- Speaker #0
Hello and welcome to Stop Wasting Your Life, the podcast. I'm Ava Heimbach, your host and founder, and today I'm here with Nate Larkin, a former pastor and recovered sex and porn addict. Today we're going to talk about Nate's journey with being a pastor and dealing with this porn and sex addiction that he hid in silence and how he was eventually caught by his wife and that addiction was uncovered. And then his journey towards recovery and the life that followed. This podcast runs on your support. So if you enjoy listening, please, please, please consider donating or sponsoring us. You can go to our website at www.stopwastingyourlifepodcast.com and click on either the sponsor or donate tab. Just a reminder that I want everyone to know, and I'm going to remind you on every single episode, like I have been doing, but there is no right or wrong way to live your life. The definition of a fulfilling life is unique to each person. I'm not here to tell you how to live your life, but offer ideas, knowledge, and inspiration to help you create a life that you think is beautiful. Also, just a little heads up, this episode does contain explicit and sensitive conversations about sex, addiction, pornography, and infidelity. So while this is all shared with the intention of healing and hope, Some of this content may not be suitable for all listeners.
- Speaker #1
Welcome to Stop Wasting Your Life, the podcast that helps you break free from a life of self-doubt and distraction and inspires you to create a fulfilling and purposeful life.
- Speaker #0
Each week, we dive into actionable advice, meaningful conversation, and insightful interviews to empower you to prioritize your well-being, pursue your passions, and become the best version of yourself. It's time to stop wasting your life and start building one that you are excited to wake up to. Hello and welcome to Stop Wasting Your Life, the podcast. I'm Ava Heimbach, your host, and today we're here with Mr. Nate Larkin. Hi, Nate. Thank you. Hi. Well, today we're going to talk about escaping porn. and a sex addiction and shame. So my boyfriend actually came across you. I think I mentioned this to you when he was doing a devotional on the Bible app. And he reached out to me. He was like, I think this guy would be so cool. And I was like, I don't think this guy has any interest in talking on my podcast, but I'm going to reach out anyway. And here we are.
- Speaker #1
Wonderful.
- Speaker #0
I love it. I know. I told him when you responded, he was like, no way. I told you. I was like, okay, you can say you told me so. But before we begin, maybe just tell us a little bit about yourself.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, well, I am unexpectedly old. It happens so fast.
- Speaker #0
Darn, I hate when that happens.
- Speaker #1
So I'm a father and a grandfather, been married 47 years. And I am the founder of a group called the Samson Society, which is a mutual aid society for Christian men, men dealing with any kind of... unwanted behavior. And the unwanted behavior that got me into this way of life was actually porn and sex addiction. And I was intrigued by the title of your podcast, because if there's one thing I really regret, Ava, it's the years I gave to addiction. I got into porn long before it was free. These days, if you're paying for porn, you're doing it wrong. But I got into porn a long, long time ago. Well, long before the Internet and between and porn led me to prostitution. So between the two, I, you know, I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on this addiction. But I don't I don't even think about the money. Money is money. My great regret is that I spent my children's childhood. I spent 20 years of my life and my wife's life on an addiction. And and and making all the wrong moves to try to escape it. So I try the more I can anything I can do to help young guys find the exit long before I did. I want to do that. And not just young guys, by the way, young young girls, too, because porn use among women has escalated to the point where at this point, at least among black middle school and high school students, they're practically the same.
- Speaker #0
I did not know that. Wow.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, it's crazy.
- Speaker #0
What would you say was the main reason you didn't come out and talk about this?
