Leif continues his testimony about the fight against an addiction to pornography. He shares how that came to be, and some practical steps that were needed to start the fight. Part 2 of 3.
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TRANSCRIPT
INTRO
This is the BeLED Family Podcast.
LEIF
Do you fight this? You know, if you're in a battle but you have no battle plan, you have no armor, you're going to lose. And so what is your battle plan?
DANIEL
Welcome back to the BeLED Family Podcast. So glad that you have taken the time to listen to this week's episode of the BeLED Family Podcast. We're here to learn to become Light Entrusted Disciples. That God calls us to BeLight: know who you are in Jesus, BeEntrusted: what does he call us to do? and BeDisciples: with whom does he call us to live in community with?
DANIEL
We are back on this Part 2 of a series with Leif, talking about pornography and the hold that it had on his life. If you have not listened to Part 1 more of his testimony, I would encourage you to make sure that you go back and listen to that Part 1 before you come listen to this Part 2. Where we talk more about the counseling side. Leif, welcome back. How are you?
LEIF
I'm doing well. Thanks for having me back again, Daniel. Great.
DANIEL
I think the end of the last episode was so beautiful the way that you said it. But I do have a beef with you. You kind of avoided the last question we addressed at the end of the podcast. I asked the question, you know, what was the breaking point? What was it that finally broke you? And you to your credit, you said, “I'm going to go on a tangent” and I said, “go for it.” But Leif, let's start there. You and your wife knew that you needed more. How did you guys get there? What was the breaking point?
LEIF
Yeah, totally. So what led into my tangent and kind of what I was going off of was, throughout my life, I can still see how the Spirit was working. And so before my marriage, I mentioned this to my wife, and because of the denial, it was definitely minimized where I was truly at. But I did broach the topic with my wife as we were married. And, this started to creep back into our marriage. There again came a point where it just was so heavy on my heart, and I was just like, “I have to tell her, I have to tell her, I can't keep hiding.” And so I did early on in our marriage. But again, minimized, small, not the full true story, because I was still deceiving myself and in shame and denial. So moving from that point in our marriage, it was something that she would occasionally ask about. And I would just say, “yeah, I mean, it's not perfect, but I'm working on it.” You know, I just kind of blow it off, you know? Didn't want to totally lie, but it was a lie because I wasn't telling the truth.
DANIEL
Right.
LEIF
And so, that went on to finally again, now years into our marriage, and then finally again the Spirit just working in my heart and my life got to the point where it was just so heavy that I just had to tell her. And I was like, “I just have to be honest with you, here's what's going on.” And that was really hard because I'd been lying to her for years now. We'd been married, we'd gone through a lot. If you don't know my wife and I’s story, we went from 1 kid to 4 kids in about…
DANIEL
A second.
LEIF
Yeah, a little longer than that, but it was a few months.
LEIF
We had 4 kids under 2 in our house for a while, through foster care and pursuing adoption. And so we were just, we've been in the thick of it for a long time. We now have, 5 kids, 5 and under. So, 4 under 2 to 5, 5 and under and so we're still… So we were going through all this stuff and then to realize that my husband's been lying to me for years was hard. And so we we wrestled through that. I again reached out and pursued some accountability. But about a month later, it still wasn't any better, and I had to go back to my wife. And again, thankfully, the Spirit only let me go a month. But I went back and just said, “I'm still struggling.” And that was discouraging to her because it was, you know, just seemingly no growth in this hard area. And it got to the point where she just had to take some time, think about it, and just came back and said, “I think we need to seek some more professional help.” You know, the Spirit just laid it on her heart like, “we gotta do more.” And again, where the Spirit, I see his work in my life.
LEIF
A sense of humility, I guess, without sounding…. So it's hard to say, like, “yeah, I was humble.”
DANIEL
Right.
LEIF
While sounding like I was so not humble.
DANIEL
I will speak, Leif, knowing, being there, kind of walking with you through that journey, you exercised a lot of humility when it came to this.
