How do you help someone tell their spouse
that they have secretly been viewing pornography?
Wow. These are tough situations.
Thankfully, one of my favorite and most effective
therapists, Jeff Struer, put together a presentation about
disclosing betrayal.
Jeff explains how disclosing betrayal can make recovery
and repentance
so much more difficult if it isn't handled
correctly.
This isn't a rip the band aid off
quickly type of situation.
With a better understanding of betrayal, church leaders
can be a strong resource
in helping couples navigate the awful effects of
pornography usage.
You can watch Jeff's entire presentation at no
cost in the Liberating Saints virtual library. Simply
go to leadingsaints.org/fourteen,
and you can sign up for fourteen days
of free access to Jeff's presentation
and the entire library. It's one of my
favorite interviews.
The following episode is a throwback episode, one
that was published previously and was extremely popular.
To see the details of when this was
originally published, see the show notes. Enjoy this
throwback episode.
So you're checking us out as maybe a
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Here we go.
I'm here with Mike Hoteling.
How are you, Mike? I'm great. I'm glad
and terrified to be here.
Now tell set the scene here. Like, this
is
an atypical,
setting for the podcast I usually record. Where
are we at and and what are we
doing here? We are just outside of Wanship,
Utah
at Big Canyon Ranch at a men's Warrior
Heart Boot Camp retreat. And this is the
most beautiful place in the world, and we're
surrounded by 12 of the most beautiful men
in the world. That's right. We have a
a live studio audience. Everybody make noise and
say hi.
Right. Wow. That sounded like almost 24, man.
You know, that was good.
So, yeah, we've we've promoted these these boot
camps on the the podcast, and many many
men are here because of some of those
podcasts, the promotions we've done. And, you know,
what what would you say, Mike? You're you're
currently serving as a bishop,
Latter day Saints.
Here you are. What why should people check
this out? I wish I could bring my
entire YSA award here, male to the boot
camps and females to the heart of a
woman. Yeah. This is the real deal. It
doesn't substitute for anything that we already believe
in the church. It doesn't conflict with anything.
It, helps me helped me and helps us
to see
another side of God that maybe we didn't
learn growing up and maybe we weren't taught
exactly this way in the church.
Yeah. There's there's there's beauty in sort of
stepping back and maybe taking a different perspective.
Right? We That's right. I speak I speak
Spanish, and there's nothing wrong with being bilingual
spiritually as well. And so being able to
see God in this way,
it's a beautiful thing. Yeah. For sure. It's
helpful. So if if people are listening, wanna
check it out, I've done a few episodes
on it. They're the one that comes to
mind is if you search on leadingsaints.org
for title is is elders quorum working? And
we interview,
Steve Shields,
James,
a lot of the presenters here and people
who are involved, and they can give you
a better idea. Some of the boot camp
heroes. That's right. Then go to awarriorheart.com
to get all the details, and hopefully, we'll
see him at a future one.
Don't delay. Next one, I think, is in
November 2021. Don't miss the opportunity. That's right.
That's right. Well, I wanted to while you're
up here, you're originally you live in Georgia.
You're not originally from there, but you live
in Georgia. Yeah. We've been in Georgia a
little over over thirty years, south just South
of Atlanta.
Was an air I was born in Utah,
raised in Seattle, Washington, and, we my wife
and I, after we married, moved, lived five
years in Seattle, and then we've been in
Atlanta for over thirty years, raised our family
there. Nice. And you're currently serving as YSA
Bishop. Yeah. Right? Tell us about the area,
like that sort of thing. Yeah. We do
not have a college or university that brings
kids to us. Rather, we're like a local
ward that we serve two stakes,
two family steaks.
And and so our kids come. We have
more in the summer than we do in
the wintertime.
And we'll have 70 or 80 kids attend
every Sunday in the summertime.
And, it drops off a little in the
fall as they're going off back to school,
and then it picks back up in the
in the summer. That's cool. So it's a
beautiful area, super green. Georgia is a very,
very pretty state. So you cover two stakes,
but you are you're under the direction of
one of those stake presidents. Right? Correct. Do
you want me to name names of, of
the stakes? Does it matter? Oh, whatever. Okay.
Yeah. Well, I'm the Fayetteville, Georgia YSA Ward.
We're in the Fayetteville, Georgia Stake, but we
cover also most of the Newnan, Georgia Stake,
which was just created less than a year
ago. Yeah. So we've gotten to know each
other, just the various boot camps we've been
at together. And, I've learned a little bit
about your story, not completely, but we got
to drive up here.
And I heard you reached out to me
last few weeks, run on and shared with
me that you'd recently been called as a
bishop. And And I know you have an
interesting past. Maybe. Maybe.
I don't know if I would say atypical
or different, but we're all on a journey
of redemption and sinning
and turning towards Christ. But sometimes we stigmatize
some of those paths. Sometimes they think, yeah,
Christ, he heals all and forgiveness
is real. But maybe certain people shouldn't end
up in high profile
influential callings.
But I really want to tear that stigma
down because I've met so many people who
I thought, you know, even people who've lost
their membership or their membership been removed, they've
come back. And I think, man,
nobody better would be a bishop than, you
know, I could list
the names of men like that. And,
a lot of times that's not, that's not
an option or it isn't. We don't let
it be an option. So let's go back
to the beginning of your story.
Where does it begin? What's what was the
moment? Well, I would remind
the listeners that, you should never trust a
skinny cook.
And, so I would never trust a a
too holy bishop. That's, that's what I'll say.
None of what I say is a is
about
blame.
I'm gonna talk about my parents a little
bit and how that created some wounds in
me growing up and what that did to
me and how I reacted, and they're still
alive. This is not to blame them. They
were good people that did the best they
could, but it wasn't enough.
And that's probably God's plan is that we
have imperfect people around us so that we
will seek him and and not seek them.
But as I identify my wounds, it's it's
not to blame anybody. It's just so that
I could identify them, examine them, and actually
have more love and compassion for them than
I did in the midst of my afflictions,
if you will. Yeah. You know that I
appreciate you mentioning that because
it's you know, there are there are some
tragedies out there. There are some abusive parents,
some people that really made some spiritual wounds
that
I mean, nobody would get out of some
of those relationships without spiritual wounds. A lot
of times, it's the wounds of mortality. People
doing the with their best intentions,
help trying to help somebody, and they end
up, you know, maybe take pushing someone the
the direction they didn't mean to push them.
Yeah. Yeah. Everybody's got problems, and we inflict
those on everybody around us. And and the
job is is, not to blame anybody, but
to understand them, and only then can we
process them, I think, and move forward. So
as a young kid,
we I was born in Provo, Utah. We
moved to Seattle when I was about six
years old.
There was a lot of stress and confusion
and chaos in our home.
A lot going on between mom and dad.
Dad, in in the mid sixties, like 1965
or so, he was a 100,000
miler for United Airlines,
which today is nothing, but that was a
big deal in the mid sixties. He traveled
a lot. He was gone a lot. And
and so he was absent. So mom raised
six kids.
