathroom and the bedroom again? No, because I'm still setting myself up for the possibility of it happening, even if I think I have the strength of it.
Speaker 2:One of the things about denials denials always about minimum. Well, like one of the biggest denials I see all the time is minimization. It wants us to believe that we're stronger than we actually are, and it does that. You know our own mind tells us that, hey, we can overcome this. Now I'm not saying that people can't be confident in their recovery. They ever say can be. But if they're confident in their recovery, they also know how to respect what their addict or their addiction has been. And so you can't lose that side of that respect, cause if you do, it's gonna. It's gonna pull you in the position where you're gonna be weak and you're gonna just like a city with a wall around you. You're gonna. There's some part of your wall. It's gonna have a hole in it If you're not. But where are that? So can you recover from the perspective of it never being a problem for you again? I think that's unrealistic. But can you get to a point where the behavior is not what you compulsively do? I think that's 100% realistic.
Speaker 1:I have to ask, just because of your work and your self work specifically, and your training, how, for patients who are open to the theology side, how does faith play a role in helping people move through shame and work towards recovery for those who are interested in including that into their recovery?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think so. A lot of times we use the verbage the addict. I would replace that with the sin nature. If you're talking about theology, our sin nature is always, at every given moment of our life, waging war against us. It wants us to just be destroyed. It's not going to look, it's not going to want us to be successful in any way.
Speaker 2:Part of shame is one of the biggest lies that I think we believe we take on those lies and again, if you are subscribed to being a Christian, you're going to this is the perspective I'm coming from and that spends we're going to believe those lies and those lies are going to define who we are. And so one of the things biblically that we see over and over again throughout the Bible is that the reason that one of the reasons that God came to save us and to die on the cross for our sins was to us to give a new identity and to have a new heart. And so shame is a continuous lie of the enemy. So we're willing to allow that the lie to continue our lives. And if we don't, why are we believing that? If we are lying, that lie to continue. Why are we believing it? Because we have a freedom in Christ to be able to live out the way he wants to live and basically live in the freedom of how his image. So I think a lot of times when you're talking about shame, believing that lie and then consistently going back to that type of behavior, it doesn't mean that you yourself are something wrong, but it means that are you where? Are you still working on understanding and believing and holding to the truth that you are subscribing to in your faith? A lot of times I think that there is the science part of it, which we talked a lot about today, but the other side of it, from the theological perspective, is do I really believe that that's the person that I am, or do I believe that I'm the person that God says I am? And so if I hold that truth, those are the truths I have to hold to as far as moving forward and allowing that other part of who I am to die, because that's what it has to do.
Speaker 2:There's a part Paul talks about the idea that we have to work out our salvation in faith and trembling, and so that means that's a process, and so sanctification, which is the process of becoming more like Christ, is a process of every single day working toward, just like the process of walking away from something that's an addiction, and so these things when we talked about earlier, I mentioned the idea that we want these things to be organic in our lives. But they are not organic, they have to be intentional. My relationship with my faith or my relationship with Christ is all intention, as much as it's the same as intention to be away from pornography. So how intentional am I willing to be in my life? Or do I want the organic? Do I want to flip the switch and just go along the easy route?
Speaker 2:Nothing that's easy ever ends up being rewarding. So the direction we want to go is about how intentional are we going to be in working toward becoming the people we want or the people that God wants us to be. So there is that aspect of that. When you talk about faith, the intention still goes the same. They're going in that direction. That's the process.
Speaker 1:Thank you for sharing that. I love the line that you said and I hope I don't butcher it Do we want to believe what the enemy is telling us about ourselves, or do we want to believe what God tells us about ourselves? I think that's what you said. I love that line.
Speaker 2:Well, because it's a choice, right Every day we have a choice to decide. Okay, today I woke up and I'm going to believe what I believe. My faith is, which again takes faith.
Speaker 2:It's not going to be something that's going to be just like that. But it also takes the same in some ways also the same off faith to believe that I'm what the devil tells me. I am too right, so I have to be intentional in what I'm going to choose to believe. If I continue to allow the lie to be my truth, even when it's not, I'm not going to probably see a lot of changes there. I'm probably going to continue the same path.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly, and I could even even using different language in, for people who might not even be Christian is just the idea is am I going to feed into these negative thoughts that I'm having and give my power to those negative thoughts, or am I going to connect with the true essence of who I am as a person?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm going to believe who I am as created, created to be, or am I going to believe that I'm the person that doesn't believe the lie that the addiction tells me that I am?
