Episode #142: Porn Addiction Is Not A Habit To Break. It Is A Wound To Heal. - With Timothy Reigle, Author + Coach + Former Porn & Sex Addict

INTRODUCTION:

 I’m Timothy Reigle, the founder of Into The Wilderness Ministries. My mission is dedicated to helping men transform their lives by renewing faith, re-energizing families, and restoring masculinity. I am the author of the book, Living Porn Free: 10 Steps to Recovery, Redemption, and Renewal and as a coach I have helped hundreds of men overcome addiction to porn and sex, save their marriages, and become better men. I am also a licensed funeral director, a chaplain, worship leader, and most importantly, a husband and father.

I have years of experience in public speaking, giving presentations, and appearing on podcasts. I have appeared at multiple events and engagements both in-person and online to deliver my message and to help men find freedom. I also host my own podcast, the Into The Wilderness Podcast with Timothy Reigle.

INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to):

 ·      Let’s Talk About Sex & Porn Addiction

·      Why Masculinity Needs To Be Saved

·      Is Porn A “Sin”?

·      Friends Who Out You, Love You

·      The Failure Of The Church: Sex Education

·      DON’T: Battle Porn & Sex Addiction Alone

·      HELP – HABITS - HEART

CONNECT WITH TIMOTHY REIGLE:

Website & Podcast: https://intothewildernessblog.com

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/TimothyReigle

YouTube: https://shorturl.at/mqIR8

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/timothyreigle/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TimothyReigle

CONNECT WITH DE’VANNON SERÁPHINO:

Website: https://www.SexDrugsAndJesus.com

Website: https://www.DownUnderApparel.com   

Donate Via PayPal: https://shorturl.at/gq068

CashApp: $DeVannonSeraphino

Venmo: @DeVannon 

Patreon: https://patreon.com/SDJPodcast

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devannon

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Email: DeVannon@SDJPodcast.com

Transcript

Episode #142: Porn Addiction Is Not A Habit To Break. It Is A Wound To Heal. - With Timothy Reigle, Author + Coach + Former Porn & Sex Addict

Timothy Reigle

[00:00:00]

De'Vannon Seráphino: Sex and porn have ravaged this world and people globally are addicted to both at an astonishing rate. My guest, Timothy Riegel, believes that porn is not a habit to quit, but rather it is a wound which needs to be healed. Tim is an author, a coach, and a former porn and sex addict who broke free after 15 years of addiction. 

Timothy Reigle: Christians as a whole. have not done a very good job of Teaching sexuality to kids and have not done a very good job of teaching the dangers of porn to kids.

Timothy Reigle: This has majorly affected my generation. You know, the millennials are addicted to porn at astronomical rates. towards the end of my addiction before I got help it was sex addiction type of things where I was having anonymous hookups with, with people from online I had affairs and cheated on my [00:01:00] wife and those type of things. So the last time I got caught. was by two of my good friends at the time. And they outed me. So what are those things that are causing us to have urges to act out through porn and sex?

Timothy Reigle: So, is it, is it, you know, Too much social media and going down that wormhole of, of all the sexualized images on social media. Is it work stress? So to me, the real cause of the porn addiction is that it's an emotional issue.

Timothy Reigle: It's not a sexual issue. 

De'Vannon Seráphino: Get ready and take notes.

De'Vannon Seráphino: hello, all my beautiful and delicious sweet, sweet, sweet friends out there and welcome back to the sex, drugs and Jesus podcast. I am so happy to be back behind this microphone and recording with you all after my move appeared in New York City. I have my friend here today, Timothy Regal who's going to be my well, inaugural cherry popping guest as I am [00:02:00] now recording from New York City as opposed to from Baton Rouge.

De'Vannon Seráphino: Timothy, how are you doing 

Timothy Reigle: today? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on. 

De'Vannon Seráphino: Absolutely. I just want to say I'm, I'm here for the beard. I'm here for like the, the hair and everything like that, that face and that beard could go because you'd like to cover on men's beard products. I think you might want to look into making that happen.

Timothy Reigle: Well, I appreciate that. But as, as we'll soon find out in our conversation, this face has gotten me into. Some trouble sometimes too, so, but no, I appreciate that. Okay. 

De'Vannon Seráphino: I'm going to go ahead and read your look, a little trouble keeps things interesting. Nobody wants to hear about anybody who never got into trouble or never did anything wrong.

De'Vannon Seráphino: It just was like perfect. You know, you know, Patty all their days. We don't, we don't have any use for that. Totally unrelatable and also unrealistic. So I'm here for that trouble because you learn from it [00:03:00] and you're here to help other people. So. Sure. Okay, y'all. Timothy Riegel is the founder of Into the Wilderness Ministries.

De'Vannon Seráphino: His mission is dedicated to helping men transform their lives by renewing faith, re energizing families and restoring masculinity. He is the author of the book, Living Porn Free, 10 Steps to Recovery, Redemption and Renewal. And he's also a coach and as a coach he has helped hundreds of men overcome addiction to porn and sex, save their marriages, and become better men.

De'Vannon Seráphino: Timothy is also a licensed funeral director, a chaplain, a worship leader, and most importantly a husband and a father. You know what, you're a man of your own heart, dude, and a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, and I interviewed a funeral, somebody who's like an embalmer, and like a in like, you know, the funeral home and everything like that, Adrian.

De'Vannon Seráphino: Yeah, 

Timothy Reigle: that's what I do, yeah. Yeah, that's [00:04:00] my, that's my, my day job. And what 

De'Vannon Seráphino: an interesting interview that was, you know, to handle death like that. But I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole. Tell us about your book, please. And tell us about your coaching. 

Timothy Reigle: Sure. So all of this came about as a result of my own addiction, my own struggles with, with porn and sex addiction.

Timothy Reigle: For, for over 15 years. A lot of ups and downs and back and forths and heartache and, and, and damage to my family, to my marriage, to myself, you know, and, and, finally through it all you know, praise the Lord. I was able to break free from that and was able to heal and restore my marriage and now have.

Timothy Reigle: You know, wonderful, happy marriage with my wife of almost 16 years. And through all that and through my own recovery, I found myself with some opportunities to minister and to mentor some [00:05:00] other men and especially younger men through, through church and things like that. And, you know, it was another, something I intended to do, you know, I was kind of like, all right, I fixed my own problem, you know, all right, no need to, you know.

