When Trying to Overcome Addiction Doesn’t Work
Welcome back to the Grounded Union Podcast. We are on season five. Thank you guys who have been with us since season one. And if you haven't actually listened to all the seasons, you can go back and listen to season one, two, three, and four. We put a lot of time and energy into those for you guys.
Brandon:We're in season five episode three when trying to overcome addiction doesn't work. So we're going to talk about those hiccup spots when you're like, "hey, I've been wrestling through addiction. I'm wanting to overcome this." We talk a lot about the roots behind that, but I think there's couple standardized approaches that many couples have walked through, have been fed through. And then, you've put in time and energy and thousands of dollars in therapy, and then you're still left on this roller coaster Caitlyn speaks of, this pain roller coaster that you're kind of ready to get off.
Brandon:So, we want to talk to you today about when things are not working. Why have you tried so hard to quit your addiction? Why why did you get sober for six months and relapse for a year and then relapse? Why have you two been working through this for so long? That's the story of so many of you is we've been doing this for years and we're still not getting traction.
Brandon:So, we want to talk about, entry level, but those beginning stages of healing from addiction where most people get stuck because it's where most people stay. I think for most people, they're like, is this how I'm designed to be, or am I just going be here forever? For me, just self referencing is I got stuck in not really acknowledging how big of a deal the addiction was. The denial where there's addiction, there's denial. And step one of my book that's coming out, you can go to sevenstepsbook.com to get a copy of 7 Steps to Save Your Marriage.
Brandon:Step one is leaving the trap of denial, and I don't think you can overcome addiction while still being in denial. And so a lot of times that first step where you're stuck is what's like, well, everybody's telling me this is such a big deal. My wife's telling me this is a big deal. Maybe your counselor told you this is a big deal. Maybe even your pastor or a friend said, hey, dude, this is crazy.
Brandon:And you're like, I know, and I've still told myself deep down that this isn't a big deal. So I think that first step of actually overcoming addiction besides trying harder, which we're gonna talk about it, Accountability, all these things, it's actually you being convinced this is a big deal. Not because somebody else is telling you it's a big deal, but because you look at it and say, woah, this has overcome my life. That's step one from Alcoholics Anonymous is my life had become unmanageable. And it's like, until you hit that phase where you're like, I can't hold this together anymore.
Brandon:This has destroyed me. Are you gonna be able to produce any lasting change? As long as it's because you got caught and somebody's holding you to the fire, making you show up to meetings, making you sign up for programs, making you listen to podcasts like this, you aren't gonna heal. It's not gonna change at the root level because at at your core, you still believe, I gotta make this smaller. I'm gonna make this disappear.
Brandon:I'm in denial that this addiction even exists.
Caitlyn:Mhmm. Yeah. So good. I think another huge area that we see as we work with couples inside of our community is that and and I saw this within our own healing journey, is there there's this belief system of, if I just consume a bunch of good information, then I will actually heal. And to share even little glimpses of our story, which for those of you who have been along for all of the seasons, you've maybe heard some of these stories.
Caitlyn:But when we first began healing in 2019, which, you know, we had already tried healing many times in the first five years of our marriage leading up to 2019. But when we were like, for real, for real, for real, we're getting divorced or we're healing this time. Brandon did the same thing he always did. Right? Looked for the best book he could find on Christian sexual freedom, essentially.
Caitlyn:Right? We found that book. He read that book and he's like, okay, now I'm healed. Now I'm good to go. Right?
Caitlyn:And I'm like, uh-uh, we've already done this before. We've already done the thing where we read the good Christian book, the good book that our counselor gave us, the good book that was recommended by everybody to get you free from porn, get you free from your addiction, clean up your sexual energy, whatever it is, and I'd already seen it through. It's like, okay, just reading a good book, just going to a good counseling session. We tried that one too. Okay.
Caitlyn:Well, let's go now, get the best We we surveyed multiple pastors in our community. Give us the best Christian counsel you can give us that will help us become sexually whole and free. We go to that counselor. Right? Okay.
Caitlyn:Now we're checking that box. We read the book. We went to the counselor. Okay. Let's get the best podcast.
Caitlyn:Let's get the best resources. Even listening to this. Even Brandon thought, I'll we had no money at that time. Absolutely no money. He thought, I will find a way.
Caitlyn:Like, I will literally ask people for money so that we could go he had this very specific marriage intensive, actually, surprising, not surprising. The person who runs the ministry of those marriage intensives actually is divorced now, and I forget. I I I don't know. I think there was infidelity and other very questionable things that were happening. Thank God we didn't go to his intensive.
Caitlyn:Brandon's like, I would do anything. Let's just go to that three day intensive because just going to that will save our marriage. Right? So it's this belief system of if I just collect all this good information from all these good people, because none of those things are negative necessarily, so let's just collect all this good information, then I'm just voila healed, right? And where that keeps you stuck in your addiction is the fact that consuming without implementing doesn't actually produce any change.
Brandon:Yeah.
Caitlyn:You're not actually becoming a new person just by reading a good book. You need to read the book and implement what the book is teaching you. If you're choosing to go to a counselor and you find one that you align with that's gonna support your vision for your marriage, you need to go home and do the things that they say, right? If you're inside of our community, you hear us say this all the time. The coaching calls that we do are unproductive to anybody if you don't implement what's being taught.
Caitlyn:Yeah. If you just have a bunch of head knowledge and you never let it drop into your heart and body and make changes with your life, you stay the same exact person. And if you stay the same exact person, how in the world do you produce a completely new marriage?
Brandon:The consumption piece also in our day and age where information is readily available, I even have heard from some of you, you're in multiple support groups. You're going to multiple other groups. You're reading multiple resources all at once. We can all, we can sometimes get to information overload. So if you've been trying to overcome addiction, it's not actually only going to be about the consumption of new knowledge.
Brandon:It's actually like Caitlyn saying, the the implementation of that which you have heard. Yep. We can consume, consume, consume, and at some point, our head just might explode. Mhmm. Because it actually can make you more in denial.
