Helping Parents and Faith Leaders Navigate Pornography With Youth w/ Sam Black

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: Hello friends. Welcome to the Pathway to Recovery podcast. Before we get rolling with this awesome episode with Sam Black, a couple of things. First off, we're so excited that the 2nd edition SAL book, Recovering Individuals, Healing Families, is available for purchase on both salifeline.org and sal12step.org. This is a long-awaited second edition of this book, which we do use in our SAL 12-step meetings and can also be a great recovery resource for anyone who would like to understand more about the nature and reality of sexual addiction and betrayal trauma, as well as a pathway to healing.

But what's new in the second edition? Well, we have the updated recovery puzzle, more on top lines, bottom lines, and boundaries, and more on healing couples and families. Also, there's a really helpful glossary of key definitions and an index, again, to help you better navigate the book and find what you're looking for. It's available in a digital format and a hard copy format. Second thing is we are seeking out individuals who are eager to share the hope of recovery and the healing that's possible through the tools of SA Lifeline and SAL 12-step.

So if you are one that would like to assist in this important healing work, we hope that you'll reach out, learn more about the Ambassador Program. We'll put a link in the show notes for that. If you've felt the power of recovery in your life and you want to help others find it, this is your opportunity. So come join us. Be the bridge. Be the hope. Now I'd like to introduce you to Sam Black. Sam Black is the author of The Healing Church: What Churches Get Wrong About Pornography and How to Fix It.

The director of recovery education at Covenant Eyes, Sam joined Sam joined the Covenant Eyes team in 2007 after 18 years as an award-winning journalist. He has edited 16 books on the impact of pornography and speaks at parent, men's, and leaders' events. He is a recovery coach certified by Christian Sex Addiction Specialists International. He walks his own grace-filled journey with the support of valued allies. Welcome to the Pathway to Recovery podcast. I'm your host, Tara McCausland, and so happy to have here with me Sam Black.

Hey, Sam, welcome.

Sam Black: Hi, Tara. Great to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Tara McCausland: Yeah, it was fun to meet you at a recent conference, the UCAP conference, just a month or two back. I know that you are one that has studied this topic at length, and the book that we'll be alluding to today is The Healing Church, how we can help our faith leaders help their congregants as well, just our families navigate a really hard topic, which is pornography, and something that we often don't want to talk about with our kids.

Sam Black: Right. I've been with Covenant Eyes for 18 years, and before that I spent 18 years as a journalist. So God just puts things together, makes things happen to put you in the right place where he needs you to be, right? In my 18 years at Covenant Eyes, I would hear over and over again, both in the LDS Protestant faith, Catholic, regardless of what denomination you're part of, that people would be coming through recovery and they'd get to this recognition that, man, this has been a remarkable journey and I've grown so much and I've got greater wholeness than I've ever had in my life, not just in regard to pornography but living well.

And then they would follow that up and say, Sam, my church didn't help me very much. And that's not how it should be. That's the church. Right. That community is where we're supposed to grow in the faith. And that was the impetus for writing The Healing Church: What Churches Get Wrong About Pornography and How to Fix It. Because if we can begin serving and supporting and helping people within our congregations and communities, within our churches, that's exactly the place that Jesus Christ established for us to create greater healing.

Tara McCausland: Yeah, yeah. So I love that we'll have kind of this mesh of talking about how the church can help and how faith leaders can specifically help parents help their kids navigate a tricky issue. Because I know as well as you that faith leaders want help, they want resources, and sometimes they're not sure where to find them. And very often they're not giving great counsel because they're just They're as lost as those that they're trying to lead, unfortunately, and often no fault of their own.

So hopefully this—

Sam Black: Nobody goes to seminary or goes to their Christian college and learns and discovers, here's how people get stuck in pornography, this is why it's for kids, this is how we can take next steps in helping people learn to live in freedom. So they're having to learn that after their educational experience in general. I think some schools are beginning to recognize, hey, we're behind the ball on this. We need to get— we need to be more active.

But in general, most leaders had to learn this on their own and after the fact of their higher education.

Tara McCausland: Yeah. And also another important subset of our audience, actually the primary audience that will be listening, are parents. And these same parents have probably struggled with pornography and problematic sexual behavior in their relationships. Hopefully you can take this information directly to your children and to your faith leaders so that we can help just improve the experience for all of us to help the next generation.

Sam Black: Yeah, we're gonna take some time to actually talk about what parents can do and some of the things that they wonder about. So yeah, we're gonna hit all that.

Tara McCausland: Yeah, awesome. So in your book, The Healing Church, you say that parents believe 5 myths that really keep them from Taking action. Let's walk through those with our listeners.