Timothy Reigle: You know, empty my closet to the, to the world. But every time I shared a little bit about what I'd gone through, God kind of kicked that door wide open. And so I found myself with more and more opportunities. So I started writing started a blog, started posting on social media, doing things like that.

Timothy Reigle: And I found there was a, a void for a need for men to help them find freedom from, from porn and sex addiction. Now, there's a million different resources for that. You know, there's, there's all kinds of books, there's Bible studies, there's, there's Christian series, there's stuff by counselors, there's secular [00:06:00] things.

Timothy Reigle: There's, there's all kinds of different resources. And a lot of those are great. A lot of them not so great, but you know, most of them are pretty good. What I found. Was there wasn't anything to help men like what where do I start because a lot of these men are just floundering You know, just just treading water trying to keep their head above water, you know They didn't know where to start.

Timothy Reigle: Mm hmm. And so I created my book living porn free I call it a how to how to quit porn, you know, so it's like where do I start? How do I stop the bleeding? Right? Because there's a lot of great resources out there that deal with some of the emotional stuff. They deal with some of the practical things and some of the, you know, a lot of the guidelines and a lot of the, the routines and principles and things that we put in place and, and the emotional side of it and the psychological side of it and, and the spiritual side of it.

Timothy Reigle: A lot of these men are nowhere near that point. They just need to, like I said, stop the bleeding. And so, I created Living Porn Free [00:07:00] to be like a 10 step thing to, Hey, let's, let's Let's get started here. You know, it may not be perfect, but let's stop the bleeding, figure out what's going on, come up with a plan, and start getting some wins under our belt and focus more on progress over perfection.

Timothy Reigle: And so that's where Living Porn Free kind of came out of. And out of that, I was able to start doing some one on one coaching. So I've been doing that now about four years working one on one individually with men, kind of going through that program and, and going even beyond that. To help them help them find freedom from it.

De'Vannon Seráphino: It sounded like that one-on-One Touch I want, I also wanted to mention y'all that Tim also has his own podcast. It's called The Into the Wilderness Podcast Also. Now, all of this can be found at your website into the wilderness blog.com, okay? Correct? Yep. We're gonna put that in the showy notes as we always do.

De'Vannon Seráphino: Tim is also on Twitter. Instagram, all that's going [00:08:00] to go in the show notes. So, as I dig into this, so you mentioned God and everything, so I want you to explain to people, like, your angle of ministry. You know, are you, like, churchy type Christian, non churchy, because there's a lot of religious trauma that people carry around, and I don't want there to be any, like, blockages to people receiving what you have to say.

Timothy Reigle: Sure. So, I consider myself an evangelical Christian, born again Christian. And I grew up in the church, my dad was a pastor for over 50 years, so I grew up with the church, I turned my back kind of on the church and found my way back to the church. So, I have kind of a unique perspective on it, because I can see.

Timothy Reigle: The hurt that a lot of people have from the church because I felt it, you know growing up as a pastor's kid Actually some of that some of the stresses of growing up in a [00:09:00] church family, you know where you literally live next door to the church and your dad's a pastor and you're kind of under the Microscope and and all that that was some of the issues that I had that led to some of my addictive problems So I can certainly understand The pain that a lot of people have felt with the church and all different types of churches, you know, and, and, and religion as a whole, you know, there's, there's been a lot of, a lot of unnecessary.

Timothy Reigle: Shane, you know, and hurt and, and yes, we should call out sin where there's sin, but we have to do that with love. And so I can understand that side of it, but I also understand how the church can be helpful and it can help us grow and learn and become better, better men. And it did that for me as well.

Timothy Reigle: You know, once I started working on myself and putting my pieces of my life back together and kind of regaining closer to God, I realized. I do need this church community to come around me and help me and lift me up and encourage me. I need that community of, of [00:10:00]believers and especially men, to have that brotherhood and that fraternity around there that we can push each other, help each other better, keep each other accountable, help each other grow and become better men.

Timothy Reigle: So I've seen, seen and experienced both sides of it. So I certainly understand the people that, that are turned off by church, but You know, I see that the benefit of it as well. And I work with men of all different, all different backgrounds and all different face. And I primarily work with Christian men.

Timothy Reigle: I, I, I teach kind of from a biblical Christian perspective, but I work with a lot of men who aren't Christians at all. And, and I don't believe that overcoming porn and sex addiction. It's just a Christian issue. It's sin, don't get me wrong, the Bible says it's sin, but I don't believe that porn is just a bad thing just because the Bible says it's a bad thing, right?

Timothy Reigle: I [00:11:00] think that a lot of people are realizing, people who are completely non religious are realizing that this is a bad thing. There's, there's, there's, it's not just, you know, Christians, you know, slapping people over the head with the Bible, being prudes that, Are against porn that there's actually real life damage happening here.

Timothy Reigle: And it's not just, you know, old fuddy duddy, you know, legalistic Christians that are pushing this. No, there's, there's, there's actual issues going on here as well. Right. 

De'Vannon Seráphino: I dig into that. And I think you were explaining that because, you know, somebody hearing this will say, well, there was not porn back in the Bible days.

De'Vannon Seráphino: Therefore, you cannot. Say that the Bible says porn is bad because, and I would agree with them because having been in seminary myself and done all of that. One thing I know about the Bible is it's highly subjective as interpretations and most people running around something it cannot get in there and dig through Aramaic, Greek and [00:12:00] Hebrew, you know, and things like that.

De'Vannon Seráphino: And if people don't do that, then I'm really not interested in hearing what they have to say, because they haven't done their homework and anybody who has done their homework know how You know, how, how difficult those of the Bible is to translate and how much of the human fingerprint is on those translations.

De'Vannon Seráphino: And so I hate it when people, unfortunately, you know, get lost, you know, in the help that can happen because there's so much of an emphasis on what sin is or isn't what it is. It is not supposed to be 1 thing that drew me to your website was the focus on the, like you said, the damage that it's that it's causing.

De'Vannon Seráphino: Okay. And that, when we talk, when I, when we talk about sin, you know, it's, it's, it's always some sort of quantifiable damage, you know, the way I read the Bible and interpreted from the 10 commandments on down, it wasn't just right or wrong for right or wrong sake, you know, you're hurting yourself or you're hurting [00:13:00] someone else.

