It Wasn’t that Bad – Understanding Sexual Compulsivity in Good Families with Dr. Greg Miller with Faithful and True

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Karen Potter: Welcome everyone to the Covenant eyes podcast I am your host Karen potter director of church and affiliate marketing for covenant eyes.

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Karen Potter: This podcast brings together experts from all over the globe, to talk about pornography recovery programs helpful resources educational content.

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Karen Potter: All designed to help people in the church overcome freedom our topic for today's podcast is it wasn't that bad understanding sexual addiction in good families today i'm.

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Karen Potter: joined by my co host brandon Clark our church and marketing specialist here at covenant eyes hi brandon how are you today.

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Brandon.Clark@covenanteyes.com: hey i'm doing great how about you Karen.

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Karen Potter: i'm doing well i'm sorry to hear that you're having a blizzard out there in Minnesota.

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Brandon.Clark@covenanteyes.com: that's kind of life in Minnesota in the wintertime you just kind of take those risks.

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Karen Potter: yeah well thanks so much for joining us, and I know you are eager to introduce today's guests, that we have with us.

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Brandon.Clark@covenanteyes.com: yeah absolutely you know before I introduce Dr Greg Miller, I just want to say i'm really excited about this topic, this is.

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Brandon.Clark@covenanteyes.com: A unique one that I think a lot of people might underestimate it as far as like how often we see something like this of.

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Brandon.Clark@covenanteyes.com: A good family struggling and having sexual addiction and having these problems so.

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Brandon.Clark@covenanteyes.com: i'm really excited to invite in DR Greg Miller of faithful and true he's going to be an amazing guest guest Greg and his wife beth started thrive resources in 2011.

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Brandon.Clark@covenanteyes.com: Working with individuals and couples who are struggling with various forms of coping and addiction and who are wanting spiritual guidance.

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Brandon.Clark@covenanteyes.com: Greg has served as Director of the men's journey workshops with faithful and true in EDEN prairie Minnesota since 2009.

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Brandon.Clark@covenanteyes.com: and has a master of divinity degree from southern seminary in louisville Kentucky and his doctor of ministry degree from.

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Brandon.Clark@covenanteyes.com: candler School of Theology at emory University in Atlanta Georgia Greg has served on church staffs in North Carolina and Illinois.

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Brandon.Clark@covenanteyes.com: And Greg and beth have been married for 30 years i've got less than that so wonderful currently living in Chicago Illinois they have two sons Jacob and caleb and beth and Greg also have Lucy a rescue dog Dr Greg Miller welcome and thanks so much for being on with us today.

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Dr. Greg Miller: Well it's great to be here, and thanks for the invitation and thanks for including me.

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Karen Potter: Dr Greg um, can you tell our listeners who may not be familiar with faithful and true just a little bit about your organization and some of the work that you're doing there.

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Dr. Greg Miller: yeah.

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Dr. Greg Miller: faithful and true was started about 30 years ago by Mark laser and his wife deb.

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Dr. Greg Miller: They are in EDEN prairie Minnesota and mark really was one of the first ones in the Christian community.

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Dr. Greg Miller: To take the principles of recovery that he had learned from Patrick carnes but then wrote a book called healing the wounds of sexual addiction and in that.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And what he did that was unique was he included his own story, and he also included his faith experience and so that really just began.

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Dr. Greg Miller: Giving mark a platform and a voice and then from that he's had opportunities to lead conferences and out of that came workshops.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And so we've been doing workshops a faithful and true and, as you mentioned i've been doing the i've been the director of the men's workshop.

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Dr. Greg Miller: For the last 13 years we do a workshop for men every month addressing the issues of sexual addiction and it really was out of working with men that I began to ask them questions on that I begin to wonder about an out of that came to research.

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Brandon.Clark@covenanteyes.com: yeah I want to ask a question about that research in just a second, but I wonder if you can talk about just.

