The Heart & Mind Recovery Puzzle Pieces w/ Eddie Capparucci

Narrator: This is Pathway to Recovery, an SA Lifeline Foundation podcast featuring hosts Tara McCausland, who is the SA Lifeline Executive Director, and Justin B., a sex addict living in long-term recovery. We have conversations with experts and individuals who understand the pathway to healing from sexual addiction and betrayal trauma because we believe that recovering individuals leads to the healing of families.

Tara McCausland: Dr. Eddie Capparucci is a licensed professional counselor certified in treating sex and porn addiction. Eddie has worked with professional athletes and television personalities among his many clients. He is the creator of the Inner Child Model for treating sex and porn addiction, a unique approach that focuses on identifying unresolved childhood pain points and teaching individuals how to process emotional distress in healthy ways. His treatment method has been endorsed by many leaders in his field. He is the author of several books, including Going Deeper: How the Inner Child Impacts Your Sexual Addiction and Why Men Struggle to Love: Overcoming Relational Blind Spots.

He is the facilitator of 2 blogs and hosts a monthly webinar entitled Getting to the Other Side. Welcome to the Pathway to Recovery Podcast. I'm your host, Tara McCausland, and I'm here with guest expert, Dr. Eddie Caporucci. Eddie, thank you so much for being here with me today. It's a treat to meet you and have this discussion with you.

Eddie Capparucci: Well, I'm really looking forward to it, Tara. I always enjoy sitting down with people and talking about this subject because, again, it is, as you well know, it is something that is such a struggle that really destroys people's lives. And so again, the more awareness we can put out there, but more importantly, the solutions that we can help people with, you know, I just love the opportunity. So thank you.

Tara McCausland: Yes, absolutely. Well, today we are going to start talking about the various pieces of what we call our SA Lifeline Recovery Puzzle, which in our experience contains the necessary ingredients to achieve long-term recovery from sexual addiction and betrayal trauma. So Eddie and I will focus on how these particular pieces— and we're not going to cover all of them today— but how these particular pieces, namely a willing heart, accountability, commitment, spiritual connection, humility, and rigorous honesty, relate specifically to sexual addiction recovery.

And we're going to tie in aspects of Eddie's latest book, Why Men Struggle to Love. But before we dive into the discussion of the recovery puzzle, or what Eddie would call the elements of transformation, I wanted to address the concept of sobriety as being a necessary first step to recovery. So your latest book, Why Men Struggle to Love, it discusses why being sober is not enough when it comes to recovery. So I wanted you to explain a bit about what that means.

Eddie Capparucci: Absolutely. You know, because what I've come to understand in the work that I've done with not just with the men who— and I work strictly with men, and I understand there are women who also struggle with this disorder, but I use the pronouns him and he because of that. I work with men, and the men that I've come to understand that when I look at them and done assessments and such, 9 out of 10, not only of all 10 dealing with sex addiction, but 9 out of 10 of them also are emotionally undeveloped.

And that inability to create a secure attachment bond with their partner, that one is part of the problem that, that got them to where they are right now, and the fact that they have committed infidelity and they're struggling. But if it's not addressed after they find sobriety, we're going to find a whole other host of problems that that relationship is not going to really heal and to become solidified the way God wants it to be. So therefore, and again, as I went through and did my research and speaking with these men over the last 12 years, what I identified were 12 blind spots.

And I say a blind spot is something that prevents a man from being able to cultivate a relationship that is God-centered and that is healthy in nature.

Tara McCausland: I believe it's the White Book that would call someone that is sober but not in active recovery a dry drunk, right? And we recognize that sobriety is not recovery at SA Lifeline. You can white-knuckle for a very long periods of time, be sober, and yet continue to have, as you said, all of these other underlying issues. The addiction is just the symptom of the problem.

Eddie Capparucci: Right. The addiction, if you think about it, the addiction winds up as— is serving as a coping mechanism to help them to deal with many of the issues they've had before the addiction began. So again, you know, what we're talking about here with people is that this is an emotional intimacy disorder. Hmm. And what I mean by that is the fact that they don't know how to emotionally connect. And in many cases, what they'll do is they confuse physical intimacy for emotional intimacy.

