September 23, 2024 • 40 mins
Episode Summary:
In Part 2 of this episode, Steve McElmurray discusses the false "benefits" of pornography, sharing his personal struggle with addiction. He reveals how it led to unrealistic expectations, relationship difficulties, and a deep sense of shame that nearly drove him to suicide. Steve emphasizes that pornography ultimately harms everyone involved, providing only an illusion of intimacy. He shares his recovery journey, which involved learning self-value and breaking isolation. Now a coach, Steve uses his experience to help others overcome similar challenges, underlining the possibility of change and the importance of human connection in recovery.
Key Topics Discussed:
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In Part 2 of this episode, Steve McElmurray discusses the false "benefits" of pornography, sharing his personal struggle with addiction. He reveals how it led to unrealistic expectations, relationship difficulties, and a deep sense of shame that nearly drove him to suicide. Steve emphasizes that pornography ultimately harms everyone involved, providing only an illusion of intimacy. He shares his recovery journey, which involved learning self-value and breaking isolation. Now a coach, Steve uses his experience to help others overcome similar challenges, underlining the possibility of change and the importance of human connection in recovery.
Key Topics Discussed:
- Pornography's creation of unrealistic expectations about sex and relationships
- The comparison of pornography addiction to drug addiction
- The transactional nature of pornography and its impact on genuine human connections
- The journey from isolation and addiction to becoming a coach helping others
- The concept of treating oneself as valuable, even when feeling worthless
- "There clearly are benefits because people wouldn't keep doing it if there weren't. But after comes mountains of guilt and shame."
- "You have to see value in yourself to add value to yourself."
- "I had to treat myself as if I have value, which is I found out later when I found that book, I felt like that whole, that is the law."
- Visit Steve McElmurry's Website: www.macsimpact.com
- Explore leadership and professional development programs
- Visit: PowerfulEric.com
- SAVE 40%: Use coupon code "PODCAST" for 40% off Powerful Eric's online program "Urge Purge Mastery".
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So Solomon writes about right, the prostitute reduces you to
a loaf of bread and all those other kind of things.
Right in Proverbs, especially in the world of church, we
apply that to men are being used, being turned into
the loaf of bread. But the truth is that everybody
in the transaction loses.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
This is porn talk.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Here's your host, Eric Zuzak.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Yeah, so all this time, like when when that happened?
That's nineteen eighty eight, nineteen eighty nine. That's not true,
nineteen ninety eight, nineteen ninety nine, something like that. So
the day before this story really starts the day before that.
So I'm innocutated as a kid, I'm innocudated against Christianity. Right,
But and I have this like, I know you hate me,
(00:50):
and also I'm still obligated to read this freaking book.
So I hate reading the Bible. I know God hates me,
So of course I'm not super inclined to talk to
him too much because he's just always pissed. Right. It's
like going to see your manager that you know doesn't
like you.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Right.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
And of course I don't want to go to church,
which is easy for me because I'm a truck driver,
So I'm never really around anywhere, right, And when I
do go, I know how to smile for the camera
and say the churchy things that you expect to hear,
so that you would think I'm one of you.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Right.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Brene Brown talks about masks and shields, and I like
fully stocked on masks and shields. So well. Anyway, So
the night before, what's happening is I'm on my way
to California in my car. I'm in my way to
California to fight about a ticket that I shouldn't have gotten.
I got lots of tickets that I really earned, but
this one I shouldn't have gotten. But on my way there,
(01:47):
I stopped in Wells, Nevada, at a at a truck stop.
While I'm looking at the menu at a table. When
I flipped it over, there happened to be a map
for this whorehouse. And I could drive there today. It's
been lots and lots of years. I could drive there
today without looking at it because I had been so
well trained. I wasn't thinking about that kind of stuff.
I wasn't expecting it, I wasn't looking for it. I
just turned it over and bam, it was there, and
(02:09):
it caught me. I turned it over right away, and
I got up and left, like left. But I can
still see the map today. I can still see the map.
So anyway, I start driving. I got to go to California.
I got a couple hours further down the road and
broke down in some small town somewhere. And so now
(02:29):
I'm in a hotel overnight because it's too late and
the shops are closed. I won't get fixed until tomorrow.