LEIF
But just seeing that in my life. My life, and seeing that in my life and just saying, yeah, you know. Didn't fight, didn't push back and just said, “absolutely, like, let's do it.” I'd never thought about seeking any sort of professional help, but was like, “let's do it. I know I don't want this in my life.” And so I just started looking online. This was right at the beginning of Covid, and so things were shutting down. I knew it has to be Christ-centered, biblical counseling. I'm not going to seek some world-based help where there might be a lot of wisdom and help when it comes to battling addictions, but I know that this is a spiritual issue, and so I'm not going to come at it from any sort of teaching that isn't rooted and founded in the Bible.
DANIEL
It took you a while to find something like that, didn't it?
LEIF
It yeah, I mean, it took me a little while. I searched fairly diligently looking for it. I tried looking like, “hey, is there like some sort of…” I've heard of, like, Celebrate Recovery that some churches do, and looked into something like that. But again, because of Covid, it was harder to meet. And I was like, I want something that's super specific to, like, pornography and this, and not just a generalized addiction help. And so I was like, I want something specific. And as I looked into this, I realized I saw some people talking online like, “hey, we really recommend before you go seek couples counseling, like you need to do some individual counseling and get this figured out before you go try to figure stuff out as a couple.” And so I went back and I just told Dori, like, “hey, I think I need to find something by myself before we do anything.” And she was fine with that. I was like, “Yeah, that's fine. We just need to do something more.” like, “Yep, okay, perfect.” And so, looked on there and I found this online counseling group. I went to the website. It was very rooted in the Bible. It was group counseling. And so, the counselor, big fan of, just really into history, and so, like, Band of Brothers, if you've ever seen the show or are just familiar with that concept, kind of just themed it off of that, and knowing that this is a battle, the way we're going to do it is together, and we're going through the trenches.
LEIF
And so we are going to be a band of brothers as we battle this as a group and pursue righteousness. And so I was interested in it. People from all over the country just meet together over Zoom. And we would, it was this Zoom thing. And so they had this, you know, free assessment that you could go just meet with the counselor and kind of see, like, “hey, am I a good candidate for this? Does this make sense?” And so I scheduled that. And this is where, you know, seeing that denial, I knew it was an issue. I'm the one seeking counseling. I'm reaching out to him saying I need help. And I sit down and I share my story with them. And as I look back now, it was not in full detail. I'm sure I was still minimizing things, but I tried to be honest, you know, I shared more than I had. And he just listens and he's a very blunt sort of personality, which I loved, It was great for me. And he just said, “Oh yeah, you have a problem.” And it just felt like a punch in the gut.
DANIEL
Even though, you know, you have a problem.
LEIF
I know I have a problem. I'm reaching out to you saying, “please help me,” but just to hear a total stranger hear my story and say, “oh yeah, you got a problem,” was like, “oh my word, I do have a problem,” but like it just, kind of, it helped remove a little bit of the veil of denial of like, this is a big deal.
DANIEL
That's what I was going to ask, did it make it feel real? Like for the first time in your life, did you feel like, “oh my word, I've known it's a problem, but to hear someone else say it.”
LEIF
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And I mean, I knew it was a problem, it hurt whenever I shared it with my wife, you know, like it was hard because I could see the pain. That made it real in a different sense of, “I recognize that what I'm doing affects more than just me,” because I think that's a big lie that people fall into, especially with pornography. Is, “it’s just me. This doesn't affect anyone else, right?” Like, “I'm not even with another person. Somebody else seemingly agreed to do this, right? And so all I'm doing is watching. This doesn't hurt anyone. It just doesn't hurt anyone.” And I realized in my marriage, it does hurt other people, right? Obviously, my wife was hurt through this in a very small scale. And we can go into how, just, there's a lot of brokenness in that whole industry. But this was a different sort of realization of not just like, “hey, I'm hurting somebody.” This is somebody that was totally disconnected from the situation. Like, if I'm addicted to something or not. I mean, other than the fact that his desires for all to know the Lord and to find freedom, I mean, he doesn't care, right? Like it doesn't hurt him if I'm addicted to something, but for him to just look at me here, a little bit of my story and say, “oh yeah, you have a problem” was like, oh yeah, it made it real. It made it real.
DANIEL
Okay, so you start, obviously this is now it's real. Will you talk about the first few times that you started meeting? What was that like for you?