So that's what they're chasing. But the problem is it's never fulfilling because again, that's not God's design for our relationships. The foundation for any relationship should be built on emotional intimacy where we sprinkle physical intimacy in to reinforce it.

Tara McCausland: That makes great sense. And I, what I love about your Elements of Transformation, or what we at SA Lifeline call the Recovery Puzzle, is that we go beyond sobriety and we really start addressing all of these other issues that need to be healed in order to be a healthy but an individual who can connect with their spouse.

Eddie Capparucci: And that's why we're talking today, Derek. Right. Because I looked at what you guys came up with, this puzzle that you have, your puzzle pieces, and it really mirrors with my approach to addiction, that it is not just, again, just the fact that you stopped engaging in a bad or poor behavior doesn't mean that you are, sober. Okay, you're sober from the behavior, but you're not— you haven't completed the transformation. So the way I look at it, in many cases, that, that this is keeping men, or maybe sometimes for the first time, putting men on the pathway of sanctification, where they are learning how to really be transformed to become a new creation.

Mm-hmm. And again, to experience an abundant life. Versus really just existing.

Tara McCausland: And the irony is, is that unless we go beyond sobriety, things actually might get worse because that, that problem became the solution. It became the coping mechanism. And without it, people really struggle. So love, I love that first important concept of sobriety, and then we move really into long-term recovery and healing.

Eddie Capparucci: Because if you don't, what you'll see in many cases is they pick up another type of addiction. Right. Or as you said before, the dry drunk. We now have the ornery guy. Mm-hmm. We have the, or we have the guy who's very lackluster, guy who has no really energy or no ambition, no drive. And, and that's what you often see in many cases. But what you've done is you've taken away from them The one thing that would bring in a level of stimulation in their life, an unhealthy stimulation, I may add.

But we've taken that away, but we haven't replaced it with anything. And what we need to replace it with is a heart that is robust. As you guys say, the willing heart that is going to help people to look outward versus being looking inward.

Tara McCausland: Right. Love that. So as you had mentioned, the transformation process that you created does seem very in line with SA Lifeline's Recovery Puzzle, and you refer to the elements of your transformation as blind spots. So can you explain what are blind spots and share a few with us? Yes.

Eddie Capparucci: A blind spot is something that's going to impede a person's ability to Create and then ultimately cultivate a relationship. Now, when people— many people can start a relationship because what's happening is the neurochemicals in the brain are produced at an extraordinary level, especially something called oxytocin, which is— I call it the goo goo gaga kind of— we're just overflowing with a sense of feeling loved and nurtured. And We stay in that state from anywhere from 6 months to 24 months.

But once that dies down, well, guess what? We go back to where we were before. So therefore, a woman may meet a man and think, oh my gosh, he is amazing. Look how he connects and he bonds and all. Well, then she sees over time that just fades away because again, the neurochemicals in the brain, neurochemistry in the brain, Go back to normal. So what happens here with these people is that in many cases, they did not receive the nurturing and guidance that they needed at a very young age to be able to learn to be emotional beings.

So therefore, that is the thing that they really lack, that ability to emotionally connect and bond in a healthy way with other people.

Tara McCausland: Thank you for that explanation. Now let's try matching up some of your blind spots with our recovery puzzle, and we'll start with the critical core of the, the puzzle, which is a willing heart. So at SA Lifeline, we believe that a willing heart means choosing to put at our center the God of our understanding and having a sincere desire to do or give up whatever it takes to find recovery. So hearing kind of our definition, what elements of your process might align with the willing heart?

Eddie Capparucci: The first one that we talked about before was, you know, having God at the center of it. And for me, you know, God does need to be at the center of everything that we are doing. It's really hard for a person to go through a true transformation of who they are, if they don't have, you know, the understanding of who God is, what God wants for them in their lives. And also the fact of moving away from being in the world and becoming more of a spirit— a spiritual being.

And, and what that does in many cases, and we'll talk more about this, it takes me from being inwardly focused to being outwardly focused. So that is part of it. The other thing, as you mentioned before, is that part of, you know, once you think about it, what we really are called upon here is to have a sacrificial life. And a sacrificial life doesn't have to be one that is, you know, where I'm just constantly looking for ways to make my life more difficult in order to make God look good.