Sam Black: Yeah, so myth number 1 is my kid is a good kid and they would never be curious about sex and they would never look at pornography. They'd never be curious about that. They never— if someone talked to them about that, they wouldn't go looking for it, or if they saw it, they wouldn't want to possibly see more. Of course, we know that's not true, right? But if my child saw it, that's myth number 2, they would just look away.

Why? Because they are good kids. And by the way, they are good kids. We've taken them camping. They're funny. They're— the hikes and all the fun stuff we've done with them. We've got this beautiful and wonderful bond that God wants for us to have with our kids, right? But it's very hard for a child to look away from pornography. And I hope that we, when we really walk through this, we'll discover more there. Number 3, the measures I have in place are good enough.

And typically this means that occasionally I look over their shoulder to see what's on the screen. But over and over again, I've heard parents say, this happened on my watch, in my kitchen, in my car, that the first time my child saw pornography, I was with them. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. Yeah. Number 4, boys are the only ones that struggle, so I don't have to worry about my girls. And of course, we've— since 2007, when the iPhone came out, we have been handing mobile devices to our girls at younger and younger ages with little supervision.

And they've naturally been curious. They've accidentally stumbled— half of kids that are first exposed first see pornography by accident. So this has been hard on our girls. Number 5, if I talk to my child about pornography, they're just going to become curious and go look for it. And so let's break down these myths. The first myth, my child is a good kid, and they are good kids. But we— and number 2, if my child saw it, they would just look away.

We really miss the neurology behind pornography. Right. How even though a child may not know that, even have the basic understanding of sexuality. We don't understand the mechanics of it. Naturally, even without that knowledge, something awakens in them. They get a shot of dopamine, maybe a shot of norepinephrine. So dopamine focuses your attention. God's design that it happens in marriage, and when sexual cues are picked up, you become focused on your spouse. The rest of the world disappears to the point of tunnel vision.

A child who's not been prepared to see pornography is also faced with that same dilemma. Dopamine is giving them spritz of something that feels good, even if they don't understand what they're looking at. And it is focusing their attention because they're naturally curious about what the opposite sex looks like without clothes. And then maybe they recognize that, hey, I don't think I'm supposed to be doing this, or this looks really weird. And in today's Pornography is so violent and debasing, and so it can be very shocking.

And so norepinephrine is associated with fight or flight. And so dopamine and then norepinephrine work together to build memories in your brain. And they're— they can be very concrete when a child who's not been prepared sees especially violent pornography like Did we have today? Now, when I was 10, I saw pornography in a magazine. I remember walking out of my parents' home in Florida, and my brother, who's 10 years older than me, he and his friend were leaning up against their car, and they were looking at a magazine sideways.

And that didn't make any sense. How can you read sideways? Ask them what they were looking at. They turned it around. Now, I just told you an entire story about the first time that I saw pornography. Even— and I can't tell you anything else about that day. When we ask adults in general, about 90% of the time it looks like they can tell us a full story about the time they first saw pornography. They found it underneath a bed, a friend showed it to them.

There's all this story that's surrounding it, but they can't remember anything else about that day. That's how impactful it is on that child's brain. Yeah.

Tara McCausland: And when my father describes his first experience with pornography, similarly, it's like it's seared into his brain. And I think he described it as somewhat euphoric because, again, you described this so well. Our brain is going to naturally respond to this in a way that with this rush of dopamine, which feels really good, but also I think there's something inside of us that recognizes there's something wrong about this. But why does this feel so— Right. interesting or good even, or even euphoric.

And so it can create such confusing feelings within a child. And I know it did for my father. And so I think when we go back to these myths, like my kid is a good kid, they would never be interested in this stuff or go back to it if they were exposed. We have to understand the brain and the neurology is often much stronger than our quote unquote goodness.

Sam Black: That's right. And well, then we, that plays right into that third myth of The measures I have in place are good enough. And that includes the conversations that we're having about it. We might just be thinking about filtering or accountability software or limiting devices. All of those are good. How well are we equipped to have a conversation with a child who has seen pornography? Right. Often parents go, if I don't say anything, they'll just forget about it.

And of course they don't forget about it. They just don't talk to you about it. Right. And when we play that off and when we push it down, or let's just not do that anymore. They're picking up a sense that not only what I— that was bad what I did, but they also might be picking up, I'm bad for having done that. And so shame now enters the picture, and that shaming really helps solidify that anxiety, fear, and emotional pain that they have surrounding that event as well.

So we really want to help calm children in there. We might even apologize to our kids and say, listen, hey, I, I am so sorry that you saw this. You weren't ready for this, and I should have had a conversation with you about this before now, and I didn't. So that's on me. So I want you to feel like you didn't intentionally do something wrong. Or even if they were intentionally going looking for it, it is more of Let's take the load off that.

Let's not shame them. You will never shame your child into pulling away from pornography. The more shame that's heaped on, the deeper that trench grows for them. So we begin having these winsome conversations, and we can even start that off again with an apology. I'm so sorry you saw this. I should have protected you. This is— I want you to know that you can come to me anytime you see something like this or anything else. Always come to me.