Brandon:Mhmm. Because you say, well, I did the thing and it didn't work. Mhmm. I learned about it. Learning, like, specifically when you're when you're approaching a new topic or a new skill, you might have been like, I didn't know that porn impacts the brain.
Brandon:And you read a book about how porn impacts the brain, you're like, wow, that was really insightful. Mhmm. And then you read another book about how porn impacts the brain. And then you read another one about this and about this, and you're like, I actually already know a lot about this topic. Some of you guys are recovery junkies.
Brandon:You've been in all the groups. You've been in all the spaces. You've been to SAA. You've been to Celebrate Recovery. You've been to I forget all the other ones that are out there, and you are familiar with the language, but not the transformation.
Brandon:Yep. And what we would encourage you with is why we try to use we don't use a lot of jargon or lingo that makes us sound smart and elevated. We want to feel approachable is you being able to use a certain list of vocabulary or recite what you should be doing is different than actually doing it. So when it comes down to the healing work, it's if you've been trying to overcome addiction by just accumulating knowledge like I had where I would read a new book, cry and say I'm sorry, tell somebody else that I had done something naughty Mhmm. And then move on.
Brandon:It's like, well, did that ever take hold of your into your life? And I think it's it's usually paired with consuming knowledge and then trying to white knuckle it, trying to overpower it. And there is a very real application to overcoming addiction, which involves abstinence. I did get off all technology. I got off my phone.
Brandon:I got off the Internet. I got off social media. I stopped the toxic behavior. If you're gonna quit smoking, if you're going to quit drinking, if you're going to quit porn, you do stop. And then, if you just white knuckle it, after about three weeks, three to four weeks, studies have shown, even after, like, a couple days,
Caitlyn:your
Brandon:dopamine levels are going to regulate. You're going to feel normal again, you're going to feel level headed. If all you did was stop, and this abstinence was it, it's like, Okay, I'm going to white knuckle this, I'm not going to ever go back to porn, I've never seen my wife's in pain, I'm never going to do that to her again. If all your strategy was was abstinence, and I'm going to hold on, I'm going to grip my teeth. Then what?
Brandon:You actually can't just stop the bad thing. You actually need to know why you were doing it. Uncover the patterns underneath. Take radical action to to know your story, and then build a life you don't want to escape from. Build a marriage that you don't have any desire to leave.
Brandon:One of the ways I tried the white knuckling approach was I did. I read another book. I don't recommend it. Nothing against the author, but it was a book about making a covenant with your eyes. In our ministry mindset and background.
Brandon:I'm like, oh, this sounds like a great idea. I'm gonna make a covenant with my pastor, my wife Mhmm. And God Mhmm. That I'm never going to lust again. That I'm not going to go to there's, like, a list of things that I was I'm gonna do.
Brandon:I'm not gonna go to this website or this. I'm gonna all the I said, I'm not gonna do all these things, and they're gonna look at another woman a certain way ever. And then it worked for about a month Mhmm. Because I was terrified, because I read in the Bible that if you break a covenant with God, you could get killed. God could kill you.
Brandon:So then a month had gone by. I grit my teeth. I was fearful. I didn't actually know why my addiction was there to begin with. I didn't know what I was trying to cover up.
Brandon:I didn't understand the emotions. I didn't create any new patterns. I didn't pursue Caitlyn's heart. I didn't know what was going make me come alive as a man. And I started drifting again, started scrolling on social media, started sexualizing women in public, started drifting in my thoughts, started having all these experiences.
Brandon:Before you know it, I'm spending two to three hours on Facebook scrolling, watching whatever video comes up. I'm clicking on people's profiles. I'm looking at this. I'm looking at that. And two years have passed, and I'm back in the addiction Mhmm.
Brandon:While still telling Caitlyn I'm doing my eye covenant because I've tried it. I've put all the effort I could possibly put forth. Mhmm. I fasted. I prayed.
Brandon:I've told my pastor. I've I've signed my covenant. I've I've made this promise to God, and I'm still broken. I can't overcome this addiction, at least not the way I was trying to.
Caitlyn:Mhmm. It actually sent you further into denial. Yeah. Because this is oftentimes, especially if you take this hyper spiritual or religious approach to it, is you feel like you've tried everything. You've given it your all, right?
Caitlyn:And it's not working, so you have to almost split your personality right there. Remember our addiction counselor that we saw for a little bit before kicked us out. He said almost everyone that he had worked with that had a sexual addiction that was a Christian had a double personality, which I know in the clinical world, it's like, woah, this is really scary thing. Right? And I find it to be not that terrifying because it's completely healable once you do the deep work to actually explore your story, of course.
Caitlyn:But when you go through that route of white knuckling, of gritting your teeth, of, you know, even like, I'm just gonna stare down at the ground so I never objectify another woman again. And I'm just gonna try to just do do it all on my own and my own strength, whatever, you know, whatever the narrative might be, you don't, you fail. So then you create this split personality of, okay, to cope with the fact that I'm trying really hard and it's not working, I have my good boy box and my bad boy box or good girl bad girl box, right? This is my good girl, she goes to church and she's doing all the things and checking all the boxes and then the bad girl's like, even though she's trying so hard, there's still this other hidden life, right? But I can still go switch back to, okay, but I'm doing it, right?
Caitlyn:I'm doing all these things and you live in this this, you know, tension, which a lot of people might label that as temptation or sin nature. They might even call that the devil when really what it was is you literally split your personality because you don't know how to cope with the fact that you don't like what you're you're doing, and then you put all these labels on it to complicate it when it's really quite simple. It actually just looks like, well, let me pause for a second. Stop gritting my teeth, white knuckling, staring down, trying to force my way through this, and let's soften up. Let's get curious.
Caitlyn:Let's explore the story. Let's explore the childhood. Let's explore the first time this addiction began. Let's explore everything that we talked about in the last episode, like all the little puzzle pieces that led to here so I can see the whole picture, and before you know it, you don't have two personalities anymore. You're not trying to just grit your teeth and work through it because it it almost sounds the same.