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Brandon.Clark@covenanteyes.com: The heart for men in seeing what you've seen in may be experiencing what you've experienced, you know how are the men out there, you know and are they seeking help or or are they in need of good help what's the atmosphere like when it comes to.

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Dr. Greg Miller: You know what what we see is there are various approaches with men come to our workshop we have men who come, who are eager.

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Dr. Greg Miller: They have just kind of reached that point of desperation, they are open, maybe they've heard about faithful and true from a friend or did research and found us online, but they come hoping and with anticipation.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And we have some men who come to our workshop and there's some reluctance and resistance, maybe they've been told they need to come, maybe it came kind of in an ultimatum from a.

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Dr. Greg Miller: wife or somebody else in their life so they show up and there's a little bit of hesitancy and resistance.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And there's a third category of guys and they are the ones that really want to experience transformation.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And yet they had been dealing with this issue for so many years they've tried so many different programs they've read so many different books.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And they really don't feel as if they've made made much progress, so they come with.

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Dr. Greg Miller: Some hope but also a lot of caution and even some i'm questioning as to whether or not it's going to make a difference.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And what I often say to the men that come to the workshop, is it doesn't matter what got you here.

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Dr. Greg Miller: I missed what happens, while you are here, can we take some of that resistance and caution and turn it into some openness and and to consider the possibilities.

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Dr. Greg Miller: What we do see is, we see it over and over again just that the the significant issue that this is for men in the Church.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And one of the things that the research showed us, and so I do want to talk about the research but part of the issue wise on we sent out this questionnaire, we had a significant number of people fill it out.

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Dr. Greg Miller: We had over 400 question questionnaires began out of that we got over 330 that were viable questionnaires and it was for both men and women.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And what we did is we targeted people between the ages of 20 and 35 and the vast majority of them identified themselves not just as.

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Dr. Greg Miller: i'm Christian but they would say that they are committed to Christ, they would define themselves as Christ followers they had a high participation and commitment to the church and church activities.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And one of the things that we saw pretty consistently was here is this population of people who were very committed to their faith committed to the church committed to expressing their faith.

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Dr. Greg Miller: define themselves as Christ followers and still struggling with these issues and, as you can imagine that creates a pretty significant.

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Dr. Greg Miller: kind of question of your faith or concern what difference does it make.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And so, a lot of times people in the Church, especially those who were raised in the church come to this issue with a certain level of hopelessness and despair.

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Dr. Greg Miller: Because the stuff they were told is supposed to be helpful, they haven't necessarily found helpful and it hasn't created the freedom that they desire.

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Brandon.Clark@covenanteyes.com: I can imagine that would be very troubling and challenging I think of my own experience and how I was also raised in the church and struggled.

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Brandon.Clark@covenanteyes.com: mightily with sexual addiction and so it's it's really interesting to hear the the results of that and was a surprising I guess that's what I would like to know, was when you saw the results and you saw the data coming in, were you surprised.

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Dr. Greg Miller: No actually it just confirmed what we suspected, you know, having had so many men come through the workshop.

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Dr. Greg Miller: Having done it for so many years, one of the things that really encouraged me to do the research with some of the experiences that we were having in the workshop.

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Dr. Greg Miller: Back in the 80s and when Patrick carnes first wrote his book out of the shadows and don't call it love.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And the research pretty much indicated that people struggling with sexual addiction had some sort of trauma or had some sort of.

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Dr. Greg Miller: invasion or abuse in their background in fact in his books.

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Dr. Greg Miller: Patrick writes about this significant percentage of men coming through the program who had some sort of invasion abuse trauma and that they had experienced.

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Dr. Greg Miller: So a lot of people are reading those books they're evaluating their own lives and what they're saying is you know what I don't know why i'm here because abuse or trauma isn't a significant part of my story.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And so it's like they didn't fit the typical understanding of what it took in order to become someone who struggled with sexual addiction.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And so it was out of that question of what are some of the factors that helped to determine if somebody struggles.