I'm here for you. I love you, and we I this is always a safe place, right?

Tara McCausland: Yeah, yeah. And is it appropriate to normalize the myriad of feelings that they might have had about that experience, both positive and negative, right?

Sam Black: Yeah, yeah. I think there are going to be some negative feelings about it. They're like they're feeling shame. They're feeling fear about it. They didn't know what was going on. They didn't maybe understand it. But maybe they— this has been going on for a little bit and they're feeling some natural reactions. Maybe it's time for a bigger discussion about this can feel good, but how can it impact you long term? And we have a couple great resources at Covenant Eyes.

You can find them on covenanteyes.com/ebooks or just by clicking our resources tab, and there are some ebooks there that will help walk you through having a conversation when your child has first seen pornography.

Tara McCausland: Awesome. We'll make sure we put that in the show notes. Okay, so let's dive deeper into the measures I have are good enough. Every parent wants to believe that what they've done is adequate, but what does that look like?

Sam Black: Often because we don't think our children ever go to something like that, or that, that must be somewhat elusive from them, they're not going to find that on their own, we often don't even put filtering in place. But even parents who do put filtering in place, it's often this set it and forget it. Yeah. And not recognizing that they are the— actually, their conversations are among the best things that can help protect their child because you end up training them in learning to protect themselves.

But when we don't do anything, when we don't have our own devices as well monitored, With accountability software, without something that sees what's going on and reports to the parent, as well as blocking to prevent accidents, then we are missing opportunities for conversations. So I had a— I have heard this story over and over again, but it goes something like this. This particular mom, she and grandma were all going off to a state park. The— her 8-year-old son was in the back seat with his 8-year-old cousin.

They're going off to a state park, and they say, "Hey, Mom, can we use your phone so that we can check out the state park we're going to?" And the cousin leans over and says, "Hey, I dare you to look up this word." So they even look at the state park, but now it's the dare to look up this word, and that is the first time they see that her son sees pornography, right? And the child-on-child exposure to pornography is very common today because again, children are being exposed by accident often, and now they're.

They haven't— they've kept it their secret. Now they're sharing it with others. That happens over and over again. So it was only by accident that Mom found the tracks of what they'd been looking at. And we're not going to protect our devices because we're right in the car with them or in the kitchen with them or the living room with them. And we think, hey, they're just gonna— or I'm just gonna let them pacify themselves with a little time with this game or whatever.

And then suddenly it's moving to something that that you never intended. So don't just protect your kids' devices, protect your devices as well.

Tara McCausland: And again, that child-to-child sharing, I think, just emphasizes the fact that the best filter, the best protection is going to be these ongoing conversations and making sure kids understand that you will be exposed, you'll see it sometime, how are you going to respond? And when you are, we're a safe place To come and talk to, and we'll process that together.

Sam Black: And it's not if our children will see pornography, it's when we prepared them for that day, right? And that probably leads us to that 5th myth of, if I talk to my child about pornography, they will just be curious and search for it. The truth is, our children are already curious. Every study that I looked at for The Healing Church, every counselor I spoke with, every professional in this field has said No, you are not going to make your child more curious.

In fact, by talking to them about it, you equip them again to protect themselves. That children are actually less curious when they are presented facts from a parent, because now they— oh, if I'm curious about this, I can just go ask mom and dad. It's okay. And we have to practice this very well. We have to Create opportunities and tell them over and over again, not just once, that this— it's okay if you have a question about anything, don't hesitate to ask me.

I remember my son came to me, he came to me one time. This is an adult audience, right, listening? Yeah. I just perked everybody's interest right there, didn't I?

Tara McCausland: Adult content, here we go.

Sam Black: We are driving down the road one day and my son, I think he's about 8 or 9 years old, maybe he's 7, he was younger, over the back seat goes, hey Dad, what's a condom? And I try not to drive off the road, but— and as— and so the first thing you always ask is, where did you hear that? Tell me what you know. So you're finding— you're not trying to give too much information, you're giving them age-appropriate information based on what they already know, right?

And he says— and I said, tell me more about Where you heard that? And he goes, oh yeah, we're gonna go visit Aunt Annie in Tennessee and she lives in a condom. What's that? And I said, oh, you mean a condominium. That's— so that day I really got off the hook. But I remember him going to an outing with some friends and he, they had said a word that he didn't know that was inappropriate. And he says, hey dad, what does this mean?

And so I said, again, tell me more about what you know. And He did. Oh, this is where he heard it. Okay, great. So this is what it means. And the reason that's dishonoring to— we just walked through that whole conversation at his age and he's like, okay, thank you. And that's it. He just— the commonality of my son coming in asking those kinds of questions, whereas it's quite remarkable.

