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The 5 Major Reasons People Struggle
153 Plays1 year ago
Over the last 2 decades of overcoming this addiction and helping other men I found a major problem with the how people were getting help.
From a non-christian perspective they try to use insufficient means to heal you or actually try to convince to keep doing it as long as it’s not hurting anyone.
From a christian perspective, denominational streams focused on only one domain of how people struggle. This still lead to people feeling like they are fighting a losing battle.
As I started to get healing in this area it seemed like I stumbled into something revolutionary at that time. I didn’t know how to put into words what was happening to me.
Until years later, I was taking a biblical counseling certification and our textbook gave this phenomenal framework.
It encapsulated years of what God was doing in my life into a single diagram. So no, I wasn’t God’s gift to mankind who found this revolutionary way to be healed from this addiction.
In fact, great men and women of the faith have been trained on this type of framework.
The beauty of this framework is that it gives us the 5 major reasons or domains in which people struggle with any addiction.
I’m using it particularly for pornography in this episode but if you are struggling with other addictions you can certainly use this framework to start to diagnose why you’re struggling.
So lets dig into the 5 major reasons people struggle with their addictions.
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Transcript
Introduction: Shameless Podcast
00:00:26
Speaker
Welcome to the first episode of The Shameless podcast where my goal is to help Christian men kill shame, stand strong, and be on mission.
Focus on Overcoming Pornography Addiction
00:00:36
Speaker
In this first episode in season, we are going to focus on the shame that comes from being addicted put from pornography and struggling with lust.
00:00:47
Speaker
Now, over the last two decades of overcoming this addiction and helping other men, I found a major problem with how people were getting help and you may have struggled with this yourself. You see, there are two ways that people tend to get help. They go to a non-Christian perspective or try to go with a Christian perspective.
00:01:07
Speaker
From a non-Christian perspective, you may have tried to go to a therapist or a counselor, but they end up using insufficient means to heal you.
A Biblical Counseling Framework for Healing
00:01:19
Speaker
Or, really bad ones that I would suggest actually try to convince you that it's okay to keep doing it as long as it's not hurting anyone. Now, from a Christian perspective, the other issue that happens is that different denominational streams focus or only emphasize one domain of how people struggle. And what this can lead to, and you may have felt this before in the past, is feeling like you are just fighting a losing battle. And as I started to get healing in this area, it seemed like I stumbled into something revolutionary at the time.
00:01:57
Speaker
I didn't know how to put it into words, what was happening to me and how God was healing me through it all.
Five Domains of Addiction Diagnosis
00:02:03
Speaker
Until years later, I was taking a biblical counseling certification and our textbook gave this phenomenal framework. It actually encapsulated years of what God was doing in my life into a single diagram.
00:02:18
Speaker
So no, I wasn't God's gift to mankind who found this revolutionary way revolutionary way to be healed from this addiction. But what I did realize is that there was great men and women of the faith who have been trained on this type of framework. And I just didn't realize it at the time until I found this book.
00:02:40
Speaker
So, the beauty of this framework is that it gives us the five major reasons, or domains if you want to call it that way, in which people struggle with any addiction. I'm using it specifically for pornography in this episode, but if you're struggling with other addictions or know someone who's struggling with any other addiction, you can certainly use this framework to start to diagnose why you're struggling. Now again, it's a great diagnostic tool.
00:03:07
Speaker
It took me years of counseling and God healing me to actually see work done in each one of these domains. right ah But it's still a great way to start diagnosing exactly where you're at.
Exploration of the Heart's Ruler
00:03:21
Speaker
So what I want to do today is day just dig in to the five major reasons why you or people that you may know struggle with their addiction. So let's dig into the five major reasons. okay The first one.
00:03:37
Speaker
If you think about this as a, um, bullseye, right? Or diagram. The first one is the ruler of your heart. Okay. This is a great way to ask is who is the ruler of your heart? And the reason why we want to start here is because when we look at this diagram, right, the way we think, feel, and act about something is extremely important.
00:04:01
Speaker
The reality is that we're all going to suffer. We're all going to go through struggle. We're all going to go through something. But how we think, feel, and act about it is entirely unto us. right So when we're struggling or when we're addicted to something, how we think about it is really important.
