Stephen Kuhn

“What’s the one piece of advice you would give
to someone struggling with porn addiction?”

Russ Shaw is the host of the ASI247: Attitudes of Sexual Integrity podcast.

Connect with Russ:

Twitter:  @russshaw

Transcript:

Steve: Hey guys! Steve with Belt of Truth Ministries here. I’m here with Russ Shaw of the ASI247 podcast. We just got done recording an interview, and I figured I’ll let you guys kind of behind the scenes and see where the magic happens.

Russ: That’s right.

Steve: This is Russ’ basement. Right behind us is his old laptop.

Russ: Most of the podcast were made right here on this monstrosity.

Steve: Nice.

Russ: That’s right, right there.

Steve: Russ, you are my first interview on video.

Russ: Nice. I’m honored and humbled, of course.

Steve: I’ve got one question for you. If you guys have seen City Slickers, Curly has got the one thing. My question for you, Russ, is what’s your one thing, if you can share one thing with guys that are struggling with pornography addiction, what would you say?

Russ: I think the biggest thing, the one thing if I had one thing to say, and I come from a jacked up background – alcohol, drugs. I had my chemical romances before the pornography thing. Actually that was there too. I come from not the most churchy background. I guess I’ll use that term. I would say the biggest one thing when it comes to taking this thing on is – is God good? Asking that question is powerful. Is God good? Who are you? Are you a good creation? That’s something that Paul Young asked me and I think that’s powerful too, but really for me the one thing is – is God good? Because we want us to think about pornography as like God’s destroying our fun. Right? Like this is a fun thing. What’s wrong with looking at naked…desires aren’t bad. Right? Stuff like that. God created our sexual desire. God created us. He made that, but we can mess them up and the bible isn’t out to destroy all our fun. Is God good? A question that’s something that you’re going to have to intimately answer with your creator. It’s powerful. It’ll light you up. I challenge you to ask that with your life and with passion and without BS and being honest and not having the right answer about it but asking it diligently to your Creator because He is real and He is personal and He’s not distant. You don’t have to force your prayer life because the Holy Spirit is right there with you all the time, and that’s true. And I hope that helps.

Steve: Alright. Is God good? Ask yourself guys. Thanks Russ.

Russ: Thanks Steve.

“What’s the one piece of advice you would give
to someone struggling with porn addiction?”

Pastor Bob Beeman has been on the cutting edge of Christian music for over 40 years. Since opening Sanctuary International in 1985, his focus has been on pioneering Christian Heavy Metal as a ministry. His dedication to discipleship and mentoring have spawned countless metal ministries and festivals worldwide. Pastor Bob travels and speaks internationally, is an avid podcaster, and is the host of the popular “Pastor Bob DAILY!” on YouTube.

Pastor Bob recently published his first book, Seriously?! Letters to Myself at 21.

Connect with Pastor Bob

Home Page: http://PastorBobBeeman.com

YouTube: http://youtube.com/PastorBobBeeman

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PastorBob

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PastorBobBeeman

Instagram: http://instagram.com/PastorBobBeeman

Spotify: PastorBobBeeman

Check out all the “One Thing” video interviews here.

Transcript:

Steve: Hey guys! Steve here from Belt of Truth Ministries. I’m standing here with Pastor Bob. Pastor Bob, I’ve got a question for you, same question I’m asking a bunch of guys, but if you could give one piece of advice to  guy that’s struggling with pornography or sexual addiction, what would you say?

Pastor Bob: That’s easy. A lot of times the advice that we give is to surround yourself with a lot of accountability. I don’t know about you Steve, but accountability has never worked perfectly for me personally. I can always find a way around it. I think the first thing that I need to do is to find out what it’s going to take for me to be honest and true to myself. And for me to say that this isn’t going to be a problem in the future is to be dishonest to me. I realized that God created me with sexual desire. It’s always going to be there. I’m always going to struggle with it. The bible tells us that it’s a gift, but sometimes it doesn’t feel that way, especially when it comes to porn and some of those things that there really aren’t so much sexuality and are little more addictive. I’ve always found that the thing that works for me the most, and I have to be honest I’ve never been addicted to pornography, not that it doesn’t look attractive, but the thing that helps me the most is what I call fighting the battle before the battle. If I am honest with myself and I say I realize that this is something, when I encounter it, that’s going to be difficult for me. I need to already have a battle plan in mind. And that battle plan is what am I going to do and how am I going to react? The bible says to flee those things that are not good for me and the Greek word there is run away as fast as you can. What am I going to do that’s going to give me those kinds of legs to run as fast as I can, and honestly it’s to be prepared for it and to know exactly what I need to do when the situation occurs. I think sometimes, Steve, we have this idea that when we’re finished fighting a particular battle that the battle is not going to happen anymore, that we’re going to get to this place where we just don’t struggle. And especially when we get through with struggle, we feel like “wow that’s great. That’s over.” And that’s the biggest lie that we can tell ourselves. The truth is we’re always going to struggle. It’s always going to be a difficult time, and if I don’t have a plan in place, then I’m going to fall.