Tara McCausland: Yeah, I know sometimes we want to react and it's often from a space of fear, right? Because as parents, we want to protect our children. But as much as we can just take a step back, take a deep breath, and I really love that approach of, thanks for asking. Tell me more about where you heard this and what you know about it, and not freak out about anything really that comes to the table. I have a daughter that's very curious about things, and I have to practice that myself.

I talk about pornography all the time because of my work, obviously, right? But sometimes the things she, she comes up with, I'm like, okay, we can do this. Thanks for asking. And really how we react in that moment is going to be, I think, a template for them moving forward. Is mom safe? Can I come to mom or is she going to fly off the handle?

Sam Black: Yeah. So one of the cool ways that you can alleviate that fear is play the freak out mom or freak out dad game. And how you play this is you have your child go into the other room. And have them make up a story. And listen, you got to really do this good, son, daughter, that you've really got to come. You got to think of something that's going to freak me out. So my son, I remember him going in the room.

He comes back out. He goes, "Dad," it's like, "Why?" Because I was down at the gas station with my friends. He never went down the gas station with his friends. They were getting Slurpees or whatever in the story, and and one of them has a A phone. And on that phone, they had— there were pictures of people that didn't have clothes on. And I said, oh, you know, so that's already cueing in, right? He's trying to freak me out.

He— and I think he's only 8. We've had enough conversations that he goes, this is what I'm not supposed to see. I'm gonna freak you out. Is it really safe? Is it really okay for us to talk about this? Okay, what'd you see and how did you react? And so we— you just normalize that. Yeah. And let them know it's safe. Oh, I'm sorry that happened. Tell me more about what— how that meant to you and what— walk them through at their age level.

And you're going to know that often as a parent where they are mentally. And some children are farther ahead than others. That's okay. Meet them wherever they're at.

Tara McCausland: Yeah. Yeah. And I will say our audience is primarily those who are struggling with this in their own relationships with pornography and sexual addiction. And so I know that they're going to be even more reactive naturally because they have seen so much fallout in their own lives. And I think this idea of practicing beforehand is such a brilliant idea because then we have something to go back to, right? Even we're always practicing things in preparation for something else that's important to us.

And in relationships, I think practicing for hard conversations is a great idea with our kids.

Sam Black: You don't have to go into all the details of your story or anything like that. You, it might be that you can normalize it. Like, these things can be very tempting. I totally understand that. I think that's very common for people. It depends on where some people have talked more deeply, but I think in general, you don't have to go too deep on your story. Mm-hmm. But the most important thing is you can do is make it safe.

I often tell parents to mark this on their calendars because if you don't mark it on your calendar, 6 months, a year goes by and you haven't had a meaningful conversation about Much of anything. It's been something came to mind. You began having conversation about it, and that's good too, right? We have great conversations in our cars, etc. But if we think about a topic that's really important to our child, whether it's about sexuality or something else, then we take the time.

If we've marked it on a calendar to take some time that hey, tomorrow we're gonna have. I want just want to sit down, just talk to you, and I'm gonna bring a frozen Coke or some root beer, whatever you like, and we're just gonna sit and talk. And I just want to take some time to do that with you. And then they get used to this. rhythm of having more detailed conversations that are guided at their age level.

You don't want to be talking over their heads and you don't want to be lecturing them. Yeah. Conversations. So you can ask some questions and take time to listen. And we listen not only with our ears, but with our eyes and our expressions. I have this terrible habit of frowning. Whenever I think, like when I'm thinking, suddenly this frown comes over. My wife would be like, Sam, you're frowning. And so I'm thinking, face, I have to be conscious and be aware of what am I reflecting to my child?

Do they think I'm frowning? Do they think I'm fearful? Do they, or do I appear to be open and able to listen to what they're saying? And there's a gentleness to all of this, right?

Tara McCausland: Yeah. Okay, so we've got the 5 myths, and I'm curious then, we know that pornography has a tremendous impact on the brain, but more specifically on a child's brain, there, it's potent stuff, especially for that developing brain. Talk to us about why pornography is so impactful for a child's brain. Why is it unique?

Sam Black: One of the most simple things that we can think about is that the prefrontal cortex of the brain doesn't fully develop until age 26, 27, 28. So meanwhile, that's the executive functioning. That's the thinking part of the brain. I'm going to figure this out. I'm going to know how to react or what I'm going to do. Right. But the amygdala, the feeling part of the brain can be very reactionary. And but it develops much earlier. So kids are very emotional, right?

They are loud. They're excited. We pay more for our teenagers' car insurance not because their brain, their prefrontal cortex is so big, but because their amygdala is so well developed. And it loves thrill. It loves risk-taking. It loves pushing the edge. It thrives off those dopamine hits. So we have to recognize that a child's brain is very susceptible when seeing pornography or sexualized media that it gets— can be very much implanted on an emotional level. And again, that dopamine, norepinephrine, those other things are helping burn those neural pathways into the brain.