God doesn't need that. But a sacrificial life is the fact you know what, there are things that I bring into my world that are not needed, that cause pain to myself or to other people, and I need to be able to move them away and move them out. Well, in order for that to happen, I have to come to an understanding that, you know what, there are things in my life that I, I need to change, and more importantly, that I want to change.

Because if we don't want to, and I've seen many, many cases where, you know, a woman drags the man into therapy and said, fix him. And, you know, he's not ready to be fixed. So therefore, we have to— there has to be a part of us that we reach that bottomness where we say, you know what, I want to fully surrender. I want to give myself you know, completely over to God and let him be the guide of my life versus me guiding my life.

So I think that when we look at the willing heart aspect of it, I think that's how my blind spots and my— the Emotionally Undeveloped Man, the program that I have— I think that's how it mirrors.

Tara McCausland: I think that a lot of Betrayed partners could relate to this concept of they want so badly for the addict to recover and for the marriage or the relationship to survive that their desire for the recovery of their loved one is greater than their loved one's desire for recovery. And the hard truth is we can't want recovery more for our loved one than they want it for themselves.

Eddie Capparucci: You are absolutely correct of that. And I've seen it far too often. I'm sure you've seen it also. Where again, you see the woman working harder than her husband is working to heal. And in that scenario, and what we see in many cases, is that they almost, you know, enable the situation. And therefore, you know, there's times I have to say, wait, you know what, I gotta take a step back. Need you to look and see what you're doing here.

You're not helping him. You may think you're helping him, but you're not. And you're really— you're also causing a lot more emotional distress for yourself because you keep traumatizing yourself, re-traumatizing yourself. I need them to take a step back and say he has to be responsible for his own recovery. And you know what, this is where you have to put your trust in God. Yeah. That, you know what, that this guy is going to do what he needs to do, or maybe he's not going to do what he needs to do.

And then you're going to have to look at other scenarios and other situations of how are you going to handle this moving forward. But micromanaging his recovery is not going to make— it's not— that's not going to guarantee success.

Tara McCausland: Right. When I think about my parents' story, And the first 2 times my father came forward, my mom really was in fix-it mode. She wanted recovery for him more than he wanted it for himself. And I think it created more resentment in the relationship than anything. And recently I've heard my parents speak to this very important point of a willing heart. And some partners feel completely just lost, not knowing, then what do I do if they don't want recovery?

What do I do? But something that I recall my mom saying is that we can Pray for an interruption. And that's precisely what happened to my father. He had an interruption, which created a rock bottom situation where the awareness of his reality, of his predicament was glaring. He couldn't ignore it anymore when he was arrested. Right. And so while we as loved ones can't fix it, If we believe in God, we can believe in a God that can create circumstances where someone will want to make those changes in their lives.

Eddie Capparucci: That's what I said. We got to go back and we have to— they have to put their trust in God. Yeah. Be able to handle that situation moving forward. And you're right, prayer is a, is a critical aspect of that as you're going forward.

Tara McCausland: Yeah. Well, for the sake of time, we're going to move on. But by the way, to our listeners, if you're interested in getting a copy of our recovery puzzle, you can go to salifeline.org and you can have a visual of what it is that we're speaking about today. But this next piece is accountability. Accountability is critical to this transformation process, to the recovery process. What elements of your process match with accountability?

Eddie Capparucci: I think first and foremost, I think the whole program does, because if you don't have accountability, you don't have recovery. Right. But there are 2 pieces in particular that I think align very well with this. And the first one is that process, is their ability to process emotional pain. Now, with people who have addiction, they don't sit with emotional pain very well. They don't like emotional discomfort. And one of the things that we're supposed to be taught at a very young age is how to deal with emotional discomfort.

Well, for those who don't, who aren't taught by our parents what to do when we're not— when we're upset about something, well, again, what does a child do when he's sitting with all this pain? Well, he doesn't have a whole lot of worldly experiences that he can lean on. To say, okay, I think this is the solution. And he's more emotionally based in his thinking than he is cognitively based. So he comes up with one solution, and it is a great solution for a child.