And I think that in dad's absence, mom
tried to create
strong emotional bonds to get support from us
kids.
There was no sexual abuse or or beatings
or anything like that, but I think there
was an emotional
incest is the way that I describe it.
Yeah. And that's a I mean, that's a
clinical term, is it? I mean, the therapist
will use that. I've I've read one book
about it. Nobody's nobody's told me that or
diagnosed me with it. That's my self diagnosis.
And it's sort of a shocking term, but
basically mean that your mother was turning to
you for that
emotional
support that she needed and didn't get in
in the in the relationship there. Yeah.
So from the outside, six kids, we were
good looking and smart and talented, and and
we were pretty normal or or maybe
normal plus from the outside.
But at home, there was a lot of
turmoil. And,
there was there was a lot of I
mean, from the outside looking in, pretty traditional
Latter day Absolutely. Absolutely. Church every Sunday, everybody
doing what they're supposed to do for the
most part. Yeah.
Nobody went to jail. So
Yeah, anyway. But internally, I didn't know how
to handle these emotional difficulties and these triggers.
It was hard. And so at a very
young age,
began to isolate, feel shame over not being
proud of who I was and who they
were and stuff. And about ten years old,
a friend showed me a Playboy magazine
that was the greatest thing I'd ever seen.
For me, it was like snorting cocaine instantly.
I was hooked. I knew that I'd do
whatever it took for as long as it
took me to continue to get that feeling.
I know that not everybody that drinks becomes
an alcoholic and not everybody that looks at
porn Right. Becomes a porn addict, but for
me, it was instant. I at 10 I'm
10 years old. I'm a cub scout, you
know? Yeah. And,
I have no idea what's happening to me.
Yeah.
So
I used to visit a friend and we'd
ride through the woods and under a log
was hidden a Tide box, and I've I
discovered there was a stash of Playboy magazines.
You didn't know whose it was? It was
just there? Yeah. It was just there. He
found it, showed me, and and so I
visit the Tidebox
often. And my shame got deeper and deeper,
and it increased. And and then doing the
addiction became a way to escape the shame.
So I don't know, you know, which comes
first, the chicken or the egg? Is it
shame or or the addiction? But, boy, they
they cohabitate, and they they really promote each
other. And talk talk me through that that
initial shame, like, because you were hearing were
you hearing messages at church, like, you shouldn't
look at these things, but you were drawn
to it? Like, it wasn't that Oh, absolutely.
It was it was forbidden. It was the
wrong thing to do.
I I was confused because I had friends,
and I used to babysit for some leaders,
and I would see Playboy magazines in in
their home. And I was confused about some
of this, but I knew that it was
wrong, that I wasn't supposed to be doing
it. Yeah. Yeah. And it's more of the,
that you knew it was wrong, but you
wanted it so bad. Right? Absolutely. Oh, yeah.
That's where the shame just Oh, yeah. I
was I was out of control. Again, I
started at 10 years old. There was I
didn't know what to do. I was I
could not regulate my emotions or my desires
at that point. Yeah. Wow. So that continued,
and I remember about 14 years old, I
was reading a TV guide. You remember those?
Yeah. Remember, I'm born in 1958,
so
it's early 70s. I'm about 14. I'm reading
a TV guide about some rock star and
he's describing his heroin addiction, the addiction cycle,
the guilt, the craving,
and the acting out. And I realized by
reading his heroin story, I am addicted to
pornography.
And that word had never been put to
it to me. And I should say, in
the Sinai on '14,
my being ordained a deacon was delayed to
give me time to repent. Like, being I
was open with my bishops. Being ordained a
teacher,
a priest, even an elder
was delayed in order to give me Was
it hard for you the first time to
to open up or and share that with
your bishop? Or did you share it with
your parents? Or didn't talk about I got
caught by my parents a time or two
over the years, but I didn't share it
with them. No. But I was pretty open
with my bishop. I wanted help, and I
didn't know what the source was. And, of
course, good bishops,
all they could say at the time was,
oh, well, just stop doing that, and then
your depression will go away. Oh, just stop
doing that, and you'll feel better about yourself.
Oh, just stop doing that. Like as if
the porn was the source. Exactly. Like, porn
was the source. Like, that was the problem.
And, of course, that's one of the things
I've come to learn is porn is not
the issue. Porn is a symptom. You know?
They may like it stimulate that the addiction
cycle to keep going. Right? Right. But so
I thought, well, duh, Bishop. I've I never
thought of not doing that anymore. You know?
Every day. Gee, what a good idea. That's
a novel idea. Yeah. So And this is
back in the in the early sixties? Yeah.
Yeah. So late sixties, early sixties. I mean,
I bet most bishops just I mean, there's
nothing, no perspective. I mean, people aren't openly
talking about this stuff. There's no discussion, the
idea of quote addiction. It was just, it
was just weakness. It was just bad habits.
It was just,
you know, compulsive behavior maybe, but there was
no real discussion of addiction in conference or
in church meetings or anything like that. And
again, going back to the best intentions, your
bishops, so good people. Oh, yeah. Great people.
And I love them. And they they they
give the best guidance they had, but it
wasn't
good enough.
Yeah. So
So you did my mission. Yeah. So you
get up to your mission. Everything just gets
pushed back. Everything's gonna be in the basement.
My mission call. I screwed up again shortly
after I had my mission call before I
was supposed to report. Went to talk to
the bishop. He called the stake president. They
called Salt Lake. Well, if he can just
hang on and tell you reports to the
MTC, we'll still let him go. And so
I go on my mission and And where'd
you go? Argentina. Cortoba, Argentina.
Best mission in the world. Awesome. Had a
great mission president, great companions,
and stayed clean for most of my mission,
probably twenty months. Yeah. And then in the
end, fail on my mission. And for me
When you say stay clean, what do you
mean with pornography or masturbation? I didn't seek
pornography. I didn't masturbate. Yep. And and so
I
but then having that occur again at the
end of my mission, then that made my
entire mission a failure for me.
Increase the shame. Increase the the Man, you
just hear the adversary's message in that. Right?
Like, the rest of the twenty months,
flush it down the toilet. Right? Doesn't count.
Yeah. That's how powerful shame is. Oh, yeah.
Absolutely. None of that counted. And part of
that's, you know, our LDS culture and our
misunderstanding
of, you know, all the sins return if
we go back to our that's not what
that means. But but I didn't know that
at the time. Yeah. So I came home.
I remember even telling the mission prep I
mean, I came home one time, but I
remember telling the mission president, I'm not even
gonna ask you for a temp recommend. And
I I told him what I'd done, and
and he said, well, that's up to you.
And,
so I come home. My shame's deeper than
ever. And my You can't even keep it
together when you're a missionary. Right? Like, that's
the shame I'm just saying. Really, really be
a bad person. And see, that's the message
I'm getting all through these first twenty, twenty
one years of my life is that everybody
else is normal. I'm the only one that's
suffering these things. If, you know, the classic,
if you knew who I was, you couldn't
love me. I'm a terrible person. I must
be like the Jews that spat on Christ.
