Hey, what's up, everybody is Sathiya Sam, you're welcome to unleash the man within hope you're having an amazing day. I am really excited to share this interview with Carl Thomas, you may have heard of him, you may not know of him. But let me just fill you in Carl is the founder of Live Free, and the owner of Triple X church. So for those of you who have been interested in the recovery space for a while, maybe you've been pursuing freedom for a while, you probably have heard of Triple X church, they burst onto the scene in the late 2000s. And probably it was around 2008 or 2009, when I got exposed to their ministry, and they had been around years before that, they add an internet filter called extra watch which Carl talks a little bit about in the interview. And that sort of put them on the mark. But Carl himself was on staff. And he's got a really cool story of how he got integrated with that whole organization. He left he came back, he left again, he started his own thing. And recently, his own thing has now grown to the point where they were actually able to acquire Triple X church. So it's an incredible story. But this guy is really cool. And when I say he's really cool, that sounds so generic, he's a really cool guy. But what I actually mean is that Carl is very blunt. He's a straight shooter, he is an ordained pastor. So it kind of paints him in, I would say a little bit of an inaccurate light, because he is really nothing like a pastor, he actually talks about in the in the interview, how he could never actually be a local church pastor, and you'll see why he's, um, he's loose. He's not a loose cannon. But you know, he's kind of loose, and, and just, again, a really refreshing voice. And he has a book coming out called when Shane gets real. And I think it's a really unique resource because he is so direct. And he's so blunt. In his approach, he's just I know, he's going to reach a demographic that probably can't connect with maybe even somebody like me, who is just a little bit more churched, a little more eloquent in speech and everything else. So you're gonna see exactly what I mean. But regardless of kind of where you fall into and what kind of voices you like listening to, you really need to listen to this interview, if you if you're interested in just being liberated from the shame that comes with addiction. That's really the major takeaway from this. We talked about Carl's story, we talked about sort of the future of the porn industry in the recovery industry. But really everything centers around shame, getting free of it, what that kind of looks like, and I think you're gonna find tremendous value from it. So without further ado, this is my interview with Carl Thomas. So here's the million dollar question. How are men like us who work hard, have good motives and a God given purpose, supposed to fulfill the calling on our lives in the dreams in our hearts, all while establishing sexual integrity, thriving relationships and a meaningful connection with God? That is the question. And this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Sathiya Sam, welcome to unleash the man with them.
Awesome. Well, Carl, thanks so much for being on the podcast. Man. You and I've been connecting for a couple years you reached out you arms wide open, man. And I've always just appreciated that about you. Thanks for being here.
Oh, hey, man. Thanks for Thanks for having me on. I'm excited. I've been looking forward to doing this with you. Since you, I guess. I don't know whoever reached out to who but whatever. I'm excited to be here. So
yeah, me too. One of the phrases I've always had in mind of you is, is cream rises to the top. And you've been in this space longer than I think most people probably even realize. And you've been a behind the scenes for quite a bit. And I really respect what you've done the last couple of years with live free, and then triple X church, we'll get into all of that. But, man, just it's a real honor. I honestly think it's an honor to be able to connect with you because you've been in this space for such a long time. And I think you have you have a perspective that maybe somebody like me, and I think a lot of guys who are newer to the space maybe don't don't quite have quite yet. So it's it's really cool to have you man. I don't know. Does that phrase resonate with you like because I think you were serving behind the scenes for a long time before you're doing what you're doing now?
Very long time. Yeah. So nearly a decade.
Yeah. Why don't you take us back there? How did that even come about?
Man, I'll give you the very scaled back version because you know, we're covering in almost a decade so follow triplex church from afar. To be honest, I felt that I followed the founder more than the organization because I read a couple of his books. I heard one interview guy named Craig gross. And yeah, just got kind of infatuated with what they do. Not so much on the porn recovery side, but more on the evangelism side and just how they approached topics like sex like Jesus and things like that and and not so churchy way, which really totally vibed with me. Ironically, though, I was a porn addict. So you know, I'm following him but I wasn't following him for the recovery resources per se. And ended up connecting with him through a pastor who's who He's now a really good friend of mine and actually a contributor in our community, but ended up serving on one of their quote unquote, I say, quote, unquote, because it's truly is a missions team. But some people were like visions, you know, because we went to porn shows and ended up Bibles. Right? You know, so we're handing out Bibles and across the alley from or across from us, as, you know, a porn star getting pictures with guys and someone selling dildos. Bible. So some people were like, Wow, that's crazy. So, but yeah, I got the opportunity to serve on a mission. And I was still just, I was still, I guess you'd say, an addict did that. I mean, I was still using occasionally, semi regulate, trying to break free. I mean, I've been trying this journey for a long time. And but I only gotten super serious. And it was like one of these God ordained mishaps because there is no, I had no business being on that trip, to be honest, let me know.