- Speaker #1
Well, mainly because nobody talks about it. Also, I was raised in a very devout Christian home. in a highly moralistic strain of American evangelical Christianity, part of the holiness tradition, which has like no margin for error. This idea that once we have, you know, received the gift of salvation and the gift of, I don't know whether you're familiar with this tradition at all, but the baptism of the Holy Spirit, you now have not just the obligation, but the power to live a sinless life. So there's no excuse for sin. Right. And I was destined for the ministry from a very early age. My dad was a preacher. I had all the requisite skills. I was good at church from and I wasn't good at a lot of other things. I'm not an athletic kid. You know, I wasn't going to make it out there. But I could do it in church, man. I was a star in church. So I was headed for the ministry from an early age. I was the good Christian kid at school. my And interesting porn started early, but it was so diametrically opposed to my public persona. And what I was told was my obligation as the only Jesus people would ever meet that I had, you know, I, for Jesus sake, I had to keep up good appearances. So, right. I had to be a good, I had to maintain a good witness. That was my first responsibility. Don't, don't do anything that might bring shame on the name of Jesus. So when this interest appeared, quite naturally, I don't know how much you want me to go into it, Ava, but it started, I got my first look at porn. I think I was 11 years old. It was not longer after my mother had died. So I was in a very, very vulnerable emotional state. And I was also on the brink of puberty. So all the ingredients are there, you know, for this fascination, this interest now. And I was getting no information. We never talked about sex at church or at home ever. That sent a very powerful message. This ain't anything to talk about. And nobody warned me that porn even existed. So it took me completely by surprise. And it wasn't the kind of porn that, you know, unsupervised kids can find in five minutes today on the Internet. That's very, very, very powerful stuff. For me, it was a Playboy magazine. It was just still images, but still. very powerful. And I felt this instant, you know, I knew it was wrong. I didn't know why it was wrong. And today, you know, we can talk for hours about really what's so bad about porn, because it's not generally accepted in the culture anymore, even that it's porn. I believe that long term, it's very, very toxic, and not just to the performers, but to the users. And I think maybe it's most toxic property is this. Porn actually makes it possible for us to experience an imaginary connection with a virtual person or persons, which if we accept it at that very moment starts to erode our capacity to create and sustain a real relationship with a real person. So long-term porn use actually creates, causes an intimacy disorder. It even alters the brain. We can actually see it today on brain scans. The brain scans of porn users and cocaine users, for example, are virtually identical.
- Speaker #0
Really?
- Speaker #1
Oh, yeah, yeah. That's great. It hits these pleasures, the same pleasure centers in the brain that cocaine does. And at the same time. lowers the activity in the frontal lobe where critical thinking takes place and moral judgments are made. So it alters over time, it can alter personality, and it certainly reduces our capacity for empathy, our ability to connect emotionally, person to person, rather than body to body. And because that kind of connection is absolutely essential for relationship. Here's the ironic thing. Many of us go to porn because we're feeling lonely. We get this short term dose of dopamine. And for a moment, it seems as though through this imaginary connection that we have, you know, we're not quite alone. Of course, it's a trick, right? It bakes the brain out, but it leaves us lonelier than before and less equipped to actually connect with somebody else. So it's amazing now that as porn use ramps up, dating behavior changes radically. marriage rates changed dramatically, and even something as, well, practical as, well, I don't want to get too graphic here, but erectile dysfunction among men. I mean, just totally messed up as the arousal template has changed. So that among young men, the rate of erectile dysfunction among young men, which historically has always been for those men between 18 and 35, has been. 2% now is at 30% and rising. Wow. And it has to do with porn. And we turn this loving, connecting act that's supposed to really, I mean, it's such a nurturing thing when we can actually be there emotionally, turns it into a performance. And I'm just talking, I'll tell you what, I'm fortunate enough, I got into recovery and got help. Well, let me see. I got help in 1998. We formed the Samson Society in 2004. My book, Samson and the Pirate Monks, came out in 2007, February 2007. Oh, three months later, the iPhone was introduced. No, iPhone came out in June. Three months later, Pornhub launched, then the iPhone. Pornhub in March of 2007, the iPhone, June of 2007. And then 2012, Tinder. And now, oh man, did that spark a whole different thing. I am so grateful that I got help and found the door and got out before hookup apps hit. Yeah. Wow. Whole new world. And now with AI. Oh my God. Now with virtual girlfriends and boyfriends and these, you know, these bots that can just make you feel so loved and cared about.
- Speaker #0
So how did your own understanding of intimacy change personally?