I'm the whitest sepulcher with the the the
bones inside and the rotting flesh. I sting.
I'm horrible. Mhmm. And and nobody else is
like this. And if they knew who I
was, they couldn't love me. Yeah. And I
discovered I didn't love myself. I figured I
must hate the savior. I figured he must
hate me. Why else would I do this
if I wasn't one of those that would
have, you know,
mocked him and stuff? Because I felt like
I was mocking. Right. Yeah. I mean, man,
I shouldn't do this, and I know I
shouldn't, but I still return to it. It's
like I'm slapping him in the face. Right?
Right. Right. It's kinda
like, Mark Twain said, it's easy to quit
smoking. I've done it hundreds of times. Right.
You know, so I I had quit, pornography
hundreds of times. I swore it'd be the
last I even had a a well meaning
home teacher say, have you ever asked the
Lord that if you ever did it again
that he would take your life? Oh, wow.
Okay. That was unhelpful.
But
Again, best intentions somewhere. Right. I guess. No.
No. Absolutely.
And, again, I and I never wanted I
never tried or wanted to commit suicide, but
there were many times when I did wish
I was dead. I would just wish I
didn't have to deal with it. Yeah. Couldn't
do it. So I had bishops tell me,
hey. No problem. Once you get married, you
can have real sex, and pornography won't be
an attraction. And then later after marriage, had
a stake present trying to work with us
saying that, well, if you had sex every
day with Andrea, your wife would that would
solve it. Right? Again, best intentions, but no
clue about what's going on. Yeah.
So we got engaged, and
then
my problem surfaced again. You know, I'd gone
months and months without, and then my problem
surfaced again because it was never solved. Yeah.
Yeah. Right. And and did you discuss it
with your wife before you got married? Well,
we delayed our marriage.
So more delays? I call yep. More delays.
Life's on hold. So I call I was
I was scheduled to go visit her at
Thanksgiving. We were supposed to get married in
December. I was living out west. She was
in North Carolina.
And I called on the phone, canceled you
know, it was pre cell phone, so I
couldn't text her the cancellation of our wedding.
So
I called her and said, hey, it's just
not gonna work. Talk to you when I
get there.
Again, more shame, more embarrassment. And so when
I got to her over Thanksgiving, then we
sat and talked, and I told her everything.
Told her everything that I knew about it.
She and I agreed with the bishop that
once we got married, it wouldn't be a
problem. Right? Yeah. Because why would you want
pornography if you had real sex? And we
had no idea. But so we reset a
date and and
delayed a couple of months and got married,
the February.
And and life was life was gonna be
good. I was gonna be normal then. Mhmm.
You're free. I was free. It was over.
I came to see my life, and then,
of course, that wasn't true because
pornography has nothing to do with sex.
Non addicts won't understand that, but the best
analogy I've come up with over the years
is that
porn has no more to do with sex
than alcoholism
has to do with thirst.
An alcoholic does not drink because he's thirsty.
He drinks because he has underlying issues. And
a porn addict doesn't look at porn because
he needs more sex or needs better sex
or needs a different kind of sex or
needs other sex partners. A porn addict looks
at sex for the same reason that an
alcoholic drinks, and that's because of unmet needs.
I had a counselor tell me twenty years
ago before I was ready to hear it
that he only knew of two ways this
illustrates that point. He only knew of two
ways to
get rid of an addiction, and one was
to trade it for another addiction. Mhmm. He
said, we see that a lot. I don't
recommend it.
But the other way was to honestly work
a 12 step program.
And it was through that and that kind
of that analogy that and it's true.
Different addictions have different consequences.
Mhmm.
Addictions are the same whether it's cutting, porn,
anger, gambling, hair pulling, having to be right,
porn. It doesn't matter. Alcohol, drugs,
it doesn't matter what the addiction is. The
root cause and the root solution is the
same
even though consequences
are different sometimes.
Yeah. Wow. So,
how soon after your marriage did you realize
maybe you had some slip ups or whatever?
Did you think, oh, wow, this didn't go
away? You know, I don't remember exactly, but
it it would have only been a couple
months. Yeah. And and terrible shame, of course,
associated with that. I confessed
multiple times to my wife through the years.
She also caught me a couple of times
through the years. I've
left a magazine around or something stupid like
that.
And
she says, I think you wanted to get
caught. And maybe I did, but I still
wasn't ready
to
be healed. I
didn't understand the difference between
sobriety and recovery. I thought that, you know,
sobriety, just not doing it, is what I
was after. And I didn't realize that there
was healing
and healing and recovery available to me. I
thought all there was was maybe sobriety. And
that's really the pitfall,
especially as a church leader. You can get
so much in that effort of, well, let's
just get the behavior under control. Right. And
then then we'll worry about the healing or
or once the behavior is going, like your
Bishop said earlier, that's the that's doing the
the hurting, so Be clean for a month,
be clean for three months, and then we'll
go. But you've never resolved the wounds and
the hurting that was underneath in the first
place. My shame was never addressed.
My fears were never addressed.
All these years,
I'm 62 now and I'm still just a
little boy that wants to be loved. Yeah.
I wanted some control. I wanted some love.
I wanted
I wanted to be accepted.
And porn, any addiction gives you a certain
amount of control, a certain amount, you know,
if I'm depressed, I can elevate my mood.
If if my mood if I'm too high,
you know, high in a mood, I can
suppress my mood. You know, addiction does that
for you. We do addictions because
for a very short period of time, they
work. And you don't have to look at
the the wounding that's happened in your life,
the spiritual spiritual wounding or the hurt Right.
When you can just
control that and numb out. Right? Or whether
that numbing means bringing you up or or
the numb numbing means bringing you down. Right.
Right. And every time you do it, of
course, then you're creating new wounds for yourself,
and you're creating new guilt, a new shame,
and and it just keeps kind of going.
So in this I mean, you talked you
mentioned before you record the the thirty eight
year journey. I mean, is that I mean,
just sort of this cycle, whether sometimes it
was a really short cycle, maybe other times
it was a longer cycle, but nonetheless, the
cycle was happening for those thirty days. It
was always there. Yeah. It was always there.
If you'd if you'd offered me a thousand
dollars to
abstain for x period of time, I probably
would have failed
the day before or whatever because deadlines, pressures,
you
know, those are all artificial things. They have
nothing to do with healing and recovery. They
only have to do with artificial sobriety. Mhmm.
And not doing it is not the same
as being healed and being in recovery. So
at what point did you and may I
don't know if this is the next sort
of step in your recovery, but when did
you turn to the 12 steps? I don't
know. At that time, was the church did
the church have their formal 12 step program?
They had they had just started it. About
fifteen, sixteen years ago from now, I kinda
hit a rock bottom. I was in a
community play, and I had to kiss this
girl on stage, and I started kissing her
off stage trying to figure out what would
be the next step. How do I how
do I pursue that? Yeah. And then about
the same time, three o'clock in the morning,
one morning, my wife came down to the
basement. You know, we had a two story
house plus a basement, and she made her
way down to the basement about three in
the morning and caught me on the computer
looking at porn. Mhmm.