Caitlyn:Right? Because Brandon made this eye covenant. He had this list of things he was never gonna do. Now, we're seven years almost on the other side of 2019 when we healed, and that list that he made the eye covenant for, I don't even remember. It'd be actually fascinating to go find it.
Caitlyn:It's exactly the reality of what we're living in right now. Brandon's not objectifying other women outside. He's not attracted to other women. He's not accidentally saying boobs and butts and then looking away. He's not purposely looking for three seconds, one, two, three, and then looking away.
Caitlyn:He's not having bombarding thoughts. He's not having flashbacks of porn he's seen. He's not going to kiss me or have sex with me and having all this sexual content come back. Like, see the list of things that's not happening anymore? And it's not because he signed a covenant.
Caitlyn:Right. It's not because he's white knuckling. It's not because he's terrified he's gonna get murdered by God. It's not because he's looking down on the ground. It's because he decided to get radically honest with himself, with me, with his life story to bring everything onto the table and to go, oh, woah.
Caitlyn:Here's where everything begins to make sense. Here's what I'm going to rewire, and here's what I'm gonna recreate. This is where the traction and the healing comes in. It's almost the same result. One though will keep you trying and trying and trying and spinning and burnt out, and the other one will actually get you the lasting fruit that you have a vision for and a desire for.
Brandon:One of the most common ways that people try to support the healing journey is through accountability software. Mhmm. And people ask us about it all the time and this whole concept of accountability. You know, it's funny when when I was doing nonprofit missions work in South America right out of high school, in Spanish, they don't really have a word for accountability. We had to kind of like explain it and they'll talk through it.
Brandon:It's like, it's, it's a very Western concept to be held accountable for something to be, which I basically it's mostly to held accountable for your disability is basically what I see accountability looks like in, in most of the modern world, especially in the Christian world. We kind of, it's a group of guys that get together and share their struggles with usually an older guy that had struggled more and now struggles a little bit less and wants to help other guys. I'll never forget it. I was in Ecuador. There's a a group of men that were coming from a short term missions trip, I remember, like, sharing my struggles I had had around sexual brokenness, which I actually was currently having, but I didn't share that.
Brandon:And I I invited everybody else to be vulnerable to share what they had struggled with. And guys had been honest about things they had lied about their whole And I was leading other men while still not having freedom myself. So, I think a lot of accountability groups is that with accountability software is we we all link arms in our struggle. And it's hard to overcome something when you're linking arms with somebody who doesn't believe that they are free either, and you don't believe that this is really going to be the path to be free. It's kind of like misery loves company.
Brandon:Let's let's do our best. And often, accountability groups are seen as a replacement for radical honesty with your wife. As long as I didn't step outside of my marriage and have sex with somebody, it goes to the accountability group. A lot of women say, don't want to hear about your stuff. Tell your guys.
Brandon:Tell your guys. And we've heard that a lot because it's painful. It's painful as hell, but and we want there to be an end date to the struggle, to the addiction. And so, we're not actually trying to give you a coping path that you can follow and stay on for the rest of your life. We often a lot of these therapeutic approaches are typically damage control.
Brandon:Yeah, if you're going to be living with this bent on addiction and sexualizing other women, and you're going to relapse a couple times a year, let's not tell your wife because you're yeah, she's got to live with this for the rest of your life, of her life, her married life to you, let's just keep it between you and the guys if she can pretend that this isn't a part of her reality. If that's not what you signed up for as a man or as a woman, you're like, I actually want freedom, then we have to go a little bit further than just accountability check ins where we share our struggles.
Brandon:And so most software, I know people have experienced short term freedoms from knowing, if I go to a nudie website, it's going to ping my friend, or it's going to ping my wife, it's going to email her. Guys, you can get around anything. Like, we act like people are it's like, well, I'll get a dumb phone.
Brandon:Okay. You still have your mind. Yep. You still have you still have eyeballs that didn't address the root Exactly. The root of what's underneath it.
Brandon:That's actually just a fear tactic. So, yes, could that provide short term safety, having blockers on your phone? Absolutely. When Caitlyn and I were going through our early years of of working through addiction, I had her lock me out of Safari, lock the app store so that I couldn't go do my naughty stuff.
Caitlyn:This is before 2019.
Brandon:This is before 2019. And guys, guess what? I found a way to get on YouTube through a backlink inside of the YouVersion Bible app. So I didn't have YouTube on my phone because I didn't mommy told me I couldn't have it, Caitlyn, because I was looking naughty things on YouTube. So then I went through I was like, well, I need the Bible app.
Brandon:I won't use any of these other apps. We can shut off the app store, the Internet, my porn blocker. And I was looking at raunchy content on YouTube Mhmm. Through the Bible app. Yep.
Brandon:So if you want to get access to Mhmm. Content, it's there. Mhmm. And if your phone's off, it's still in your mind if you never address the the the fantasies, the sexual trauma, all the things that are there, or the way that you look at women everywhere you go, which is where a lot of the pain exists. If you never address that, then, like, software is not gonna heal you.
Brandon:Yep. It's kind of like everybody's so excited, so big on AI right now. AI is a smart computer. We've had software for a long time. It's just a slightly different software that does a lot of things.
Brandon:We don't need computers to save our lives. This is for communication, phones, computers, cameras. That's how we're communicating with you is through technology. Technology is not going to heal your soul. It's a form of communication.
Brandon:You can block communication with a certain porn site, and you can still be completely broken at your core. So, if you've tried healing through accountability groups, accountability software, and it's not working, it's because software will not heal you. Diving into your story is where you begin to get traction.
Caitlyn:Mhmm. I think a lot of people actually use accountability groups, even if it's subconsciously, as just a, see, I'm it's it kinda goes with the first example. See, I'm trying, I'm doing all of the things, and this should just be enough. Right? I I there's my Instagram will do this.