- Speaker #1
Yeah. How did it change? Slowly and painfully. I think a lot of us, you know, we see a problem and we want an instant solution. There is a solution. But recovery is a healing process. I made the mistake initially of thinking it was just a repenting process, right? So it's all about repentance. And yes, it begins with repentance. I quit porn countless times, just couldn't stay stopped because beyond repentance, now there is some healing that has to take place, some growth and some learning because this addictive behavior, this compulsive behavior, over time we learn, we learn this workaround for uncomfortable feelings. We find a way to get, you know, to escape what we don't want to feel. And then it becomes routine. And then it becomes automated. Now we do it subconsciously. The process begins before we're even aware we've done it, right? Right? It becomes this automatic thing. So we need intervention. We need company. We need help. Nobody can recover alone. Probably the biggest mistake that I made early in recovery when I walked into my I'd been married 20 years when my wife caught me. And by the way, four out of five guys who seek help for sexually compulsive behavior only do so after receiving an ultimatum from a wife or a girlfriend. Yeah. So I'm one of the four. Okay. My wife saved my life the day she said, I'm done. Because she was the only friend I had, for God's sake. And it was in a desperate, desperate bid. to salvage that relationship that I finally went to my first, I first found recovery in 12-step recovery. So I went to a 12-step meeting for sex addicts. Now, there was no way in the world I wanted to join this group, right? They had a terrible name, Sexaholics Recovery Anonymous. It's awful. And I'm thinking, this is a bunch of perverts. And I don't want to associate with these people, right? I'd been, I had a master's degree in God. I'd been a pastor. I had a spotless reputation. My wife was the only one who'd ever caught me. So I was going to do recovery by independent study. You know, so I'm kind of a short, you know, I'm a fairly smart guy. I'm going to sit in the back and listen closely. I'm going to get the books and read them all. And I'm going to master the material and then figure this out, take the exam and get the diploma and then go on and forget that this sad chapter of my life has ever happened. I was not looking for friends, which is why I just floundered. I slipped like a champ for almost three years. It took enough failure. for me to finally accept the fact that nobody can recover alone. And I had this, as a Christian, I had this relationship with Jesus that I'd had since I was a kid, but I had interpreted it as, you know, it's a personal relationship with Jesus. That's what I was told. And it is, it's personal, but I had interpreted it as a private one. Okay. So for all these years, I'd been screaming at God, you know, take me away or deliver me from this thing, right? I want a private solution to my private problem, and I don't want anybody else to be involved. That's a major mistake. I was asking him for something he's not interested in giving me. Because, well, God had, I believe that Jesus actually does offer a personal relationship to everyone who follows him, but he hasn't. ever offered anybody a private one. He first said, follow me to two guys, not just one, and quickly added 10 more to them. And then he had those guys follow him around together for a couple of years as he taught them that the most important thing is to love each other. So I believe he came not just to reconcile us to God, he came to reconcile us to each other. He came to reconstitute the family of God. That's what it's all about. It's all about relationship. And so this me and Jesus religion of mine didn't work. It didn't. It didn't. And I did. But it was mostly shame that kept me isolated. I was obsessed with my guilt. I felt so, so, so guilty. But I was oblivious, really, to my shame. And really, when you go to the Bible, shame is a much bigger issue than guilt. Right. So, you know, so guilt. is the awareness that I've done something wrong. Shame is this feeling that I am somehow wrong. And it's this feeling that if I am ever seen, I will be rejected. Shame makes me hide. And it was shame more than anything else. Shame and pride. You know, I had a reputation to protect and this deep conviction that if anybody ever saw who I really am and how deeply broken and flawed and weak and foolish I really am. that they would run and I would be alone. Here's, I can tell, I can tell the world this right now. I have more friends now, now that I have no secrets. I have more friends than I could ever imagine that I would have.
- Speaker #0
And they're not- Why do you think that is?