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Dr. Greg Miller: Because what was happening is we were having these guys coming through the workshop saying kind of what.

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Dr. Greg Miller: We said earlier, it really wasn't that bad you know growing up, I came from a good loving family, yes, we had our issues, yes, we had our challenges.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And yet I don't understand if abuse is foundational for sexual addiction Why am I here, so it was out of that question that we begin to do some of the research.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And what I wanted to look at is what are some of the other contributing factors.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And so we looked at invasion and abandonment invasion is when something happens to a child, that should not have happened.

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Dr. Greg Miller: A band and men is when the child has a need and that need goes unmet.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And in the early days of the research back in the 80s around sexual addiction, the focus was on invasion abuse when something happens to a child, that should not have happened.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And one of the things I heard mark say in all of his years of teaching is that.

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Dr. Greg Miller: He believed that the energy of abandonment for someone struggling with sexual addiction was just as great as the energy of invasion.

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Dr. Greg Miller: So just because someone didn't experience some sort of abuse physical, sexual and spiritual abuse growing up.

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Dr. Greg Miller: I mean it didn't mean that they didn't struggle with the pain of abandonment and we know now that that significantly contributes to the addiction energy.

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Dr. Greg Miller: So we looked at invasion we looked at abandonment we looked at pornography itself as a contributing factor.

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Dr. Greg Miller: One of the reasons that I targeted men and women between the ages of 20 and 35 years we specifically wanted to look at when technology came into the home.

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Dr. Greg Miller: We asked questions you know when did the Internet come into your home when did you get your first smartphone when were you first introduced to pornography.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And it's not surprising, the younger I am when i'm introduced to the Internet, the younger I am when i'm introduced pornography and we began to see that pornography itself was.

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Dr. Greg Miller: Part of the abusive experience, so it didn't necessarily come from the family, but it was something that significantly impacted me as it kind of pulled me in to this world this universe of distorted sexuality.

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Dr. Greg Miller: We saw two things that were clearing the research for anyone who is exposed to pornography as a child, one of the things that they experienced is significant body shaming.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And it makes perfect sense i'm exposed to these bodies they're fully developed adults, yet as a child i'm comparing myself to them and he's going to create body shaming it's going to create insecurities.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And the other thing that we saw was for children who are exposed to pornography, when they are young, it does also increase experimentation with other children again that makes sense.

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Dr. Greg Miller: i'm watching these adults do these things, and now I want to experiment i'm curious about this with my friends my sister my brother, whoever else may be there.

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Dr. Greg Miller: So we know that just being exposed to pornography is going to be one of the contributing factors, to the shame that's going to be driving the addiction.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And a couple of other things that we looked at, was what we refer to as comparison based identity.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And this is when I believe that my value my identity and my safety come from how I compared to other people.

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Dr. Greg Miller: You know, one of the things that we teach in our workshop is that our value our identity and our safety come from who God is and who God created us to be.

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Dr. Greg Miller: But when I live in a culture of comparison based identity, I actually instead of looking at who God created me to be uniquely I try to see how I fit in conform with others.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And that's going to increase my shame, you know those there's always going to be that person that smarter and more talented more desirable more attractive richer whatever my criteria is so i'm going to be left feeling inadequate.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And then the other thing that we looked at, was what we refer to as performance based faith.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And one of the things I heard from the men who are coming through our workshop shop is, many of them were raised in the Church.

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Dr. Greg Miller: But what happened was they grew up in a faith tradition that really evaluated behavior as an expression of righteousness.

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Dr. Greg Miller: If you behaved in this way, then you were a righteous person, if you didn't behave in this way, you are an unrighteous person.

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Dr. Greg Miller: Well, it doesn't take long to go to church to realize you want to be a righteous person and so for the child, they begin to separate their faith experience from their behavior.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And they highlight the behavior that they see is acceptable and they hide the behavior that they believe is questionable, or we leave that would be rejected.

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Dr. Greg Miller: Something else that we looked at is, if you grew up in a tradition, where fear and shame were part of the theology.