Caitlyn:It will send me because I don't really interact with anybody or follow anybody except for Brandon, it will send me what it thinks is like accounts to Brandon's content or Brandon and I's content. And so, I won't share any names of the account, but it's just a female who's helping people work through betrayal, right? And taking a very radically different approach than than I would take. And she is years into discovering and knowing that her husband has a porn addiction, and her whole premise is that she feels really safe and at peace in their relationship because her husband who is still currently addicted to porn has an accountability sponsor is actually the the term that is used. And so anytime he's struggling, he goes to the accountability sponsor.
Caitlyn:Anytime he looks at porn, goes to the accountability sponsor. So she feels safe and connected in the marriage now knowing that there's a sponsor there. And the red flag for me is that this has been going on for years and this is where we differ from others. You don't have to have a porn addiction for years. The minute you realize and recognize I have a problem, I have an addiction, I've been acting powerless to whatever it is, is the minute you get to make radical changes to your life and completely recreate something new.
Caitlyn:You don't need to go on for years just texting sponsors, going to accountability groups. That's the other thing is if you've been in an accountability group for more than six months, there's not been radical change. Meaning that's not a space where you're getting accountability or you're getting the the disciplines and the change you need. Going somewhere and just sharing, I have an issue and yep, last week I looked at porn. Yesterday, I thought about looking at porn.
Caitlyn:Masturbated 15 times. That doesn't produce change. It's the same exact result as trying to read a bunch of books, go to intensive, and never implementing anything. Just continually speaking out loud what you did do and what you didn't do does not make you a new person. It probably releases some weight off of your chest, but it's actually really faulty.
Caitlyn:It's almost kinda like having a like momentary throw up when you aren't feeling good. Like it relieves a little bit, but then you're like still don't feel good. You're still sick in like five minutes after you're like back to your stomach kind of whirling. It's like you you release a little pressure from the valve, but you're still actually not getting to the root of the issue. And like Brandon said, you didn't even talk to your wife.
Caitlyn:Like none of the other men or none of the other women in your accountability group matter like your spouse does. And to be honest, there's nobody else you need for accountability other than your spouse and people disagree left and right. People. Counselors will typically be the first to disagree left and right and pastors and Christian mentors because why? Because it's absolutely terrifying in the best way as possible to make your spouse your accountability partner and I'm putting air quotes over that cause I don't even like that term at all.
Caitlyn:Brandon's not my accountability partner and I'm not his accountability partner. We are married. We have joined our souls together. We have become one human. We've created a union that have been united This is my partner.
Caitlyn:Like, I see him. I know him. I know his thoughts. I can tell when he has a certain twitch in his eye that he's feeling uncomfortable sitting down. Like, I can read his body language exactly what he's thinking and feeling when he's ready to go that we're at a party.
Caitlyn:Like, same with me. He knows exactly what's going on because we have united ourselves as one because we decided instead of going out and trying to make a bunch of other people our accountability partners, which is really just a cop out for, oh, thank God I don't have to tell my spouse the truth. Mhmm. And does anybody in that group really actually care? Maybe a little bit, but not that much.
Caitlyn:Is any of them really gonna question you if there's actually more you're hiding and lying about? And sure, focusing on the porn, you're focusing on the affair, the emotional affair, whatever these big things are. Is anybody in that group really taking it deeper? Is anyone having you look at your story? Is anyone having you look at the way that your mind works, the way that your eyes are objectifying everybody outside?
Caitlyn:Probably not. And those are the actual deeper ways that you will create real, lasting freedom. When you remove everyone else, which get support if you need support, but when you remove everyone else as your primary helpers and you go straight to your spouse, guess what? You're not gonna be trying to gain traction for three years. It's gonna take thirty days, three months, it's gonna go a lot faster
Brandon:Yeah.
Caitlyn:Because your spouse is gonna be ready to heal. They don't wanna be on that roller coaster for years.
Brandon:Yeah, it turns the heat up for sure when and it's not that when Caitlyn said that your spouse is your accountability partner, meaning they are pulling you to do the work, meaning so don't don't misquote her. She's saying, There is nobody else that actually bears the weight or the responsibility of your decisions. When your wife or your husband, they are the direct recipient of what you chose to do. So them being left in the dark doesn't mean that they're not impacted by that. And to believe that our impaction our our actions don't impact anybody is also a facade of our thinking.
Brandon:That the way we think, the way we look, the way the websites we click on, the social media things we go to, those things dictate real people. Real It's real. It's real. All of it's real. And with that, I think one thing that accountability groups do offer is they initially, when somebody's in addiction or the first time they've stepped into I've had addiction, they recognize that they're not alone.
Brandon:I think that's it. That is a very important step of being recognizing, like, there's other people like me, and it and it takes the shame off for a second where it's like, There are people that believe that healing that that this is a problem. Mhmm. And I think that a lot of the addiction space does a good job acknowledging this is a problem. Because there's lot of people say this isn't a problem.
Brandon:This hasn't impacted me, and it helps begin to overcome the denial. After you've recognized this is a problem, there's a lot of work to do in the best way possible. And so if the group you've been a part of for accountability uses language that brings life, great. If you guys are like, hey, guys, like, this is where we're headed in life. This is what we're doing.
Brandon:This is the standard we have for yourselves. Your wife is involved, and she knows, and she has the same standard. It's like, awesome. And if you're part of a group that's saying like, hey, brother, like, grit your teeth. We'll get through this.
Brandon:Yep. That's not what we were designed for. We weren't designed for this lifelong struggle. Typically, when we're talking about accountability groups and betrayal trauma groups, we are in the realm of talking about a one time disclosure that's backed up by a polygraph. This is a very standard approach when there's been an affair or an addiction is there's a counselor for the betrayer, the husband will say, and then for the betrayed, for the wife, you meet separately for a few weeks.
Brandon:This could be right after disclosure day where there's either something found out, some initial details. And then we kind of zip up the story, kind of put the betrayed spouse kind of like on the ventilator in her hospital bed over there. You do your meetings, you begin talking with your counselor about your sexual history. You begin writing things down chronologically, preparing to go to your polygraph, your lie detector test to see if you had left anything out. And these are the big overarching things.