LEIF
Yeah, it was super intimidating. I was so nervous, because I had seeked accountability in the past. Seeked. I don't think that's even the word, sought, right?
DANIEL
Yeah, maybe.
LEIF
I sought…
DANIEL
Sought, we’ll go with sought.
LEIF
Sought, I sought accountability, now…
DANIEL
That’s a weird word.
LEIF
I don’t know. Now I don't know which one’s right. And my wife is probably shaking her head. If this makes it in the recording.
DANIEL
Oh, it will..
LEIF
Yeah, but I had pursued accountability in the past, but it wasn't ever such a public thing. People I don't know, you know, you're meeting on Zoom, so you're seeing each other's faces, knowing everyone's in the same boat. Maybe it looks a little different, but you're all there. And so it was super nerve-racking and just intimidating. But there was an excitement to it, because I'd never taken it so serious that I was just so excited and hopeful. I think that was some of the first hope that I felt was like, “I'm taking this seriously now. This is going to happen. I'm going to counseling. I'm with these other guys. I'm going to do it,” right? Like, “I'm fighting for this.” And it was a big commitment. I mean, counseling was… We met once a week for two hours and then, that was all together, and then a second time a week we would meet for about an hour, up to two hours, again broken down into smaller groups. As a group of about seven guys, so we'd meet about three and four, split up the second time.
LEIF
It required daily texts. There was homework, and like 12, 13 pages, like full pages of material to read through, questions, assignments to do that you had to pour time into. I was supposed to text people every day with a whole list of things that we would check in on. I was supposed to call people twice a week, like it was a big time commitment. I spent hours every week doing this. And so we, I mean, but my wife and I agreed, like, this is something that is worth pouring our time into. It also wasn't cheap. We had to pay every week for me to do this, and so, you know, our finances definitely took a hit as this is something that we're pouring money into, but realizing this is something…this is something worth pursuing. And so it felt like a big thing.
DANIEL
Did you? Okay, so things are going well, and I know that you've shared that with me in the past, that, you know, it was intense, but you and Dori, you were at the point financially to, just like, whatever it costs, whatever it takes, “yeah it takes a hit.” But the recognition that this sin really had a hold and you're like, “we'll do what it takes to get it off.” Did you in those first…? What kind of effect did the counseling, did the weekly check-ins, the biweekly check-ins have on you? Did it have an effect on you?
LEIF
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I mean, overall, I would say it's because of the counseling that I am where I am today. So overall huge effect right off the bat. Definitely a big effect because, kind of what I hinted at in the first one, it really just prepared me and helped me understand how do you fight this? You know, if you're in a battle, but you have no battle plan, you have no armor, you're going to lose. And so what? What is your battle plan? So there was that, but, again as I hinted at earlier, and I'll share a little bit more of my testimony here, when I had sought accountability in the past, I had this cycle of pursuing accountability, starting out sharing whatever – totally, totally open and honest, would make a little bit of progress, but then it would creep back in. And so, I would start minimizing, and I wouldn't share every time that I went back to it, because I just felt shame and discouragement for not making progress. And so instead of telling people, “hey, here's where I'm at and I'm struggling,” I would just tell them less of when I struggled. And so, it still felt like I was making progress to them, you know, because it was, “oh, it's getting fewer and farther between.”
DANIEL
And are you justifying in your mind, “Well, I'm confessing; I'm being honest; I'm telling the program, just not telling all of it.”?
LEIF
Yeah, yeah.
DANIEL
And that's what this addiction does.
LEIF
Yeah, absolutely. And so, that has always been what it was. And eventually you do that so much that there's no point in remaining in contact with your accountability person, because all you're doing is lying to them. And so, it just falls off.
DANIEL
And I suppose you and Dori felt like… How much was Dori aware that you weren't being honest?
LEIF
With her?
DANIEL
With your group.
LEIF
Yeah. Well, so it's, that was in the past. So then I was going to say this crept into this group, right? It started out same thing, started out great, excited sharing stuff, but as I struggled more, this same cycle began to creep in, and I started minimizing. And you justify everything, right? “Well, I didn't technically do that. I didn't technically look at pornography.” So, I don't have to confess. I can tell people, “hey, I'm struggling. I saw some things that were, you know, kind of arousing, but I, you know, it was stopped,” and, you know. All kind of true if you really stretch it and squint your eyes and look at it from the right angle, but by no means honesty and transparency.