I start thinking about this map. Of course, now I'm
in small town somewhere in Nevada in the desert. I
can't do anything about it. So next best thing is,
maybe this would be better. I'm going to go to
a bar and I'll hook up with that girl, because
of course, we all know that all women in bars
(02:50):
just are waiting for Steve to walk in, right, I'm sorry,
that's the fantasy. Anyway, So I'm just about to leave.
I got my hand on the door hand. I'm just
about to leave, and I hear do you want to win? Like?
I hear it, like you and I are talking to
each other, do you want to win? Like? Well, I
(03:12):
don't know what we're playing, but yeah, like yeah, I'd
like to win with no more commitment than like, what
kind of pizza do you want to eat? So that
starts this conversation, which basically is, if you want to win,
just stay inside. All you got to do is stay
inside and you win. No Bible verses, no preaching, no
nothing like that. I'm not talking about anything else. It's
(03:33):
just if you want to win, stay inside. Well, I
finally went to bed, and I didn't go to bed
because I wanted to stay inside or I wanted to win.
I'm like, if I go to bed, the boys will
probably stop talking to me, right because I'm tired of
talking about it. So I woke up in the morning.
I can't the court's not going to push the date
for me. So I lose there, and I'm pissed about that.
(03:54):
I turning around to go back then, and I'm coming
close to Wells Nevada. I'm getting closer, and I hear,
how are you doing this morning? Like, well, pretty good?
Actually I slept actually way better than I expected to.
And for the first time ever, I heard something that
sounded like somebody was genuinely happy for me. I had
never heard that before, or at least I had never
(04:16):
accepted that somebody would be genuinely happy for me, but
that's what it sounded like. It was like, I think
that's because you won. And then I remember the conversation
the night before, like, oh, yeah, I guess I did win.
So the Bible verse is if you resist a double,
he'll flee from you. I guess it also works if
you just go to sleep. So I did win. Well,
I'm getting closer thanto that I'm thinking about that and
(04:38):
how happy I am that I won. And then I
start thinking about this map I saw yesterday and I'm
coming back to that town. So I start to get
off at the exit for the truck stop, which is
also the exit for this brothel. I'm like, did you
like winning last night? If you want to win again,
all you got to do is stay on the road,
And I go through all these gymnastics. Well, I'm just,
(04:59):
you know, gonna get off and like why you're not tired,
Why you don't have to go to the bathroom, Why
you're not hungry, Why you've already gotten mountain dew next
to You've got a bunch of them next to you,
Like there's no reason to stop. Why you don't need gas, right,
and I stopped anyway, So I'm just gonna hang out
with the truck stop for a little bit. Well, I'll
(05:21):
just I'll just drive over there while just go inside.
So I killed that voice. I made it stop talking
to me. I'm sitting at the bar inside there. I'm
watching a bunch of like super old people, like they
look like footballs that have been left outside in the desert.
While I'm there, the strongest man I've ever met came in.
(05:46):
This brothel advertises free showers, like great big sign right,
so truckles will see it from the interstate. And that's
a nice deal for truck drivers because you only get
a shower for free if you got fuel at that
truck stop, right, But you might have to wait a
long time, and it might not be clean, and it
might might might might whatever. So they advertised free clean showers. Yeah,
(06:08):
of course somebody's gonna stop, right. That's a lost leader
for them. So this guy comes in. He's got his
little uffel bag. He's like, you guys have free showers,
and so of course they start trying to upsell him,
and they go back and forth a few times. The
strongest man I've ever met and the woman who's selling things,
I'm sorry, selling people, and he finally he's angry now
(06:31):
like your sign says free showers? Do you have free showers?
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yes? Or no?
Speaker 1 (06:35):
They took him back, he took a shower, left a
few minutes later, and I sat there on the stool
the whole time like, oh, I wish I could be
that guy. Yeah, and I couldn't get up well anyway.
So I spent a total of about eight hours there
and drank a lot of super expensive sprite and hit
a really overpriced frozen pizza that they got at the
(06:56):
grocery store, you know, And it finally gave in to
this walking menu that I've been looking at all day, right,
and so I finally picked one and spent a lot
of money. So I'm leaving. I'm a few miles down
the road from Wells and you know, from that town.
And I hear that really hurt. I'm expecting to hear yelling, screaming,
(07:22):
you know, slamming cupboards like all that kind of stuff.
I'm used to that That's what I'm expecting here. I
didn't hear any of that. I heard that really hurt.