And,
she said,
fight a baseball bat right now, you'd be
dead. Mhmm.
And she made me call my snake president
the next morning. We're pretty good friends with
him. He was an ex marine colonel.
And my priesthood leader said That is a
fun guy to call. Right? Yeah.
He
said, damn you, Mike Hotaling.
You're gonna ruin a perfectly good family.
I'm too mad to talk to you right
now. Mhmm. Click. So that was the love
I got from my first priesthood call.
And then that was a Saturday. And then
the next day, Sunday, I went and talked
to my bishop. And I So at this
point, what makes this rock bottom? Because your
your wife had caught you before. Right? Yes.
Yeah. Not in the act. But but she
had yes. But she found evidence of it
before, and I had confessed over time to
her before. What made it rock bottom is
I realized that
she said that God woke her up and
said, go check on Mike.
That seemed terribly unfair to me. I mean,
it sounds ridiculous to say it that way.
But if God's on her side, how am
I ever gonna be able to keep doing
this?
You know? Yeah. Because because the whole point
is isolation and secrecy. And, you know, they
say in AA that you're only as sick
as your secrets.
And obviously, I would act out for a
time and confess to her and a bishop,
and act out for a time and confess
to her and a bishop and that kind
of thing. So but what made this different
was I realized in the bottom of my
very soul that I couldn't hide anymore. That
if God's gonna wake her up at 03:00
in the morning, then maybe next time he'll
wake her up at 04:00 in the morning
or 02:00 in the morning. The gig was
up. It was The gig's over, and there's
no there's no hiding anymore. And when you
say rock bottom, was it just,
like, then it was it, like, well, then
how will I numb out from these feelings
or anything? There's a lot of panic about
that. Okay. Now what do I do? That
was how I coped. Now how do I
cope? What do I do? And
and I was also frightened that I'd come
so close to
an affair, you know, and and I was
trying to figure out how does that work.
I don't even know how to how to
start all that. You know? Yeah. But I
guess I had started it. But And at
this time, when you say, you know, how
do I cope? I mean, were you aware
of some of these,
this, trauma and spiritual wounding and
or that you've had or, like Not really.
You didn't know what you were coping from?
No. I just figured that I was evil
and bad, and and I I no, I
didn't. I couldn't identify it. You just knew,
like, I just need this. I don't exactly
know why. Right. But I've tried life not
going to this, and that doesn't work for
some reason. Right. And for a short period
of time, I can stay away from it,
but I have to have it. So
the gigs up, you know that that's not
going to be an option anymore. It's going
to be a lot more difficult. And so
then you're thinking, I don't know why I
need it, but I need it now. I
don't know how I'm gonna get it. And
how am I gonna get it?
Well, when I go and talk to the
bishop, he immediately release releases me. I was
I was the gospel doctrine teacher of our
ward, and I was a good teacher. I
was a great teacher. And and here's the
funny part. I knew the whole time, I
knew the gospel was true, and I knew
that the church was the vehicle for bringing
the gospel to people with ordinances and covenants
and and correct teachings.
But I had come to believe that the
gospel was true for you
and you and you and you and you.
And there's, like, this big umbrella,
I like to say it, where everybody that's
protected by the atonement is sitting under the
umbrella. But I'm way over there and I'm
so far away. I can't even see the
umbrella anymore.
So I hoped that it would work for
my wife. I hoped that it would work
for my kids. I loved them dearly. I
knew it was right. I knew it was
true, but
I couldn't do anything about it. I couldn't
live it. I tried. I'd failed.
I'd spat on the savior too many
times, and I so I couldn't do it.
Yeah. So, I mean, how I mean So
Here we are at rock bottoms. Like, how
long does this last? I mean, when did
hope even begin to sparkle? That day, the
Bishop said, there's a new thing in our
stake. Would you do one thing for me?
And I said, I'll I'll try something for
you, but not for me, but I'm I
can't do it. I don't care anymore. I
mean, I care, but I can't do anything
about it. I don't care. And he said,
well, they've started a 12 step program. It's
based on steps of AA. It's called ARP.
They meet Saturday over in the Newnan Building
at 09:00.
Would you please just attend one meeting? And
what year was this roughly?
Fifteen years ago. 1414
fifteen years ago. So do the math. I
went to a public school. Yeah. Okay. So
yeah. So about 2,000 yeah. Six or seven.
Okay. And brand new ARP in our state.
So I agreed to go. And but again,
I said I have no hope. I have
no
reason to believe it's gonna work, but I'll
do it for you.
So I show up Saturday morning,
ten to nine.
Nobody comes, not even the group leader. Like,
you were at the church building by yourself?
I'm at the church building. I'm sitting in
the park lot. I'm waiting. That's hopeful. That's
great. I'm going, well, dang. Okay. I guess
it's not really a thing. But I'd I'd
agreed with him that I would go to
one. So the next Saturday, I went back,
09:00 in the morning. It was just me
and the group leader. And I don't even
remember what step we were on. I as
I recall, it was eight or nine, you
know, one of the more difficult steps maybe,
but it didn't matter. I felt I'd lived
in darkness so long and without hope for
so long
that the feeling, the best way I can
describe it, is though a spider were were
on the ceiling above me, and he was
just dropping a tiny, tiny, tiny web
of hope, and it just came down, and
it touched my leg. Oh. And so this
tiniest
connection to hope, I hadn't felt that in
decades. And you knew it was gonna lift
you, but it was hope still. You know,
it was beginning. It was it was hope,
and it touched me.
And
so my heart was stirred. I knew there
was something there. And so I began
to take seriously ARP, take seriously the 12
steps, and do as that counselor had recommended
so many years ago, only two ways to
get rid of an addiction, either swap it
for another or honestly work a 12 step
program. So I began to work the program.
And it probably took me a total of
maybe,
gosh, two years to actually achieve sobriety because
in that process, I wasn't after sobriety, I
was learning that what I was after was
recovery and healing.
And I knew it wouldn't be enough to
just,
attend and underline some good things in the
ARP book.
But I began to really dig into 12
steps in recovery. I read the AA big
book,
the the essay white book, the you know,
I I read
tales, stories of other people who have been
in addiction and got out. An essay is
sex sexual Sexoholic sounds. Sexoholic sounds. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
And I got pretty regular with my ARP
meetings and began doing the work, and
and I realized there was truth there.
And and I felt things that I hadn't
felt for many, many years. But like I
said, it wasn't instant, and and that was
frustrating.
I mean, in the LDS culture, we I
repented.
I'm done. I wanna move on. Yeah. I
don't wanna be with the other people under
the umbrella. I'm right. That's right. I wanna
go get back in the umbrella.
And and I don't wanna stay here in
in trying to repent
for very long.