Brandon:Did you sleep with somebody? Did you look at hardcore pornography? Did you go to a strip club? Things that are hard. I say, quotes hard to say you didn't do or did do that would did a lie detector test could find.
Brandon:Now, these don't cover small things. These don't cover. Hey, have you ever had feelings for somebody else? Have you ever fantasized about being married to somebody else? Have you looked at social media porn?
Brandon:Have you looked at, do you frequent the explore page on social media? It doesn't cover those things. It covers the big overarching things, which then you come and report to your wife. She has a person with her. You have this, this, this day where you read your polygraph that you pass, and your disclosure letter, your impact letter, and then you begin to heal.
Brandon:Sometimes in group counseling, separate group, but a lot of it's separate, and I understand it because it's so messy. Addiction, affairs, betrayal is one of the most acute pains there is. Our counselor let us know that delayed disclosure, trickle truth, where things come out over a series of time, is on brain scans similar to somebody going through rape. Like, having your soul ripped out of you multiple times again and again, finding out that your spouse was not who they said they were is arguably one of the most painful things you can go through outside of losing a loved one, a serious illness. Like, we're talking the most confusing, painful, traumatic, cruel pain you can go through.
Brandon:And so, a therapeutic standpoint, from the counselor's lens, they're just trying to make sure that when they don't see you for a week, that you don't commit suicide, that there's no domestic violence. They want to keep you two. They want make to sure that you get some sleep. They want make sure that you guys are separated and that you're not like going at it violently when they're not around. They often prescribe medication to numb you down, to calm you down, because it's a liability if you go home, if their client goes home and they hurt each other.
Brandon:They also, they don't want that to happen to you. And they're serving all these patients all at once. And so, you have to understand what you're getting yourself into when you go the standard therapy route, which I'm not saying therapy is bad. We found great nuggets of truth in therapy. We pay lots.
Brandon:We invest lots into coaching now for our relationship that continues to improve our connection and our communication. We continue to invest. You just have to know which modality you're using and why. So, if you're going to go the route of, full therapeutic disclosure, you're going to get a lie detector test. You just have to know that's not going to be the end of the road.
Brandon:Your wife finding out, okay, yeah, that was the affair or this was the porn addiction. You still have to walk outside and face the world around you. You still have a cell phone. You still have a wife that doesn't trust you. So after the polygraph, what happens then?
Brandon:How are you going to respond to her questions? How are going to deal with her pain? There's a lot more than just saying, here's what I did. I can prove it.
Caitlyn:Nice.
Brandon:What about all these thousand other little things I still have questions about? Oh, well, was covered in the polygraph. You don't need to ask about that. And that's what got us kicked out, is Caitlyn said, I'd like to go a little further than these they call them the big uglies. Could we talk about what Brandon thinks about?
Brandon:Could we talk about how he looks at women? They're like, No. That's not you can't be involved in that. And I was like, Well, I want to heal from that, so I'm okay with her being involved with that, but our counselor said, No, you guys can get out of my office. He was very rude to Caitlyn.
Brandon:I was like, Okay. Well, that's what I want to heal from. I actually don't want to keep carrying that because that's ruining my marriage. Can I work on that? Nope, not if Caitlyn wants to be involved.
Brandon:So then we left.
Caitlyn:And not to mention that studies really now show that lie detector tests are oftentimes very easy to lie through. Because I said this in other podcasts and I find it interesting. So lie detector tests actually do not hold up in court. They're not actually valid information. Why?
Caitlyn:Because anybody that's going through a legit situation knows that a liar, a very good liar, can lie through freaking lie to
Brandon:themselves for a
Caitlyn:Yes. And if you have been living in denial, and you've been living in addiction, you've been lying to yourself. You have been lying to your spouse. You've been lying to everybody. You created a whole separate world, a whole separate personality.
Caitlyn:And so you can step into your one personality and pass the polygraph, pass the lie detector test with flying colors and still be lying. So you're not getting to the root and like Brandon said, one of the main reasons I actually would never recommend a polygraph test and a therapeutic well there's many there's many many reasons why I wouldn't recommend them. And of course, we were absolutely recommended that. We were like on the track, were doing the full Brandon was writing out his list, which I was not supposed to see. And of course I went and read it and I'm like, there was like 10 things on him like, there's no way in the world that after seven, you know, after however many years we've been married and plus just your whole life that you've been lying to me about that this is what it is.
Caitlyn:Like, oh yeah, sure, you're gonna pass this test. That's great because you didn't actually try to bring up all the things you had been blocking out and not remembering for the last ten years. So when you go to pass the lie detector test, you'll pass it because you didn't bring any of those subconscious things into your conscious mind. It doesn't mean they aren't there. It doesn't mean they're not impacting us.
Caitlyn:And so it's like, okay, now what? We didn't rewire anything. We didn't change the the way the brain is operating, we didn't recreate anything new, we just got a couple things out on the table and then what happens is then it creates this belief system of that was good enough, That's all I really needed to get out. All the rest doesn't matter, right? And it's like, see, my counselor just wanted me to get out these couple of big things.
Caitlyn:We don't need to focus on the small things. Those are insignificant. They don't matter. It's like you guys, how do you think you got to the big things? The small things.
Caitlyn:What I don't even like using big and small because to the wife who's been betrayed, everything feels big. Yeah. Nothing feels small. Nothing feels insignificant. Sometimes the small things actually hurt more because they're the ones that get pushed aside, minimized, and seen as insignificant.
Caitlyn:And you're like, no, no, no. That time you flirted with the gal at the coffee shop, that hurts like hell. Yeah. Right? And so it's like all these little things, using air quotes again, all these little things are what led to the big things.
Caitlyn:If you don't look at those and address those and choose to heal and rewire those, you're just going to recreate the same big things and you're gonna have to do a polygraph every freaking year and that's actually the track, and it keeps people stuck. As you go in, there's there's people that message all the time, like, we went in for a monthly polygraph test, and he failed this one, but he'd been passing him for six months, and I thought we were healing. It's like, you guys, woah, woah, woah, woah, The polygraph is not your savior.