Like if you're, if you're still struggling, and you think that would be
totally do not belong there. But it was, like I said, No one asked the right questions. And I didn't lie. I didn't. Just, in fact, my wife was saying, it's a good idea. And I said, Man, I don't know I just think I'm supposed to do it. She said, okay, and I just started seminary and all this other stuff. And anyway, it was just the perfect storm. That's what I like to call it, it was the perfect storm. Because between the career I was not happy with seminary, I just found a really solid accountability partners, a guy that was like, really, really just doing life with hardcore. And then I did this show and at the training, I talked to a guy who worked at the organization at the time. And he he basically kind of schooled me without even realizing it to school and me talking about how he had to help a lot of pastors and stuff in terms of guiding them out of ministry for a season while they got right. And I'm thinking myself, Oh, my gosh, I just dropped all this money in seminary, and this guy's this young guy is basically telling me dude, what are you doing? Like, you need to clean up your own act, right? And, dude, it all it all just hit at the same time? And it was like this crystal crystallizing, or Yeah, like, just clarity hit me. Like, what the heck are you doing with your life, man, like, you can't do any of this stuff that you aspire to do if you're being held back by this. And that really was like the catalyst that just pushed me forward. And then yeah, then I got hooked up with Triple X church through a through a when they call in with a call to an individual study, but you know, I'm talking about like, it's not yours. No, it's not a course you you. I can't think of the term. But anyway, I went to the seminary and I just said, Hey, I got an idea for credits. How can I serve with AAA church and Las Vegas for a week? Like a place? Yeah, Liberty University's not. They're not super liberal. They're not super conservative, but they're kind of, you know, traditional. I can't believe I got that swung by them, hey, give me credits to go out to Vegas for a week, but they've signed off on it. Okay, and so I went out with them and got connected. And then you know, all Hey, why don't you help us put together shows in Jersey and as a volunteer, and then hey, why don't you help us launch this small groups online program that we are trying to experiment with? We'll pay you a small small stipend. And one thing after another after another, I quit the insurance business. Two months later, they're sending me an offer to come on board full time. You know, run your run all our web properties. I don't know anything about a website. I didn't even know what WordPress was. It was crazy that they made that offer but said, Okay, I'll try it. And I did it. And then that led into running their marketing operations. And yeah, just crazy story and working with them for a long time and then left for various reasons, turned in a year broke a year, the year passed. And then they came back, Craig came back and said, Hey, can we I'd like to hire you back as the COO. So as a promotion. That's it. Okay. So I came back work as a CEO for about two years. And then I stepped away again, and launched live free. And then if March, Craig pursued his own thing, we'll just leave it at that. And in March, I had this weird. I'm not I'm not one of these guys that I heard from God, but it was clearly God. Because it just was one of these thoughts that would not it just wouldn't go away. And the thought was so stupid. It's text Craig and see if he'll let you acquire Triple X church. Yeah. All right. That's all right. What the heck? So I texted him that night, he calls me and a month later we're signing contracts and so now now you know we have live free and the app and all this stuff and now Triple X church is our ministry so yeah, just crazy story. I couldn't have I couldn't have ever out myself. A million years that just just one one crazy turn after another but here we are.
That's amazing. I mean, it's it is cool how God makes things come full circle and obviously a lot happened there but it's really only 10 years like crazy to think that you did this Little like one week placement while pursuing a completely different course, like 10 years ago, and here you are acquiring the company 10 years later. What was it like being on staff at triple X church in those earlier days? Because I mean, triple X church was a force to be reckoned with, if I can put it that way, I think anybody who was trying to get free pornography to any extent it was either covenant eyes, or triple X church. And I know for me, like when I was in university, early 20s, everything I saw was Triple X church, you guys were like, one of the loudest voices and offering solutions. I don't know. Where's their excitement? Was there buzz around that kind of time? Or was it stressful? Like, what what was it like being part of it in those days,
it was all of the above. It was exciting coming on board. But that organization, we moved very quickly. I mean, I moved quickly now, but I'd like to say that I moved quickly in an organized fashion. There was it was it was trial by fire. I mean, literally, we just dropped you in the Shark Tank. And if you don't get eaten, and you don't drown, then then you're, you're gonna work out. I'm telling you, like, give you a quick example. For me, right? Hey, we want you to run our website operations. Again, I'm not I'm not exaggerating. I didn't know what WordPress was. I mean, I knew what it was. I heard of it. I tried to install it on my computer. So that tells you how little I knew. I thought What software do you can install your
CD ROM or whatever? Yeah,
I swear, I tried to start like, why does this thing work? So crazy. Yeah, we want you to and their websites were even WordPress. They were custom built. Oh, my gosh, the guy and Craig Yeah, we want you to run it. Nothing. You'll figure it out. Okay. So then I'm starting August 1, this is back in 2000. And I don't even remember, but we it was all all around the big fundraising they were also doing at the time. So I go out to Seattle with my wife. It's a weekend. And we're bowling. It was called Bold fest that time. And Craig comes up and he says, Hey, you want to go do some training? is literally my job started the next week, I had to start posting blogs and managing the website. So yeah, definitely. I want to do some training. So we sit down with his laptop in the bolinao and spends an hour. An hour might be generous. Yeah, go here. Go here. Go here. Go here. Do this. Do this. You're good. Okay. I mean, that was how it was crazy. And, you know, I'm not trying. Just that was the environment. It was move fast. Move fast. Move fast. If I needed. Hey, Carl, we need to move our podcast migrator podcast channel from this thing to this thing. Okay. I don't know anything about podcasts. He helped me out. Go googling that was
Google as your trainer. Yeah, gosh, dude,
I've watched so many YouTube videos and help articles over the past 10 years on marketing websites, automation, everything you can possibly imagine. I could I can fill in a library. It's ridiculous. But that was how it was. So yeah, it was exciting. But it was stressful too, because I was constantly getting thrown into situations that I had zero experience with and it was up to me to figure it out or fail. So at times,
I mean, that's kind of what I would imagine. I am sure Craig Craig sounds like a visionary through and through. So I'm sure he had a big picture. But then I think the momentum you guys gathered in the early days probably was not expected. So it kind of makes sense. What was it like for you personally, because you mentioned even just the way you got your foot in the door. You were still struggling like you weren't the guy who was like I'm clean and I'm ready to give back. You were still working through it. What What was it like as you continue to work at triple X church?
Well, I was clean when I was clean when I job with them.
So okay.