And that's what I see in the 12
steps now is a lot of people will
come in and they'll dip their toe and
then they go, okay, that's good. I got
that. I understand that. And then they leave
and that's that's not recovery. It's not necessarily
a class. It's really a lifestyle. Right? It
should never be called a class. It should
be called a lifestyle
and it's not a twelve week program. It's
not something you graduate from. It's a 12
step program. And if you do it right,
it'll probably take you years to really work
the program. Yeah. Yeah. Did you, during this
time, I mean, as you're sort of coming
out and discovering this hope, were you receiving
professional therapy in these I mean, because I
had some counseling from all these social services.
Some of it was very valuable.
Some was less valuable, but part of that
has to do with where I was at.
One thing that I did notice during that
time was all the attention was paid to
me by the counselors and by the bishop.
Not enough attention was paid to my wife,
who really was the innocent victim in all
this. So let's give Mike a blessing. Let's
give Mike an interview. Let's have see how
Mike's doing. And that's one thing I counsel
other leaders now to please pay attention to
the spouses and to the children. They are
truly the innocents.
And in a real way, the victim, excuse
me, the addict is also
an innocent victim
of those wounds, etcetera. But but we don't
pay enough attention, I don't think, to the
spouse.
So what's the next step? What do you
start the start doing this years and years?
Do the twist? Yeah.
I eventually got called as a group leader
after I had about a year's sobriety or
so. I used to mark my sobriety in
days and weeks. Did I tell you that
already? Not on the recording. So go for
it. Yeah. You know, a twenty four hour
coin like they do in AA and a
and a one week and a month and
a you know, and I'm buying myself these
coins because we don't really have that tradition
in the ARP world and and a one
year and then a two year coin. And
and they were valuable to me. They were
important.
But
after several years, I quit carrying those coins
and all I carry now is a one
day at a time coin.
Because while I was trying to mark my
progress,
I realized that kind of like stop doing
it for thirty days and we'll ordain you
a deacon. Stop doing it for ninety days
and we'll ordain you an elder.
I realized that marking time was less helpful
than I wanted it to be. And that
I was living in the future, when I
get a year I can do this, when
I get ten years I can do this.
And in reality what I needed was to
stay sober today. And I tell you in
those early days, you know, we talk about
seeking recovery and healing,
but white knuckling and some of those
tools are still important.
There were days when I would say, you
know what? Tomorrow I'm gonna look for the
best and the greatest porn I've ever seen.
Tomorrow, I will do that. I will act
out tomorrow. I'll start early in the morning
and I'll go till late at night and
I won't stop till I'm satisfied.
But for today, for right now, just gonna
hang on right now. And so it's not
all, you know, puppies and and rainbows. I'm
in recovery, and I'm learning new tools, and
I'm never tempted again.
That's not how it was for me.
So you have to pick up every tool
that you encounter along the way. If you
listen to a podcast and some part of
it applies, grab that, put that tool in
your, you know, that arrow in your quiver.
That wasn't helpful to me. That part, well,
good. Great. Don't pick that up. But actually,
you probably should pick it up because you
may end up using it later. Yeah.
So every single tool along the way was
helpful, including sometimes you just have to white
knuckle through it. That is not a solution,
but it's a tool. Yeah. I'm glad you
mentioned that because sometimes we sort of dismiss
the white knuckling. It is definitely not a
long term plan. Correct.
It's it's not gonna work. But there are
those moments where you think, you know, okay.
I'll do that tomorrow, but today, I'm not
gonna do that. Exactly. And I literally said
that to myself tomorrow. Tool, right, not a
strategy. That's right. Yeah. That's right. There are
some other strategies I learned along the way.
One fellow teaches
face it, replace it, connect,
where you instead
of cringing when you see a a billboard
that's tempting or something or a magazine article
that's a picture that's tempting, instead of turning
away and cringing,
just face it. Recognize,
oh, man. She's beautiful. I'm attracted to that.
And so you face it, and you're not
afraid of it. It has it it loses
some of its power over you. And then
you replace it with truth.
You know what? She's not mine. It's somebody's
daughter. It's somebody's
wife. It's somebody's sister. It's God's daughter.
So I face it instead of running from
it. I replace it with truth, and then
I connect, pick up the phone and call
somebody. And when I have to talk about
my temptation, hey, Kurt. It's killing me. I'm
dying. I just say, hey, Kurt. How was
your fishing expedition this morning? Just connect with
somebody. Yeah. So that was a tool that
I learned that helped me too. Yeah. You
know, that connection part. Yeah. We always wanna
just take those first two and say, like,
okay. I'll do those, but because I can
do those on my own
and, you know, but to reach out, like,
that's hard. But man, when you do it,
it's just it's amazing how effective it is.
Right? It matters. And you don't have to
reach out and connect necessarily over the temptation.
I'm dying here. I just saw, you know,
this and that, and I can't take it.
I can see that. And you might. Right?
And I might. I might. But what I
really need to connect is just with another
person. It takes me out of the place
and it, you know. Right. And then, of
course, there were tools like avoiding places where
I'd been to buy
pornography or stolen it from or whatever I'd
done. You know? I mean, you just you
just can't go there. And so I I
had to change lots of things about me.
Yeah. Anything else as far as just the
recovery process that brings you up to the
point where maybe some leadership roles were starting
to come into your life? No. That was
kind of it. So now I've been serving
in ARP attended ARP for a long time,
served in ARP for a couple of years
as a group leader and slash facilitator. Mhmm.
And,
and then
was really surprised after a couple of years
of sobriety to get a a phone call
from the stake president, and he called me
to be a counselor to my bishop in
my home ward. K. And I would assume
being a a facilitator in the ARFP program,
he knew that you had some history there.
He was the stake president that well, he
he replaced the ring colonel that damned me
for ruining a perfectly good family, and I
love him for that. I do. I do.
But he replaced that stake president, and he,
yeah, he understood everything.
And in fact, he's the one that had
started the Passage Pornography
Assistance
excuse me, Pornography Addiction Support Group in our
stake Oh, okay. And put me as the
first group leader over that instead of just
a regular ARP. So so I've been serving
under him for years. He was fully aware
of my past and that I had, at
this point probably three or four years. So
give us a brief explanation how that worked
and how it differed from a traditional ARP
program. Traditional ARP group,
Addiction Recovery Program group will handle all addictions,
any and all. Doesn't doesn't matter what it
is. And it's open to males and females
too.
A Passage, PASG
pornography addiction support group, is organized strictly for,
in our case, men who suffer from pornography
addiction. Okay.
The guidelines are, as I understand them, where
there's a passage group, then there's supposed to
be a wives' support group too. And is
this coming from the church's program or is
this just Yes. Yes. It is. Yes. It
is. And where there's higher, you know, higher
density of Mormons, then there are some women's
passage groups too. But in our stake, we
had a men's passage group, men only,
and all porn or sex addicts, and then
a women a spouse's support group, which my
wife continues to lead
the women's support group to this day. Oh,
cool. And then
in conjunction, there's also this the the general
ARP meetings that's happening outside of those. That's
right. In our state, we have two general
ARP meetings, one passage for men and one
spouse support group. And so if a leader
wants to know more about how these passage
groups work, they can go to the literature
in ARP or Yes. I jokingly tell everybody
to go online and search for pornography.