De'Vannon Seráphino: And I found more progress in just demonstrating it to people through like a, a disadvantage to them. Rather than just saying, well, it's wrong because it's in the Bible, because that's not going to get anywhere with people. And so, but when people can see how they're losing out or they're hurting themselves, whether it's called sin or not is neither here nor there because they can assign a negative value and a negative consequence to it.

De'Vannon Seráphino: Because people are turned off to just like hearing about. Like church and sin unless it's people within church, which is kind of like pointless because the point of the church is to reach people outside of church. But so you say you work with people from all backgrounds. What about sexual orientations because there are a lot of people who are not straight, you know?

Timothy Reigle: Yeah, I, I work, I have worked with, with homosexual men before. I should clarify, first of all, I only work with men. I don't work [00:14:00] with any women. I don't work with couples. I should, I, I work only with men, I have worked with homosexual men, I've worked with openly homosexual men, and I've worked with, men who are, who I'll classify them as this, that have same sex attraction and don't want to, you know, men who, who feel that they, they have that attraction and they feel that that's a, a, a bad thing for them, you know, and some people may agree with that or disagree with that, but I, I work with them nonetheless because they need the help.

Timothy Reigle: I have my own personal, convictions on certain things, but I don't ever turn someone away because they disagree with my theology. I'll put it that way. Because I believe God has given me this mission to help people. He'll, he'll work on whatever he needs to work on in the rest of their lives.

Timothy Reigle: But you know, this is what I'm here to for, and I'm not going to, [00:15:00] you know, not help somebody just because we might disagree on something. And, and, and to your point, to your earlier point, yeah, it's not, God's not just up there with a list of rules, just saying, Oh, I'm just going to create all these arbitrary rules and make all these people follow them.

Timothy Reigle: He created the rules that he created in the, in what he defined as sin in the Bible, not just because he felt like it, but like you said, because they have consequences. You see, when people sinned in the Bible, there were real life consequences. It wasn't just that they may have gotten mad. It's that they Things happen.

Timothy Reigle: You look at David, for example, who's a very strong example of sexual immorality in the Bible, right? He committed adultery. Well, look what happened from that. His adultery turned into murder, which turned into losing the baby that came from the adultery. And then his whole family fell apart afterwards.

Timothy Reigle: So, yeah, it's not just an arbitrary list of rules because God says so. And God just put them in the Bible and [00:16:00] we obey them because the Bible says so. God put them, made those rules because they're what's good for us and what helps us. Follow him and worship him and glorify him and keeps us from hurting others and hurting ourselves.

Timothy Reigle: Okay, so 

De'Vannon Seráphino: then how So do you, have you, so it sounds like what you're talking about is you, like people, like the queer people have come to you asking for like a type of conversion therapy, almost. So have you 

Timothy Reigle: worked with I wouldn't, I wouldn't define that. I wouldn't say that it's any sort of conversion therapy or that.

Timothy Reigle: And I don't try to change anybody's orientation or identity or anything like that. Okay. Some people I've worked with. would consider themselves, I'll use this as an example. They would consider themselves to be a straight man, but yet they're attracted to homosexual or, or some type of porn. You know, but they consider themselves to be straight.

Timothy Reigle: And, and so they want help quitting porn, period. Not just maybe porn they [00:17:00]don't like. I, I also work with men who watch porn and then they get into real weird kinky fetish stuff. You know, that they're like, I don't like this. I don't want to be attracted to this. You know, so I help them break free from those, from, from that addiction from porn and, and, and get into things like that, because that's what can happen a lot with porn where it escalates, right?

Timothy Reigle: So it's, you know, you might start off as a curious teenage boy, just Googling boobs or something, you know, and as you get, which, which is happens, I mean, but. As you get older, you know, then it escalates. And then all of a sudden just regular vanilla porn isn't enough. Then you've got to start looking at more hardcore, more kinkier, more weird stuff.

Timothy Reigle: And then it goes into webcams and it goes into paid stuff. And then, you know, it can go down some dark paths. And so, you know, I work with men who, who have some of those things where they feel like this has gone down a path that they're not [00:18:00] comfortable with and that they don't feel like they are, then I will help them, you know, help them overcome that, but I don't do any type of.

Timothy Reigle: You know, conversion therapy or any anything along those lines. No. Okay. 

De'Vannon Seráphino: Very, very good. So then, so just, just so I can be as clear as possible. So a queer male could come to you and be like, I'm doing way too much porn. I'm damaging myself, my relationships. And I just want to stop this porn and he, and there's not going to be any of this while I'm evangelical and we don't believe in the gay stuff and all of that.

De'Vannon Seráphino: You know, you'll just use your gift to help him with what he's asking for without judgment. 

Timothy Reigle: Yeah, yeah. Like I said, I'm not here to try and change those type of things. I may disagree on some of them, but that's not my goal. My goal is to help you find freedom from porn and sex addiction. 

De'Vannon Seráphino: Okay, thank you for that lengthy clarification of that.

De'Vannon Seráphino: So, 15 [00:19:00] year, you said, porn, sex addiction, that's damn near long enough to graduate from high school. Can you tell me about the first time you were exposed to pornography, the sort of impression it left on you, and then the very last time you 

Timothy Reigle: saw it? Wow. I don't remember the specific first time. But I do remember it was kind of, honestly, it was kind of the scenario that I just described a few minutes ago of just a hormonal teenage boy, just curious, right?

Timothy Reigle: With, with a computer and boobie. I'm, I'm 37. So I, you're right. You know, I'm 37. So I kind of came, I kind of came into puberty, into, into adolescence, kind of at the cusp at the beginning of the internet age. Right? Right. So, I kind of got hooked on, on just, back then it was [00:20:00]freaking dial up, you know, back in 2000, 2001, and kind of got hooked on that.

Timothy Reigle: And some of it was because the church in general, whatever the positions that the church might have or their different theologies have, I think that when I say the church, I mean the worldwide church, not a particular denomination, just kind of Christians as a whole. have not done a very good job of Teaching sexuality to kids and have not done a very good job of teaching the dangers of porn to kids.

Timothy Reigle: That's one of my goals is to, you know, help. Okay, this has majorly affected my generation. You know, the millennials are addicted to porn at astronomical rates. I want to help the next generation. So we have to teach them about this and about the dangers that's involved with it. I didn't really have that.