Yeah, this is like, because people hear my story sometimes. I may think that I'm just one of those guys that oh, hey, it just instantly prayed to Jesus and went away. And I always tell people I don't think that happens, right? Overall, I talked to a lot of guys and I can't talk to Doug Weiss. He says he's only known two guys in his entire life that he totally trusts where that happens. Otherwise, I've never seen that happen. I said I've personally never seen that happen but I've heard guys oh yeah, I struggle with porn hardcore and I got tired of and I said Jesus, please take it away and I didn't struggle anymore. Okay, right. So for me, the process had been long right there was a long there was obviously many many years where I wasn't doing well heck, I wasn't doing anything let alone the right thing. But it was just again The Perfect Storm everything Oh, I think I need to go into some sort of ministry. I feel called I'm gonna go do the work and go to seminary I finally found a real accountability partner who I can really talk through stuff with. My wife was understanding thing And yeah, so it's just that crystallizing moment. Like I said, where when the guy when I realized that the thing that was holding me, the thing I was struggling with was the awesome thing that was holding me back from everything I wanted to do. And so that was incredible. Yeah, that was just, it was that was incentive like nothing else. Right? And so from that day on, and I'm not lying from that day on it wasn't that Oh, my temptation to look at porn just instantly went away. It was just I went into those moments, or I would approach those moments with a totally different perspective. So is no longer Gosh, should I look at it? I don't want to look at it. If I look at it, I'm gonna feel like crap. But boy, I'm really hoarding I guess I'm gonna look at it was more. Ah, yeah, I kind of would like to go look at porn. Should I go look at porn? Well, you can and it'll feel really good. Yeah. What's the downside? Well, the downside is the rest of your life, Carl. And it was just the value proposition was like, yeah, no, that's okay. I don't need an orgasm that bad. And that's literally what happened. And so you know, but and I, I, I know, I've read your stuff. And we think very much alike in this way, like freedom is sobriety are two different things. You need sobriety, don't get me wrong on the path, right? Like, it's it's a process. But I would say I went from more sobriety, semi freedom, and that grew over time, you know, so I wasn't struggling with porn as I started working with AAA stretch or any of that stuff. But my my security and freedom continued to expand as I started doing deeper work and figuring out the reasons that I started going to that stuff in the first place.
Yeah, I love the way you explain that. I totally agree. I think when you hear these stories in the church, about people who kind of prayed away or get set free and incensed, and I do believe it happens, I just think it's like maybe point 1% of the time, right? It kind of creates this illusion that freedom is binary, you know, like you're either free or you're not. But I really think it's it occurs across a spectrum, like we're all growing, you and I don't look at porn anymore, but we're still growing in our personal freedom, right, and our heart transformation and everything else, you continue to grow across it. I love the way you explain that. I want to fast forward a bit. So I'm just imagining you've left your black shirt for the second time now, you're CEO, you still have this mission? Why? Why didn't you? I don't know, reach out to covenant eyes like you have all this experience? Surely you could have landed a job with them or you're an ordained pastor, you could have gone to a local church, what what was it that said, I need to start live free?
Well, I wouldn't go to a local die. After being in ministry. Seven years and just seeing the things I've seen, I would never make it in the local church, there's no way I would, I would get fired pretty quickly. I just know it, you know, it just went to work. So that was why I didn't go to church route. I just wouldn't last very long. Think of other ministries as I thought about it, but the problem was honestly, at that point, I was 4850. Now, so I was 48. And I just hit that point in my life where it wasn't all I want to do in my way. But I wanted to build something that had value. And I didn't want to do it. Some other person, I didn't want to take on someone else's thing and do it their way. I wanted to be able to build something fresh, that I believed in. And with Triple H church, we had done a lot of great things, right. But we have put and we put out a ton of different video courses and software and all this other stuff, right? We were always trying to create new resources. But the one thing that I that I always struggled with with triple Life Church as an employee, was that for me, I didn't think the focus with something just didn't sit right with me. Right. It was like, oh, we'll put a video course out. We'll do this, we'll do that. The small groups program was kind of the ugly headed step child, right, like ugly redheaded stepchild was, yeah, we have this program over here. But we're really focused on this, because this is the stuff that matters. And I'm seeing the exact opposite. You know, guys buy a course they do half of it, and you never hear from them again. But the the small groups, you're hearing people showing up every single week and experiencing transformation and all this other stuff. And I was like, No, I think community is really, that's really the thing, and then the rest of it is needed. But if you don't have that, right, if you're trying to do to solo, you're probably going to fail. And so that was the first thing and the second thing was with recovery. I mean, there's a ton of different organizations out there, right? And there's coaches and all these other people and you know, one thing I know as a guy who struggles with this, the bar the bar of entry. I'm not gonna say it is very high. I'm gonna say from a person who is, say 1015 20 years used to just constant failure. It is feels very high, right? Because, yeah, it's either a huge monetary investment and you're thinking to yourself, and again, huge is all relative, right? I mean, when I was dealing with my poor 99 bucks in huge, it's ridiculous, but I'm not. But it was a waste of money for me, because everything had failed. So it's like, why would I spend money for just another failed experiment? Yeah, you know, X to be watched, which was kind of the Covenant eyes. competitor, right, which which Triple X church at the time had produced extra watches still out there. But we don't technically own it, we just recommend it. But x ray watch, same thing. It's, the argument was always well, no, no, we have our entry level resource. Anybody can sign up for XP watch. And it's cheap. True, anybody can sign up for it. And it's cheap. But here's the problem. The only way, the only way accountability software is effective is if you actually have an accountability partner. So in order for this to work, you're asking the user to do the hardest thing that he's ever done in his life, which is go tell somebody he deals with this. And that's, that's why he's coming to our website, right? Because he doesn't want to tell anybody, Hey, I found this website, maybe I can get help here without exposing myself. Right. Right. So it's, yeah, it's easy. It seems easy, but it doesn't work unless you're willing to do the work of actually exposing yourself to somebody. Yeah, this is something I deal with, I need to be honest, and most guys struggle there. So that, again, the bar venturi, super high test, man, I also want to come up with some sort of resource or at least resource options, which don't have that perceived. High, you know, big price tag, like, and I don't mean, like, I mean, you know, I'm not saying just money, I'm saying mentally, it's a price tag, because like, Oh, this is easy. I can jump in here and do this. This isn't that hard. You know, and it's great. You pay, you get what you pay for often, right? Don't get me wrong, but if they never get started, they'll never get where they need to go, right? Oh, yeah. So give them somewhere easy to start. And then maybe at least they get used to the idea. I can talk about this, I can share this. This isn't so scary. Oh, maybe counseling would be a good idea. Maybe this course would be a good idea. Maybe I should hook up with a coach. Yeah, but they're never gonna get there until they start to understand that this process isn't as scary as they think it is.