Brandon:Yeah.
Caitlyn:You looking at your story with radical honesty, bringing it to the table and rewiring through the four r's, replacing it and re like creating something new for yourself, that's what's gonna heal you.
Brandon:So how do you actually end the addiction? And that was our first point we wanted to share was that so we have all the things that weren't working to overcome. That first step of radical honesty is the key to to ending the addiction. Because any time we defend the old behavior, we try to keep it safe. We're essentially just communicating like, I'd rather keep my addiction safe than actually heal and keep you safe.
Brandon:And I think that we only do that if we believe that the addiction is permanent. So it's like, going protect details about what I've done because it's still a part of me. It's the same thing when your spouse brings up a characteristic that you have that you're that you're let's say your dad has. Like, did you know you and your dad both do this? You're like, no, don't.
Brandon:It's like, well, what if accepting that you do the thing your dad does and you could actually, by accepting it and acknowledging it, change it? Would you say, yes? Well, yeah, of course. I don't want to do the thing my dad does that's unhealthy. I don't want to be this or that.
Brandon:It's like, so why are you defending it? Well, it kind of made me flinch inside. It made me feel it made me cringe. So, you have to get so comfortable with the addiction in the sense that you look at it and say, this makes so much sense. I have done all these things.
Brandon:I have come to a place of acceptance that this is who I was and what I did. I want my wife to fully know that. And when she says, Wow, that's disgusting, you can say, Absolutely. Because it's not the person that you are. It's not the person It may be up to this very second, you're like, That's who I've been, and I'm choosing to become a new person.
Brandon:So you can look with her and say, Absolutely, that's yeah, those are the most disgusting things a man could do to his wife. And I did all of them. And so you might say, Well, but how do I change it? How do I over we don't have no buts, just and now what? I'm going to create a new pattern.
Brandon:Now I'm going to sit in the pain. And you can only do that by getting radically honest. We discovered so much that would have been missed if I just said, I'm going to grip I'm going to white knuckle. I'm going to have accountability partners. I promise not to do it again.
Brandon:Because at my core, I didn't know why I did it. I did not know why it was still there. I guys, we talked about me I've been talking about myself not liking Caitlyn the first five years of our marriage and and me being stuck in addiction. I was trying.
Caitlyn:Right.
Brandon:Like, this wasn't like I was just some slump, Trump husband. Like, I wanted to be free, and I was literally burying my own grave. I was digging, not burying, digging my own grave. I was living a double life. I was praying and trying to get this thing to leave that wouldn't leave because I actually didn't want to look at my story.
Brandon:I didn't want to understand why I had done the things I'd I thought they were happening to me. I was convinced I was a victim to how other women dress, to how I was designed as a man. That's why we make so many videos about that because that one belief that this is how I'm designed to see women as sex objects. If you hold that, you can never get free. And so I had that and it had been fed to me on a silver platter.
Brandon:I wouldn't have really preached a message on, like, why I think men should objectify women. But at my core, thought women are these tantalizing things that catch my attention. This is May Day, May Day. And this is always going be part of me. It's like, I'm doing the best I can.
Brandon:And that was the message I got. Brandon, you're doing so good. At least it wasn't hardcore porn this time. It was a social media porn. I kept getting these gold stars.
Brandon:I'm like, okay, well, I guess maybe I'm not doing that bad. And at my core, I didn't want to get honest with this isn't isn't right for me. Even if everybody in my spiritual community and my friend circle is saying, you're doing so good, I knew and Caitlyn knew beyond a shadow of a doubt. This is not life giving. Until you're honest with yourself and saying, is this good and right for me?
Brandon:Then you don't really get the break for you. Don't start healing until you're like, is this what I want? I've said this analogy so many times. If you weren't going to get in trouble for what you did, if you could get all the porn, have all the sex you want with whoever you want, and God, your wife and your pastor all said it was fine, would that satisfy your soul? And if you can say, no, I guess that's not what I'm seeking.
Brandon:Well, then we we have to know what you are seeking because that stuff is what you're still protecting. And if it's not that, then what is it? It's like, well, actually, just want to feel peace. Brother, there's a lot of ways you can learn to feel peace. Been numbing out, jerking off on Facebook.
Brandon:Like, there's a lot I can I can prescribe a few other things that'll make you feel peace? So that's what we have to get to is like not defending the addiction and making reasons for why it should exist. Instead, understanding how it got there, why I put it there, what I needed it for, thinking it, and then waving goodbye to it. We have to get that honest with ourselves because your spouse is gonna pull it out and you get the opportunity what you wanna do with it.
Caitlyn:Yeah. Healing is actually really simple. Always say this, Like, literally, if I could tell everyone one thing that would radically transform your marriage in twenty four hours, it's getting radically honest. And for some reason, still I I know a lot of the reasons why, but for some reason, radical honesty, well, people call it, you know, other things like, you know, telling your wife the full truth, whatever. We'll put different names on it because at the core, we interviewed most everyone in society and said, do you believe that radical honesty is a value and a virtue that everyone should hold?
Caitlyn:99% of everybody would say absolutely. And then when you go, okay, so then that means you would tell your spouse about all your thoughts, all the times you're finding someone else attractive, all the times you feel the urge to masturbate, all the times you feel the urge to look at porn, whatever it is, know, you would tell her about that. And you go, oh, well no, I don't agree with that anymore. And it's like, woah, woah, woah, that's just radical honesty. That's just called telling the truth, right?
Caitlyn:Like when we strip off all the labels and we just actually make it super practical, super clear, it's not gray anymore. Right? I realized so much when we were healing, the church makes a lot of sexuality super gray. It's like not black and white, it's just right there in the middle confusing to everybody. Like, was that good?
Caitlyn:Was that bad? Should I do that? Should I not? Is that okay? Is that permissible?
Caitlyn:And it's like, woah. We can make this really simple, you guys. Is it honest or is it not? Meaning, are you keeping secrets or are you telling the truth? Does your spouse know every single thing about you?