And pornography is not sex, right? Pornography is a hijacking of what God created. And so since the 1950s, Niko Tinbergen and others have done studies that created fake butterflies, fake cardboard butterflies, and they were more brightly colored. So Real butterflies would go and try to mate with them and ignore other real butterflies. We eat saltier and sweeter foods today, right? Because they're not natural in nature. So we have an obesity epidemic in our country. Why? Not because we eat more fruits and vegetables, but because there's so many things that taste so good.

And there's a reason why Lay's has a commercial that says can't just eat one, right? Yeah. So our senses are being artificially stimulated far above what we would see in nature. And so that, if it's that impactful on— can be that impactful on an adult brain, even more so for a child's brain. I remember a parent talking about their child walking in on a— I think he was 10 or 11 years old, and He— she finds him watching pornography and he says to her, Mom, I know it's wrong.

I don't know why. I just can't stop clicking. That is impactful. In the book, I talk about a counselor who was treating a 5-year-old who ran up— this has been some years ago. So he ran up $700 on the family credit card. on pornography websites. So this supernormal stimulus just has a major impact on that youthful brain. But think about the impulse control as well for that child. Big amygdala, small prefrontal cortex. And you're probably familiar with the marshmallow test, right?

Yeah. A child is presented a marshmallow, and if you wait If you just wait just a little while, we'll give you 2 marshmallows. But for some reason, children who've not been trained for this, they always gobble up the first marshmallow most of the time. And what they found, the real thing was not that children can't have impulse control, was that if they help train the child to wait for 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 marshmallows, because The training would help them regulate their emotions so that they could calm that amygdala and say, I'm gonna wait for a bit and I'm gonna get some more.

But if they were just presented, here's a marshmallow, if you wait for this amount of time, we'll give you another, they had a hard time self-regulating.

Tara McCausland: And I think it's helpful. That's a really famous study in recognizing if the child has some preparation going into it, some tools going into it, then they're able to to last much longer, to wait for the 8th marshmallow. And I think that parallel is probably pretty evident in that we have to be teaching our kids. We're not just talking about pornography, we're talking about the super stimulus everywhere that we get from our phones, from food, et cetera.

Learning how to regulate in healthy ways so that we're not constantly being pulled into one or some other addictive pattern, whether it be food or pornography. It's just, it almost seems unfair It's the best of times and the worst of times. We're living with such abundance, particularly in this nation, that it's almost killing us. And we've just got to be that much more intentional in teaching our kids about the whys behind healthy living in all aspects.

Sam Black: Yeah, what's so interesting about that as well is I think so many young parents are recognizing this themselves. Not everyone, but a There seems to be a real growing trend among young parents to say, no, my child doesn't get any devices. Babies especially. Like when a lot of Xers and others were maybe allowing some TV time and little Einstein Genius tablets or whatever else, many millennial parents were saying, absolutely No screen, and that's a growing trend, especially tablets, phones of that nature.

Maybe they're doing fine with saying, "Hey, we're going to do some screen time or FaceTime with Grandma and Grandpa." I get to do with my grandson, but other than that, man, it is no, no device because they understand neurologically how that impacts the brain with, as you said, the dopamine nation that says, "I want more of this and I want more of that." And it's funny to see that many millennial parents. are being much more strict regard to sugar, regard to, again, screen times, and what kind of play and interaction they get to have, especially with electronic media.

Tara McCausland: Yeah, so just something to consider in your own home, like where do additional conversations need to be taking place? Because we know that it's not going to just be pornography where our kids might get trapped. We have the opportunity to be intentional and help our children go out into the world prepared to just deal with abundance, which again can be a blessing or a curse, however we look at it. Let's shift a little bit and now talk about local faith leaders and how they can help support youth and parents.

I know, I hear, I see that there is a great need here. Where do you invite faith leaders to start with youth?

Sam Black: I think this is really aimed at the whole church, right? Yeah. So you know that you have— in 56% of divorce cases, a major contributing factor is one spouse's compulsive use of pornography. So we need to understand as ministry leaders that pornography is undermining every ministry of the local church, from our senior citizens to our adult ministries to marriage ministries to teen ministries and to our children's ministries. And when we say the average age for first exposure is somewhere between the ages of 8 and 11, depending on which study you're looking at, okay, so you can be teaching them Bible stories, and at the same time there's a culture that's pulling them into dopamine-crazed impact on the brain pornography, right?

So as a ministry leader, you might be thinking more of, how do I approach this whole topic? And I think One of the easiest ways to bring this topic into your congregation is to begin training parents, and because they need to know what's going on in their world, what is the different trends that are happening right now. A lot of this is can be found in the Healing Church or on the CovenantEyes.com website, porn stats and other things that we have available.