Timothy Reigle: For me back then, you know, there was kind of the purity culture movement. [00:21:00] Which was, I believe, well intended, you know, I, I, I believe in, in abstinence until marriage. I believe that sex is designed for marriage. But they kind of threw the baby out with the bathwater and, and kind of guilted and shamed people so much that it caused actually worse damage later on.

Timothy Reigle: So kind of the big three back then were don't drink, don't smoke, don't have sex, right? Those were the big, the big, the big no no's when you were a teenager back in the late 90s, early 2000s. And Well, by the time I'm 14, 15 years old and I'm a horny teenage American red blooded boy, what the hell do you think the three things I wanted to do most were, right?

Timothy Reigle: I wanted to drink, I wanted to smoke, and I wanted to have sex, right? I mean, it's your classic, you know, American pie movie, right? You know, and so I got exposed to those things and got exposed to porn and got hooked on porn. And I was like, this is freaking awesome. You know, [00:22:00] I've been told all my life that this is bad and this is wrong and I shouldn't do it and it's a sin.

Timothy Reigle: Which is true, but I was never really told that why. I was never really told, it was just kind of, this is just that, that arbitrary rule, kind of like we were talking about a few minutes ago. It was never really explained to me why, or what damage it can do. Maybe it won't do damage now, but ten years down the road, I'm gonna wish I could nip this in the bud when I was a kid.

Timothy Reigle: And I didn't. And that's exactly what happened. So What was the last The last time, the last time would've been about, about six years ago. And I, I don't remember the specific event, but and some of the stuff when I was towards the end of my addiction before I got help wasn't so much porn, but it was kind of sex addiction type of things where I was having kind of anonymous hookups with, with people from online and, and things like that.

Timothy Reigle: And I had [00:23:00] affairs and cheated on my wife and those type of things. So the last time I got caught. Was by two of my good friends at the time. So they found out that I had, had, had this relationship with this, with this other woman. And they outed me. And so, outed me to my wife, to my family, to kind of everybody.

Timothy Reigle: And, and pretty much just only. And so that was kind of the the wake up call for me. It was kind of the, the spark that got me to change. In hindsight, I wish it wasn't. I wish that, you know, I'd have recognized all the damage I was doing to my marriage and my family and that would have gotten me to change.

Timothy Reigle: Unfortunately, it didn't. For some reason, God used these two guys to, you know, to wake me up and to, to call me to action, to change. And I'm thankful for that now and grateful for that. But that was kind of the, That was the moment [00:24:00] that, that got me to get serious help and, and, and put in the work that I needed to, to find freedom.

Timothy Reigle: Exposure. 

De'Vannon Seráphino: That's what, that, that's the gift that your friends gave you. Because see, when we hide things, those things grow. How do I say it? You know, transparency, save lives, secrets. Kill people. Secrets cause death, you know, be it physical death material death, emotional death, mental death, whatever it is.

De'Vannon Seráphino: What they did for you was, was, as you already know, a blessing because you couldn't hide anymore. You know, like when we, when we bring things to the light, something has to be done with it. And it's and you respond it well, you know, you could have fought them and caused a scene, which you may have, but eventually you.

De'Vannon Seráphino: You know, you, you know, you turned it around and you were able to at least alchemize that those feelings of embarrassment and humiliation and all of that and shame that come along with it. I know shame is heavy, heavy as fuck [00:25:00] on on on a sex addict. But you were able to alchemize it and turn it into everything that you have done today.

De'Vannon Seráphino: I was going to ask you about the damage to your marriage, but you already told me about that. So instead, what I'm going to and unfortunately, it's the same thing that I've, that I've, that I've heard, you know, a million times over, you know, from people who are addicted to sex and porn and the cheating, you know, they lose the relationship and so on and so forth.

De'Vannon Seráphino: But though, are you still married to the same woman or is it a different person? Oh, yeah. Yep. 

Timothy Reigle: Yep. We're still married. We, we, we separated for a while, but we ended up getting back together. We actually renewed our wedding vows when we, when we got back together and, and kind of just said, Hey, we're, we're starting fresh here.

Timothy Reigle: And, and, and now our marriage is stronger than it ever was. You know, I, I, I'm as much as I don't, you know, I don't recommend this life path for a good marriage, but it actually did make us stronger, [00:26:00] you know, we came through it. It was hard. It, it, it sucked. It hurt, you know, and, but we're stronger and better because of it.

Timothy Reigle: Both of us, both of us. I mean, obviously there was the, the hurt and betrayal and everything for her, but I mean, you know, it was painful for me to go through too because of all the, all the, the, all the shame that was attached to it. And then I could see the hurt that I had caused her, the person that I love most in this world and see that I had hurt her the way I had, you know it.

Timothy Reigle: And so I had to, to work on some of those things myself, not just to seek forgiveness from her, but to give forgiveness to myself. Mm hmm. And, you know, that, that took a long time, but, you know, we decided we were gonna stick with this, hell or high water. And, and we stood before God and, and vowed that we were going to, and darn it, we're going to.

Timothy Reigle: And, and, yeah, it wasn't easy, don't get me wrong. And, and there are [00:27:00]marriages that, that, that don't survive it. And, and. You know, I think in certain occasions, that's okay and that's the right thing for the marriage to end for us, it certainly wasn't, and I'm thankful that we, we put in the work and the effort and the forgiveness and and, and sought God's guidance from that, and, and he brought us through it, and we're stronger than ever.

Timothy Reigle: At least you had enough 

De'Vannon Seráphino: sense to pray, you know, you know, just because, you know, just because somebody's out there fucking up and making mistakes doesn't mean How did the, the, the, the highly spiritual woman who, who raised me, evangelist Nelson would always say, you know, just, just because you're going to do wrong, don't mean you they have to, just what you did wrong tonight, that mean you have to get up and do it the next day, you know, you can always stop and just because you're going to do it, you can still be smart about it, you know, so, you know, you might as well take the time to invite God along, you know, Lord, I've been fucked up here, you know, help me, you done already done it, you might as well ask [00:28:00] for help.