Yeah. And I think that's the kind of perspective that I mean, that you, you could only get from the kind of experience you have, I think it's really refreshing to hear. And even the whole community thing like now as we're recording this as end of 2021 I mean, people hired community managers, like that's a thing now, like people are seeing like, da like communities where of all this is going if you want to have any kind of program or any kind of long term effectiveness. I think it's just neat that you identified that earlier and and created a an incredible community right? And and I don't want you to sell yourself short, like live free does have coaches, you know, and you're doing lives with them, and you're equipping them like, you're offering a lot to that community experience. And it's one of the reasons I do recommend people go and sign up for your stuff like you've made it so easy. As you said, the barrier to entry is very low. It's really really cool. What's it been like this year acquiring Triple X church? I imagine you acquired a bunch of assets that you probably helped build and all that kind of stuff. Are you is it retooling? Are you rebranding? Are things good to go? And you've just added them to the arsenal? What's that experience been like? And I guess maybe for people who maybe don't know the Live Free brand as well as they, they're like, oh, yeah, triple X church, I remember them. I've heard of them or whatever. How are you? How are you presenting those two kind of unified now now that you've acquired triple-x?
Yeah. I when I try to explain the relationship AAA churches sort of it's it's Rocket Mortgage from Quicken Loans. Right. Live Free is Quicken Loans were the were the mothership, right. But Rocket Mortgage is what everybody recognizes. Because they have the humorous ads and the, you know, the flash and like, that's the that's the sexy brand. If you don't, that's the appropriate term we're talking about, but, you know, I'm saying like, yeah, okay, hey, and so that's kind of how we approach it where Okay, triple X church is going to reach a wider audience live free is more about, we're, we're probably going to reach more people who are a little more serious about their recovery yet, and maybe have already done some of the digging around. Whereas AAA stresses just hitting this wide audience where maybe they've never done anything, they've taken their first sex addiction test and stuff like that, or they're just starting to Google the term porn addiction or whatever. So that's the relationship in terms of the brand. I mean, triple eight church back in the day, was always kind of a disrupter. Because Craig is a bit of a disrupter right? And it was, hey, we're gonna get there. We're gonna shock we're gonna on blah, blah, blah. And so, you know, through some transitions that they tried with other people. It kind of got a little watered down and it was a little more of, you know, I don't know Christianese type ministry where It didn't have that same hole. Oh my gosh, I can't believe they said that, right. And so when we took it over, I was like, Hey, first of all, let's get really narrow. Let's let's narrow our focus. Okay? We're not. I mean, yes, we're going to talk about sex. And we're going to talk about parenting. We are going to talk about these topics. But what is our focus before AAA church there? It was always were awareness, prevention, recovery, which is everything. And it's very, you know, it's a very wide. It's a huge net. And we are no, we're about building we're about starting conversations and connecting people with supportive communities. That's primarily what we're about. And so we're trying to get back to that. We're just going to call it out the way we see it not for though the differences I'd say, back and back then it was a little more Hey, what's going to shock and what's going to catch them off guard? I don't I personally have never been that guy. I don't. I don't act the way I act the shocking, right? I just, I'm just brutally honest. So and that's shocking. Was
can be shocking. Yeah, right. I
can't believe you just said that. To me. Oh, just honest. Right. But I'm brutally, because I'm, I think it's because I'm from New Jersey, but it's definitely because I'm from New Jersey. But you know, it's just that's what I tried to do? Well, and I'm also an anagram eight, if you're an anagram junkie. So you combine those two? Ne anagram eight, forget about it. Games. Oh, right. So. So that's what we're trying to do. It's like no AAA church is going to be the one pushing conversations and saying the things that people are afraid to say. And talking about topics that people don't want to talk about, maybe approaching them from a different way that people were used to, you know, and so we're really working on that. And it's going to take time that kind of turn a brand around and get people reacquired with or re not require re reacquainted with what is triple A search about who's running it? What's their deal? And that's, you know, that's what we're trying to do. So we're in the process of that. And we are we are starting to see a shift, right. But it takes time because the brand has been around for a decade. So you know, and it's associated with all sorts of things that say, Hey, you know, you've heard AAA search. Oh, x we watch? Right? Yeah. Sort of Yeah, no, that's not to say more. We've, we recommend them. But that's we're not all about accountability software. We're more about this now.