But when we're training parents to protect their kids, it becomes very comfortable segue. for the church to talk about pornography in general. Because what are the common ways that people get stuck in pornography? Early exposure to pornography, ongoing use and repetition of pornography, often through adolescence, and often some pain or trauma that's happened typically early in life, but it can happen elsewhere. So we know that's impactful for the children. We know that children are being exposed.

We know the— that, that this is how our adults got stuck in the first place. And so once we recognize how adults are impacted, or yes, adults are impacted, children are impacted, it makes it all come alive because now the parent is attending an event where we're talking about, here's the neurology of why this can be so impactful on a child. I can't tell you the number of times that parents go, yeah, that was me. Mm-hmm.

I was 8 years old, or I was 5 years old, or I was 10, whatever it is. And they tell that whole story, right? But when they recognize that their story is not unique, now suddenly it becomes more acceptable to talk about this at the local level in your congregation. And I can tell you, we get freaked out and worried about our grandparents, and maybe they're not gonna want to hear this conversation. They become some of my biggest advocates when I speak because They recognized that their grandkids have been walking around these devices and they know they're being impacted.

They see the other kids showing huddled around a phone and they're like, we need more protection for the— for our grandkids. We're going to protect them in our own home as well.

Tara McCausland: I know that there's pushback in some faith communities. If a faith leader encounters that, Maybe in their congregation, they're wanting to have these conversations, and maybe some parents are saying no, or some from the older generation are saying no. What would you say to them to help them navigate the resistance to wanting to talk about this? Because I know that not everyone feels comfortable with this. That's why we are still struggling as much as we are in our churches.

Sam Black: Honestly, I think leaders are often more afraid of that happening than the congregation as a whole. There's going to be some that are going to walk out or whatever. You can let them grow up. I remember a pastor telling me, he says, Sam, let me get this right. Do you want me to talk about pornography in the church? And this has been a while. It's been— this might be about 7 or 8 years ago. But he said, listen, I am— I'm reading the story of the Israelites.

They come to Jericho. We're hearing about Rahab, and Rahab is called a prostitute. I'm just reading Scripture, and I use that word, and this little old lady comes up to me after church— there are two, a couple of them— and they say, listen, you can't use that kind of language in our church. But I think we have seen enough sexualized media on our everyday television shows that we're recognizing this is much different today. I think there's less pushback than ever before.

But I can tell you, I was—I spoke at a large church in South Carolina. They flew me in specifically to preach on or teach on Sunday mornings on two services that were filled, and they had ten percent of their members sign up for pure desire courses before the service ended. There was a QR code. We're going to have resources for you, families who need help for their kids. We have classes very specifically for you if you're struggling with pornography.

And if you are a betrayed spouse and you need our support, we've got classes for you too. By the end of the service, 10% had already signed up. They said, this was so much more impactful than we thought it was going to be that we're sending out emails for all those who are like, I don't know if I can sign up right now for this. That's the pain that we are feeling in our congregations. And if we don't address it, then we're ignoring a lot of pain.

Tara McCausland: Yeah. I'll just reemphasize that if we're wanting to help our kids and we're talking to faith leaders, the best place to start would be training the parents and talking with the parents and helping them get really comfortable with this idea of you need to be having these conversations with your kids. and make it safe and make it consistent and just expect that this is going to— this is a part of their life. I think it was Jill Manning that said pornography has become the wallpaper of our lives.

Hmm. And it is the world that we are living in. And I think that's hard for many of us to stomach. But I think if there's a level of acceptance rather than resistance to this, then we can put more bandwidth, mental energy toward solving the problem instead of being so afraid that we just keep putting our head in the sand, right?

Sam Black: Yeah, I recognize that there are many things that people are using to self-soothe with, or that they are struggling with in life. And sometimes we can address a harder topic like pornography if we've made it safe to talk about some other things in, in their church, right? So I'll give you a perfect example of this. I wasn't even attending a church, and my wife was going to church by herself. Mm-hmm. And my babies were just babies, and she is taking them with her, and she has happened into this class, and it's a marriage class, and she asked me if I'll go with her.

I knew our marriage needed help, and so I said yes. So I go with her to a marriage class, right? And this is in the church, and the facilitators of that class Close the door and they sing. And she looks back— I remember this— looks back at the class and says, this is a safe place. What is said here stays here. Now, in that class, people talked about the horrible things they said, that you admit that in front of others, or that the way they behaved, or the way they might have yelled, or the way they pouted, or threw something across the room, whatever it was.

They were being honest and authentic with each other. And authenticity is all that is one of the major components of finding freedom from pornography— being able to open up to someone else and being able to address your issues, getting some tools under your belt to address whatever else is going on in your life. So if we, like we were practicing with children, to create safety to have any kind of conversation, Parents grew up not having many safe conversations, especially in their congregations.