- Speaker #1
They're not surface friends. Well, for a lot of them, it's because I'm the safest guy they know. People tell me things now they never told me when I was a pastor, all bright and shiny with all the right answers. The guy who had his life together. Right. So I don't have to pretend around people and people don't have to pretend around me.
- Speaker #0
You became more of a real person.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think a little bit less impressed with myself, a little more aware of my weaknesses and vulnerabilities and my desperate need really to have other. people in my life. And that's a gift. And it's a kind of gift that'll actually change you. My wife actually will say today that she's been married to two guys named Nate Larkin. And as tough as the first 20 years were, she'd take them again in a heartbeat to get what we have today, right? And if the only way to get here was through addiction, then the addiction was actually worth it.
- Speaker #0
What do you think it was about the addiction that made your marriage now so much stronger?
- Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah. Well, I'll tell you what, it was, you know, we fell very, very deeply in love early on. We connected. It was a lot of trauma bonding. Allie and I both have trauma stories, and we could sense each other's pain. And I just absolutely adored her from the moment. And we were very, very, very tight. And here's one thing I can say about us. We've always been friends. And unlike some other couples where, you know, they have the capacity to say cruel things to one another when they get angry. Allie has never said a cruel thing to me, and I've never intentionally said a cruel thing to her. So we had that foundation, at least. But once I got hooked on hardcore porn, and ironically, it was actually while we were in seminary that I encountered. hardcore porn for the first time. Up until then, it had been magazines, still images. I saw it for the first time in a peep show booth in Times Square. On a field trip sponsored by the seminary and a group called Women Against Pornography, the idea of the trip was that it was going to show us how women are exploited by the sex business. And we could bring our spouses. I brought Allie. My thought was, if I can just see how terrible porn is, if I can get a peek behind the curtain, I'm a good guy. I don't want to see anybody hurt. If I can see how bad it is, I'll stop. But what I didn't understand is how much more powerful those moving images are than the still images that I've been using up until that point. Because film is immersive, actually reaches a part of the brain that has a hard time distinguishing between real experience and virtual experience. And man, it just hooked me deep, deep in a way that I did not expect. Yes, initially I felt. But at the same time, one part of me knew, hey, this is all a con. Another part of me far below that was a lonely part of me, I think, a fearful part of me, that part of me that dreads abandonment, that shame part of me, that shameful part of me. Right. Once I discovered that, I began, I wasn't aware of it at the time, but. I was actually bonding with phantoms, you know, at the point of climax. And so my arousal template is being reset to these images I'm seeing on screen. And at the moment of climax, my brain is not just dumping dopamine into the system, but it's also dumping something called oxytocin, which is the bonding chemical, the same hormone that's released, for example, in skin-to-skin contact. really released during breastfeeding, helps the bonding between mother and child. It's also released at that moment of climax, but with a couple, it helps connect. It's a bonding thing. Well, now I'm bonding with phantoms, right? And my ability to be actually emotionally, not just physically, but emotionally present with my wife in moments of so-called intimacy is being eroded. And it gets to the point where I'm turning that into some kind of a performance. And Ali said, although we never talk about it, she knows I'm somewhere else. She knows she's someone else, right? It's not actually connection. And that's kind of this pollution, this perversion that pornography introduces into what should be this sacred union of man and woman, husband and wife. Now, there's good news. The good news is this, Ava. God gave us this amazing self-healing brain. And yes, we do form these strong neural pathways with this habituated behavior. But with help, we can abandon those pathways and build new ones. And it is possible for us to reset the arousal template. It is possible for us to experience. Real presence and real connection, deep connection with another person so that when it comes, you know, on the honeymoon, I'm not with a cast of thousands, but I can be with the person God gave me to be with. I have the joy now of being able to experience, you know, I won't go as far as to say that I've experienced, you know, sex in all its intended purity, but I've got I've experienced, you know. the original, you know, organic, non-toxic. And it's freaking wonderful. It's orders of magnitude more satisfying than what I settled for. One of my great regrets is I spent so many years and so much money and so much time on bad sex.
- Speaker #0
So how long was it until your wife or did she have any idea what was going on?