Yes, yes. Yeah. It's funny, you're talking about your kind of your brutal honesty, which I think makes you in some ways, the perfect persona for the stuff we're trying to accomplish. Because a lot of people, especially people in the church are sick of the sugarcoating, you know, and, and the lack of honesty on the subject. And I think it's really neat that you embody that very naturally. And that's really obvious in your book, which is coming out February 8, when shame gets real. And I download the first chapter right away, as soon as I heard about it. It's amazing. I mean, it's just, it feels like you I feel like I'm talking to you, as I read it. I'm certainly getting kind of that, that embodiment of brutal honesty, a little bit of shock value there. But, but like, but again, just really talking about this in a very real way. I wonder if you can give a little bit of background what what inspired you to write a book because you don't strike me as somebody who would just write a book for fun or just for the hell of it? Maybe maybe the opposite. Like, I don't know if maybe somebody forced you or you lost a bet or something. But just tell us a little bit about what, what inspired you to write this book?
No, I mean, it's funny over the years, I mean, I've always had this you know, in the back of my mind, project idea, oh, writing a book might be cool, right? Yeah, just because I want to I there's things that I feel like need to be said, right. But I've never been the guy that says, Oh, hey, let me read the book that set up my, my hopeful future speaking career or, Hey, because I want to be a big time influencer. Like, I don't care about any of that, right? It's just not me. And so it's been one of these projects has been on the backburner forever, it's probably something I never would have got to. Because every time I thought about it, you know what I mean? It sounds great. But man, I got to write it, then I got to shop it out. Or I got to self publish it. It's a lot of work. And I'm really busy with the stuff I'm doing and I enjoy doing what I do. And so I'm not going to get distracted with this. This is this is a passion project that might just never happen. And I'm okay if it never happens. But one of the things I think that came out at your Blake's church was I wrote an article early on, I think it was in March, actually. And it was like one of those introductory articles when we took over that was trying to set the stage. Let people know what we were about. Then was right after the Atlanta massage parlor shootings. And the I think the subject of the article was something like the problem with anti porn culture, right? Because people Oh, you're an anti porn website. No, no, what you know, it sounds crazy. And so in that article, I basically broke down the idea that hey, this anti like making porn the enemy doesn't help anybody, right? I'm not saying porn is good, right, but demonizing porn or porn stars or, yeah, it just doesn't help anybody. It's an either an easy target, right? But the real problem is the stuff we're dealing with that's making us go to porn or go to prostitutes or go to massage parlors. And so when in the article I said, and when it gets really out of control, things like Atlanta happens, you know, when you read the guys that shoot, I can't remember name the shooters, testimonies to the Sheriff's Department. I mean, it's shocking. But he's, the thought process was, yeah, this is something brought me a lot of problems. And I wanted to save other people. So I'm, I'm just going to go kill people in the massage parlor. What logical mind? Is that the math that's happening? But again, it's because we've made something else the enemy, and the real enemy, is the stuff we've been carrying around inside. Right. So that article caught a little fire. A lot of criticism, Facebook, which is fine, I like it, like, hey, you know, that's great. I don't care. You don't have to like it. I'm just telling you what I think. Yeah. And so a publisher reached out to me and said, Hey, I saw I read this, this is a really interesting article. And he liked it a lot. And he said, Would you ever think of writing a book? I said, think about it. Why? Well, if you want to write a book, we're willing to do it. Oh, my gosh, really. And around that time, just from work, if this had happened four years ago, I never would have wrote a book about shame, because I was, I had a lot of things. But over the past two years of working with live free and working with guys through direct message, and just seeing the conversations, I just become really passionate about the whole shame issue and just say, Man, this is the thing that we're really missing out on, like, we're not attacking the shame. Enough, right? The shame is what keeps us trapped. It's what keeps us from seeking help. It lets it's what keeps us from going back for help when when we have a slip up or slide back. And quite honestly, it's the reason we go to porn in the first place. In many ways. I mean, it's really part is deep seated pain, right? And we really need to get through that. And so that, that this is something I've been kicking around in my head and really passionate about or blogs have been going in that direction. I've been writing a lot. And I said, Well, this is what I like to write about. And he said, fantastic. Let's do it. Okay. And then yeah, that was it. So I just started getting busy writing.
Yeah, that's really cool. So let's double down on the shame thing, because I totally agree, I think it's, it's one of the big drivers. And, you know, we're kind of fortunate that somebody like Brene, Brown has sort of popularized the whole subject at large, like, not just in an addiction context. But I think you and I can agree between all the addictions out there, whether it's substance or behavioral porn addiction just has this level of shame that I think is unparalleled. And I'm wondering, in, in live free in the communities you're working with, what's actually helping guys get past some of the shame that comes because you've sort of talked about there's layers to this thing? What what is for somebody who's listening, what might they be able to do to start tackling those layers of shame that they're experiencing?
Yeah, well, that's the I mean, honestly, that's, that's the whole concept behind live free in many ways. Sometimes people say, Hey, what is free? And I mean, it's a lot of things. But one way I describe it, sometimes it's training wheels for real life, right? Because if you're a guy struggling with porn, and masturbation, and you've never talked about sexual matters with anyone, it jumping into your small group is going to be really hard, right? Or talking about it with your past, or might be really hard or as your brother, even your family, it's gonna be really difficult because you have really close connections with these people. And we catastrophize I mean, I don't want to say addicts. But you know, I'm saying like, a clinician would say, hey, addicts, that's one thing. That's a trait of an addict, they catastrophize right. And so we spin up these ridiculous, quite frankly, scenarios and storylines that would happen. If someone found out, this would happen, and that would happen. And we just make it so so horrible. And so we're fearful. As a man, you jump into a community with a lot of other like all other men who are dealing with the same damn thing. And, you know, you're gonna be an E and I see newbies come in, and they're all They're very hesitant, and they even say, this is hard for me to do. And in the back of my mind logical tenures in my past, Carl, I'm thinking about some What's so hard to do. You know, you're talking about masturbation or a bunch of masturbators Why is that so hard? Right, but, again, it's not so scary. They're gonna reject me like really, a community of guys struggling for masturbation are going to reject you because you struggle with porn and masturbation. Come on, man. But right. That's the concept, that's
for sure. Yeah.