And and what I mean by that is
go to churchofjeschrist.org
and search for pornography.
And one of the links there will be
in the Provident Living and and Okay. As
it's organized, and I can find the groups.
Awesome. Awesome.
So you're called into a bishopric? Called into
a bishopric. And this is what, early two
thousand ten, sir?
Yeah. Yeah. About that.
And,
it was kinda funny because the high councilor
that called me was new, and and I
said, whom am I gonna be serving with?
He says, I don't know if I can
tell you that or not because we were
getting a new bishop. Oh, gotcha. So for
three weeks, I had no idea. I said
yes, but I had no idea who the
new bishop would be.
But a great man, who also was already
aware of my story.
By this time, Andrea and I were starting
to talk
and be a little more public. We've been
in ARP, passage, and the spouse group. Like,
were you speaking in church? We were. We
were starting to Sunday school or Starting to
starting to be asked to speak in like
what was then the third hour meetings,
fifth Sunday meetings, gave a couple of firesides.
I did some youth only things all at
the invitation of the bishops or stake president.
And so we were beginning to be pretty
open about our story.
Initially,
they would ask me to come and speak
and tell my story. And then a smart
bishop, like we were talking, said, hey. Andrea
has a story too, and I'd like our
women to hear it. You think she'd be
willing? Oh, I know she would.
And so so we began to tell our
story. So this was this was this was
getting pretty public.
And
after serving a couple of years in, the
Bishopric,
then we were called for two years to
a Spanish branch
to serve in a Spanish branch.
Then I was called In the Bishopric or
just No. I was a young man's president
in the Spanish branch,
and, Andrew served in primary.
And
from there then, I was called to the
high council.
And, one of my duties in the high
council was to oversee the ARP program, which
good. It's my favorite thing. Yeah. ARP meetings
are the most honest places that I've ever
been anywhere in the church, you know, or
out. So high counselor, several years over the
ARP program. And then
about a year ago, get a call again
from the shake president asking me and Andrea
to come in, and
and he calls me to be the new
bishop of the Young Single Adult Ward.
And so one of the first things we
did, and I love these kids, but one
of the first things we did was organize
this is in COVID.
It's in June of COVID. Uh-huh. When you
were called? Of 20 COVID. Yeah. Yeah. So,
yeah. So we called last June
2020.
And let let me ask, like, during that
call and
extension of it, was there any talk about,
you know, to encourage you to be open
about your past or not? Or
Not specific direction to do that. But this
stake president, which is now, you know, two
away from the marine,
this stake president also knew because I was
on high council, so he's my stake president
there. And he had facilitated
training for me to come and talk to
the bishop for more. I have to come
and talk to the bishops
and encourage me to go to the wards.
So nothing explicit about the whole reason I'm
calling you is because I want you to
share your story with the kids in the
YSA ward, but he knew that that would
happen.
And he's super, super supportive, very loving, and
he he gets it. He gets addiction. He
gets AOP,
and
all three of them did, really. Yeah. So
starting that, I mean, how do you begin
to create a dialogue around that? Or, I
mean, is it Fifth Sunday type of Well
a sin or We just a few days
after I was called, then we set a
fireside.
I wanted to still catch these summer kids
before they went off to school. Mhmm.
And so the format was,
me
telling the kids my story.
And I put up on the screen a
a picture of a, you know, a crack
addict,
unrecognizable
with scars and missing teeth, and
and I said, that's what you think of
when you think of crack addict.
But and then I put this picture of
me 10 years old in a Cub Scout
uniform.
I said, I want you to know that
this
is what an addict looks like.
And
so I told my story.
Almost Just like just like you've told them.
Almost almost word for word like I've told
it to you. Mhmm. This is where I
you know, like they say in AA.
What was it like? What happened? What's it
like now?
And over the years, I'd say I've attended
many AA and NA meetings. Also, I heartily
endorse them. They are wonderful.
And AA, Alcohol's Anonymous. And Narcotics Anonymous. And
so you tend them as sort of finding
strength. Usually have a friend there. Yeah. Usually
have a friend going there. I'm not like
a regular attender and drugs and alcohol, thank
heavens, have not been my issue. Yeah. But
they are for many people and for for
several friends, and so I've attended with them.
Yeah. That that's why I'm talking about the
consequences. Right? The addiction's the same. The core
problem is the same, and the resolution, the
healing is the same.
But
had I chosen a different
addiction,
I could be dead now. Yeah. You know?
Yeah. The the path I don't know what
would have happened. So you do this, Fireside,
and, what's the what's the response to it?
Or It was they loved it. They loved
getting
to know their bishop better. They loved to
get having a bishop they could trust.
And what do you mean by that trust?
Well, when I listen to general conference, every
once in a while, somebody will come and
talk about how he never heard his father
speak an ill word to his their mother
or or they never was a raised voice
in their house. And I'm going, I don't
even know what you're talking about. Yeah. You
just don't relate to You're untouchable. You're unrelatable
to me. And my whole point of telling
the kids my story, and they they say
it's okay to call my kids because some
of them could be my grandkids age wise.
So no disrespect to my young single adults,
but my kids.
So by telling them my story, it wasn't
to call attention to myself or say, you
know, hey. I was so bad, and now
I'm so good. It has nothing to do
with that. It has to do with, I'm
not afraid of you. I'm not afraid of
where you've been. I'm not afraid of what
you've done. I love you.
More important than that,
god loves you. And then I've I've done
worked really hard to teach him what I
I would call sort of this boot camp
message about how God's love is you know,
we create false gods, a God who judges
me and checklists me and punishes me and
is just waiting for me to do something
wrong. And and it's by grace we're saved
after all we can do.
I believe Stephen Robinson's explanation of what that
means after all we can do.
So
the atonement, God's love is not a
reward for doing something good.
It's not the, you know, the cherry on
top of the sundae as Robinson says. It's
everything. It's everything. He's not waiting for me
to meet him halfway. It's he's not waiting
for me to do my part. His love
is there.
And what changes isn't his love for me
as we know, but my ability to respond
to his love, my ability to accept his
love. What advice would you give to a
new bishop who maybe doesn't have that history,
but he wants to gain the same level
of trust that, maybe you've been able to
gain? How how would you coach them through
creating that same dynamic? I would hope that
their, Ward or Stake have,
has an ARP group. I would invite them
to attend. I would invite you know, when
you go to an ARP group and you
go, oh, there's six people here, you're going,
oh, this is good. We've got the only
six people in the entire stake that have
a pornography problem altogether. I'm glad everybody else
is safe, you know? Right.
So that's not true. But as a bishop,
they will have access to people with addictions.
Take them to an ARP meeting. Attend an
AA meeting with them. And when you go
lose the tie and and just be Curt,
don't be Bishop, Francom. Yeah. Just just go
and and try to understand. Like I did
early in my recovery, I read
20 books
about or by people who were addicted or
about addictions.