DANIEL
Talk about that, Leif. Because to overcome sin, you know, the Scripture tells us, confess our sins and the Lord is faithful to forgive us our sins. In James, it tells us that the prayers…confess your sins to one another, because the prayers of a righteous man availeth much. So in order to be transparent, Leif, and be honest, you probably knew that that's what you need to do. Talk us through how you got to that point. How did you stop minimizing it, hiding it, not confessing at all? And when did you start going, okay, this is all of it.
LEIF
Yeah. It took a couple months in the counseling. We'd been meeting, well, it was a month or two, somewhere in there, and I'd been doing this every week, and it was just, again, right, starting to weigh on me. And I just knew I'm lying. I'm not telling the truth. And I just didn't know how to break that cycle. I'd never broken it before. Any time I'd gotten into that cycle, I just continued until I was so far gone I couldn't do anything. But in, again, I see the Spirit's work in my life. And so in remaining in this group, my counselor would talk about, “hey, I can't help liars.” He would say that. “If you're going to lie, there's nothing I can do for you.” And I would hear that, you know, I’d just feel sick. And there was another young man in our group that was lying, and we knew he was lying because somebody close to him kept sharing with the counselor, “Hey, he's not telling you the truth. Here's what's happening.” And so we were discussing that as a group, and it was just something we were talking about lying more and more.
LEIF
And I just knew I'm doing the same thing. I'm hiding. And one day, again, I don't know, other than the Spirit and just Him weighing on my heart and working on my heart, even while I was pursuing this, but still hiding. He's just on my heart. And one day we start off with check-ins and we just share about our week. And I was going into the check-in just planning to do the same thing. “Yeah, it's been pretty good.” Whatever. You know, same thing. And we just got to that day. And I was just sitting there and it got to be my turn. And it was just on my heart. And it just came out. I just told him, “I haven't been honest. Here's where I'm at.” And I share with them. And it was so hard. It was so hard. I felt like such a failure. I was emotional and I don't know that I took steps to get there. I mean, it was other than pursuing the Lord, pursuing the Lord with other people who just kept asking. And I was willing to be there. I didn't pull so far away that I wasn't in the presence of others that were truly pursuing the Lord as well. That finally, the Spirit's work in my life, I just I had to confess. And that was a tipping point for me because I had never broken that lying cycle in accountability. And from that point on, it was a change. It was different. I had to go back and tell my wife again, “Hey, I've been in counseling and I've been lying in counseling.”
DANIEL
Wow.
LEIF
And after I had already shared with her multiple times about the deceit in our marriage, it was hard for her and this again was so hard on her. My wife has gone through a lot being married to me, but to her credit, she has been so faithful and pursued the Lord and just pursued our marriage in terms of a biblical marriage that she has been so supportive and encouraging through the pain that we have gone through. But from that point on, it really was just this turning point of, “Hey, I've already lied, and I've told people that I've lied, so why in the world would I go back to lying?” And it was just kind of this, like finally this freedom to just share everything and just….
DANIEL
Is that the moment you finally felt like, “Okay, it's starting. This counseling is starting to have effect.” And at that point, it wasn't the counseling that was the problem, it was you not being honest with yourself, with the people that you were meeting with.
LEIF
Yeah, yeah. Looking back, I would say that is definitely the time. I think in the moment I didn't recognize it as much because I think it was just so heavy. Just wrestling through that. The fear of messing up again and just that desire never to go back to that, but the fear of slipping back into it. This hyper focus and sensitivity to honesty. Really, from that point on, is something that I wrestle with it to this day which is a good thing in some sense, I think. But to the point where I sometimes will overthink, like words that I say, you know, people are like, “Hey, you know, tell this person I said that.” I'm like, “I will.” I'm like, “Oh, but now if I don't, I lied to them,” and I'm like, “I'll try to.” You know, it's like, so…
DANIEL
Choose your words more carefully.