So the idea is, hey, here, this is easy, right? You're talking to other people all on the same boat as you. And there's leaders in the community who don't struggle, but did struggle. Most of them. I think every actually everybody in my community, probably that lead that's a small group leader or contributor has struggled at one point in their life. And do you got nothing to be ashamed of just talking about life here. And once they start seeing that, hey, this isn't as scary as I thought it was, this isn't as crazy as I thought it was, I can actually talk about this, and I'm not going to get beat up. Maybe you start pushing the envelope and trying it elsewhere, right outside of a private, anonymous type online community, but it takes time. So that's a great place to start is just plugging in to, like, I would say, a like minded peer type community, where you're dealing with a lot of other people who are on the same journey as you because they identify, right. But hopefully, you can take it beyond the realm of just an online community. Because, you know, being I only I don't deal with shame when I'm here. But I deal with shame. I deal with shame about this the other 75% of my time, or 75% My life, that's not going to help you much right, you got to eventually start getting beyond all that, but small steps. No,
it makes a lot of sense for sure. In your book, I'm wondering like, so with the title, like when shame gets real. I know you share a lot of your story, and kind of what it was like even just putting yourself out there as a guy who's wants to help in this area, not knowing how people would respond. It What can people expect if they if they started reading this book? Is this a self help book? Is this Carl's three steps for gain free porn? Or is it the story of how you started live free? Or you know, like, give us give us a little bit about what people could expect from reading the book? Yeah,
well, it's not a porn recovery book, per se. I said, I actually said to the editor, the one thing I don't want to write his recovery book because there's there's good recovery books out there. There's ones being made, I don't need to add to the noise. I want to do something different. But this is shame is so vital in recovery that it is in some regards a recovery book, right? But no, it's not a hate, do these eight things and you're gonna get free porn. That's not what the books about. Yes, it's probably going to hit home with men more than anyone or, or women who struggle with porn, but it's really written for a larger audience. So it's not just those who struggle with porn, but it's for those who are in relationships with those who struggle with porn or for parents, and how to talk their kids about sex and porn and churches, like how do you deal with the subject about sex and porn? And how do you deal with your leaders when they fall to sex and porn? So we cover I cover a pretty large gamut because here's the thing like, I believe is the reason shame around this topic exists in the first place. Now, I'm not on my personal shame over who you are. I'm saying shame around the topics of sex masturbation porn, is because we've made it that way. Right? We've made it that way. It was funny as I was actually on a podcast with somebody else the other day. And we were talking about why these words feel weird when we say him, right? Why does it feel weird to say porn or masturbation or vagina, but not something else? And I said, it's, it's like anything else? I mean, why is bad language bad language? Because we deemed it their language, right? A four letter word is just exactly that. It's four letters, but we assigned a value to it. Right? Yeah. And so we, we built all these taboo, kind of, or, yeah, we've made these things like holy cows, basically sacred cows, where it's sex porn, masturbation, body parts, like those those belong and only specific conversations and specific times. We can't really talk about that in regular life, because it doesn't belong there. And I'm saying, yeah, it does. Because it is part of life, right? Yeah, elbow, you don't feel weird about saying elbow, but saying vaginas feels kind of weird. It shouldn't. They're both parts of your body. You know, and in the book, I bring up a study. It was an experiment, I think it was, was not in America was across the seas, but it was it was a wild study. So they took a they took a group of people and they were dealing with not sexual language, but curse words and things like that, right? Like F word and stuff, I guess in their in their language, right. And they hooked up electrodes these people that would that would that would sense electrical activity in the skin, right? And so when these people this this whole kto this whole group would say regular isn't called regular words, right? Whatever normal language their skin but give off a certain level of activity, right electrical activity, but when they use curse words or things like that, the electrical activity jumped up quite a bit. So it's It's not in your head. Hey, why does it feel weird? Because it actually feels weird, right? You actually are having a sensation happening in your skin. That's why it feels weird. But again, think about it. It feels weird because we've made those words weird. We've made those. Those terms we've made those subjects where we've made it weird. It doesn't need to be weird, right? I mean, I'm not saying it's good. But, hey, overweight, I'm overweight, I need help. No, most people don't feel bad about admitting that they they need to lose weight and go to the gym. In fact, most guys will say joking around, right? It's getting to the point where a lot of people are very open about, Hey, I can't manage my finances. Right? I'm financially irresponsible. Okay. And in churches will have seminars on Dave Ramsey seminars about financial freedom and this and that, and, you know, but porn masturbate, knots. That's a different problem. No, it's it's still it's no, no, it's not. It's just a problem. It's not a different problem. It's just a problem. It's part of life. It's things we deal with. Some people deal with porn. Some people don't. All right. Some people are overweight, some people aren't. So what you know, not saying it's good. But we need to stop acting like it's this thing that we have to tippy toe around. It's just part of life.
Yeah, that's so well said. I couldn't agree more. So I'm wondering what you would say to somebody listening, who maybe is just going to their church? Or maybe they're even a church leader? How do you how do you get started on this? Because I think the theory of that, like what you're presenting feels far away for some people, you have all these mental hurdles we were talking about earlier, even for a guy to get started the mental hurdles, let alone the church shame church culture. For me like I can I have to be careful the way I phrase it, but I can all I think I think pastors really need to get their act together. Because I think I think pastors who are struggling are really slowing down the church, just a personal opinion. But I guess I'm just wondering, what what what do you recommend or what, what can people do to just get started on this journey? If they're saying yes, called, that is me I have been tiptoeing around it, I have been sort of downplaying this trying to sweep it under the rug, but I know what needs to be addressed. Well, what's the starting point?