And you'll begin to understand and see the
patterns. You don't have to live it to
understand it, I don't think. But you do
have to try. You do have to want
to understand. Yeah. I think just, like, taking
the steps of at least trying to engage
in that dialogue, whether it's,
even if you mess up, it's like, you
know what? Alright. That didn't go well. I'm
gonna try again, and we'll regroup here and
Right. And try again and invite maybe a
speaker to come or Have you ever had
a friend with a parent or a spouse
or something pass away? Yeah. And you say
something stupid? Oh, I'm I'm you know, and
then you go, I didn't say that right.
Well, I'll never say anything ever again to
somebody who has a loved one pass away.
No. That's not the way you do it.
You just keep trying, and you keep showing
them that you're present, that you're there, that
you
care, and that whatever it is, we've worked
through this. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome.
And then just the I mean, the response,
did you feel like your schedule filled up
as as a bishop? Or some. Yeah. Some.
There's there's still some people out there that
think that I'm not talking to them or
about them or or that God's help isn't
available for them.
Still a lot of fear around
opening up and being honest.
But, yes. Yes. I've had a great and
and I've had again, it's not about me,
but I've had a couple of people say,
I sure am glad you're my bishop. I
sure am glad you get this. I'm glad
you've walked this path and recognized some of
the some of the Yeah. Stones along the
way. I'm glad you say that. You know,
it's not about me because it it'd probably
be really easy to make it about you
because it's your story, you know? But it's
more of like articulate it in the frame
of this is my inter this is my
interaction with the divine or with with Christ,
and
this is what he did for me. And
why don't you come to mind? He will
do it for you.
Exactly. This was my interaction. This is how
he changed my heart.
This is how he helped me heal and
recover.
And through healing and recovery, I eventually
chief sobriety over fourteen years now, but I
don't carry a fourteen year coin. Yeah.
And he will change your heart too. Yeah.
You are not beyond his help. You are
not beyond his reach. Yeah. That's awesome. Does
anything scare you, like, being a bishop with
with your story? I mean, do you do
you say yes yourself, or do you or
do you worry about relapse? I mean, any
of that? I literally still live one day
at a time. Yeah.
I feel like
Alma where he said that he could remember
the pain of his sins no more.
I still remember my sins, but the pain
part is gone.
And you remember when the when the Lamanites
had were pounding on the Nephites
and God made the Nephites burdens light,
but he did not remove them.
So I understand that I could fall again
tomorrow.
I understand that. I don't fear that because,
I have a lot of tools to help
me cope with it now.
My biggest fear as a bishop is blowing
it with these kids. But see, that's pride
based too because it's not about me, It's
about the savior. And so if I can
just keep pointing them that way, just keep
pointing them that way, that's the whole purpose
of sharing. You know, I heard this saying,
it it's not helpful
to share
to compare wounds most of the time.
It sometimes is helpful to share wounds.
So not comparing them, but sharing them sometimes.
And for them to know that, you know,
it can there's a place to go. Yeah.
There's a place to find healing. Yeah. So
true. What would you say to maybe some
stake presence listening that, well, let me back
up. And
I remember as a bishop, I'd have this,
this exercise I went through. I'd call it
the dark horse candidate where maybe we were
as a bishopric, we were together
trying to think of names or individuals to
call the different positions. And sometimes they were
suggesting a name as an elder corn president,
the stake president or whatever. Right. And I'd
often turn to my Bishop and say, okay,
I need a dark horse candidate. Like, who
is just that's crazy idea. Right. Because I
think there's this principle of, like, you sort
of have
to push against revelation in order for it
to push back. So I'm going to say,
what do you think about this, God?
Is this crazy enough that sometimes
you would come back and be like, I'm
glad you asked because I know you wouldn't
have picked that person, but I think that's
a good idea. And then I really like
that, Kurt. Some beautiful things happen. So what
would you say to state presidents who maybe
leave some of these individuals off the list
because they have that history?
Well, I really like the way you phrase
that because God's gonna respond to what you
take to God.
It's rare that he says, thou shalt call
this man or this woman. Yep. But he's
gonna respond to the candidates that you provide
to him
normally. So I would say to the state
president, take a chance. It's funny. You think
that you know the history of him and
him and him, and you're disqualifying
them because you think you know your history.
Well,
him and him and him and him over
there maybe haven't just fully disclosed all of
their history yet. Right. Right. And I would
always take the honest guy who's come out
and talked about it over the guy that
has not been able to confront it himself
because there's more out there than we know.
Yeah. And that's a I know that there
are probably bishops out there, relief site presidents,
individuals who are struggling with shame filled,
you know, transgressions that they don't know what
to do with. And so they sort of
put on that pose or that facade as
they just say, well, I'm just gonna carry
on and maybe I'm gonna keep trying. I'm
gonna I'm gonna keep trying. And that's not
an evil intent. Right. It's just that we
don't know another way to carry on. I
told you about my quilt idea that that
I lived my life with all these beautiful
squares to my quilt. But there was just
this one inky, black, tarry, filthy
square on my quilt. And as long as
I kept it in the shadows, then I
could live in this big, beautiful, bright
colored, wonderful quilt. And then when I hit
rock bottom, then somebody put my quilt in
the washer and all that ink and tar
Yeah. Contaminated the whole thing, and the savior
gave me a new quilt. Yeah. And a
few thoughts come to mind. Just the exercise
of, like, you know, maybe
you don't want to roll the dice on
this individual because you're not sure about his
history, then call him up, take him out
to lunch and sit down and say, tell
me the story. Tell me the story. Right.
It's important. I mean, just sitting here talking
with you and hearing you is like, I
have no worry with you know, Bishop Hotelling,
you know, running the show here. And like
you said, all of us could fall. Right?
It can happen. But what a great experience.
And then the trust you're able to build,
how you leverage some of that history and
the redemption you've you've shared. So that's awesome.
That's great. And, and just the idea of
recognizing these individuals who may have a history
but have overcome it to some extent through
the grace of Jesus Christ, like, they're practiced
in being open
and saying, like, maybe they'll be more like
to call it the steak bread and say,
you know what? This week's a tough week.
I have this history and I'm a little
more vulnerable right now. Can I connect with
you? Or I want you to know I'm
connecting with others or things like that. Right?
Well, you know, the thing about a porn
addiction too is that we directly associate it
with a sex addiction. So
we assume if a person has looked at
a Playboy, then he's also had affairs or
something like that. Yeah. Yeah. We go that
way. Well, the person that cuts, are you
gonna keep them from holding a calling? The
person that pulls their hair out, are you
gonna keep them from holding a calling? The
person that has an anger issue that always
has to be right that that gambles, is
that completely disqualifying them from serving anywhere? Mhmm.
And so
porn addiction isn't about sex.
There's lots of good
people who have a lot to offer that
are struggling and are overcoming. Yeah. Yeah. Try
them. Alright. I'm turning my studio audience. Any
questions I've missed or things I should ask,
or do we cover it?