- Speaker #1
Oh, man, I'm a good liar. I'm a really, really good liar. She saw me drifting away, and she knew something was wrong. She thought it was her. That sounded like a good explanation to me. I went with that. Now, there was a point. There was a point. We'd been married four or five years. We were in Florida. I went to this men's retreat. There was a priest there who talked about his recovery from porn addiction. I'd never heard the word porn said in church before. I was waiting for the building to collapse. Right. But it didn't. And I was so inspired by what this guy said that when I got back to our little apartment, I. I took Allie into the bedroom and I told her what I'd been doing. And my wife, Allie, by the way, is 10 years older than I am. She's an old hippie. She'd been stoned for 10 years. She'd gotten, she'd become a Christian and just not long before I met her, she'd been around the block. So she wasn't about to, she wasn't about to, you know, welcome porn into the house or approve issues or anything like that. Not at all. But. She was understanding and she thanked me and she said, I'm sorry that you didn't think you could tell me this. I'm sorry you thought you had to hide it. Whenever you feel tempted, you can tell me. Well, I thought this is the perfect solution now. Nobody else has to know. It's just her. Right. And so I have this perfect reputation of everybody else. I'll just tell her. What I didn't understand was that she'd actually volunteered for. A project she wasn't fully equipped for because while she was willing to hear that I found some other woman attractive, she was never able to hear that confession completely objectively. It always seemed to point out some defect on her part. Right? I could tell it hurt her. And it hurt like hell to tell her. It was humiliating. So eventually I stopped telling her. She figured that's because we'd made it through the white water. It was, you know, it was done. And I allowed her to think that for years and years following. So we'd been married 20 years when she caught me, first with porn. But by then it had escalated. Because here's what I didn't recognize. I didn't recognize that once I got into watching the hardcore porn, every time I went into. a peep show booth. Today, you don't have to do that. Just pull out your phone, but the same deal. And you just don't have to feed quarters into your phone. It was like I was sitting in a simulator. So now porn was grooming me, was programming me, was setting me up for the next step. Now, I fought it and I kept looking for the private solution, right? And several times, I thought I'd found it, thought I'd found the silver bullet, the right devotional. routine, the right sequence of thoughts and actions that would make it possible for me to finally overcome this compulsion on my own. And it was actually during one of those periods where I thought I had it licked that I found the courage to plant a church in South Florida. And I was sure that once I was a pastor, there's no way in the world I'm ever going back to porn. But already by this time, porn had become my default distress management strategy. So whenever I was in distress, that's what I went to. And church, I don't know if you know this or not, church can be stressful. So it wasn't too long after we started the church that I was back in the soup. That was very, very, very discouraging. Right? But what I told myself then was, well... Or it may not be the best thing in the world, but it's better than cheating on your wife. In fact, you're probably being pretty considerate, not burdening her with all your sexual needs. You know, we're having babies now. She's got other stuff to do. She just doesn't need to know how considerate you're being and just be careful. So I was very careful. I was never caught. But now Orrin is grooming me. It's programming me. It's setting me up. So three and a half years into ministry. Ironically, it happened on a Christmas Eve. I was on my way into Fort Lauderdale to get things set up for a candlelight service. I was by myself. I pulled over to offer a woman a ride out of the rain. I didn't know what she was up to until she was in the car and propositioning me. And that's when the programming kicked in. Because I had seen some version of that scenario countless times. I just went full automatic. See, so that was just awful. Bartomey said, maybe this is good. I've always heard you have to hit bottom to stop. Surely this is bottom. I'm done. But what I found was that once I had crossed that line, I couldn't get back. And it wasn't too long after that first encounter that I was out cruising now, looking for somebody to pick up on the strip in Fort Lauderdale. I was very careful, never caught, but I couldn't. Now I couldn't even look at myself in the mirror. So much self-hatred, so much disgust, so much shame. I really thought at that point that I could shame my way out of it.