Like that hurt me because you and I have a covenant.
You understand contracts, so we'll use contract, but it's really
a covenant, which is a lot stronger. But and my
side of it is that I'll never leave you or
(07:44):
forsake you. And so what that means is that I
had to go with you. I sat at the bar
with you, I was with you when you went back
in that other room. Like I died for that, And
so that really hurt. Wasn't screaming, wasn't yelling, It wasn't
like finger pointing trying to make you feel bad. It
was simply just open communication, which was weird. I'd never
(08:05):
experienced that before. It was just open communication. This is
how that made me feel.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
And this was after this is on your way home
from brothel? Right yeah, And uh, you know, I don't
know why this popped in my head right now. But
when I was young, there's a movie with Dolly Parton
and Sylvester Stallone called The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,
(08:34):
And believe it or not, it was a musical. It
is a strange movie, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
with Sylvester Stallone and Dolly Pardon, a musical about a
whorehouse in Texas, and there's a song in the movie
called Texas had well I just remember this from the
(08:56):
Texas has a Whorehouse in it. Oh my goodness, Oh
my lord. That was that was crazy like And also
just another side tangent too. I had watched this YouTube
video that had compiled a lot of the TV popular
TV shows from the eighties and such, and I'm like,
(09:20):
I watched every single one of them. The amount of
you know, all those TV shows, that movie that was
on cable, the best of Little Whorehouse in Texas, all
this stuff that we jump into our minds. So but anyway,
I digress. You were you're telling your story. So you
heard this this voice that said that really hurt.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yeah, So that's unfair fighting, right, I'm expecting screaming, yelling,
and instead I have this like open communication. That's just
unfair fighting. And that was the beginning of the idea
that that Jesus wants to have just a relationship with me.
(10:03):
I want to do things with you. I want to well,
I am going to go places with you because we
have this deal, right, but also I want you to
come places with me. That was the beginning of that
idea for me. All the time when I was doing
that stuff. So I'm not married at that time. All
the time when I'm going to those places, when I'm
going to those kind of bars and whatever, I a
(10:24):
long time ago stopped looking at the pictures or stopped
looking at the bodies and would look at the faces.
And what I saw and in the faces, I looked
at the eyes. So what I saw was blank, Right,
I know how to smile for the camera. I saw
(10:45):
people that knew how to smile for the stage. Right,
That's what I began to see. And I began to
see I'm still doing it. I mean not right now,
but at the time. Right, So I'm still doing it,
but I'm recognized while I'm doing it that I'm in
a transaction. Right, So I'm accepted here only because I
(11:07):
have money. I'm a truck driver. I don't have gods
of money, but I'm only I'm accepted as long as
I have money.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Right.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Well, anyway, so I stopped driving a truck. I come
back to Madison and Madison, Wisconsin, that's where I graduated
high school from. And now I'm like in a town
and I'm going to have to be a part of
the community. So I can't do some of the things
I've trained myself to want to go do right. But
(11:37):
I also don't want to be around other people because
what if you found out that I look at this stuff.
What if you found out that I've found out a
way that I'm still buying porn or whatever. Right, I
don't want you to know. And so I'm really just
isolated and lonely. It was a softball game, actually, that's
(11:58):
an accidental softball game that began breaking me out of that. Also,
at that time, I don't talk to anybody. Like every
conversation I had was Everything in my life was transactional.
Everything the conversations I would have when I was a
truck driver. I don't care what the weather's like. I
don't care that you've got a new house, that you
(12:19):
got a new puppy, or that your puppy died. I
don't care. I need to know how many doors, what
palettes like, when does I have to be there? That
kind of stuff. That's it, right. So when I became
a contractor, that's what I was doing in Madison. When
I became a home improvement contractor, I had to learn
how to talk to people. So I had to learn
how to have conversations, which was super hard for me.
(12:44):
I did it with a tool called form Family Occupation
Recreation M is the message because I could just let
you talk like are you married to you live around here?
What kind of work do you do right? What do
you like to do for fun? That's for? And then
is the message. And I was in control of whether
I delivered the message like let's get together again, I'd
(13:06):
like to put your roof on, you know what, or no,
I'm not interested in talking to you, And so I
didn't deliver the message. But I had to use a
tool to learn how to be able to talk to people.