00:04:18
Speaker
The other reason why this is essential to look at who's ruling our heart is that there we got to understand why we got addicted to something in the first place, right? If you don't know why you're getting addicted to something, it's really hard to actually escape it.
Identifying and Addressing Heart Idols
00:04:37
Speaker
And ultimately, there are there are two main categories to why someone gets addicted to something. And I know some people are going to be like, this is too reductionistic, it's it's simplified. Again, we'll unpack this a lot more throughout the podcast. I'm just giving you ah a broader overview. But the two main categories is that, number one,
00:04:55
Speaker
The reason you ultimately get it addicted to something is because you are self enthroned, right? You are the ruler of your life and you want to achieve whatever you can by any means necessary, right? For fulfillment, whether it's peace, joy, happiness, like whatever you want, you are deciding I want it in my way and however I can attain it obtain it. Now, the other way, the opposing way is that Christ is the ruler of your heart.
00:05:22
Speaker
and that you have surrendered your heart and your will to him to say, you know what, Lord, whatever you want, it's yours. I'm gonna obey you. I'm gonna trust you. I'm gonna love you. Okay, so I'm gonna do what you love and hate what you hate. Now, again, some people might be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, so if all of a sudden I just surrender my life to God, this thing is gonna go away? No, not necessarily. What we're trying to figure out is who's ruling when it comes to the addiction factor, right? And the first acknowledgment may be,
00:05:52
Speaker
that, like, yeah, um i'm I'm in the throne, right? Now, again, just because you're on the throne doesn't mean that that solves the whole problem, right? There are five different ways to it. And then they're within the ruling of the heart, there's ways that it manifests.
00:06:07
Speaker
but For example, ah there are idols that you may have in your heart that you need to ah repent and and get rid of. right like So lust, for example, may be the idol that you have. You desire something that you can't have. It brings you some sort of satisfaction. Because here's the reality. Pornography is just a symptom of a bigger issue.
00:06:30
Speaker
Right. So sometimes people are like, well, let's just help you with pornography and like, let's just get rid of the pornography. I'm like, Oh, awesome. Right. Like you stopped watching pornography for 30, 60, 90 days. You've overcome this. No, you haven't. That's superficial. There's a deeper level in your life that you're struggling with that you need, you haven't overcome yet. And it's the lust. And many times what I have found is that you may have just gotten rid of the pornography aspect of it, but because the lust has never been killed or dealt with, it's just moved to something else.
Physical Aspects of Addiction
00:07:00
Speaker
All right, so it's really important for us to look at like who's ruling your heart or what is ruling your heart If an idol isn't thrown there, right and it's it's you saying hey, I love this thing Then great now Let me give you a quick definition of idols before I move on to the next one is that idols is something it could be good Right is bad as well, but something good that all becomes the and ultimate thing in your life right So like for example, as we think about ah lust, right sex is a good thing. It's a gift from God. But what ends up happening is that it's we corrupt it or we want it out of the way God had designed it. So it draws us into what we call lust, right and a corrupted desire that we're like, hey, how can we get this within our own effort so that we don't have to do it within God's design in marriage?
00:07:56
Speaker
But again, that's just one idol that we have, but we can have many idols and we'll unpack that more as the ah podcast goes. right The next one, as we think through this, is physically embedded or physically embodied.
00:08:12
Speaker
One of the issues, one of the other domains the five um of the five main reasons why people struggle is that the reality is there might be some physical stuff that is going on in your life. For example, you might have some sickness that you are struggling with or dealing with. And if you are, it's easier for you to get tempted. tempted right There's a lot of temptation that can come from that because you're just struggling, you're fighting for it. right Another one might just be you're tired. but like When you are not alert, when you not are of sound mind, what can end up just happening is you're exhausted. ah The other reason for physical that is important is that, especially if you are in an addicted state, we have to recognize that your brain has been rewired.
00:08:59
Speaker
and physiologically and neurologically, you are now just like drawn to that. And it feels natural, quote unquote, right? But what we have to actually do is because your brain has been so used to certain pathways of finding addiction,
00:09:15
Speaker
We have to start to break those. right And we have to rewire the brain right into a good way. But physically physical stuff can cause you right to be more easily tempted. And if you're more easily tempted, you're going to fall into sin. So that's something that we just have to be mindful of.