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Dr. Greg Miller: There was a lot of sense of status, you were either in the group or out of the group.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And those were contributing factors to this idea performance based faith and for someone who grew up in that tradition, what ends up happening is they almost develop like this dual.

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Dr. Greg Miller: role this dual personality, this is, who I am when i'm in public and i'm around people from the Church, but I have this secret part that's going on that nobody knows anything about.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And it's the secrecy of the acting out that's actually fueling the acting out itself, and so we want to just to see about these contributing factors and then one other thing I would say, is what we saw was.

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Dr. Greg Miller: It didn't matter how much you experienced these things if you experience these things and actually contributes to shame.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And then, what we saw was at some point the shame supersedes the causal event in driving the addiction, so I used to say at the workshop, we must heal the pain of the past.

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Dr. Greg Miller: The language that I use now is, we must heal the shame that was created from the pain of the past.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And the way that we talk about shame at the workshop shame, are the lies that we believe about ourselves and the lies that we believe about God and we want to go from living in the bondage of lies to living in the fullness of the truth of who God is.

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Karen Potter: Dr Miller, you just unpacked a whole host of me.

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Dr. Greg Miller: I want to dive into.

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Karen Potter: But you know, I find it really interesting because we hear this quite often in quite frequently from people that engage with covenant eyes.

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Karen Potter: You know kind of that put on the church face and the shame and hide all the dirty secrets that we have in the back room so.

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Karen Potter: I want to unpack that just a little bit more, because I know a lot of the pastors and leaders that are watching this podcast.

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Karen Potter: You know, are having a really difficult time kind of helping people address that that secrets thin and unpack that shame, a little bit, how do we as a church body.

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Karen Potter: Remove that that shame that is behind our struggles with sexual addiction and pornography, so that we can begin to find that restoration and healing because the Church is struggling with that do you have any advice or wisdom on that.

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Dr. Greg Miller: Well, you know, one of the things that.

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Dr. Greg Miller: I really am drawn towards i'm really curious about is this idea of what I refer to as creating a culture of vulnerability in the Church.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And it really is about the the leadership modeling that that when a congregation sees their pastor and the leadership team being open and honest and transparent about their own.

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Dr. Greg Miller: journey and struggles, that is, that is transformative for the entire congregation and I grew up in the church and also what's true for me, as I am in recovery for sexual addiction.

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Dr. Greg Miller: Am I was on staff at a church about 16 years ago and I got exposed exposed my life exploded, and that really began my own journey of recovery.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And so I was on the staff at the Church, I was promoting this performance based culture and because I didn't have the courage to be open and honest and vulnerable.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And one of the things I have tremendous respect for our men and women who are in leadership at church.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And they have the courage to be open and honest about their own journey and their own struggle there's an amazing invitation that comes from that.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And one of the things that's true is we know and the Church, how to talk about vague generalities, we know that I am a sinner I have fallen from grace and sometimes we leave it there.

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Dr. Greg Miller: But what really is transformational is when somebody has the courage and the capacity to be open and honest about what that struggle is.

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Dr. Greg Miller: I think another piece of this is really reorienting our understanding of sexuality itself.

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Dr. Greg Miller: One of the questions I often get is when should we start talking to our children about sexuality and the answer is, when they are born.

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Dr. Greg Miller: From the very beginning we're going to talk to them about their bodies and that God created their bodies and that God gave them certain desires and they're going to grow in their understanding of those desires and it's all good.

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Dr. Greg Miller: It is all god's good creation so it's not about avoidance it's about stewardship I often say you cannot steward a gift, you do not accept.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And so, in order for there to be stewardship it begins with ownership so i'm going to own that God created me to be sexual it's a good part of god's creation and i'm going to learn to be a good steward of it.

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Dr. Greg Miller: When children have a what I refer to as a theology of redemptive sexuality, then when they come across something that is outside of god's plan, they have a structure to be able to talk about it.