I'm not gonna think about it. Okay. All right. How do we not think about it? I'm gonna distract myself. Too much food. Too much TV. Too much fantasy. I'm not talking about sexual fantasy. Talking about fantasy in general. Okay, we do that. You know, and now add in video games and media and all these other things that they have. You know, there's just a wide array of, you know, outlets that they can turn to on a regular basis to forget about perhaps the bullying in their life, forget about the fact that maybe they don't find themselves to be as, you know, attractive as some of their friends or athletically gifted.

I mean, It could be minor things also. The fact that I feel that I didn't get this particular thing that I wanted for my 10th birthday, but it became something that was very traumatic in a way. So that we take those same coping strategies, because that's what it is, and we move it into our teen years and our adult years, but we just change out the behavior. Yeah. And somewhere along the line, what do we come across?

Well, we stumble across sex. And we realize, oh my gosh, sex is a tremendous distraction from almost anything. So that's what's going on. So therefore, we need to be able to educate and teach people how to sit with their emotional discomfort. And that's accountability. Because we're all gonna be in emotional pain from time to time. Mm-hmm. You know, the world is full of it. And, you know, scripture tells us that we are not gonna be immune to it.

So therefore we need to, from an accountability standpoint, sit with our pain and not run away from it. The second area, I think, of the 14 blind spots is our ability, inability to deal with compulsive behaviors. We are very compulsive individuals, those who struggle with addiction. Why? Well, go back a step. What's at the heart of the compulsiveness? Anxiety. We don't know how to manage our anxiety, so therefore our compulsiveness increases. As our compulsiveness increases, Also, the risk of bad decision-making increases.

So to be accountable, I need to be able to manage that compulsiveness that I've been struggling with. How do I do that? Take a step back. I need to proactively be addressing my anxiety. And it's really interesting because many people who deal with addictions, they don't really think of themselves as anxious people, but they are some of the most anxious people I've ever met. And once they identify it and realize it, then all of a sudden it's like, wow, you know what?

Now I understand what's been driving all of this. This anxiousness leading to compulsiveness, leading to the bad decision-making. Well, let me work on My anxiousness. Let me start meditating every day. Let me perhaps start doing some yoga. Let me focus on breathing exercises. Let me focus on exercising my body in general. Quiet time, prayer. You go on and on. There are so many things that can be done to be able to control the compulsiveness. So I think those are 2 of the biggest areas when you're looking at your accountable puzzle piece that the blind spots fit in with very nicely.

Tara McCausland: I think that our, our natural instinct is just to be on autopilot, right? Absolutely. And to your point about how this relates to accountability or your Elements of Transformation here, yeah, it takes so much intention and proactivity to not be on autopilot, especially if we have been engaging in some type of compulsive or addictive behavior. So I, I've never thought about accountability in that framework. But that makes a lot of sense to me that being accountable to ourselves and being mindful of what's going on inside rather than being on autopilot, can I be intentional and proactive so that I can break out of those compulsive behaviors?

Eddie Capparucci: And you just landed on another blind spot, and that is lack of mindfulness. They don't have it. And therefore, the word picture I give them is you have your head down and you're running through life. That's what you're doing. You're headed, you're headed down and you're running. And part of the reason you're running, because you've learned to run away from that emotional discomfort. And we need to learn to stop, slow everything down, and be able to say, you know what, this pain, while I don't like it, it's not going to kill me.

And in fact, Most likely by processing through this, this is a time of growth for me, a time of spiritual growth, and it's really important for me to start that process because I'm going to learn a lot about myself. I look at your puzzle pieces here, especially the willing heart aspect of it, and I think about my 14 blind And I think the major similarity between the two is the idea of self-reflection. We are looking to get people to start to think and wonder why.

Why do I think, feel, and act the way I do? Because if we can do that for them, we empower them. Now I understand what's going on. I understand the motivation behind my thinking, my feeling, and my behavior. And that should allow people to be able to make real changes in their lives moving forward.

Tara McCausland: I love this idea of the self-reflection being so critical and that rather than running away from our feelings, we stop and we lean in. and we start asking why. Why am I feeling this way? And how am I going to move forward in a different way? That's really powerful.