LEIF
Maybe a little bit too overthinking in that. But really to this point, my desire is for transparency, honesty to others and to myself, because I know how quickly I can deceive myself. And why am I saying yes to something or agreeing with something when? Is it just because I don't want to, you know, rub shoulders with someone or whatever? And so that was definitely a turning point. That really just allowed for growth in my life.
DANIEL
Okay. So, you know, thank you for sharing a lot of your testimony with us. I think a lot of us, I know for me, I'm blessed to just hear your testimony. I appreciate the honesty, the transparency that you have carefully spoken with. Now, let's turn to some more practical steps. You know, as we think about, you know, in your counseling, what were the principles, what were some of the things, what were some of the main keys for you? And obviously we're just scratching the surface. I know that you have your book here with on this podcast. I see it in front of my face right now. It's a solid three inches, if not four inches thick, full of papers.
LEIF
I don't even have all printed off. There was a lot of material we went through.
DANIEL
But what would you say for our listeners are some of the practical things that they need to be aware of to start this journey of overcoming pornography or other addictions?
LEIF
I'll walk you through just a little bit and I'll just touch on some of it. Not everything that we did, but kind of, some of the journey that we took through our counseling. So we kind of broke it up into three different phases. The first phase being attack access. So what you need to do is just remove your drug of choice, as it were. I'll tell people now, filtering is not going to change a heart issue. You can't filter away a sinful heart, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't add a lot of value. You know, we would talk about make your castle safe. You know, make your home, wherever you're at, a safe place that you know you can be, and it's going to be good.
LEIF
And my counselor gave the analogy of, like, if there's an alcoholic and he's in a room with alcohol all around him, eventually he's going to reach his hand out and grab a bottle. So you better get rid of all of it in that room with you. And so we did that. What are ways that you have access? And that's something that in this pursuit I have learned a lot, because throughout this, you know, there were still some filtering things that I had that I would try to get around. And I'd try to learn, you know, how can I…? You know, when you're desperate, you try stuff, and you're seeking, “Where are the weak spots? How can I get this?” You know, I'm desperate for my drug of choice, you know? And so you're this pursuit. And so taking that and trying to learn, “How do I cut that off?”
DANIEL
That's difficult, because even the world's absolute best filter, like you said, there are ways around it. And I'll be honest, parents that are listening to this. You can think that you've got the absolute top tier filter. Like we said earlier, pornography has a way of finding your child. Pornography has a way of finding you.
LEIF
Yeah, absolutely. And I think we're going to talk, maybe a little bit more about resources later. And, I will, at that point as well, offer myself up. But, I've got a lot of resources that I looked into to figure out, “How can I do this right?” So attacking that access was really the first step. “How do you cut that off?” Then we went through kind of this healing, like there are wounds in your life, you know, and some emotional, some physical. Everybody has a story of things that they've gone through. Kind of go through this healing process. Then we focused on pursuit of the Lord. And the last phase that we really went through was destiny.
LEIF
You know the Lord, “I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord.” Everybody on this earth, the Lord has a plan for you. He has a desire and a good work for you set out before you were born. And so pursuing, “What is that?” “What did the Lord make me for?” “What are the skills and the gifts that he gave me?” and “What are ways that he designed me to use those for his glory?” And so, amidst all of this as well, though, was the idea of, “Hey, you can't just cut something out, you got to replace it,” right? Because if you just remove it….
DANIEL
Leaves a void.
LEIF
It leaves a void that's going to come back. You know, I think of the Bible story where, you know, you remove the demon, but, he's going to come back with seven even stronger and bigger than he was, right? and reoccupy the empty space. So you're not just leaving an empty space. You are filling it, and you're filling it with good things. We spent a lot of time memorizing verses, creating plans for ourselves. I can see right here, I created my plan for purity, and I picked Bible verses to go with it. I picked, you know, things, “What am I saying no to?” “What am I truly?” “What's my plan to shut this down?” “How am I when I'm tempted?” “What's my plan there?” right? So we spent a lot of time understanding what is the cycle, what is this, right? And so realizing that idea of “it just happens,” it didn't just happen. There are so many steps and decisions and thoughts that lead up to the point of you seeking pornography, you having an affair, you getting to the point where you're taking drugs, like that doesn't just happen. And so starting to recognize, “Hey, it all starts with an itch” is the way we refer to it.