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Dr. Greg Miller: You know, for years, the strategy was kind of protection we're going to try to protect our children from pornography.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And I think there was a season, where that might have worked I don't know if we're in that season anymore.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And the research seems to indicate by the age of 10 75% of all children, boys and girls have seen pornography.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And so it really is about engaging that conversation and creating safety, I often say it wasn't that you were exposed to pornography that created the chaos.

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Dr. Greg Miller: Is that you were alone, and you didn't have safe people that you could talk to about and kind of a side note is one of the things that we.

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Dr. Greg Miller: Teach is when a child is exposed to.

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Dr. Greg Miller: pornography, there are two things that happen one is the child develops curiosity.

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Dr. Greg Miller: It makes perfect sense, you know if you show kids bugs they become curious about bugs if you show kids the stars they become curious about astronomy.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And if they're introduced to something sexual they see bodies if they see an experience you're not familiar with, they become curious about that.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And curious is curiosity, is one of the things that drives us it's not a negative thing that curiosity spiritual curiosity, is what opens us up to God.

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Dr. Greg Miller: The other thing, though, that happens is when a child is exposed to something sexual they get triggered into their shame.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And the original shame message is this message of there's something wrong with me and as soon as I believe there's something wrong with me I go into hiding.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And it makes sense when a child is exposed to something sexual and they're not ready to handle it or understand it, there is something wrong.

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Dr. Greg Miller: A child should not be exposed to sexuality, it creates chaos for the child and the child doesn't have the emotional physical spiritual.

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Dr. Greg Miller: capacity to navigate it well, so it makes perfect sense if they're trying to navigate it well in isolation they're not going to be successful.

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Dr. Greg Miller: But what happens is when i'm exposed to something sexual I become curious about it.

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Dr. Greg Miller: I get triggered into my shame about it that shame sends me into isolation and secrecy, which actually gives the pornography more power.

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Dr. Greg Miller: So what we're trying to do is to create systems within the church and within families where we can openly talk about sexuality.

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Dr. Greg Miller: We can talk about pornography, we can create this idea of stewardship that says.

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Dr. Greg Miller: The reason that we don't look at pornography is it creates chaos it's based upon lies, it is destructive and us achieving what God really intense for sexuality.

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Dr. Greg Miller: it's almost as if we want people to understand there is something better out there if we know how to steward this gift and sexuality, that is exposed to pornography pulls us away from that.

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Brandon.Clark@covenanteyes.com: It seems like it should be an easy thing to talk about right, but you know just in even in my wife and talking about things.

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Brandon.Clark@covenanteyes.com: there's an awkwardness to it, you know and there's an awkwardness as as parents there's an awkwardness i'm sure as a pastor in a church leader, do you have any advice for working through that awkwardness and and speaking the truth and not being afraid to speak the truth.

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Dr. Greg Miller: Well, I would say, the best thing to do is to.

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Dr. Greg Miller: Name your awkwardness to simply say you know what, and this is one of the ways that we would talk to our voices, I would say, you know what i'm really uncomfortable talking about this.

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Dr. Greg Miller: I feel awkward for us having this conversation and it's so important i'm willing to kind of push through that awkwardness.

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Dr. Greg Miller: i'm one of the things that is true, as as parents, we are almost guaranteed to give our children are shame.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And so it's about us doing our work on our own shame and our own chaos and our own story around sexuality and even in appropriate ways, including our children in that story.

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Dr. Greg Miller: You know, one of the best thing that we can do is validate that God has created everyone to be sexual that's part of what it is to be human and so it's.

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Dr. Greg Miller: it's almost ironic or awkward if we're not talking about something that is common to everyone.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And so, allowing the church to be able to say we must talk about this, this is god's design, this is god's hope and there's something good and powerful and redemptive in it.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And in order to do that all of us are going to have to move from our shame into our truth and it is the truth that sets us free.

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Karen Potter: So good such such good feedback there, and you know i've heard it said before, but you know the world.