Speaker 1:Right, exactly, Patrick. This has been a great conversation. I usually like to end out each episode with asking every guest for final words of wisdom. You've shared so many insights, but any words of wisdom, it could be related to what we've been talking about or something completely random that you kind of keep in your back pocket as you go through life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's hard to always pick just one thing that we could specifically focus on, but I've just had a real heart. I've had a real feel like a real revelation in my own life the last few months about the idea that my my intention is what I need to. That's my my intention is what is going to get me toward the direction I want to go. And there's nothing that's difficult, there's nothing easy about intention. And so there's a part of me in my life and my personal story that I feel like I've always wanted to get to, that organic that I was talking about earlier. I wanted to be flip a switch. I want to be easy. I think everybody is human being does to some degree. But just like when you're, if you're, ever had a personal trainer, they're going to make you do two things they're going to make you change what you're eating If you don't eat right, and they're going to make you work out. Both of those things are really hard, but you'll get the results that you want to have. And that's the same way with mental health. I mean, there's, there's. There might not be a whole bunch of stuff you have to do, but there has to be some kind of change.
Speaker 2:One of the things that my my boss likes to talk about as far as the program goes is that nothing changes if nothing changes. And that is very true. But I think it nothing changes if intention is not there. Because I can't just, you know, in my mind, fantasize again, like we talked about earlier, fantasize about change. A lot of people, I think, think, that the change that they see is the change they see here. They don't see the change out here, and that's because they're not willing to make from this part to out here, which is the hard part. So I think a big part of that is, you know, continuing to make your intentions. Be what you, not only what you say you want, you want, but also be what you're doing and that goes in line with your faith, or recovering from something, or changing any type of behavior you want. You have to, you have to see the execution of it you played out. It can't just be in your head.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that. It kind of reminds me of something I heard earlier today, which said that in order for you to create a new reality or to achieve something, you have to become the person that has that thing or is living in this new said reality or life or vision that you have for yourself. So I appreciate you for sharing that. Where can people find you if they want to connect with you or learn more about your work?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. Our practice website is northpoint-counselingcom. We are located in Novi, michigan. We are one of Michigan's largest resources for sexual addiction and partner betrayal trauma. So if you're interested in working with any of us or you know again in the part of a piece of the world, learn more about that. Definitely check us out on the website. We are actually starting our own podcast here. It just got launched, I think, earlier this month, but we're going to start trying to do a weekly podcast. I'm going to be included in that. My boss is going to be included in that Multiple part of my. Many of my colleagues are a part of that, so we're going to hopefully have some guests as well, but we're open to have that success as well and be our resource for folks. Another thing to look into is my boss wrote a book a couple of years ago. It's called the Partners Guide to Truth and Healing. That is a great resource for folks who are looking for any type of partner trauma type of understanding, kind of what that process looks like we were going to talk about earlier.
Speaker 2:You can reach me at my personal Instagram. It's read underscore PGE. I also have a threads account attached to that as well. I also have a LinkedIn. It's Patrick Gailers and you saw my kind of credentials right there. That's my LinkedIn account. So there are a couple of our Patrick Gailers out there, but I don't know if they're therapists or not. But so those are some things. You can look for me there and I can give those to you, if you'd like, in the email or anything.
Speaker 1:Yes, that'd be great, so I can link it in the show notes. Thank you so much, patrick, for stopping by. A word to the wise.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me, Jimmy. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:A big shout out to Patrick Gailers for stopping by the show. If you are interested in learning more about Patrick, please check out the show notes for a link to his social media podcast and website. And please make sure that you tune back in for part two of the series, which is focused on porn and sex addiction, where I speak with a woman who struggled with sex addiction and dated a man who struggled with porn addiction, and we discussed how she was able to recover from sex addiction and what it was like dating someone with porn addiction and how that affected her, and so much more. It was a very good episode as well, so please make sure you tune into part two of this short series. Again, thank you so much for tuning in.
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