De'Vannon Seráphino: On your, on right in your blog, on your website, in into the wilderness blog.com. My favorite blog on there, you have what's called the dos and Don'ts of Battling Porn Addiction. Mm-Hmm. . One of the, the key tenets there is, is to do not one of the do nots is to fight the battle alone. So that's like. Of course, you know, I'll let you talk about this, but when I first read it, I was thinking, okay, having people to help you, but having this conversation with you, I'm thinking like spiritually, you know, to have like that spiritual assistance from that higher power.

De'Vannon Seráphino: So can you tell us why people who, who know that they're battling porn and sex addiction should absolutely not try to do like a lot of males might instinctively try to do is handle it themselves. 

Timothy Reigle: Right. Yeah, I think that's certainly. It's twofold, you know, that we can't fight it alone spiritually, and we can't fight it alone personally either.[00:29:00]

Timothy Reigle: I know I could not have overcome this without the strength that God provides, the forgiveness that He provides, and the redemption that He provides. No way. You know, I am not strong enough of my own. I won't be. I'll choose sin every time. You know, and the Bible talks about that, how we, we are dead in our sins.

Timothy Reigle: And so I needed his strength and his guidance to live righteously. That took a lot of that shame away being, Hey, Christ died for my sins, for these sins. He paid the penalty for all the stupid shit I've been doing the last 15 years, right? I don't have to carry that weight. That doesn't make what I did.

Timothy Reigle: Okay. It's not a, it's not a get out of jail free card, right? There's still earthly consequences to that sin. But I'm not facing eternal judgment because of that sin, because I confessed it, I asked for his forgiveness, and I repented of it, and turned away and walked away from it. I go and said no more, as he told [00:30:00] the lady in John 8.

Timothy Reigle: So, we need God, but we also need personal guidance, human guidance. I don't want people to, well first of all, men try to, like you said, they go, oh I'm gonna deal with this on my own, you know, I'll just fix it myself, I'll just Man up and pull myself up out of bootstraps and fix this shit. And I did that for a long time too, and it didn't get me anywhere, you know.

Timothy Reigle: So, first of all, they need God. Second of all, you do need a personal, what I think, a mentor, a coach, a brother that can help you through that. The biblical example of that is the prophet Nathan. So I mentioned earlier the story of David and Bathsheba. And most people know that story. Most people don't know the following chapter where the prophet Nathan comes and and confronts David about his sin.

Timothy Reigle: And says, hey, you screwed up here, dude. Like, you need [00:31:00] to seek, you need help. You know, and he was that help and encouragement to him. So, men need that. You know, on the practical level, they need accountability. You know, they need someone to check in with them. They need something to encourage them, to support them, to, you know, lift them up when they're down.

Timothy Reigle: They may need somebody to give them a kick in the ass every once in a while too, right? So, having that, this isn't a battle you fight alone. You know, you need someone alongside you because there's going to be a lot of ups and downs. There's going to be good days, there's going to be bad days. There's going to be days where you feel like, you know what, this is stupid.

Timothy Reigle: I'm, I'm never, I'm just going to throw in the towel and quit. You know, you have a, have a relapse or you slip up or something like that. And it's easy to just throw in the towel and give up. You need someone who's there, who's going to be your, your coach, your mentor, your guide. Who's going to be like, no, I'm not letting you give up.

Timothy Reigle: You can do this, you know, dust yourself off and get your ass back in the game. Right? And that's what we need. And that's what men need. And so that's what I provide to men through, through my [00:32:00] coaching. You know, I'm not a, I'm not a counselor. I'm not a therapist. You know, I don't have a psychological degree.

Timothy Reigle: I'm not a pastor. You know, I'm not a theologian. I'm just a man who got through this darkness. And by the grace of God, got through it. And he laid it on my heart to turn around and help other men through it. So I'm going purely off experience and God's mission for my life. You know, I don't have letters behind my last name.

Timothy Reigle: So, you know, I'm able to, to, to have these conversations with these men and, and help them in a way that's different from they would get, what they would get from like a traditional counselor or therapist or even a pastor. Yeah, there's a lot more intensive and hands on in that way, right? 

De'Vannon Seráphino: There is nothing like real life experience, you know, period the degrees and the letters behind our name very valuable and everything like that.

De'Vannon Seráphino: But if you haven't, when you live with something, it carries an intensity in your ministry to other people. So can you give me an example of like. What you [00:33:00] would do with somebody, like practically, like say I'm addicted to porn and sex and I'm like Tim, I don't, I can't keep my dick in my pants no matter what I do, no matter where I go, you know, you know, I'm, I'm a hoe from the free throw line and I'm trying to change my ways because I've been for the streets and I don't want to be for the streets anymore.

De'Vannon Seráphino: Are you giving me homework to take home? Are we meditating? Are we, what are we doing? Yeah. Say I'm somebody who's not really spiritual at all and not open to prayer. 

Timothy Reigle: So yeah, my, my, my coaching has real hands on approach and real practical approach is true. It's, it's not just, you know, pray the sin away type of thing.

Timothy Reigle: You know, that doesn't, you know, we need to pray about it. Obviously we just talked about that, but you know, there's a, there's a favorite saying of mine and I don't know who said it and I'm probably butchering the original quote, but it said, our faith can move mountains, but God still wants us to [00:34:00] bring a shovel.

Timothy Reigle: Our faith can move mountains, but God wants us to bring us a shovel. So, we still have work to do, right? So, I focus on three things in my coaching. And I have those listed as help, habits, and heart. So, the help aspect is kind of what I just described. You know, the accountability, that, that teaching, that guidance, that encouragement, that support.

Timothy Reigle: I'm, I'm here for you. You know, I'm a brother on the battlefield with you, and I'm not going to leave you on the battlefield. The second part is habits. So these are kind of the more practical things. So, we're going to focus on identifying, first of all, what our triggers are. So what are those things that are causing us to have urges to act out through porn and sex?

Timothy Reigle: So, is it, is it, you know, Too much social media and going down that wormhole of, of all the sexualized images on social media. Is it work stress? Is it, you know, [00:35:00] you know, arguments with your wife? You know, what, what are these triggers that triggers you to have these urges to, to act out? We're gonna figure out what those are.

Timothy Reigle: We're gonna learn ways to deal with those. We're gonna focus on a lot of routines. Routines are very important for me. You know, having establishing times where you're most vulnerable. Like for me, when I struggled a lot, it was late at night. You know, my wife and kids would be in bed. I'd be downstairs watching TV, scrolling on my phone, you know, one thing leads to another, and then I'm looking at porn.