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Karen Potter: is not afraid to talk about issues related to sexuality, and so the church and everyone in the church really needs to find the courage, even though it is awkward and uncomfortable to step into the conversation, because if we don't the world will fill the void.

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Karen Potter: I know we're running a little bit short on time we'd love to have you back because I feel like we have just started this conversation Dr Greg.

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Brandon.Clark@covenanteyes.com: Miller, I would love to give people listening to this podcast.

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Karen Potter: Some direction on how to get in touch with you, your organization and helping men get connected into some of these workshops that you guys put on you can you.

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Dr. Greg Miller: Absolutely, we are our website is faithful and true calm we do the workshops for men every month.

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Dr. Greg Miller: We also do workshops for women who are in relationship with men who are struggling with sexual addiction, so we do a wives or a woman's workshop three times a year, we also do couples workshops and.

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Dr. Greg Miller: We we recognize that we want to validate that we know that there are a lot of women who are struggling with their own sexual addiction and been exposed to pornography.

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Dr. Greg Miller: In fact, one of the things that the research showed was and we had two thirds of the people, filling out men and one third women.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And for the women who scored high in the sexual compulsivity scale there really wasn't a significant difference between the men and the women.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And so we just want to validate that there is a need for support and help for women and faithful and true we kind of lead, out of our own stories and the model for us is out of mark laser story and his wife deb.

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Dr. Greg Miller: So we work with men who struggle with sexual addiction, we work with their wives and we also work with couples.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And so it's faithful and true COM, we also offer a podcast that's something that if somebody is looking for more information about faithful and true they can look into that, but we would love to be possible to support the people that are out there.

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Dr. Greg Miller: awesome we'll make sure that all the links are in the show notes for today's podcast so everyone, please check out faithful and true website, as well as their podcast they also have a host of resources on their site articles things that you can really dig into and get more information.

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Karen Potter: So, in closing today um I just want to thank you again, Dr Greg Miller, this has been a real pleasure and such an honor to get to meet you and learn more about your work.

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Karen Potter: On last question I have for you, how do we get our hands on some of this amazing research, because I know that there's pastors and leaders that are.

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Karen Potter: Just itching to find out all of the results of this amazing research that you've done, how do they get access to that or is it published and.

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Dr. Greg Miller: it's not published yet.

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Dr. Greg Miller: I am in the process i'm working with a group of researchers and we're in the process of trying to get it published.

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Dr. Greg Miller: And I can own I am the I am the one that's slowing it down I.

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Dr. Greg Miller: dedicate some time to writing some stuff out, but we did do to podcast earlier on at faithful and true on the research, so if they want a little bit more information they want to go into depth there.

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Dr. Greg Miller: Then that's another place that they could get it, and we can help them find those podcasts if they had difficulty finding them in the archives, but i'm The hope is, I will be motivated to ride, which is not my natural inclination and you will be able to get this published.

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Brandon.Clark@covenanteyes.com: Of those wonderful Dr Greg Miller thanks so much what a blessing, it was as Karen mentioned, to be able to have you on to share this research.

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Brandon.Clark@covenanteyes.com: This important research this important data and really laying down a call to a building a culture of vulnerability in the church and being willing to step forward, out of the awkwardness.

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Brandon.Clark@covenanteyes.com: In speaking truth and just a reminder for our listeners today as well we're offering a free 30 day trial of covenant eyes software.

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Brandon.Clark@covenanteyes.com: If you visit our website covenant eyes calm and enter promo code free podcast that is all one word free podcast just enter that in.

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Brandon.Clark@covenanteyes.com: The checkout and again visit our website and enter that promo code and experience freedom and accountability, today I can't tell you how great this is Dr Miller, even before hand you were mentioning that that covenant eyes is an important asset.

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Brandon.Clark@covenanteyes.com: important tool in what you guys do as well, so thank you so much for being on with us today, and we look forward to joining you again next time on the Covenant eyes church podcast.