Hey, welcome back to the Covenant Eyes podcast. It's so good to have you joining us. I'm Karen, I've got Theo joining me again today. How are you, Theo? Aaron I'm doing great. I'm very excited for this episode. And as always, it's an honor to be hosting alongside you. How are you today, Karen? I'm doing awesome. I'm excited about today's guest. Actually, he was on, I think, our old pastors roundtable many, many years ago, and it's been far too long. So we're really excited to have Jim joining us for a conversation. And let's go ahead and just get started. Jim, welcome to the podcast, Karen. Theo, what a blessing and an honor to be with you guys. Thank you so much. Jim. For our listeners that are not familiar with your work, would you mind sharing just who you are and what you do? Sure. So I am the executive director of an organization called Integrity Restored. We are a Catholic ministry that exists to provide education, training and resources. For those dealing with the struggle of pornography. And and we do that and kind of what I think is a very unique way we base everything we do on what we call the three pillars. And those three pillars are the first is science. So strong counseling, therapy, coaching, a scientific understanding of what's happening to us when we view pornography psychologically, emotionally, neuro, biologically, what's going on in our brains, in our bodies. The second pillar is the spiritual pillar. And so we recommend an increase in the spiritual life, frequent reception of the sacraments, and spiritual direction. And the third pillar is the relationships and accountability. And this is why we love Covenant Eyes so much, because it helps us recover in community. We can't do this alone. Porn is an isolating habit, and the way to get to break free of that is not sobriety though. That's important. It's actually connection. That is what's going to make us healthy. Well. Fantastic. And, that seems like a good place to plug your, three pillars to purity course you got going on. But we can talk a little bit about that later. I think what we want to ask is, when did you first become aware of just how pervasive this problem of pornography is? And, how did you get into this work? So grew up in New York City. My parents were separated when I was two years old. I would see my dad once a year for 2 or 3 days. And that was it. So growing up, it's interesting. I, I didn't really know what it meant to be a man. So I took my definition of what it meant to be a man from a couple places. Movies, obviously. Sports celebrities, rock stars, and most interestingly, growing up in New York City, some of your listeners will know this expression. The wise guys in the neighborhood, the tough guys in the neighborhood. So what did it mean to me to be a man? Well, it meant three things. Number one, I could drink more beer than the next guy. Number two, I could fight better than the next guy. And number three, I could be with more women than the next guy. And so that's kind of, you know, my high school, college, my my formative years were were based on that kind of understanding of masculinity, what it meant to be a man. And I was working in this is where God's got this incredible sense of humor, guys, I'm working in nightclubs in New York City, and I'm working in this one particular nightclub. And Friday nights are not a great night for us, and it should be a big night. And I'm talking to the owner one time and I said, hey, boss, I've got an idea. Why don't we do a male revue on Friday nights? We let the women come in free from 8 to 10. We do this male revue, these male dancers,

00, 1030, we let the men come in, but we charge them double, and the men are going to show up, because now you got a packed club of women who are all fired up. And he was like, Jimmy, you're a marketing genius. That's a great idea. Where am I going to find these guys who want to dance? I volunteered, so I spent, from 18 years old to 21 years old working Friday nights as a male dancer and thought I had it made. Right. I mean, for my definition of what it meant to be a man, I was killing it. I was getting free booze at the club. After I was done dancing, I was meeting all kinds of women, particularly a lot of older women who were kind of wild and, I'll leave that up to your listeners. We don't have to get too graphic, but it was a crazy, wild, hedonistic experience. And my 21st birthday present, guys, was, honey, I'm pregnant. And I called my dad even though we weren't close. And he said to me how much? That didn't sit right with me. He goes, no, you know, she can get this taken care of. Just tell me how much it is. I'll send you the money. I don't know why. I mean, yes, I went to Catholic grammar school, Catholic high school, even Saint John's University, Catholic College, where I lost my faith. That's a whole other show we can do. But it didn't sit right with me, so I called up a close family friend. We call them uncle. I called him up and. And he said the same thing to me. And it just didn't sit right. And thank God these are the things I call little miracles in our lives that we don't know about at the time. I listen to that tiny little voice where it just wasn't right because my daughter Jessica is 37 years old now. Kim and I will be married in September 38th years. I have another son, Jimmy, who just graduated with his master's in public health. I am so blessed because of this woman that I married and chose to bring these two beautiful lives into this world. And what a gift. But also, what a change had to come over me because I couldn't be that hedonistic male stripper nightclub bouncer anymore. Now I had this beautiful little girl, and the first time I held her, I said, wow, this is. And something's different and something about me has to change. And so that was the beginning. And of course, my wife said, you're not doing that anymore. That's done. You know, that was crazy enough when we were just dating. But now, so I got into martial arts. I've been teaching martial arts now for over 30 years, and, that is kind of how I filled that time. I worked my way up the corporate ladder. I was very successful in sales and marketing and in three different industries. Consumer products, defense and homeland security. And, I traveled a lot. And one of the things when I would travel is I would go into the hotel room and, you know, this is dating myself a little bit, but you go into the hotel room and you turn on the television, and the first ads that pop up are for pornography. And I would click on them and those would just be kind of running in the background. The whole time I was in that hotel. And I justified it by saying, I'm not cheating on my wife. This is harmless. Doesn't hurt anybody. And how can it be wrong? God made us sexual. We're interested. We're curious with that kind of stuff. And so fast forward, I'm. I'm working for a guy in the defense business who I would always say was a religious man. That was kind of how I would describe