- Speaker #0
That's crazy to think you can shame your way out of shame-based behavior. But I thought that if I could hate myself or hate my sin enough, I could stop. I just could never hit bottom. So a little over a year later, I quit the ministry in despair. I just, I couldn't do it anymore. Still hadn't been caught. Went into business where I had the great misfortune to actually succeed. So now for the very first time, I have money and no accountability. And what followed then was a very, very, very dark dozen years. But I never missed church, Ava. I never missed church. I love church. I love who I can be at church. It killed me that I couldn't be that guy for very long outside the building. You know, I brought my best self to church. I didn't bring my real self to church. I brought my best self to church, some version of myself, a version of myself. that these days I refer to as Saint Nate. And what I now understand is that, you know, while Saint Nate had this great reputation, Jesus never loved Saint Nate, never even liked him, because he didn't make him. I made him. Jesus loves me. So every time he invited me, I just sent Saint Nate crazy. Now I know I can bring my own real. broken, messed up, confused, foolish self. And I'm always welcome.
- Speaker #1
When you talk about your brain being programmed, what do you mean by that?
- Speaker #0
Yeah, well, you know, our brain is programmed for efficiency. Think about learning to drive. It took a lot of work to learn to drive because it was all new. It was, I remember the first time I drove around the block. my dad in the seat beside me. I was shaken by the time we got back to the house. All my muscles working at once. I didn't know what to do, right? But after a while, I caught on, and then it got to the point where I could drive without thinking. I could drive while doing 10 other things. That's what the brain does. It automates repetitive and familiar behaviors. So if I encounter a... painful emotion or a trauma. Really, all addiction is rooted in trauma. So this is, and the trauma can be either some big thing that happens that I cannot control, an assault of some kind, this sudden loss, right? Or equally damaging, it can be neglect, emotional neglect, which is really more my story. I do have some physical abuse in my story, but mostly deep emotional neglect from parents who loved me, but did not know how to connect emotionally. Right. So this feeling that I'm alone. So now this is an overwhelming feeling. I don't know what to do with it. I have to find, I have to find a workaround. I'm going to just kind of take this feeling and put it away someplace. By the way, it never completely goes away. If you want to read a fascinating book, if you haven't yet read Bessel van der Kolk's, The Body Keeps the Score. You definitely, yeah.
- Speaker #1
It's a good book. I haven't read it. Yeah,
- Speaker #0
yeah, yeah. These memories, these memories stored, these traumas stored throughout the body, they're there and they're going to make their presence known whether I'm aware of it or not. But if I can find a workaround, some mood altering, mind altering substance or activity that can distract me from this pain and allow me to keep functioning, I'm going to take it. Now, I found porn. Before I found porn, I just found books. Before I found dirty books, I found books. I disappeared into, I was a, this might have been a telltale sign that I might have been in some trouble. I was a voracious reader as a kid. I actually read out the school library, then the town library. I had my nose in the book all the time. I got a lot of applause for being a bookworm, but I was in books because the real world was too painful.
- Speaker #1
Mm hmm.
- Speaker #0
Right. I didn't know how to be in the world. And then when fantasy became sexual fantasy, it became supercharged. Right. So when but I can find my way around those feelings with with food, I can find my way around those feelings with self harm. Self harm can actually be comfort if I'm in control of the pain. It can be with work. It can be with rage. Maybe my way is just to go ballistic. Now I can distract myself from every other feeling, and I'm going to drive people away to a safe distance. Now my life is manageable. Well, once we find something that works, the first time we do it, if it succeeds, the brain kind of tags that and says, this worked once, it might work again. It's like this little thread that's formed, making it ever so much more likely that I'm going to repeat the behavior. If I repeat it, that's strengthened again. If I do it enough times, the brain then... automates the sequence, just like learning to drive or learning to walk or learning to ride a bike. Now I don't even have to think about it. It happens. Now the only way it's ever going to change is I have to become aware of the sequence again. And it's probably going to take other people to help me see it. And I'm going to need some intervention. I'm going to need some help. I'm not going to get out of this by myself. But that's the great thing. The great gift of addiction is that recovery, the great gift of addiction is recovery. And if we enter recovery, we are forced back into relationship. We're forced to rely on other people to start to trust other people. I have friends today, not because I wanted them. I really didn't, but I needed them. And now I don't know what I'd do without them. My life is so rich now, but I only got here out of desperation.