Eddie Capparucci: You see, that's why, again, I love your philosophy and I love the system that you guys have come up with here because this is not about behavior modification. This is about changing a soul. It's about changing a person's heart. It's about getting them to think differently, not just about themselves, about others, and about God. And with all of that, they become a new creation. Yeah. And that's what we're really looking to do here. This idea of the addiction and what's happened, again, that is all the aftermath of the emotional, unresolved emotional pain points that we suffered when we were younger.

And what we've done is, again, not addressing them, repressing them, in some cases suppressing them. They are still haunting us today. They're still haunting us. And in fact, a client this morning gave me a perfect example of one that was that inner child and the emotional pain that he feels. That was like textbook. And he handled it really well in being able to You know, be able to deal with that scenario without taking steps that would have led him to take actions that would have been, could have been very devastating, actually.

Tara McCausland: Well, let's move on and shift to the committed piece of the puzzle. What blind spots are associated with being committed?

Eddie Capparucci: Well, there are 2 here, and one is the idea of lack of curiosity. And what I mean by lack of curiosity is they could be very interested in politics, sports, gardening, cooking. They have lots of— they can have interests. What we're talking about is curiosity with people, and particularly curiosity about your spouse and your children. And again, for the emotionally undeveloped man, that's really lacking. If you talk to the betrayed partner, And you start to ask them, you know, beyond his, you know, no longer acting out in a sexual manner, what are some of the other things that you would like to see occur?

Curiosity is going to be up on the top of the list, like anywhere between number 1 and number 3. It's going to be there because they want to feel valued. They want to feel you are interested in me and what I'm doing. I have one client told a story. If he started telling me, I was like, I wish I was standing there. I would've just slapped him on the side of the head and said, what are you thinking?

He made himself this bowl of ice cream and his wife came back from a Bible study. It was the beginning of a new year for their education. And she came in with several books and she came in with her agendas. And so he said to her, he goes, oh, how was your class? She said, oh, it was really great. You want to sit down with me and I'll walk you through what I'm going to be learning?

And he looked at her and he looked down at his ice cream. He looked back and goes, nah, and walks away. I mean, that is a typical example of the man who is not curious. Yeah. It's one of those, you know, walk in the door, hey, how you doing? Good. Okay, how you doing? Good. And you keep going. Versus being able to ask those probing questions so that I get a better sense of what you're going through, what is going on, what's not just going on in your mind, but emotionally, how are you doing today?

So that's one of them. The other one is learning how to emotionally bond. Many of these men— again, go back to that 9 out of 10 who are emotionally undeveloped— they lack an emotional IQ. Right. What does that mean? Well, that means, one, they can tell you if they're sad, happy, fearful, angry, lonely, But they can't tell you what they really feel. They can't name those other emotions. Why? Because again, as children, nobody gave them names for those emotions.

And in many cases, when they were demonstrating primary emotions, they're told to shut them, them down. So therefore, they can't identify them. And in cases where they can, they don't know how to express those emotions. The word vulnerability is a dirty word for them because to be vulnerable makes me perhaps feel weak and/or that it could be dangerous to be vulnerable because people could use that against me. And then the final component about emotionally bonding is that when someone attempts to share their emotions with you, your anxiety starts to increase.

And when that happens, Now, what do I want to do? I want to shut this thing down. So I'm going to try to fix it. And people think, oh, you know, the big joke about, you know, women share their emotions and men want to fix their problem. We don't want to fix their problem because we want to show them how brilliant we are. We want to fix the problem so we can shut down the emotion. Mm-hmm.

What's going on? Or we're going to minimize it. I don't know why you're worried about that. That's not a big deal. It's really not important. Or we're gonna withdraw. Look, I just don't have time for this. I'm sorry, I can't really help you. So those are the 2 big things that I think show a commitment. If I can emotionally attach and bond with my spouse and the rest of my family, and 2, I can show curiosity about them.

I can show that I'm invested. Because that's where most of them, they come across as they're not invested. In the relationship.