Timothy Reigle: Right. So I had to completely rebuild my evening routine to take away that vulnerable opportunity. I also focus a lot on journaling and, and, and tracking your progress. And it doesn't have to be, you know, dear diary type of journaling. It can just be, you know, You track your progress. Today was a good day.

Timothy Reigle: Today was a bad day. You know, tomorrow, you know, those type of things. You know, we build, build up boundaries and kind of [00:36:00] guidelines for us to follow to make sure we stay in a safe area. This is an example I use a lot, you know, let's say you're, you know, if you're going off driving along the road and there's a cliff.

Timothy Reigle: Right? Before the cliff, there's a guardrail, and then there's a rumble strip on the side of the road, and then there's a little white line you're supposed to stay within. Well, it's the same thing with this. We treat having a relapse with porn and sexual addiction as the cliff. Well, we want to have something here, and here, and here.

Timothy Reigle: That we can, if we bump into that, we can course correct before it goes all the way to a full, full type of thing. So we kind of establish where those kind of checkpoints are and learn to set boundaries in our lives so that we can, like I said, kind of course correct and understand where we are before it's too late.

Timothy Reigle: But to me, we can do, you can have all the habits in the world. You can have all the practical things in place and, and all these things. None of it matters if you don't deal with the heart. I. say all the time that [00:37:00] porn addiction isn't something you quit, it's something you heal. So to me, the real cause of the porn addiction is that it's an emotional issue.

Timothy Reigle: It's not a sexual issue. We become addicted to these things as a means of escape, as a means of coping. You know, so there's something in our lives that we're using porn to run away from, or maybe there's something we're trying to find through porn that we don't have in our lives that we need. And so I work with men to kind of understand some of the emotional sides of it.

Timothy Reigle: You know, I work with a lot of men who've had, had major trauma in their lives. You know, they've had abuse they've had neglect, you know, maybe their parents divorced or somebody died or, or things like that. But I've worked with just as many men who had good, happy, healthy childhoods, myself included.

Timothy Reigle: There's still often things in our lives that have happened over the years that caused emotional damage. I'll, I'll use an example from my life. I got rejected by this girl when I was in high school. [00:38:00] In hindsight now, 20 years later, gives a shit. Like, who didn't get dumped in high school, right? Like everybody, like, you didn't really go to high school if you didn't get dumped by, you know, in high school, right?

Timothy Reigle: So, but, that left when I'm a, you know, 16 year old kid and dealing with that. And, and dealing with those emotions, I didn't know how to properly deal with them. So I ran to porn to, to cope with that. That became my coping mechanism, my escape. And I kept using that as my coping mechanism throughout the rest of my life.

Timothy Reigle: So now it may be something in my thirties. Where let's say my boss chews me out at work. Okay. That has nothing to do with porn. It has nothing to do with sex, has nothing to do with that girl dumping me in, in sophomore year of high school. But it triggers that same emotional reaction, that fear of rejection that started back then in high school.

Timothy Reigle: And so I would use the same thing to cope with that fear, to cope with that pain. And so we have to learn what kind of, what [00:39:00] those things are that caused that emotional damage to us and what they made us believe about ourselves. You know, there's fears, there's fears of rejection, fears of. Not being good enough, fears of not being loved, fears that there's something wrong with us, that we're broken, that we're damaged, that we're, you know, beyond repair.

Timothy Reigle: And then we have to learn healthy ways to deal with those emotions. And that's where the true healing comes from. You know, it comes from the inside out. It's not a, it's not just something that we just willpower ourselves to, to stop. Discipline's involved with it, but we have to kind of heal that from within and figure out why we went to porn.

Timothy Reigle: Why are we using this as our escape and our coping mechanism and learn to kind of heal that from 

De'Vannon Seráphino: within. I think that that's intelligent as fuck. Porn addiction is not a habit to break. It is a wound to heal. I think in my, in my addiction journey, myself and research. All of all of the shit boils down to that, like something broken within us.[00:40:00]

De'Vannon Seráphino: For me, I think that it was like being molested like by my uncle or uncles. I don't know how many fucking people it was when I was like a little, little, little, little boy, you know, like, and, And it was years until, like, my whole addiction struggle, all of this different types of treatments that I realized that that had happened, and I started having dreams, you know, about, like, my, like, my young self being in, like, burning house or whatever the case may be.

De'Vannon Seráphino: Two years ago, I'm 41 now, you know, it was, it was deep within my subconscious of when I started doing hypnotherapy and it started to come up. And so from the outside, it looked like I was just running around trying to shoot up drugs and have all these sex with all these guys just for shits and grins.

De'Vannon Seráphino: But really, I was still trying to numb that pain from before and dealing with the false association with being able to get attention from males through sex because of that molestation. Sure. And so, [00:41:00] and so, and I grew up in church too, Pentecostal. So abusive, they meant well, but still got down. And so I guess pun intended, but that one, so, so many times don't dance, don't drink, don't smoke, don't do porn.

De'Vannon Seráphino: Don't do anything like that. No alternatives, and certainly none of this talk about here like dealing with it on an emotional level the last time that I was in a mental hospital before I left the social one of the social workers with was counseling me about the whole molestation thing he was he was he told me that at least 50 percent of the veterans that come into he's been there like shit 30 years I think he said he's like 50 percent of the veterans that come into the psych for it.

De'Vannon Seráphino: with addict, with substance abuse issues. 50 percent of us have been molested or something like that when we were children. Okay. And like 30 [00:42:00] years, he's like, most of us have somebody did something to us that they shouldn't have when we were children. And that's where it came from. And he told me, look, don't give this person control over you anymore.

De'Vannon Seráphino: So do you feel like all of that, the acting out that you were doing, you know, whatever part, because of what this girl told you And I want to bring this home because a lot of males Like to feel dominant a lot of times, if not all the time, I don't know, I don't really identify like that on most days, but it kind of, do you feel like maybe we give people control over us when we act out through these things, if it's stemming from something someone said to us a long time ago or did to us?

Timothy Reigle: I think so. Yeah. Yeah. And there's, you know, a number of different events that, that cause that. I mean, I just use that example. There's multiple other events. In my life that, that caused emotional things that I didn't know how to deal with. You know, I don't, you know, thankfully I don't have any of the kind of the [00:43:00] major traumas.