They were just told to look good, act right, right? And authenticity sometimes feels pretty hard because it doesn't feel safe. I talk about it in the book, The Healing Church, that on one side of the spectrum, there is lots of safety. Everybody has problems, everybody has sin in their life, but they're never called to change. So there's no change happens. On the other side is you are supposed to be this, and if you don't fit into this mold, then maybe you don't belong to us.

That's not safe either, because in that unsafe atmosphere, people hide because they don't want to be exposed. They don't want to be authentic. What we need is to be in the center where we have a safe place with a safe process. that allows us to deal with wholeness in life, not just pornography, but many things in life. But sometimes we can get a good start by talking about depression or any other things like that. And when you can be authentic about some of those things, and we don't gossip and we support one another, then it becomes easier to talk about many other things.

Tara McCausland: Yeah, I love that idea of cultivating the climate of authenticity and honesty in our congregations. And that can really start with one person. I've seen that happen in congregations I'm a part of, that if we have one or two people that are willing to be transparent and open, that it— something settles over the rest of the congregation, and you start hearing more and more people coming forward. This is my reality. And so I think sometimes we may think it's harder to create that culture of authenticity and honesty than it maybe even is.

But I think you're right, Sam, that our congregations, our churches, these are places where we ought to feel most safe. And faith leaders have a unique opportunity to create that safety.

Sam Black: And the leaders, of course, can lead from the front, but often that community, it starts small. Yeah. And when you create a space that's authentic, there can be no authenticity without vulnerability. And there can be no vulnerability without safety. So create that small enclave. Maybe it's just 2 or 3 people, and it grows because those who come through structured support and help can't help but want to give it away to others when they've experienced that freedom. That's the whole 12-step model, that having had an awakening, I give this away to others.

Tara McCausland: And really, that also ought to be starting in our homes, that climate of safety and vulnerability. And parents can really— again, speaking to those who are going to be listening to this, I know that you're not always going to want to share every part of your story. You probably won't. And there, I hope, will be a time when you can talk to your kids about how pornography and sexual addiction has impacted your life. However, all along the way, you can be showing your children exemplifying what it means to be human and apologizing and sharing weakness, and then allowing your kids see that you give yourself grace and give them grace as they struggle, because we all do.

Sam Black: It's just great.

Tara McCausland: We need it so much. Here's one last question for you. As we're talking about, again, families and parents getting these conversations going, what are some good conversation starters?

Sam Black: Like I said before, good conversation starters make it comfortable. That's why I often tell parents, don't take yourself so seriously. Allow a little laughter to come into it, even if it's a sensitive topic. You want to keep it on track, but lighten up. Sometimes we just take ourselves too seriously. And I talked about a root beer or a frozen Coke or something like that. Bring something to these conversations that just helps set Things at ease. My son loved root beer.

He's not so— he's an adult now, and root beer is not as big a thrill. But once upon a time, not only did he love root beer, he wanted the craft root beer. So the 2-liter bottle of root beer was not going to cut it. It had to be in those little 4-pack bottles that are very expensive. And we'd sit and grade the root beer and we'd talk that over, and then we'd begin the that conversation, whatever we were gonna— whatever we were gonna talk about.

And so sometimes just setting, creating the atmosphere to have that kind of open conversations is a great conversation starter. It's okay to laugh. I think the other important thing is I think a lot of these questions will come to parents as they just think about, what do I really want to talk about? What did I write down that I feel is important for our child to know? And there's a lot, tons of research and books out there.

There's no shortage, but we really have to focus again on that tone, our facial expressions, being really good listeners and not trying to control the conversation all the time, and do our own discovery before we come. So whether we're— and be willing to say, I don't know. And that's a lot of— we don't need to make up stuff on On the fly. And if you want to, especially for teenagers, if you want to win some kudos from them, just say, I don't know the answer to that.

They'll respect that. But if they think, I think they're fudging it, that doesn't breed respect. So it's, I don't know the answer to that, but I'll tell you what, let's talk again tomorrow. I'm going to find out the answer to that, or whenever you get— but set a time for that discussion to continue. Yeah. And then follow up. Don't let that pass.

Tara McCausland: Yeah. Love it. The other day my son was saying, Mom, I feel like I come home from school and I'm like in a therapy session. How are you feeling about this? How are things going there? And I was like, it can be me or I could take you to a real therapist. I'm either doing something well or something really wrong.

Sam Black: Isn't it funny when you ask a kid when they get home from school, what happened today? Nothing. It's just, it's like pulling teeth. So I was trying to think of very— ask very specific questions is one of the ways that we can do that. I wish I had a great example that comes to mind, but have you talked to so-and-so lately and what's going on with them? Maybe that helps. I don't know.