- Speaker #1
And the thing that you would say was the thing that made you decide that you really had to figure this out was your wife saying she was done?
- Speaker #0
That's it. She saved my life. She said, I'm done. She said, I remember it like it was yesterday. She said, I still love you, but I don't like you. I don't trust you. I don't respect you. And I don't think you can ever change. And I want to tell you, it took some time to reestablish trust.
- Speaker #1
What did that rebuilding of trust look like?
- Speaker #0
Oh, man. Well, I slept in a closet for a couple of years. I'll tell you that. I went to recovery meetings. I started to do the work. She was civil. But I remember one time, I remember not long, you know. Tell her, I'm going to meetings. I'm going to get help. Yeah, that's interesting. You know, she wasn't having it. I remember walking into the kitchen one day and I said, honey, and she just turned on me. She had this look on her face. She said, do not call me honey. She said, I don't know whether you remember or not, but I actually have a name. My name is Allie. It's not sweetie. It's not honey. If you want to talk to me, you will address me by my name. My name is Ellie. Wow. But I had so depersonalized her, right? So for both of us, I think part of it was we were close, but we were almost initially completely enmeshed, too close. So for us, in order to get closer, we first had to individuate. So there was a time when she was doing our work. I was doing my work. And we were, we weren't unkind to each other, but we were sleeping separate. We were, and then I remember I was, I was in a 12-step program and I was, I was on step four. So step four is what they call the fearless moral inventory, right? So I'm working, I asked Galli to come sit with me on the front porch. I explained to her what I'm doing. I said, I have to list my character defects. I wonder if you can help me.
- Speaker #1
I put her glasses on. She was like, let's do it.
- Speaker #0
And at first, it felt to her like an ambush because I'd always been a counterpuncher. You know, I really would come back hard. I had such a thin skin, so sensitive to criticism that when she suggested that I was doing something wrong, I was just... I couldn't take it. If we were driving down the road and she would go, that's our exit coming up. I'd get offended. Like she doesn't know. She thinks I don't know. That's my, you know, my exit. I'm the all knowing, you know, that thing. I was that thin skinned. Right. So she just very kind of cautiously suggested a possible character defect. And I wrote it down and thanked her. And then. She got pretty enthusiastic about the program. But that's when I think she started to see a change in me. Right. Because I'd always projected this air of moral and intellectual superiority. This I was to talk about mansplaining. I would be the I would be like the. In fact, later on, Ali would say, you know what? More than your sexual unfaithfulness. What hurt me most during those first 20 years was the condescending way you treated me. And I didn't see it. I didn't see it. I needed to become right-sized. And the great gift of recovery is that we get, we learn to become right-sized, find our place in the universe, neither above nor below the common run of humanity. Just a man among men, right? Just another bozo on the bus.
- Speaker #1
So what would you say to someone who finds themselves in the position that you were in?
- Speaker #0
Yeah. Don't waste your life. Seriously. Addiction, I don't care what you're addicted to, but it just consumes your life. Minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, week by week, year by year. And you don't even notice that it's taking what it's taken until the years are gone. If I can get those 20 years back. I'd do it in a heartbeat. So I was the founder of a group for men called the Samson Society. And when it started, I thought you had to be at least 42 to join because that's how old I was. I thought you had to be old enough and have experienced enough loss to be desperate enough to come for help. Today, we have online meetings. And we'd have at least one newcomer meeting every day. And I do a couple of the newcomer meetings each week. And what I'm loving, what I'm seeing is more and more young men showing up, showing up at the age I wish I had shown up. Of course, to give myself a little bit of a break, it really didn't exist when I was 21. There wasn't any place for me to go that I knew of. There wasn't even SA. There wasn't 12-step recovery for sex addicts when I got. introduced. But now there's help. There's lots of help. There's no reason not to go for help. There's growing numbers of skilled sex addiction therapists, certified sex addiction therapists, 12-step groups, support groups, Christian groups, you know, mainstream groups. Just don't try to solve it on your own. If you're inspired by a young man or a young woman. is inspired by hearing this. And I want to reiterate, this is not just a male problem. This is increasingly a human problem. And I'm encountering more and more girls and women who have been taken hostage by addiction to porn, and it's crippling their ability to have a fulfilling relationship. So whether you're male or female, if you've heard this, you're inspired to do something. Yeah, if you want to pick up a copy of Samson and the Pirate Monks, you'll find it helpful, but no book is going to fix it. You have to find somebody trustworthy to tell, and you should find somebody experienced in recovery who can help you find the exit and help you find that better life.