DANIEL
Mm-hmm.
LEIF
And so your itch, you know, it's a temptation, right? It can be something obvious. You know, you see something out there. You see an ad, there's a scene in a movie, you know, whatever, right? It can be something that obvious. It can be something as minor as, “I'm really tired,” “I'm feeling lonely,” “I'm stressed at work,” “I feel incapable at work, and I don't actually know what I'm doing.” You know, it can be any sort of insecurity, feeling, emotion, physical outside thing. And the itch in and of itself, temptation; temptation is not sinful and wrong. When Jesus was on the earth, we see him be tempted. Right? And so temptation is going to come. The question is, “What are you going to do with that itch?” You're going to scratch it, but you're going to scratch it in a good way, or you're going to scratch it in a bad way. And so, if you scratch in a bad way, you're going to start into the build-up stage of your cycle. And that's where you start pursuing it, whether you recognize it or not. And a lot of people don't recognize their itches. A lot of people don't recognize their build-up behaviors. Right? You might see something and then you're like, “Oh, wow, whatever, I'm just going to keep watching this movie,” “I'm going to go scroll social media.” Right? And truly, what you're doing at this point is, we call that hunting, right? And you're….
DANIEL
Without knowing that you're hunting.
LEIF
Yeah. Without knowing that you're hunting, you are. You are, you're on the hunt. You're seeking it, you know, and you might not even realize that you're doing it, because again, you're in denial. “That's not what you're doing. You just decided to do this. It's not even a big deal. Everybody looks at social media.” Right? But that's not what you're doing. And so you have to know, “What are my itches? What are my build-ups when I have those itches?” And every stage that you progress in here gets harder and harder to pull back from.
DANIEL
Sure.
LEIF
So if you don't know what your itches are, but you know what your build-ups are, that's good. You can start trying to stop it. But if you can learn what your itches are and have a plan for how to scratch those itches, you're in a really good spot. So we spend a lot of time talking about what are your itches and what are you going to do when those come up. And so learning about that, learning about ourselves and spending a lot of time talking about what that does.
LEIF
Another thing that we implemented, that again, he was a strong personality which I loved very much, and we talked about it. The Bible says, “cut your hand off and gouge your eye out, because it's better to go into the kingdom of heaven without a hand or an eye than to suffer in hell for eternity.” And so with that, one thing we talked about is tangible consequences, or TC's, as we would call them. Because we might know, I might know, “Hey, pornography is a sin, and if I choose a life of sin, and I don't pursue righteousness in the Lord, I can spend eternity in hell.” But that's so far off and it's so disconnected. When you act out with your drug of choice, you get a dopamine hit. There is an excitement and a pleasure that comes from that. And so, try as you might, the distant, disconnected idea of a negative consequence versus the very tangible present dopamine pleasurable feeling that you get, that one usually wins. Your instinct just…it's hard to rationalize, especially when your brain, gets into that rut of your typical thinking. You know, I've heard our our brains are very malleable. And it's kind of I've heard it described as like, ruts in a dirt road. The more that you allow a similar thought to run in your mind, the more of a rut it creates in your brain, and it's easy to slip back into the ruts, try as you might not to. It wants to pull you in, and you kind of get stuck in there. And so you have to battle to build new ruts. And that can be really hard to do, especially when the ruts are pleasurable.
LEIF
And so we introduced these things, tangible consequences, that were negative, very unpleasant, tangible consequences to our actions that we had to do within a very short period of time. And we did it for everything. You know, we would say, “Hey, I don't want to look at pornography.” “Okay, what's your tangible consequences if you do look at pornography?” Or even things like, you know, you let your yes be yes and your no be no. He wouldn't let us just say in counseling, “Oh, I really should read my Bible.” He's like, “No, if you're going to read your Bible more, tell us how much you're going to do it, and then next week we're going to ask you, and what's your consequence if you don't do it?” Sort of thing like, “Oh wow, if I say I'm going to go to the gym twice this week and then I don't, it's like, oops, I didn't go.” But if I say I'm going to go to the gym twice this week and I don't. And if I don't do it, I'm going to give everyone in group $50. I'm not spending $350 to not go to the gym.