00:09:35
Speaker
The third
Impact of Relationships and Trauma
00:09:36
Speaker
domain that we have to be mindful of is socially embedded. Okay. What do I mean by socially embedded? Well, when we sin, right, we sin towards someone or right. And then especially towards God, right. We sin against God. But our sin affects other people.
00:10:01
Speaker
right At the same time, people sin against us. And those relational aspects cause ripple effects where relationally, right it may hurt us. right That may be from abuse. That may be from just the way people treated you or hurt you. right Anything like that can affect us. right Think about it this way. Some of us, the reason why we struggle with lust and pornography. It's not pornography itself. At the end of the day, we just desired affirmation. We desired to be accepted and loved by our parents. And again, I'm using this as an example. But what could end up happening if you never got the affirmation you wanted from your parents or you didn't have parents, you had this deep wound in your heart that's just longing for something.
00:10:52
Speaker
right So instead of going to God for it, you go to other things. right And you've probably heard this before. You're just like, well, why are you chasing after that? I've talked to many guys that they're like, man, I'm chasing after women just because I just desire affirmation or I just desire to be with someone. like I really want to be someone because I've just felt lonely my whole life. Those are wounds that have happened because of sin fracturing relationships.
00:11:20
Speaker
So we have to take that into consideration as we are having these conversations of like, well, why are you struggling? What exit is it that's really happening? ah In the next episode, you'll start to hear a little bit of my story of of what happened, and I go deeper into it, but wounds was up a huge one for me, where I started to struggle, and in in I'll give you the short version right now, but it was just because of abuse, it left massive wounds in my life.
00:11:48
Speaker
that took me years and years to recover from. And here's the thing, those wounds actually caused some physically embodied situations. Now, if you are looking at this um slide deck, I wrote physically embedded, it should be physically embodied, right? But it causes physiological damage to you. You're stressed out, like I had PTSD. There was a lot of stuff that I had to struggle with, right? So all that happens in the socially embedded section. Now,
Role of Spiritual Warfare in Addiction
00:12:16
Speaker
the fourth one is spiritually embattled.
00:12:20
Speaker
We have to recognize no matter how much society tries to tell us that we're just materialistic or or we're just neurons, right? We are actually spiritual beings. We have souls, right? And because of that, there is a spiritual warfare that is happening, right? This is real. The devil, demons are real and they are attacking and they want to steal, kill and destroy you.
00:12:47
Speaker
and they know that you have a problem with lust, they are just gonna incessantly attack you. Now, they are not going to sometimes they're not gonna be super aggressive about it, like, oh, here's this naked woman, go sleep with her, right? Sometimes they're just gonna start to put little things in the way where you start to stumble, right? You start to check out a girl, or you start to scroll through your social media feed, and little by little, there's just something there where they're like, oh, I'm gonna keep checking this out. And they're just planting seeds over and over and over again.
00:13:18
Speaker
right Sometimes you may feel like, wow, I thought I was doing good, but have you ever had those days where you just get this overwhelming wave of just lustful desires and you're like, what in the world is going on? And you can't seem to stop it?
00:13:35
Speaker
Man, many times I have found that that's just spiritual warfare. but Like it's it's the enemy just trying to tempt you and knows that you have these desires, right? Sometimes it could be physical, right? It could be just like your testosterone that day is just jacked up for some reason.
00:13:51
Speaker
We have to make sure we take all these things into consideration.
Recognizing God's Sovereignty
00:13:55
Speaker
right But spiritual warfare is one of those important ones. Now, before I move to the last one, what I want to address here is just recognizing that like if you think about certain denominations,
00:14:07
Speaker
but Like ah the charismatic ones, they'll always say it's a spiritual thing. right Like, oh, you might there might be demonic influences, or you're demonized, or you're demon-possessed on oppression, and you're like, always cast it out. And they'll have like casting out ah sessions and stuff like that when the reality may be a social issue, or it may be a physical issue, right or it may be a heart issue.
00:14:30
Speaker
where you just haven't given your life to the Lord or you haven't repented of it. Again, there's a lot more details to these. We're just doing a broad overview. All right, so we have to take every single one of these into consideration and see how does it impact one another, which leads to the last one.
00:14:48
Speaker
One of the biggest reasons we struggle is because we don't realize that God is sovereignly enthroned. And what do I mean by this is that we have a a couple things here. We have a wrong view of God. We just don't see how good and how big and how majestic and how fatherly God is to us.