I mean, it's like anything else, you start in your own backyard, right? Just start with yourself, and your own families and things like that, you're not going to change. You're not gonna change church culture by yourself, right? It's everybody doing a little bit of work. In fact, I mean, this book, I put it at the end and said, Hey, look, the stories I shared specifically about myself and how I handle things are not meant to be modeled. Right? I want to do what I tried. Sure, go for it, right. It's a buyer beware, right. But I'm not putting myself up as the paradigm. The purpose or point of the book is to, is to challenge you to step out and do something a little different, right to get the books gonna make you feel uncomfortable. I guarantee it. There are parts in that book. My publisher questioned me on a couple of things. Are you sure about this? I said, Yeah. And then we had a good conversation. It's about you, I see that, but at first their reaction was that is really uncomfortable. Yeah, of course it is. But that's the point where you got to get past the discomfort. I don't have a problem going into a church, if they asked me and say, Hey, what do we need to do? Or? Because, for me, I've gotten past my personal shame, right? So in that area, you know, I, I just, I just don't deal with it anymore. So it's easy for me to engage in these conversations. It's easy for me to go on a podcast or an interview and just talk about whatever, you know, the first time I masturbated I don't care like I'm so you got to start with yourself, right? It's starting your own backyard. Keep it personal. get past this stuff yourself. And then not people do that people are going to catch on, you know, but it's, it starts with you. And then hopefully culture will adapt to the needs of its its participants at some point.
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. So my final question for you, Carl, when you look 1020 years down the road. I know we've had a myriad of opinions even with guests on our podcast about where they think this thing is going. You know, I think some people are very concerned about you know, virtual reality and all the different technologies developing meta, the metaverse and how that can impact people's engagement with pornography and other people that are very optimistic and you know, feeling pretty good. Like, like we're making strides and this could be like the next smoking like, couple of decades from now it's outlawed. I'm wondering where you stand and where do you kind of envision this thing going 1020 years from now?
Yeah, honestly, I don't really put too much thought to it. I'm not mister hey, let's ban everything or let's legislate anything. I don't. I had um, I won't mention the organization but you know, organization reached out to me about it. Haiti you want to do something with us or online summit right? And most of that organization's pushes anti this and how do we legislate in the US that no that's just not my jam. Sorry. You do you I'm not there. Okay. That's not me don't include me please. I even had a an article written by a public one of these Christian magazines Christianity or something. They wrote an article when we took over Tripoli's church and in the title, I think they said, anti porn and I emailed the writer, I said, Listen, that's not us, man. You need to do your homework, buddy, you know, and we, we got along, I actually DM him on Twitter. And he says, Oh, my bad, but he's like, No, don't call us anti porn. I don't want to be in that boat. But honestly, for me, I don't think about it too much is I don't care. I literally don't care. And I tell people like that's the thing. Okay, you can either you can either spend your life trying to clean up your environment, or you can spend your life learning how to survive in any environment, and not worry about it. Right? If an adult bookstore, not the nose around anymore, but if they if one opened up next door, would I be happy about it? No, because I have kids, right? But what did it affect me at all? No, I wouldn't care. Like, okay, well, I might move because I wouldn't want to be next to a bookstore of any sort. But it is what it is. It doesn't affect my life. I know how to deal with it, you know, and I just say, Listen, you can either try to dig up all the landmines. Or you can just learn how to walk around and just kind of flow like, hey, it's no big deal. So yeah, I mean, I think we're kidding ourselves. And we think it's all going to go away. It's just going to change, right, everything changes. I mean, infidelity has been around since the Bible, right? Masturbation has been around since the Bible, all this stuff has been around. The only difference. One of the only differences between now and 20 years ago is that because of social media and technology, it's, it's in our face, right? But all this stuff, like people go on to massage parlors, 20 years ago, they were, you know, going to prostitutes, 20 years ago, they had all this stuff, right? It, technology has made it more accessible. And with kids, that's unfortunate. And I'm not saying you don't do as a parent, your your due diligence, to try to limit their exposure. But ultimately, what you really need to be focusing on is preparing them for the fact that this is the world we live in, and you're gonna probably run into this stuff, and you need to know how to handle it, and why not just hey, this is bad, but explain to them why this is unhealthy. And you know, I mean, I've had just conversations with my son is like, Hey, buddy, this is not healthy, you're gonna see it. And I just want you to talk to me, you won't be in trouble. I saw him I said, You will not be in trouble. Okay, we're cool. You're gonna end up doing what you want to do at some point in your life, and I can't stop you. But I want to at least have the opportunity to explain you what the repercussions are, because I've lived it. And and I don't want to see you go through that. And, you know, I think I've gotten a lot of credit with my kid, like, he'll come to me and tell me everything. That's cool. And that's the best. That's the best thing I can hope for is yeah, I want a kid that talks to me about everything, you know, and not feel free, because that's gonna freak out. Because whatever. No, that's not gonna freak out. I've been there. But I am going to tell you why it's not a good idea. You know, of course. Yeah. And try to explain the consequences. So I mean, but it's not going anywhere. Porn. 10 years ago, porn was big business, right? But it was big business with vivid and wicked and all these, you know, big cinema or, you know, big production houses, right. And it was, you know, you're putting out to our epic films and all this other stuff, right. And now it's all amateur. And there's, there's not. I mean, I know guys in the business. And they'll say they'll tell you, the money's not what it used to be. It's hard to make a living important these days, because there's so much amateur stuff. And so, VR, and Metaverse, all this stuff is just going to be another. It's going to be a transition, right? We're gonna see some of the old stuff die off. And we're gonna have a new host of problems, but at the same time, it's the same problem. It's just presenting itself in a new way. That's more culturally relevant, but it's the same dang problem.