Tara McCausland: Honestly, when he said that, I thought, am I asking him too much? And I thought, No, no, we keep asking. We keep showing interest, even if they're like, oh, Mom, everything's fine. But someday it may not be fine, and they might need a space to open up and talk. And so I might just invite parents not to give up, to keep trying, keep extending the invitation to talk about both the surface-level things and the hard things.

And I think as we continue to create that safe space, That in those moments when our kids need it, they'll know they can go to mom and dad, and that's really the key, right?

Sam Black: Yeah. So there are a couple of organizations that really focus on have helping you have these conversations. One is protectyoungeyes.com, protectyoungeyes.com, and access.org. They even will help you with your language barriers with all the lingo that's out. So what's the latest word? Well, they'll let they'll help you understand. What does that mean?

Tara McCausland: I feel like I need a translator half the time with my 14-year-old. I'm like, I don't know what that means. Translate, please. That's funny. If people want to find you, Sam, find your book, and I know you have other resources you might like to share, where can people connect with you?

Sam Black: Yeah, pretty— if you have a question or if you need a speaker for your event, you're welcome to reach out to me at sam.black@covenanteyes.com. Again, sam.black@covenanteyes.com. The Healing Church: What Churches Get Wrong About Pornography and How to Fix It is available wherever you buy books online. And you can find a lot of cool and free resources at covenanteyes.com and click on the resources tab. But let me give you one super cool free thing that I think will really support someone in their recovery journey.

If you're a spouse, I need some more education, or I'm a parent and I need some more support in this. There's an app from Covenant Eyes called Victory. Victory by Covenant Eyes provides about 50 courses that help you understand, how did I get here? Why do I seem to stay stuck? And how can I begin taking meaningful steps toward freedom? How can I have these kind of conversations with my child? What's some— we have a— we even have a course called The Digital Detox.

It allows you to set aside devices for a while for the whole family And walks you out how to do that for just a period of time so you can just take a deep breath in our world. Maybe you're a spouse who's been struggling with some anguish and pain and hurt over the betrayal that you've experienced. Or maybe you want to help a friend, but you don't know how to be a good ally or a good accountability partner.

We have training for that too. It's all free within the Victory app by Covenant Eyes.

Tara McCausland: Okay, awesome. I'll put that in the show notes, and I'm sure that there will be a lot of people that will want to check that out. So this has been so fun, Sam. Sam, so grateful for the great work that you are doing, Covenant Eyes is doing. And before I let you go, our bookend question: if you were to tell someone just starting out on this path, give them some advice, what might you say to them?

And for those who have been doing this work for a while, the recovery work might be feeling a little stale, what would you tell them?

Sam Black: Thank you. Wow. All right, so when you're starting this journey You have to recognize you don't know what you don't know, and that's okay. Structured recovery allows you to be held in place long enough for change to begin, and it's not easy because it's not what you've been used to. And we've often become very comfortable with where we're at, and change is hard. Change takes time. But when you some— take some time to learn and grow and understand, oh, this is why if I do act out again, this is why it has such an impact on my brain.

This is why it might be setting me back. This is why I feel like I feel mentally, or the shame that I feel about my acting out. This is how it impacts myself in mind, body, and spirit. Again, go to that A Victory app by Covenant Eyes. It's really going to provide you some tools and understanding that says This is how I got stuck. And this is how I'm going to really take some meaningful steps toward freedom.

So learn, grow. I can tell you that from years of experience, I can tell if a guy is, or a gal is going to grow in their recovery journey, is if they study their recovery journey. If they're just going to go through the motions, go to the thing, but I don't like to read or anything like that, get an audiobook. Do something to keep training and understanding. It's the understanding is so important. If you are someone who's been on this journey for a while, and there's a lot to unpack there, right?

One is if you've been experiencing freedom, keep doing the things you did when you first began breaking free because those things work, right? The ongoing learning and growth, the on. Going community and connection with others. Sometimes we get a little bit farther down the road, and we think, "I think I've got this. I don't really need to check in with my ally this week," or maybe it's been a month, and suddenly realize, "Oh wait! I am slipping back into some old habits.

I'm doing some edging behavior." One of the most difficult things for some. Is that they get a certain way through the recovery journey, and others are beginning to look up to them. And now they can't be vulnerable anymore because if I slip, maybe that says the process doesn't work, or I really have a lot to lose now. I think maybe I'll be judged more. Maybe I'm supposed to have this all together, and now I won't. People think less of me.

Don't let those that kind of negative talk happen. Reach out. Don't wait. If a slip happens, if some edging behavior happens, reach out, connect with others before the edging behavior goes into a slip.

Tara McCausland: Thank you so much, Sam, and best wishes to you as you continue to do this work. Really appreciate what you're doing, and thanks for spending this time with me today.

Sam Black: It's an honor. Thank you so much, Terri.

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