00:15:10
Speaker
And because of our relationship is fractured with him, it just causes so much damage and we run to other things because we just forget how good God is to us. right So we have a wrong view of God. Again, we'll go and deeper into that. And then the second one is, I think we lack an understanding of why God allows temptation and suffering to happen.
00:15:33
Speaker
If anything, one of the things that I have found to be the biggest detriment is that people time and time again, especially men have come to me and just like, well, I don't know why God has allowed this to happen to me. He knows that I have this massive sex drive. And if you knew this, I guess this is the only way to solve it. Like they they kind of almost blame God or they just have, again, a wrong view of how temptation or suffering works, right? Or just the fall of man.
00:15:59
Speaker
So all five of these need to be taken into consideration consideration as you're trying to find healing.
Integrating Biblical and Scientific Approaches
00:16:05
Speaker
Now, here's the good news. right And this is what I believe that the Bible is sufficient. The Bible does give us beautiful ways for us to uncover these.
00:16:17
Speaker
and there are new studies out there today backed up by science that have that thankfully the bible has told us is true it's now come alive to us but has given us more detail right that we can utilize today and if we take both of those the science that backed up the science of how to heal people right that Aligns with scripture and you take both of those things you will see immense immense healing quickly Right and also if you just recognize that got it and we are spirit spiritual beings and we could find healing through those You can find recovery
00:16:53
Speaker
Now, let me just say a couple final thoughts here before I wrap up. As you think about the five major reasons, you may just be like, well, let me just go off this checklist and just be like, let me knock out each one, one, two, three, four, five, and then I'm done. And in 10 days, I'm gonna be healed from this. Hold your horses.
00:17:10
Speaker
there is still a sanctification process that we'll all have to go through. It took me years to to do this. I have been able to um you know close that gap a little bit with people if like the Lord wills and their heart is in a right posture and open-minded to it and are willing to start going through certain systems to to unlock all five of these domains and and get healing in each one. But it takes a while.
Interconnectedness of Healing Domains
00:17:35
Speaker
The second thing that I want to mention is that each of these are interconnected. You can't just do one or the other, right? As you think about all five, they all play a role together. Give you a great example, like if you got physical issues like sicknesses, right? ah That one of the tactics of the enemy is going to be to tempt you, right? Like that's his thing, but that's a spiritual battle, right? He's going to throw something at you to see if you could fall, especially when you are not in the right mind, right?
00:18:06
Speaker
ah But then again, if you're physically right sick sometimes, I don't know about you, I've been sick before. And when I'm sick, i' I'm like a crabby crabby pants. Like I'm just like frustrated at everyone. I don't like talking to people and I'm snarky with someone. Well, if I'm snarky with someone and they're snarky at me, then I take offense. I'm like, well, why are they snarky at me? Don't they know I'm sick? And I start to have a self ah pity party. Well, now I have let another root of bitterness come into my heart because now I'm frustrated that this person's mad at me. And now I have multiple issues that I'm dealing with that are making me more susceptible to fall into sin. Right? And again, who's ruling your heart? How you're thinking, feeling, acting about this. And finally, sovereign sovereign enthroned.
00:18:52
Speaker
right You're just like, well, God, why are you allowing this to happen to me? I'm sick. i need to I need some relief. This might be the best way that I get some relief is just to watch this or to escape. but right So all five of these work in tandem together, and we just need to be mindful of that as we move forward.
00:19:10
Speaker
okay So, it's important for us to look at all five of these to get a clear picture of where the root problem is is occurring. If we don't do that, if we just kind of diminish one or the other, it's gonna be a problem. You need to have a right understanding of each one of these to truly move forward.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:19:30
Speaker
And finally, the last thing that i I'm gonna mention is that the more you work to see who God is,
00:19:37
Speaker
who you are, and how sin affects every domain of life, the better chance you have of seeing God's work in healing you. Now remember, this has just been a broad overview, Lord willing, through experts that I want to bring on, stories and testimonies from other believers who come in, and time, right, of you listening to a podcast, I'll be unpacking each of these domains in greater detail.
00:20:01
Speaker
right ah So if you found this helpful, can you do me a favor and just share it with your friends so that they can kill shame, stand strong, and be on mission. Until next time, God bless.