Tara McCausland: So what I like about this, again, you're shedding new light on these puzzle pieces for me, because oftentimes when I think about commitment, I think about being committed to maybe going to a 12-step meeting or doing my 12-step work daily or going to therapy. But I like this extra element of commitment to recovery looking like commitment to the relationship. through showing curiosity and through working toward this emotional bonding, which takes and requires huge effort, not just for someone that's dealt with an addiction, for any of us.

I think about myself. I've never dealt with an addiction per se, but even just with my own children, I recognize sometimes just the energy that it takes to engage, especially when there is a lot of highs and lows. And I have children that have— A daughter in particular that's sometimes very high and can drop very low quickly. And so I like that idea of we show commitment to our recovery by being more committed in our relationships, curiosity through this willingness to emotionally bond because it is hard business.

And so we know that someone's really working their recovery if they're trying to engage that way. Yes.

Eddie Capparucci: See, I— when people come to work with me, the first thing I tell them is, you know what, this work, again, based on self-reflection that we talked about, understand, answering the why question. Why do I think, feel, and, and act the way I do? We're gonna change everything. We're not just changing your behavior. We're gonna change everything. I want you to sit and I want you to think about— not right now, but as we go through this process— why is it that I tend to withdraw?

Why do I tend to get angry so quickly? Okay, I will go down the list of 20 different things. And we want to change all of it, and we change it by allowing the Holy Spirit to work through us with God. In order to be able to do what we need to do. And that's that transformation.

Tara McCausland: Yeah. And in reality, as challenging as the transformation process is, this is when life really becomes— rather than just, as you said, walking through life with your head down, you can then engage in an authentic way and really develop these connections. And that's what enriches our lives. And, and brings us joy that we haven't had prior to. Exactly right. I just love, again, the, the light that you've shed on that particular piece of commitment. And it is in our relationships where we will both see where true recovery is or isn't happening and where we will experience the joy or not, if we will really work at this.

Eddie Capparucci: If you, you ask people in, in, well, like as you said before, forget about addiction, ask people in general, you know, what is joy? You can get a lot of blank looks. They can tell you about happiness. And again, happiness is based on circumstances in our lives, right? What's going on? But what is joy? And I think really the true source of joy comes in that relationship with God and our relationship with others. You know, there was, you know, famous psychologist Erik Erikson who put together the 8 stages of life.

And he got to the last stage, stage 8. And in it, he looked at it and he goes, when you get to this final stage, you're gonna look at life as either success or you're gonna look at it and say that it was a failure. And there's only one element you are gonna judge that on, and that's relationships. Hmm. Have you cultivated good, solid relationships? And it's so true because all you have to think about is a eulogy.

What do you want people to say about you? Well, he worked hard, he brought in a lot of good— brought in a lot of money. You know, he liked sports. What do you want them to talk about? The memories that had— that were developed over the lifetime of being with that person.

Tara McCausland: Yeah. Well, so we both know, as you had been describing, we can experience this joy in connection with the God of our understanding and with our loved ones. And that spiritual connection piece is essential to recovery. How do you handle this with your clients?

Eddie Capparucci: Well, I think first and foremost, what I want to understand is where, where is their relationship with God? As you can well imagine, in many cases it is not A completely healthy one. Part of that reason can go back to— again, let's go back to those unresolved childhood wounds, especially for a young boy. And it happened with young, young girls also, who doesn't have that solid, loving, nurturing relationship with their father. That is going to create, in many cases, the ability to— for them to cultivate a relationship with God.

And people may say, wait a second, I don't understand what's the difference. Well, because Dad really served as that role model. So therefore, if I felt from my father that I was, you know, rejected, I felt I was, you know, not good enough for him. When it comes to people starting now to educate me about God, who is my Heavenly Father, I am going to project upon him the feeling that I have about what I thought my father felt.

So now we have to learn, we have to teach them an understanding of, wait a second, you got this wrong. Okay, could you— first of all, no, there's no one here on the face of this earth that is going to provide you with that unconditional love and acceptance that God can give you. The other thing that's the big problem with this is shame. Yeah. The shame factor. Like, wait a second, do you understand what I've done?

I mean, do you, do you realize the pain I've caused people? Some of the things that I have done in my life that if anyone knew about them, that they would run away from me completely. Well, God knows about it, so God must be running away from me also. Oh, wait a second, we don't have that right either. And now you have to talk about the fact of grace and what, what that's all about. And so, so you really— there are a lot of underlying wounds that I deal with to help them to accurately see God for who he is and what he wants from them in a relationship.