him, was a great guy, but it was really religious, like a little too much. And we're out celebrating, big contract with the Navy, that that we had won. And, you know, unfortunately, some of it's true, because of their requirements, crazy requirements. They put on stuff. Those contracts get big quick. And so this was a very profitable contract for the company. And, we were out celebrating, you know,$800 bottle of wine sitting on the table. We probably had some $80 cigars. We were having a good time. And he stops in the middle of the conversation. He gets real serious look on his face. He used to call me Jimmy. I. He says, Jimmy, the Lord wants me to tell you something. And I'm sure, guys, I said, oh, come on, man, don't give me this crap. We're having a good time, you know? Let me eat my veal chop. Leave me alone. He wouldn't stop. And he said to me three things. He said, you're not a good husband, you're not a good father, and you're certainly not a good Catholic. Now, tough kid that I was from New York City, I got really defensive guys. And and I started arguing back and forth with him. And this was my boss. But we're arguing back and forth at this table. And finally I got up and left. I went up to my hotel room and thank God for the Gideons, because for the first time since high school, I opened that drawer. I pulled out that Bible and I did that whole stupid thing. Okay, God, you want to talk to me? I slammed my finger down and I started in Romans and I started reading and feel Karen. I still get emotional. I still get goosebumps. And I'm not embarrassed to say I knelt at the side of the bed in that hotel room, and I cried for two hours. Something happened to me. I had an experience, a Holy Spirit experience. And I came home and I was on fire. And I'm laying in bed with my wife, and she's from New York City, too. And we're laying there. You know, I think it was a Thursday night. The ceiling fan is spinning around, and we're just laying there and I'm on fire. Right? I got to get all this out, and I'm telling her everything's got to change. And we got to go to church. And I got to go back to confession and blah, blah, blah, blah. And the kids have to get active, and we have to get married in the church because we had been married on the steps of City Hall. And I'm just ranting all this stuff, and she's so funny. She doesn't move. She's looking up at the ceiling, the ceiling fan. She gives me this side eye and she says, are you on drugs? Because who is this guy? He left one way and he came home another way. But that was our journey back to the faith. And we we did it together. Kim had been baptized as a Catholic, but then nothing. So we went through the Russia program, the Rite of Christian Initiation for adults. And we did that together. And and the beauty of that, honestly, was I learned my faith then as an adult because I think for so many of us cradle Catholics, we memorize the prayers, we learn the stuff we're supposed to learn as a child, but we don't really know the depths or the richness of the faith unless you learn it as an adult. And we don't know what it means to truly have an experience with Jesus or a relationship. Unless we have an experience like I had with my boss with Bernie, that was him being Jesus at that moment, he didn't care the risk working for a defense contractor proselytizing me, he could, he was risking a lot. And I remember I asked him later why and he said, Jimmy, your soul matters more. If only caring for you. If only we looked at the people in our lives like their soul matters more. What a world this would be. So, ten years ago, I was on the board of this thing called Integrity Restored, and they asked me to, Come on and run it full time. And so just think of that story I just told you. Here's a guy who was off the rails, right? A sexual narcissist. It was all about me. What was for my enjoyment. And now Jesus has put me in this place where I have the blessing of running this ministry to help people break free from that darkness. I get it. I know it's tough. I know it's not easy, but I also know it's possible. So what an incredible journey for me personally. That is an amazing journey. And just, I'm so grateful for your vulnerability in sharing your story, because I think it's so important that people hear the back story, like so many of us that work in this space, you know, we have a story. And that's why we're so passionate. And I love that, that that, leader that you had took the time to confront you in your sin because he cared about your soul. And if we all every day looked at the people in our lives and cared more about their soul then, you know, yeah, with proper protocol or this might not be good for business or whatever. Gosh, what a great world we'd be in, right? Oh, maybe it would be incredible. And yeah, and honestly, that's how we're called to love each other. Yeah. Love your neighbor as yourself. Well, if we truly did that, we would say to our brother, to our sister, hey, this is not cool. I'm not saying it to embarrass you. I'm not saying it to shame you. I'm saying it because I love you. Yeah, and your soul matters more. So good. Oh, my goodness, there's so much to unpack there. And just, just I got to say, what a what a testament to. I mean, thank you so much, Jim, for sharing what a testament to how marriage can change you to how parenthood can change you, at least even initially, even if we don't always do it. Well, once we get started, how it can change you. And you know what a gift I mean, that you, And I often feel this way, too. I reflect on this a lot, that getting to work in this space is a way to kind of make some reparation to our Lord for the time that we spent using, you know, and now we really get to pay it forward. What a gift. What a gift. Here's the amazing thing to me, Theo, that you know, to me, our human brains can't understand it. It'd be easy for us to have very little mercy for ourselves when we look back at the lives we led. And I don't care whether you're addicted to porn or alcohol or anger or doesn't matter. Whatever we're carrying, we're all carrying it. It'd be very easy to not have mercy, but yet we ask God for mercy as we need it. And so part of this work for me, is just the ability to be able to tell people I understand. I get it, and yeah, it sucks. And it was painful and it's embarrassing and it was horrible. But God is good to use it for good. I can say that to them with 100% conviction as he's done it for me. Hey guys, before we wrap up part one, I want to mention a resource that can really help you on your own journey. Strive for Covenant Eyes. I'll put the link in the description, so check it out. And this conversation with Jim is far from over. We'll pick up right where we left off in part two. Coming up this Friday. You're not going to want to miss that. So make sure you're subscribed, whether you're watching on YouTube or listening on your favorite podcast app, so you'll get it as soon as it drops. Take care and God bless.