Caitlyn:If not, you're not living in radical honesty. And why is that so terrifying to people? Because you have to live with radical honesty with yourself first. You have to actually go, woah, all those things I've been running from, all those things I've been hiding, all those things I've been shoving under the rug, I've gotta see those now. And then I have to bring that to my spouse.
Caitlyn:It feels like almost a double whammy of pain. So it's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, Isn't it easier just to live with a little bit of not so much honesty? Isn't it actually easier? It's like, well, you can answer that own question for yourself. Does your life feel really easy right now?
Caitlyn:Does your life feel really good? Does your marriage feel like it's easy? Like, could any of you listening to this podcast describe your marriage as easy? So we can just go ahead and wipe that belief system out. Keeping secrets is not making your marriage easier.
Caitlyn:Keeping a little bit of hiddenness in your life is not making your marriage easier. You wouldn't be listening to this podcast if your marriage felt super thriving and super natural and super at peace and super easy. So it's so simple. We're like, Brandon and I was like, so we kind of feel like we're repeating ourselves a lot. It's like, yeah, we are because for some reason, radical honesty is such a countercultural thought.
Caitlyn:It's not really. Like I said, everyone would say they agree with it. But, yeah, when it comes to actually living it out, for some reason, it makes people start screaming and throwing names at us and telling us we're crazy and we don't have any degrees. And it's like, do I need a degree to tell you that being radical radically honest is beneficial? Go read books from people who have degrees.
Caitlyn:They all say the same thing as I'm saying, as we're saying, like, nobody that has a degree disagrees that radical honesty is beneficial.
Brandon:Or that the brain is neuroplastic. Exactly.
Caitlyn:All of these things are really not even arguable anymore. It's just when we try to get into the nuances of what does honesty mean, people try to add a lot of gray areas to it. And it's like, no, there's no gray area. It's just honesty or dishonesty. There's nothing in the middle, you guys.
Caitlyn:There's no like, oh, what is it? It's like honesty or dishonesty, which one is it? And the key to your healing is literally honesty. It's that simple. And I will say it and say it and say it over and over and over again because people will listen to all of our podcasts, join our communities, come to all of our events, and wait till the last minute on the last day to get radically honest because you have to hear it many many times to go, oh my gosh, wait, this is my path forward.
Brandon:Yeah. What's cool about honesty is you have to get clear on what it is you want. And what will happen is your eyes will be illuminated to everything that's not in alignment with that. And so the benefit though, when, once you say this is actually the life and the marriage we want to have, which will propel you into healing is actually looking at what do we want our connection to feel like? What do we want our sexuality to be like?
Brandon:What do want that connection, that safety to look like? And then you say, okay, that's been defined. Then you can look at all the ways that are not lining up with that. And then you just are honest with, wait, wait, this is what I want, but I've been actually living for a list of things or a list of habits that don't align with what I really want. And so honesty is only scary if you don't know what you want and you don't know what you're creating.
Brandon:So then you are just kind of like, well, I know this addiction thing creates pain. That's all I know. But if you knew that getting radically honest about the thoughts that went through your head, the actions you took with and nobody was aware of your wife wasn't aware of, or maybe she is aware of and you tried to convince her otherwise. But if you stop trying to pretend or protect the old paradigm, the old pattern, you could change your life really fast. So that's why we talk radical honesty is where you become aware of reality.
Brandon:You become aware of what is Yep. So that you can actually take big boy steps towards what you wanna create. So you have to get honest with what it is that you want. So that you can get honest with what currently doesn't align with that. So that's, that's one of the biggest things is actually having a vision for your future that will eradicate the addiction because it doesn't have space in your life because you know what you're headed towards.
Brandon:The other big piece was if you want to really understand and experience the freedom, have to look at the impact it's made on you and others. And I think that's again, a part of the piece of letting go of the denial is we try to tell ourselves that there wasn't that big of an impact. And I think for the person in addiction, they often don't realize what the addiction made them become. We know that the action itself was less than desired. We don't realize like, oh, made me passive.
Brandon:It made me anxious. It made me dishonest. And there's all these things that we became in the process. We're like, I don't like the person I became. And you have to really sit with the impact of that and say, is not serving me anymore.
Brandon:I thought this was my quick route to alleviating my pain. And all this did was make me a passive, dishonest, anxious person. Like, this isn't fun. I mean, I look at my wife and she's weeping and exhausted. So once you identify the impact, realize like this addiction, although it served as my best friend is really not my friend at all.
Caitlyn:Mhmm. Yeah. And with getting radically honest, you're gonna pair that with going through the four r's, which we aren't gonna do an in-depth teaching on in this episode because we've done that in many other episodes in the previous season. So again, if you haven't been following along, start at the beginning and go all the way through. And this is taught very thoroughly and very in-depth in our our couples app because it is a it's a formula or a framework, yet it's really always quite simple.
Caitlyn:It starts with being radically honest, and then it goes into, okay, now I'm going to rewire. It goes back to the brain being neuroplastic, meaning it's just simply moldable. It's like clay. I can take it in my hands and I can create whatever I want. You have to start with being honest because you have to get it all out on the table and then you can go through a process of rewiring, which we call through the four r's, a systematic approach through taking everything that you now brought into the light and going, okay, here's now how I'm gonna rewire this.
Caitlyn:Right? I'm gonna replace this with what I actually do want to put, shape, mold into my mind. Does it work? Absolutely. There's like tons of books people send to us nowadays like, have you guys read this book?
Caitlyn:It's like not the same exact thing that we teach but it'll be so similar to the four r's like, oh my gosh, there's all these like essentially really wise people out there that are saying the same thing. And I'm like, no, I haven't read that book. And I'm also not surprised.
Brandon:Yeah.
Caitlyn:Because of course, if our brain is moldable, and of course, if we are believers, which we are, and we believe in the love and power of Jesus, like, of course our brain can be molded into a free pure whole connected loving brain. Of course that can be created which impacts our soul, which impacts our self, our marriage, our life, everything about it. Right? So it's it's getting honest. Okay?