Tara McCausland: It's interesting watching people go through their recovery process because so much of the process is reconnecting with the true God, not the conceived God of their childhood, right? And it's interesting how we can all be sitting next to each other on the same pew, but everyone's conception of God is unique to them based on their experiences. And even in the same home, And so that, that understanding that as we work recovery from addiction and trauma, but we're, we're focusing on addiction today, getting very comfortable with going to ground zero with your understanding of who God is, what role He plays in our lives.

I'm grateful as we talk about how we can become new creatures that as we really grasp onto this piece of, I can have a totally different experience in my relationships, in my relationship with God. Life can truly be beautiful if I will just give myself to this process.

Eddie Capparucci: Yeah, I point people back a lot to some of the characters in the Bible to say, look at these folks, okay? These are not the people I would entrust In my life with many things. Okay, you think that you've been bad, I've been bad. Look at some of these folks and what they've gone through. And if God can use them, if God can help to transform them and change them, what is it about you that he wouldn't do that?

Why? And, and again, it goes back to you have erroneous beliefs. And we need to change that. So you— I love what you just said before, go back, take them back to ground zero. It is, it's almost, let's wipe the slate clean. We're going to wipe it clean of everything you believe, and let's start to build upon that. What is and who is the true God?

Tara McCausland: Yeah, we're moving into our 2 last elements here, but what elements of your program or your process match with that humility puzzle piece?

Eddie Capparucci: And humility, I think, is critical. The foundation must be, of course, faith, but the next level has to be humility. Because if that's not it, everything else you build upon it is going to be a house of cards. The humbleness part, if you look at my blind spot, is the idea of Blind spotted, we are inwardly focused. And the reason we're inwardly focused is because growing up, we felt there was no one really there for us.

Nobody really had my back. This goes back to the idea again of inability to sit with emotional pain. Nobody's showing me how to do this. I'm going to have to do it all on my own. Yes, maybe they're putting food on the table, they're putting a roof over my head, And that's the thing. A lot of people look at things and they say, oh, I had a good childhood. But they look at what their parents did, doing stuff.

But they never see— and they ultimately do— oh, wait a second. There was no nurturing there. There was no emotional sharing and things like that. So to get back to your question again, we need to become outwardly focused. We need to start thinking more about others than ourselves. And this is almost where that idea of the sacrificial life comes into play. That, you know what, yes, I'm giving up things that I would love to do, but you know what, I see a need that is out there that has to be fulfilled, and I, I am calling— I'm called upon to fill that.

So therefore, that's where— that's the big— and that is one of the number one blind spots. 2 of them we've hit today. That the first one is their inability to sit with emotional discomfort. And also being inwardly focused. Those are the two that really need to be taken care of if we're gonna be able to do a true transformation.

Tara McCausland: And then finally, looking at the rigorous honesty puzzle piece, and for our listeners, I'm actually going to be focusing on this piece specifically in another episode, but I wanted to give Eddie an opportunity to, to speak to this piece. Is there any part of your process that addresses this very important subject.

Eddie Capparucci: This is like a critical subject. I'm so glad you're going to be doing a separate podcast on it. But again, talk to anybody who's been betrayed and what they're going to tell you— what are they going to tell you? They're going to tell you that, you know what, it's the deceit, the lying, that it was even more harmful than what happened from the acting out. Because again, what's happened is like, wait a second, I thought I had the life.

Narrator: I don't have—

Eddie Capparucci: I didn't have that life. We've been going through all of this, nothing but a charade. So what is the piece that ties into this? I think it ties in very nicely. It's what I call the hide and lie syndrome. We learn at a very young age that, you know what, I'm not gonna put myself out in the spotlight. I don't want to get noticed because if I get noticed, I wind up getting criticized. I wind up getting blamed for something.

I wind up in trouble. So therefore, let me fade in with the background. And 2, the whole thing about lying is we learn that, you know what, wait a second, I'm told if I tell the truth, it won't be as bad. Lie, lie, lie. That is not true. I get in just as much trouble if I tell the truth And if I lie, so you know what, forget this, I'm gonna flip a coin and see what works.