Let’s talk about that plan for a minute. When I say fight the battle before the battle, I mean I need to plan for the battle when it happens, and so that what I do at that point becomes automatic. When I’m working on my computer and all of a sudden one of those pages comes up that leads to a porn site or I’m driving down the road and billboards these days, it’s amazing what you can get away with on a billboard, and those things are attractive to us sexually. What do I do when I encounter that? How do I react when that comes up on my computer? The first thing, if I program myself, is that I turn it off quickly. The second thing, if I can’t do that, I shut it down and walk away quickly. I realize that I have to have a response at the point where it’s a problem, as quickly as I can and as automatically as I can. You know Steve, for me, that’s been the greatest thing, is to fight the battle before the battle because when the battle comes, I’m ready for it and I’m ready to run with it and I’m ready to go another direction. For me that’s been very successful.

Steve: Thanks for sharing that, Pastor Bob. That’s a great advice and I appreciate you taking the time to share it with us. Thanks.

Pastor Bob: Thank you. It’s a pleasure.

“What’s the one piece of advice you would give
to someone struggling with porn addiction?”

Luke Norsworthy is the pastor of Venture Community Church and host of the Newsworthy with Norsworthy podcast.

Connect with Luke

Website: lukenorsworthy.com

Twitter:  @lukenorsworthy

Check out all the “One Thing” video interviews here.

Transcript:

Stephen: Hey guys. I’m here with Luke Norsworthy. He’s the pastor of Venture Community Church and host with The Newsworthy with Norsworthy podcast. So Luke, thanks for joining us today. I’m going to go ahead and ask you the question I’ve been asking everybody, and that’s what’s the one piece of advice you would give to someone struggling with porn addiction.

Luke: First of all thank you for having me on the show. Do you call it the show? The interview? The website?

Stephen: The web series, yeah I don’t know.

Luke: The web series, whatever this is. I appreciate the invitation. I don’t pretend to be the expert on the subject but I will give you my two cents. There was a book that came out a little while ago by an author named Charles Duhigg. He actually won a Pulitzer Price for some of the other stuff that he’s been working on, but he wrote a book entitled The Power of Habits. And his basic points is like we’re all really just this culmination of the habits that we have. And he kind of breaks down habits into three steps. First is the cue, then the behavior, and then the reward. For example, about a year ago, I kind of realize that every night I put my girls to bed, lay down on the couch, turn the TV on and then I would start eating cookies and ice cream. And that’s not like a long-term positive solution to have for what you’re going to do every night. And so I realized “okay, this is a bad habit I got stuck into.” And then as I broke it down using Duhigg’s model, so the cue is the exhaustion, the fatigue. And then the behavior comes along of ice cream and cookies and then the reward, of course, is eating the cookies and the ice cream. But the question you have to ask behind that is what’s the cue that’s sparking this behavior. What’s behind it that’s causing the behavior to take place and we obviously can figure out what the reward is.

And so I think that’s like the first step. If I’m going to give you one piece of advice for anyone struggling with abusing anything, whether it’s porn, sex, alcohol, you have to ask what’s the question behind the question. What’s the issue behind the issue? Often you’re dealing with isolation, you’re dealing with loneliness, boredom, stress, worry, fear. Whatever that is, that cue that’s sparking you to go to this behavior, you got to ask. How can I befriend that? How can I become better friends with my fear? How can I become better friends with my boredom? And start to do that. And that’s where I’d start.

In doing that, what I would want to do and this is where I think the Christian thing comes in, is start wondering what does God say about that. And I think behind all of those things is ultimately the thought that I am not accepted for this. I am not accepted to be a man who is fearful. I am not accepted to be a man who gets stressed or lonely or bored. And I think what everyone needs to hear is what Jesus heard before he did anything in His ministry, before He feeds anyone, before He walks in any water, before He raises anyone from the dead, His father tells him “this is my son, with whom I’m well pleased.” And I will start with that. Hear the voice of God that says in your boredom, in your fear, in your stress you are loved. Because this isn’t doing something good from you. It’s often coming out of a place of shame and guilt and fear. And you get in these nasty cycles and these nasty habits that can do some serious damage for you. And so I think you would start listening to what God says about you, not what those voices say.

When I was just about to get married some 13 years ago, a neighbor found out that I was just about to get married. This was an older gentleman. I think he had some, maybe some mental handicap of some sort. And so he walks over to my house and he says “hey Luke I hear you’re about to get married.” I said “yeah, I’m very excited. 2 months from now I’m getting married.” And he goes “I got you something.” He pulls out from behind his back like this old pornographic magazine and he goes “I thought this might help you.” I’m like “I appreciate the gesture but I really don’t think that’s helping you.” And I think most of us realize it’s not helping us, whatever sort of abuse that we’re doing to our sexuality. It’s undoing something that we are created to have as a pure, beautiful thing. And I think the way that you deal with that is you ask what’s the issue behind the issue, and that’s where I think you can start. And then you bring accountability and bring you maybe a counselor or someone else who can help you with that but you got to figure out what’s the issue behind the issue.

Stephen: Yeah. I think that’s wonderful advice. Thanks for sharing that with us, Luke. Tell people where they can find out more about you and your ministry.

Luke: Well my Twitter handle is @lukenorsworthy, which is also my website, lukenorsworthy.com. You can check out more stuff there. And I’m on iTunes as well. So Twitter, my website, iTunes, all that.

Stephen: Okay. Yeah guys, all the links to that stuff will be in the show notes. And definitely check out Luke’s podcast. I’ve listened to a couple of episodes now and it’s been great. Luke, thanks for joining us and good luck in your ministry.

Luke: Thanks Stephen. Appreciate it man.

Stephen: See you.