Yeah. So yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I think that's why like our I know, our methods. And our approaches are quite similar in really going after the heart of the individual, setting up communities, all those kinds of fundamental things that you're right, regardless of the environment, regardless of the times regardless of even the country you live in, those things are always going to be effective because they're really speaking to, you know, the core of the person so
I thought it was a blog I wrote a while ago, but I remember I it was just a loose quote, but I remember there might have been a social post this is a while ago, but I remember I said something like, Listen, you know, you have two choices. When you're dealing with sexualization and porn and what basically sexualized culture you have two choices. You can either run and hide from the boogeyman, right? And try to stay away and insulated In just whatever you got to stay in the closet, avoid the Boogeyman. Or you can grab the grab the bat with the barbed wire, step out of the closet and smash the boogeyman in the head. And just be like, No, bring it, bring it, I'm ready, you know? And that's your choice, you know? And I'm not when I say smash it, I don't mean you're going after trying to put out of business. I mean, when it steps into your neighborhood, right or into your house or into your life, and it presents itself. You shoot it down and say, No, thank you. I don't need it. You know, so be prepared. We're don't but I'd say you're gonna be better off if you're just prepared to live in the world we have versus trying to change it necessarily.
Yes, I love that very well said I think that's an a picture that a lot of people could probably resonate with and and see pretty quickly, Carl, if people want to get I just get their hands on the book. Find out more about you guys. What are the best ways for them to connect with you?
Yeah, well for the book go to when shame when shame gets real.com. And you can download the first chapter for free and then we'll let you know when it comes out. Other than that, I'd say you know, our websites like stretch.com, live free community.org. That's where you can sign up for the app. We also have small groups online.com, which are online, weekly, small groups, we host for support groups. And then we also have for women spouses. Right now we have something called Live Free wives.org. And that's a community for wives that are specifically to help them deal with the effects of betrayal and all the stuff they're dealing with, hopefully not to have them leave their marriage, but learn how to work with their husband, and also heal themselves at the same time. So hopefully, they can restore what they got.
So that's amazing. Yeah, some some very much needed resources there. We both like I know, we both catered towards the men's side of things. We didn't really talk much about the women. But we all know that women, women need all the help on either side, whether they're addicted themselves, or it's kind of a betrayal into things. And we do have women listening, so I appreciate you mentioning those resources. Thanks for being here, Carl. This is I'm sorry, we're gonna mention something I don't want to get you
on. No, no, no, no, I'm good. Thank you for having me on. It's been fun.
Yeah, I'm cheering you on the book launch. And our books come out around the same time and, and just excited about what you guys are up to. Thanks again. For all you're doing, man. Really appreciate it.
All right. Thanks, man. Appreciate you.
Well, I hope you enjoyed that interview with Carl Thomas. Like I said, guys, a straight shooter, but he's really got an amazing story. And I know you're gonna be blessed by it, I want to give you two action points, you guys know that usually at the end of an interview, my biggest encouragement is like, I know, you don't need to listen to me talk anymore. I know, it's not the time to educate or equip, it's really the time to move. And I want to give you two things. Number one, you should go buy his book. And if it's, if you're listening to this before February 8 2022, then go preorder it read the first chapter I read the first chapter, I find it really captivating, was very easy to read through and and if it's a sign of things to come, then I think it's going to be a fantastic book. The second thing is, I would encourage you to go check out live free, because what they're doing there is really amazing, and that was not fluff. Like I actually do refer people there just because they're a very affordable resource. And, and our our resources here are as well, we try to keep things affordable. But the actual programs do come with a cost. And we do require a financial investment that is larger, larger than what they charge it live free. So I think if you're looking for a place to get started, you want to plug in, you want to get some coaching, you want to just kind of get your feet wet. The way he presented it is very accurate is a really good starting point. And I highly recommend it. And to be honest, even if you're not like even if you're maybe you're dabbling, maybe you're the guy who's listen to some podcasts, you bought some books, and you know, you listen to some sermons and you've done a course here or done a course there. I'd encourage you find find a community that you can plug into on a consistent basis. That is really what makes community so valuable. It's not just that you show up. So you can say woohoo, I joined the community. It really is about consistency in the long run. That's my encouragement to you and and I hope that you will do that. We'll put links in the show notes, but livefree.app that's going to get you to, to everything they got going on with the communities. And when shamegetsreal.com That is the book. So links are in the shownotes thank you guys so much for listening. I hope you have an amazing day and we'll talk soon. Take care. Bye bye. Hey, everybody, it's Sathiya again, thanks for listening to unleash the man within. If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean the world to me if you left a rating or review on your podcast platform. Now I want to take this final moment to invite you to something that I'm really excited about our deep clean VIP community. Here's the deal. We saw that in this space of manhood, sexuality and faith. There are a lot of unasked questions. They range from relationships to sex to male anatomy, calling career and everything in between. We create a deep clean VIP for men like you who want right Get coaching from me, VIP access to our podcast guests, where you get to interact with some of the world's leading experts in men's health, a monthly seminar and a community of men from around the world pursuing success in life, and integrity and sexuality. Deep theme VIP provides answers to your deepest questions, hope for a full recovery and the necessary tools to make that full recovery a reality. If you're ready to take things to the next level, I want you to stop what you're doing right now. And sign up for deep clean VIP at www.sathiyasam.com/deepcleanVIP. The link is in the show notes. But let me give it one more time. That's www.sathiyasam.com/deepcleanVIP. Thanks for listening. I look forward to connecting with you very very soon.
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