Timothy Reigle: You know, I, I, no. Abuse or neglect or, you know, any of those type of things, but, but yeah, I think so, you know, I think those things affect us even on the conscious and the subconscious level, you know even if things happen when you're, when you're a real little kid, you know, you learn to internalize things, you learn to, to just drown out the, drown out the fear and drown out the noise that's going into chaos and the things that are going on around you and you find a way to make yourself, feel safe.

Timothy Reigle: You know, and a lot of times, porn and sex can make us feel safe. You know, when you look at it from the outside in, it seems like, you know, why would you, why would you run to all that, be all this promiscuous and do all these sort of things? You know, it seems counterproductive and counterintuitive. And on the surface, someone on the outside looking in, It does like someone's wife, you know, a man who's who's like myself [00:44:00] who had all these affairs and had all the things.

Timothy Reigle: Well, that's crazy. You have a beautiful wife. Why would you be doing those things? It makes no sense. Yeah, it doesn't. But we're not thinking logically. We're thinking emotionally because there's emotional damage there. And so, you know, I didn't have any necessarily. One particular person that I could pin all this on, you know, some people have that, you know, some people were molested by one person, they could like, this person was the cause of all of it.

Timothy Reigle: I, I don't know if it's, it's not really directly giving them power when we, when we seek these things to escape it, but it's, you know, like you said, it's still letting them affect us. It's letting, it's because we haven't, haven't healed from it. You know, we're just trying to run away from it. And, you know, a lot of what we have to do to heal that is to turn around and, and kind of face it, you know, because we're trying to run away from that pain.

Timothy Reigle: We're trying to run away from those fears all the time, using porn and sex to mask them, when we really need to turn around and face them. [00:45:00] And, and like you said about being dominant. Yeah, a lot of men find that through when they don't feel like they're in control, when they don't feel like they are powerful, when they feel weak, when they feel, you know, less than, not good enough, for whatever reason.

Timothy Reigle: You know, it may be because of trauma, sexual trauma in their lives. It could be that. Their marriage is falling apart and their wife is nagging them all the time, right? It could be that their boss is picking on them all the time, you know, whatever, you know, it could be anything. But it makes them feel on the emotional level weak, and not safe, and out of control.

Timothy Reigle: And porn, and sexual, gives them a It, it, it kind of makes them feel powerful without them being powerful. It makes a man who doesn't feel masculine and wants to feel like I'm the [00:46:00] man that that can pick up, you know, that, that women want, if he's not that, porn can make him feel like he has that, even though it doesn't, right.

Timothy Reigle: It can give him that false sense of accomplishment, that false sense of, of strength, the power of dominance that he's really looking for, but in his life, he's too broken to get there. And so a lot of men use that as, as kind of a. a way to feel that because it doesn't require anything of them, you know, it promises all these sort of things, but it doesn't require you to actually go out and be them.

Timothy Reigle: It promises that you can be this strong, powerful man without you actually requiring you to be one. 

De'Vannon Seráphino: Yeah, like you don't have to actually take the emotional risks involved and actually 

Timothy Reigle: Well, that's a big part of it is there's no risk, right? If someone's fearing rejection, and that was part of me, fearing rejection, feeling getting shut down, feeling, you know, someone like you're not good enough with porn, you're always good enough.

Timothy Reigle: There's no risk of rejection. [00:47:00] You know, they're not going to make fun of you because of your looks. They're not going to make fun of you because you're overweight. They're not going to make fun of you, you know, whatever you might be self conscious about inside. None of that matters. You're not going to be rejected for any of that with porn.

Timothy Reigle: But if you go out in, in public and try to do that, there's a fear there and there's a risk there. With porn, there's zero risk. And so that's why it becomes that safe option that I talked about for men, even though it's not. And it causes more damage to us the further and deeper we go into it.

De'Vannon Seráphino: What I know, everything you said is so insightful, what I know about habits, I haven't broken many of them in my day and time, is when we're, when I was in those habits, Tim, it is when It's like I couldn't imagine my life without them, and it's almost like that I had to like, mourn the death of it, the passing of it, and it's true.

De'Vannon Seráphino: And I don't think that there's [00:48:00] anything wrong with grieving the loss of something that you used to do because, like say in the crystal meth world, and all of it, and the drug dealing world, there's a lot of community that went along with that. Treacherous false community, but still a perception of community of brotherhood, which you say is very important.

De'Vannon Seráphino: All the same. And it is important, but, you know, so I had to grieve, you know, I'm not going to be able to be friends with those people anymore. You know, I got to let that go. But the beautiful thing is on the other side of the detachment and the letting go, I found that. I was gifted with better, you know, on the other side, but I couldn't see that all I could see was that my God, I got to stop doing this thing.

De'Vannon Seráphino: I've been doing forever. Whatever will I do? Oh, the lament, you know, but after, you know, after it was all over, you know, it's so much better on the other side. 

Timothy Reigle: Yeah, and and no, that's that's very true. Yeah. You kind of have to grieve. Even though it's something you, [00:49:00] you know is wrong for you, and you know is bad for you, and it's causing damage to your life, it's still something that is familiar.

Timothy Reigle: And so a lot of the emotional things behind this are fears of fear of the unknown, fear of the unfamiliar, fear of change, you know, and so you, in a way, we'd almost rather stay in this place that we know that we're comfortable with, that's quote unquote safe, even though we know it's killing us. Then, then risk what's on the other side and what's unknown, but when we have the faith and the perseverance to get there, like you said, you realize, yeah, these, these people, yeah, there was a close knit there, but it was, it was probably very codependent and very enabling and, you know, kind of, you know, I hear it described a lot as kind of the, the, you know, the crabs in the bucket, you know, somebody tries to climb out and they pull you back down, right?

Timothy Reigle: But once you get out, you realize there's freedom there and you realize there's other people who want the best for you and want to encourage you and [00:50:00] support you and love you through that. And if you could find that and get out of that and persevere through that, through that fear of the unknown, then you can find that freedom and find that, find that peace.

Timothy Reigle: The, the 

De'Vannon Seráphino: analogy Tim made about the, the crab pulling the other one down or as, as, as I'm from Louisiana, as we would say down there, the crawfish pulling the crawfish back down, we get in the crawfish season. I got a taste for them, right? Baby. Yes. What that looks like, what that looks like is say, you know, say somebody's trying to get out of porn or stop using drugs, a quote unquote frenemy who's not really who can see that it's a trap.