Caitlyn:This is where the polygraph leaves you is, first of you didn't get fully honest, but then you're not actually rewiring and recreating. Right? So when we actually begin to heal is when Brandon went, woah, I'm gonna get honest about everything. Everything. Like most people would go, woah, you were honest about that?
Caitlyn:Like that's so minute. That's so small. That's so teeny tiny. How would that ever have impacted your marriage? It's like, you guys, we only were able to create what we have now because we were honest about the teeniest, teeniest, teeniest, tiniest little things.
Brandon:I mean, imagine if every minute detail of your life got an upgrade.
Caitlyn:Right, exactly.
Brandon:What if instead of, you know, my wife and I are pretty connected, but when we go to have sex, I keep having these flashbacks to porn. Yep. What if when you and your wife went to go to have sex, you didn't have any flashbacks to anything?
Caitlyn:Exactly.
Brandon:You just were able to embrace your wife and be with her. So, think that's that's the kicker is, yeah, it's a lot of little things. Death by a thousand paper cuts, but it's like, let's stop dying to these little things of these little moments that rip us away from the intimacy we want to create.
Brandon:The final thing we want to give you guys, this is the sacred cow that most of you do not want to let go of. That's entertainment.
Brandon:A lot of you are going to turn this podcast off and you're going to find out what's on the late night news. You're going to pick up social media, which is how you found us. So I understand there's benefits in our media outlets. You're going to turn on a TV show. You're to watch a movie.
Brandon:When you are in an acute healing season, one of the ways that you can actually get traction is turning off all the noise is narrowing your focus and saying, you know what? I found a couple of things, whether that's this resource, a book, our community app. And you're like, I'm going to focus on this and we don't need you. We don't need it to be our thing, but if you're ready to focus on something, if you actually want to have capacity to implement it, removing entertainment because entertainment through media is simply pausing and probably diluting your ability to soften up, open up, get clear and get that mental capacity and emotional capacity to make real changes. Cause if we spend the last three hours of our day distracted, we don't have time left to change.
Brandon:It's like, I'm just thinking about what what's going on in Iran, what's going on here and what's going on there. I don't have time to think about the marriage I destroyed. So if you want things to get really quiet and you'll have to sit with yourself, I had to sit with myself. I got off all media. I turned off all the noise.
Brandon:I stopped checking the weather app. I had like 50 different places in the world. I checked the weather. I stopped consuming the news. I stopped consuming social media, YouTube podcasts.
Brandon:I just stopped everything and I started doing some emotional exercises. I later found embodiment exercises we encourage in our program. I got back in my body. I started understanding my story. Things got really loud that I tried to keep really quiet and I looked at them And there was no static on the radio.
Brandon:There was no noise that was preventing me from seeing anything anymore. There was no new input that was distorting my reality because I had turned off all entertainment. I had turned off all media. So if you're like, man, we've been stuck. I don't get it.
Brandon:Well, are you still watching three hours of Netflix? Right. Are you still scrolling on social media when you've got a workbook sitting on your desk that could help you get through this stage of healing? The tools might be already in your lap. The exercises might already be there, but you're not creating time for them.
Brandon:One of the biggest ways I actually wasn't going to go here, but entertainment was I tried to read the Bible to not do my work, to not do my healing work. I'm not saying don't read your Bible. I'm just saying, hey, if you've had your hour long devotional, switch it up and see if you can actually dive into your story, do your your sexual healing work. And if you want to add in your devotional, go for it. But don't keep hiding behind the noise of what you've always done without getting a result to change.
Caitlyn:Yeah. To summarize it, you can listen to this podcast and go, wow, that was really good. And if you don't actually make a change, then all it stays is really good, and your marriage is actually still suffering. So turn the podcast off, sign yourself out of all social media, take a TV off your wall, grab a journal, grab a pen, get radically honest, bring that to your spouse tonight, tell your spouse this is just the beginning and I'm gonna keep going until I see it all. And I'm gonna rewire this right now, even the teeniest of tiniest little things.
Caitlyn:When Brandon finally, this is what I was gonna When Brandon actually looks at all the teeny tiny things, he realized for his own self, woah. This is actually having a way larger impact than I had told myself in my head my whole life.
Brandon:Yeah.
Caitlyn:Because when you actually bring everything up and out and say it out loud, you go, woah, that's not really that teeny tiny, is it?
Brandon:Right.
Caitlyn:Oh, that's not really that minute, is it? It felt really minute in my head, but now that I'm saying it out loud, it's actually not that minute. And that's when you begin to heal, and you begin to rewire. You can use the four hour framework to literally replace and recreate a whole new mind. If you do that today, you begin that journey today, you will be a whole different person a month from now.
Caitlyn:You will be a completely transformed human in a completely new marriage a year from now. I can guarantee it because radical honesty will always lead to radical freedom.
Brandon:So why wait? Why wait? Man, I know we already shared halfway through the episode. My book's out.
Caitlyn:Yep.
Brandon:Would love to share that with you as a resource. You can preorder a copy at sevenstepsbook.com for the first few thousand, people that do pick up a copy. I'm gonna give you the audio book that I spent, like twenty hours reading the book. You get the audio book and a digital workbook. If you preorder a copy and that's coming out very soon.
Brandon:And then if you guys are enjoying the podcast, if you do us a favor and leave a review, screenshot your review and send it to support@groundedunion.com, and our team will send you an unreleased podcast episode on Intimacy After Betrayal. If you would like to begin working in our couples program, you can click the show notes below here to apply for a spot. We do weekly coaching, have all of our programs in there that will walk you through day by day, what you can do to begin implementing the things we talk about on the podcast. And for those of you that never come to an event, never come to the, our program, never get a book. I just want to thank you for investing your time and listening to the show.
Brandon:It means the world to us. I know what it's like to listen to a podcast and have the light bulbs go on. So may you get a return on your investment for the time you've invested. And if this has impacted you positively, please share it with a friend and leave a review so that we can reach more couples. We appreciate your support and thank you so much.
Brandon:We'll see you next week.