And so then I get married. And marriage is going
to make it better because now I live with someone
(13:26):
who's going to want to have sex with me, And
won't this be great? And I've been trained by the
stuff that I've looked at and the stuff that I've done,
what that means and what kind of activities to expect,
So won't this be great?
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Ye?
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Well, as it turns out, I found out that women
who are real and are not air brushed don't have
the same desires or attitudes that the women who are
(14:03):
being paid to behave.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
That way. Yeah, shock, Steve.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
We need to change gears here and wrap up this episode.
Let's go into just one more what's another benefit of pornography?
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Again?
Speaker 1 (14:23):
That whole title was meant to be facetious.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Sure, of course, and so.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
The outside of streaming services, that's the social benefit that
was real, right, And I discovered it by having to
do that. I decided, like, if I'm doing I may
as well do the research and like find out right
and give this thing a fair shake. That's the thing
that was real. I guess potentially, how somebody there's an
old dead philosopher from some country who thought things were
(14:53):
good if they turned out good. I don't remember what
his name is, but basically that was his idea. And
so in that attitude, if you look at it that way,
then a woman who finds herself about to be evicted
or homeless or whatever. I guess guys too, is typically women, right,
and just perform for a little bit and they'll get
(15:14):
some money and then they can stay in their house
or pay for school or whatever their thing is. So
I guess to a point that would be a.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Benefit comes with a big hidden cost, right.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
The cost is it's not it's not a value for
value exchange. Like if I bought your car. I gave
you some money and you gave me the car. Well,
we both got we both benefited in the transaction. Right,
this is different even if I feel like I benefit
in the moment because this feels good to me right now. Well,
(15:51):
the truth is like when I spent that eight hundred
dollars that time, I didn't have eight hundred dollars to
just get rid of, right, So that created other that
created financial problems for me, like that one event. So
it wasn't a value for value exchange. But depending on
(16:11):
how somebody looks at benefit that would be one is
that typically a woman, but a man too, can turn
a fair amount of money relatively quickly, and you don't
have to go to school.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Yeah, I just before we jumped on here, I was
listening to a woman that was in porniraphe for many
years and she said, she said, honestly, at the very beginning,
it was good because I got all this money. But
then she said she quickly learned that yeah, she had
all this money, but she said she felt really terrible
(16:44):
about herself. She you know, was depressed. And so it's
like that money is kind of like blood money. You know,
it's hurting other people.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
And so yeah, so Solomon writes about right, the prostitute
reduces you to a loaf of bread and all those
other kind of things right in proverbs. But the truth
is that who's doing the selling and who's being sold.
So I'm having to give up money for fake name,
(17:21):
diamond or whatever right to play with me. And so
she's selling me and turns me into a loaf of
bread because she's using me for my money. But on
the other side of that, I'm not developing a relationship
with her. I don't even care that I know that
her name is not real, but I don't care. I'm
(17:41):
only interested in using her for the thing that I
can get from it. So we, especially in the world
of church, we apply that to men are being used,
being turned into the loaf of bread. But the truth
is that everybody in the true transaction loses. Everybody is
(18:04):
playing with the fantasy of or illusion of intimacy, but
instead what gets delivered for both of us is separation, shame,
just hiding, like all that kind of stuff. Right, Like
I don't want people in my community when I was
(18:25):
in Madison, right, like, I don't want you another guy
at church to find out I do this thing. Well,
the woman that you're just talking about also didn't want
other people to find out. She might say she's an actress,
but she wouldn't want just everybody to find out that
she was a porn actress.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Yeah, and now let me jump in there. So when.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
They're being paid to have sex on camera, it's a prostitute. Yep,
So the uh you know one of the other so
called ben if it's a porniography is And clearly, like
I said, there clearly are benefits because people wouldn't keep
doing if there weren't. Is that temporary, very temporarily horn
(19:13):
good feeling at the moment of ejaculation, but then after
comes mountains of guilt and shame right right.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
The other side of that is when you find yourself
in an actual relationship. Well then what so like I
go into my marriage with these and of course we
didn't talk about it because I don't want to talk
about all these things that would be like I don't
want women to know that I've spent that many years
(19:46):
using women, right, and that's disgusting, and what are all
these other things? And so I also didn't want to
talk to my fiance about it. I finally decided I
had to because it's like, well, I mean, this is
where the relationship is going to end. But whatever she
should maybe find out now before she broke broken engagements
(20:07):
probably better than a divorce, right, So I decided this
will be better for her. I actually told her as
a way to sabotage my relationship, that's what I was
really doing. I was trying to sabotage it. And so
that's just like unhealthy thinking. But I have these unrealistic
(20:32):
expectations of what sex and marriage is going to be.