De'Vannon Seráphino: Doesn't want you to get out. So they'll just give you some free drugs or. Or try to enable you and it'll look friendly like they're trying to give you something but really they're thinking they don't want you to get the freedom that they know they're not strong enough to get. And so, those friends that you had earlier that, that outed you, best friends ever.

De'Vannon Seráphino: Friends [00:51:00] who are going to keep telling you, hey, it's okay. Keep having sex. Go do this. Go do that. Those are not your friends. I don't care how, how silky and sweet and smooth their words are. They're laced with poison and those people don't like you and they, because they don't like themselves and they, and they afraid that if you get out, you're going to make them look bad because they don't have the strength to do it.

De'Vannon Seráphino: And it happens all the damn time. So, yeah. So you hit the nail on the head. Oh, you're exactly right. But they don't come bearing horns and veins. These people are right up close to you, . Yeah. And so, and that reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from the JW Wick series when the, the, the Asian dude and the, and the, and the, the last one.

De'Vannon Seráphino: He was saying, you know, like, what good is friendship when it's convenient? , you know? Yeah. You know, what good is brotherhood and it's convenient with anything. We need those 

Timothy Reigle: people, like I was talking about the Nathan before, you know, and not doing this alone. [00:52:00] We need those people who are going to have the courage to tell us what we need to hear, not what we want to hear.

Timothy Reigle: Mm hmm. 

De'Vannon Seráphino: If y'all get a chance to go through, I think that's in the book of either Kings or Samuel, where you're talking about Nathan the prophet. Y'all, Nathan, Nathan goes, second Samuel, second Samuel, he goes in there to read David for filth is what that was, we would call it, you know, he, it was not a cute conversation because see God sees everything that we had done, everything is known, and you know, you know, so the Lord simply told Nathan the prophet what David had done, he killed Uriah Bathsheba's husband, so because he wanted her, I mean, You know, I'm not, you know, and so everything was known.

De'Vannon Seráphino: And so the Lord made David accountable. And that was a, that, that, that's what we, that's what we call in the queer circles, a read honey. Nathan, the prophet read David for health is what happened, but it all worked out for the good, [00:53:00] you know, in the end, but David had to go through some things. Okay, so I'll let you go ahead and have the last word then I'll ask you our dad jokes and then that'll be it.

De'Vannon Seráphino: Anything that you would like to say at all? 

Timothy Reigle: My message that I always, always try to sentiment is, is that there's always hope. You know, never, never give up. You know, there's always, always hope, and there's gonna be moments when people who are dealing with this and have been battling addiction for years, where they feel hopeless, they feel helpless, they feel like they're beyond.

Timothy Reigle: They're beyond being fixed. They're broken. They're damaged. They're too far gone. They're unforgivable. You know you know, God can't forgive somebody like me. Look at how terrible of a person I am. They'll feel like they're so entrapped by this that they'll never find freedom. And that's, that's not true.

Timothy Reigle: I know it sounds cliche, but if I can find a freedom, you know, you can. And it's not easy. [00:54:00] You know, you have to fight against those forces like you were talking about, the people trying to, the crawfish trying to keep you back in the bucket. You have to fight against those people. You have to fight against these emotions and fears that you've been pushing down and, and hiding and running away from your entire life.

Timothy Reigle: You have to kind of be humble and humble yourself and, and admit that you were doing wrong and that you need help. But, that help is there. That forgiveness is there. God loves you, there's people that love you, and, and, and want you to be free from this. You just need to have the courage to stand up and say, Hey, I need help, and I want to get out of this.

Timothy Reigle: And that's what I encourage you to do. 

De'Vannon Seráphino: Wow, I feel nothing but love dripping off of every word you say. Like, I love, I love everything that you just said right now. That's definitely going to be one of my social media clips that I push out there, this whole end part, what you just said right now. Tear, tear.

De'Vannon Seráphino: That was so, like, spot on. So, okay. Dad joke [00:55:00] number one what kind of bagel can travel? 

Timothy Reigle: Hmm, I don't know. A plain bagel. A plain bagel, ah. You're in New York now, you gotta get used to your bagels. You gotta, you gotta find your good bagel 

De'Vannon Seráphino: shop there. Oh, I know, I know. Nothing like a, Nothing like bagel and some tea, you know, you know, in the morning before, before you catch the train.

De'Vannon Seráphino: And okay. Dad joke number two. What do you call a cat with eight legs? Cat with eight legs. I don't know. An octopus. 

Timothy Reigle: Octopus. Ha! My wife will like that one. She's a cat. She's a cat girl. She loves cats. I'll have to remember that one for her. 

De'Vannon Seráphino: So am I. I'm going to be volunteering in Brooklyn. We have a cat cafe.

De'Vannon Seráphino: Oh 

Timothy Reigle: yeah. I've been to a couple of those. They're interesting. 

De'Vannon Seráphino: I was headed somewhere in downtown [00:56:00] Brooklyn and I looked over to my left and I said, what is this miraculous piece of heaven here that has fallen down to me? And I went in there and I was like, do y'all need volunteers, perchance? And they were like, yeah, on the weekends.

De'Vannon Seráphino: And I was like, you'll be seeing me. And there's cats everywhere. And so so final one. Why did the orchestra get struck by lightning? Hmm. Don't know that one either. Because it had a conductor. Ha! 

Timothy Reigle: That's a good one. I like that one. 

De'Vannon Seráphino: Today's Dad Jokes are courtesy of Today. com. Y'all, this has been Timothy Regal.

De'Vannon Seráphino: His website is IntoTheWildernessBlog. com. You can find him on Twitter, on Instagram, or X or whatever they're called on Twitter these days. And and all this information will go in the show notes. Thank you so much for being a marvelous guest. You have broken me into New York City quite well. And I [00:57:00] look forward to releasing this episode.

= Thank you all so much for joining us today and for taking some time to invest into yourself and into the lives of your loved ones. Please visit us at sexdrugsandjesus. com and check out our resource page, our spiritual service offerings, my blog, my books, and other writings that God has partnered with me to create.

De'Vannon Seráphino: Find us on any social media platform, stay strong my people, and just remember that everything is going to be alright.