- Speaker #1
With the Samson Society, is there a place where someone would be able to find maybe that person that could kind of mentor them?
- Speaker #0
Yeah, absolutely. In Samson, part of our program, we say that you start going to meetings and then you find yourself a Silas. So what we say in Samson is everybody needs a Silas. Everybody can be a Silas. So in our understanding, Christianity is actually a team sport, not an individual event. OK, you start going to meetings. Before you know it, you're going to have a team. If you're talking and listening, you're going to have people who know you, love you, care about you, will tell you the truth. People will be there for you. But you always need to have a lead guy on your team. So, and you pick that guy, the guy you relate to, the guy you trust. It's good if he has more experience than you, but it's not even necessary because we actually trust in the unseen presence. We trust that Jesus actually was telling the truth when he said, whenever there's two or three of you together, I'll be there. So if you're having daily interactions. honest conversations with another person. You're bringing your real self and saying the real truth and you're doing it in an attitude of faith. Our experience is change comes, healing comes. The Bible tells us that when we confess our sins to one another and pray for one another, we find healing. That's how it happens. And so Samson is one place you can do that.
- Speaker #1
That's so cool. I will definitely have to check that out because I know a lot of young men who would need that.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, pretty much all, pretty much all.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. So you kind of answered this, but I'm going to ask it again. But. What does a life of meaning and purpose look like to you?
- Speaker #0
Yeah. Well, here's what I know. I have this wonderful freedom today, but it's a fragile freedom. You know, I wanted God to give me a lifetime supply of this freedom, but he only delivers it a day at a time. And I've got to be humble enough to go out every day and pick it up. And the only way I can keep it really is to give it away. So for me, a life of purpose is to help as many people as I can help. Well, realistically, actually, my one of the things that I've had to come to terms with is my capacity is limited. I can't indulge, you know, this Messiah complex that I have. But I am Silas right now to five guys and I do two newcomer meetings a week. My primary job is to love my wife and I've got kids and grandkids. But to live a life of service that isn't focused on me is tremendously fulfilling. And what I'm discovering is that. The ripples go wide. I don't have to try to make a big splash. But if I can make a splash, you know, in my world and trust, if I could just serve the people that God brings into my path, which is why when I got a request from you, it was an automatic yes. Okay. That's kind of how I function. So I just trust behind you and behind me, God's got something going on.
- Speaker #1
Well, Mr. Larkin, you might be one of the coolest people I've ever met.
- Speaker #0
Oh, so nice of you to say.
- Speaker #1
Well, thank you so much for letting me talk to you and have this conversation. It was so wonderful to meet you. And what you're doing is absolutely amazing. And there's such a need for it.
- Speaker #0
Thank you very much for the opportunity. It was wonderful. I hope your podcast finds a great audience.
- Speaker #1
Well, that concludes our episode. I really hope you guys enjoyed our conversation with Nate. And I can't wait to talk to you next week. Thanks for listening to today's episode of Stop Wasting Your Life. We hope that you are feeling motivated to take charge of your future and start living with purpose, intention, and authenticity. If you enjoyed today's conversation, be sure to leave us a good review, give us a follow, and subscribe to our newsletter. For more information, go to www.stopwastingyourlifepodcast.com and we will see you next week.