DANIEL
Yeah.
LEIF
That's not worth it, you know? And so we would put these tangible consequences in to build this negative association to these habits. And so a couple of really popular ones were ice baths. Fill the tub up with cold water, dump a bunch of ice in there, and you have to go lay in there for five minutes. Let me tell you, it's awful. Cold showers, donating money to different charities. And then you had to show people that you did it. You know, you donate money, you send a picture of the receipt to the group, and it has to be within a short time frame because, again, if you let it get too disconnected from the event, you don't feel that pain, you know, it's whatever. And so tangible consequences was another thing we did. But like I said, scripture memorization, prayer, studying the word, pursuing healing were all things. We had our Rules of Recovery, and I won't go through all of them, but a couple of them. Rule of Recovery #1: stop lying.
DANIEL
That's what you had to deal with.
LEIF
Yeah, I mean, right there, that was, I struggled with Rule #1. You know, it's tell the truth. A choice to keep lying is a choice to remain in the fantasy world of denial. And God will not be mocked. Be sure your sins will find you out. Rule #2 is craving your drug? run away. Always respond to a mental or emotional craving with a physical response. Do not fight a thought or craving with thoughts. It's hard to just battle your thoughts with other thoughts. And so, you know, he would encourage us. Make a phone call, go for a walk, get up move around, go exercise and exercise hard. One of the verses that I picked for my purity plan, kind of my theme verse that I really enjoyed, it just really seemed to sum up this journey. One of the verses I picked was 2 Timothy chapter 2 verse 22, which is nice because there's a bunch 2’s so it's easy to remember, which says, “So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.” And I loved it because somebody summed it up. It tells you right there 3 action steps: you run from, you run to, and you run with.
DANIEL
Yeah.
LEIF
You don't do it alone. You're running away from your youthful passions. You are running to righteousness, faith, love and peace. And you run along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. So, run from, run to, run with.
DANIEL
As we come to the close of this part of our pornography series, you know, looking at your booklet right now, you've only literally scratched the surface. So just as a reminder for our audience, these are some initial things, and our goal with this was to kind of give you an initial like, “Yeah, those are more practical things that I could do,” but there's so much more that I know that if somebody is really, truly caught, trapped, ensnared by this sin that, you know, we both, Leif and I, would encourage you to seek you know, more help than just listening to this podcast.
DANIEL
This podcast isn't going to just solve it all, but hopefully can serve as a starter for you to be like, I do want to live. I want my life to be about Jesus, and I want it to be about him. And I don't want this addiction, this pornography, to hinder what Jesus wants to do in my life. And so I think that these are great first steps.
DANIEL
And I want our audience to recognize that, that there's more work to be done. Now Leif, you and I, in the next episode together, we're going to talk about some of the practical steps as parents, as fathers, that we can take as parents. What do we do to help our children? One thing that we want to mention is that if you're local to the La Crosse, Wisconsin area, that's where we're based.
DANIEL
We're going to have a BeLED Family Parent Forum Learning Community Event at my local home congregation. That date will be announced on social media at a time and place, and Leif is going to be there, and he's going to be willing to talk, answer questions that you might have, things that you have listened to this podcast like, “Oh, I'd like to know more about that.” Leif has demonstrated a willingness to be very open, transparent, and honest.
DANIEL
And he agreed to to sit down, and be on a panel with people that go, “You know what? Yeah, here's some more tips,” and answer your questions. And again, pay attention to our social media. If you want to travel to La Crosse, by all means please do that. We'd love to have you there. All that information is on our social media channels.
DANIEL
That's coming up probably in early part of November, shortly after these episodes conclude. But, Leif, I want to thank you for your time on this one. And I look forward to to visiting with you on the next one.
LEIF
Me too. Thank you, Daniel.
DANIEL
Thank you for listening to this week's BeLED Family Podcast episode. We appreciate you taking the time to tune in. Help us by sharing this podcast with your friends. Support the BeLED Podcast and BeLED Family by visiting us at our website, beledfamily.com, and follow us on Facebook and Instagram. As a reminder, the BeLED Family Podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended to substitute for professional advice. Until the next episode, BeLED in all that you do.
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