And we take these 2 things and we bring 'em again into our adult world. Again, the coping strategies. And if you look at every blind spot, that's what they are. They're all childish coping strategies that we use as adults. And we need to put all those childish things aside, right, as we grow up and become mature Christians.

Tara McCausland: So as I had mentioned, we will spend a great deal more time talking about this piece of rigorous honesty, but I'm just going to second what you said, Eddie. It is astounding how you will hear almost across the board from betrayed partners that the most painful, hurtful thing was not the behavior itself, It was the deceit, the lying. And I think to get that across to someone who's dealing with an addiction, when we shine light into this addiction and we give it air and we just get it out, it's amazing how much it loses its power if we can be honest.

Eddie Capparucci: One last point is this, and this is again, comes back to the whole idea of the need for transformation, the dire need for this because Yes, you may demonstrate, or you can't. How do you demonstrate the fact I'm no longer doing those behaviors? Well, you know what, you were probably asked somewhere along the line when she was— she had her doubts, are you engaged in this? Are you doing this? No, no, no, no, not at all.

I know. What makes you even think something like that? So therefore, the fact that you now say, well, I'm no longer doing that. It's not good enough. They need to see other changes in other aspects of your life, so therefore that they can touch, they can feel, they can sense, so that they say, oh my gosh, the new guy, he's the new guy. I can see God in him.

Tara McCausland: Yeah, we, we like to say at SA Lifeline, how do you know if an addict is in recovery? They're humble, honest, and accountable. And so with those 3 things, people who are looking and watching, they have some kind of litmus test because you can't often trust what an addict says, but you can trust if they are humble, honest, and accountable.

Eddie Capparucci: If his lips are moving, he's lying. Probably lying.

Tara McCausland: Right. Oh yes. Well, this has been such a fun conversation, Eddie. I've learned so much from you. And to our listeners, again, if you are interested, I would highly recommend Eddie's work and this particular book that we have been discussing. Again, Why Men Struggle to Love: Overcoming Relational Blind Spots. But where is the best place for people to find you if they want to find you, Eddie?

Eddie Capparucci: They can reach out to me at my email, edcappa@gmail.com. And I'll be more than happy. I love answering people's questions and finding out more about other folks and things like that. I'm not taking new clients. I haven't done that in a while, but also have a network that I can refer people to if they're interested in doing that kind of stuff.

Tara McCausland: Okay, well, we will put that in the show notes. But before I let you go, We've got to end with these 2 final questions, and that is that I would love for you to address the newcomer, the person that's just starting this journey of recovery, and also some words of wisdom for the person that's been in the saddle for a while.

Eddie Capparucci: Those who are just starting, that, you know what, it looks frightening. It looks frightening because you've got 2 things that are going on. You have your own addiction that you are trying to overcome, and at the same time, you most likely have someone that you've hurt very much that's in a lot of pain. It takes a lot of commitment and effort and energy, and just not to lose sight as— because there'll be setbacks. Again, during times of, of this process.

And I'm not talking about from your recovery of your addiction, I'm talking about in the relationship itself. And do not lose hope with all of that, but instead realize this is not a sprint, it's a journey. Recovery is a lifelong journey. What we've been talking about today, okay, I've been in recovery 25 years. And now what my— the last 24 or so have been about what we've been talking about today. I'm never going to stop that journey because I'm always doing self-reflection.

And therefore, that's where you need to be. So don't lose hope. Continue to look for the right resources to help you. And for those of you who've been in the saddle for a while. Hey, you know what? You got to look for those opportunities of how can you maybe help someone else? How can you move outwardly focused to be able to share? But there are a lot of people who are in need, who need that mentor along the way to walk with them.

And that's one of the best things you can do here. You can take, you know, allow God to take a situation that was, you know, awful and use it for something good.

Tara McCausland: Thank you so much, Eddie. This has been a real treat for me, and I know that those who will listen to this will gain so much from your words of wisdom and your experience. So thanks again for being here with us.

Eddie Capparucci: Well, thanks for having me. I greatly appreciate it. It was a lot of fun.

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