Do you still work the 12 step? I
do. And, I've been to twelve step meetings
with some of my people. I don't attend
weekly,
but especially
steps ten, eleven, and 12, kind of the
maintenance steps.
I bought
a couple of hundred one day at a
time coins, and at that fireside, the one
we have the end of this month, the
May Mhmm. I will give a one day
at a time coin to every single one
of my board members That's cool. Telling them
again the story and reminding them you only
live the gospel one day at a time.
You can only stay sober one day at
a time. You can only stay clean one
day. Everything that is important to do in
life can only be done one day at
a time. You cannot relitigate the past.
You cannot predict or or or yes, we
set goals, but you can't live in the
future.
You can only succeed today with God's help
today, one day at a time. And I
love that, you know, going back to your
umbrella analogy that you saw it as an
umbrella for everybody else, but then you discover
the umbrella was over you the whole time.
And now you're extending that addiction or that
brokenness umbrella to everybody because we all need
the savior. We all need to be under
his umbrella. So here's your coin. That's the
whole thing. That's right. And so remember this.
Yeah. And every time I get in my
pocket, it rattles, and I remember what I'm
trying to do and why and what the
source of the power is. So So where
do you get one day coin coins? Well,
from
recovery-world.com.
Nice. And you order them in both then.
I did. I get them about a hundred
at a time. Yeah. Oh, that's cool. That's
great. Any other questions I missed?
Come up here and talk in the mic.
You could tell who you are and where
you're from, but you don't have to.
Sean from Lehigh. Hi, Sean.
Quick question. What would
you say or advice would you give to
friends, family,
ward members
of those who are in the circle
of a recovering addict?
Oh, that is a great question, and really
the bottom line is to love them
and to continue to point them towards the
savior.
I realized as an addict that I was
talking to my wife about somebody was bugging
me, you know, as in in my addiction.
Somebody was bugging me in the ward one
day, and I said, I just I don't
understand why are they like that and blah
blah blah. And she says, you know what
your problem is? She says, you don't love
anybody because
you don't love yourself.
And I realized that that was eventually, not
not immediately, but realized that that was the
key. And so as I began to allow
God's love to come to me, this is
the order it happened for me, then I
was able to
eventually feel
love back for God,
and then the most incredible thing happened that
I never thought would. I began to love
myself,
but only in that order. I could never
love myself until I love God back, and
I could never love him until I accepted
his love for me. And then after I
began to love myself, then I was able
to begin to love God's other children. And
so the answer to those that are in
the circle
of living, family and friends circle of those
that are in addiction, is to continue loving
them, to continue showing grace for them,
to continue to
accept them, to continue to connect with them.
They do not need to be isolated. They
don't need to be told it's wrong. They
get that. They don't need to be rejected.
They need
to be embraced, loved, accepted,
held.
Yeah. Any other questions?
You mentioned that,
you
that bishops and, you know, the leadership shouldn't
forget about the victims,
the true victims.
What would you recommend?
What suggestions
would you recommend to really help those victims?
Well, it should and by victims, I'm talking
about the spouse of the addict. Right? And
remember that I believe that the addict himself
or herself is a victim.
Okay? But when we're talking about the spouse
of the porn addict or the sex addict
specifically,
it starts with
interviewing them, offering them blessings, checking in with
them, making sure the Relief Society President's aware
that they, I see you. I see you.
Instead of, I'm gonna work on him, and
I hope you're okay too. It just gets
forgotten, not that they're intentionally being ignored, but
they are being ignored, that spouse. So it
starts with frequent if you're seeing the addict
once a week,
initially, you should be seeing the spouse once
a week, and you should talk to them
separately and find out where they're at and
where their heart is and what their feelings
are.
And, there should be a lot of dialogue
between the priesthood leader and the spouse. And
I remember from my experience as a bishop,
like, just how important that relationship was that
I remember Phoenix's is where I thought, okay,
I need to reach out to the wife.
And the wife was, like, you know, going
through all this betrayal trauma. I was like,
okay. Because of you, husband, now I have
to go talk with the bishop. I don't
even know him. It's so awkward. The last
thing I wanna do is walk in that
office. And so I would feel like they
would sort of be that I'm I'm fine.
I'm fine. Right? So sometimes it's a long
haul. You sort of have to keep connecting
and encouraging and building a relationship there. Hopefully,
you have it. You're already doing that. So
when these things blow up that those some
of these things come up as surprises and
maybe the Bishop hasn't established a relationship with
either one,
a deep relationship yet. The other thing is
for the Bishop or Stake President to offer
counseling services. Therapy is huge and all this.
It matters. It matters. 12 steps therapy.
And someone who's not just any therapist, but,
you know, really get someone who's maybe has
some experience with this type of situation. Betrayal
trauma, you mentioned that phrase, is a real
thing. It's real. And just like addiction is
real. And so, yeah, we need to we
need to be more aware of that, I
believe. Nice. Alright. I got one more question
for you, Mike.
Just reflecting back,
you know, in your
in your experience as a leader, you know,
obviously, more formal leadership, but your experience being
a leader in this addiction recovery world, how
has being a leader helped you become a
better follower of Jesus Christ?
Oh, that's important because
as I've
come to learn who he really is and
not who I thought he and the father
were
you know, Kurt, I'm not sure if that's
the order. I'm not sure if being a
leader helped me be a better follower.
I think that learning to be a true
follower of Him is what has helped me
to be. If I have any skills as
a leader, I think that's what's helped me
to be a good leader. Understanding
who He is. You know, Joseph Smith said
we have to know the true nature of
God in order
to have faith in him.
And most of my life, I didn't understand
who God was. I had a false God
placed up there, and that's who I thought
I worshiped and who was gonna punish me
and who was after me.
But entering recovery,
finding healing has allowed me to be a
better follower. And that has allowed me Just
sharing that testimony of who God is and
who the savior is has allowed me to
be for eleven months a decent leader, I
think.
That concludes this episode of the Leading Saints
podcast. We'd love to hear from you about
your questions or thoughts or comments. You can
either leave a comment on the, post related
to this episode at leadingsaints.org
or go to leadingsaints.org/contact
and send us your perspective or questions.
If there's other episodes or topics you'd like
to hear on the Leading Saints podcast, go
to leadingsaints.org/contact
and share with us the information there. And
we would love for you to share this
with any individual you think this would apply
to, especially maybe individuals in your ward council
or other leaders that you may know who
would really appreciate the perspectives that we discussed.
And that concludes this throwback episode of the
Leading Saints podcast.
Remember, learn more about disclosing betrayal from Jeff
Struer by visiting leadingsaints.org/fourteen.
It came as a result of the position
of leadership which was imposed upon us
by the god of heaven who brought forth
a restoration
of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
When the declaration
was made concerning the only
true and living Church upon the face of
the earth,
We were immediately put in a position of
loneliness,
the loneliness of leadership
from which we cannot shrink nor run away,
and to which we must face up with
boldness and courage
and ability.