And because I've never had a relationship, I never had
to practice or develop the skill of having those kind
of conversations because in a transaction, there's very little trans
there's a very little conversation, right, and it's about like
(20:56):
what toppings do you want on your hamburger? Like that's it. So, yeah,
it is true if we wanted to stretch the word,
if we wanted to stretch the definition of benefit, that
we could manufacture some but compared against the cost of
getting that benefit, no.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Right, And that's that's a great way to put the
cost benefit, Like what there are some benefits to porniography,
Are they worth the cost?
Speaker 2 (21:34):
And there's a huge, huge cost.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Porn does a lot of the same things in the
brain that other drugs would do. The drugs drugs I
might sniff or snort or inject, right, does a lot
of the same things in the brain. And so that's
why we talk about porn as an addiction, because son
of a gun, it is. And so the problem is,
(21:58):
like I have these un that so I'm always joning
for my fix, right, if I'm going to be an
addict that I'm always joning for my FM thinking about
where can I get my next fix? Right, I can
shoot up again when I get off work. And I
get off work at four today, so I got three
hours left I and I'm off work, and then I
can shoot up, right that kind of thing, and I'm
(22:18):
off for two days. And so they'll never know, right,
that kind of thing. And that's where so it puts
sex instead of just being a part of an overall
relationship like the way it was designed to be, and
then it works like really really good instead of being
a part of an overall relationship. Instead it's this primary
(22:39):
focus way up here that everything else becomes subservient to
second two, right, including relationships like relationships that I still have. Right,
So suppose, well, I'm married, but in fact tomorrow, I'm
leaving town tomorrow to fly down to the floor. And
(23:01):
so maybe I go and hook up with somebody in
Florida because I've been looking all this time, because I'm
gonna have freedom. Nobody knows me like all this kind
of thing, right, So if that's an active addiction, Holy Kyle,
that's why that kind of thing makes it really dangerous, right,
(23:24):
Because what porn does, especially as we progress in it,
it elevates, artificially elevates, but it elevates sex to some
super like this is the primary thing I need to get. Yeah,
So that that title was entirely meant to be facetious,
(23:45):
like mocking, mocking my opponent. In fact, I wrote it
as angry because I realized that of all the things
we brought on that hunting trip. As an eighth grade boy,
I've very very few times I've been out, like I
really need a set of dry socks right now, right,
But so I got introduced to porn as an eighth
(24:07):
grade boy sitting on a rotted log next to some
other kid whose name I don't know, and that thing
had had a control on my life for a super
long time. So when I started writing that thing, I
wrote it out of being like I really thought about,
I am mocking my enemy and I'm fucking going to war,
(24:28):
So I did.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
So, what would you say to someone that's listening right
now that is really struggling with this addiction and has
pretty much kept it to themselves. They haven't said anything
to anyone, but they're just kind of silently struggling.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
What would you say to that person.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
That I understand? Yeah, because I lived it for a
long time. Ultimately it drove me to being suicidal. Probably
don't have time to going to that story, but ultimately
it drove me to suicidal because and ultimately all of
the people that I've known, so I've been an er
nurse and i have mental health background, and so I've
talked to lots and lots of people who are somewhere
(25:15):
on the pipeline of suicide. And it doesn't matter what
the researchers say. They're probably super smart people and they've
read lots of paper and then they get peer reviewed
and that's all wonderful. I've talked to people on the
ground who are in the middle of it. They talk
about suicide very differently than the people who write about
it and read about it. The people who live it
talk about it differently. So nobody who is like, I've
(25:38):
just shot myself. I just overdosed. I was just about
to step off a limb with a news tight around
my neck. None of those people said I was thinking
about dying by suicide. No, they're all, I'm going to
kill myself. The researchers say, like, the gentler way to
talk about it is that that person died by suicide. Well,
the people who live in it, they don't use language.
(26:01):
They used very plain language. I'm going to kill myself.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Ultimately, the reason that we all get there, the route
might be different, but where we all land is I
don't have any value. Yeah great, and that's where that's
where I landed. I don't have any value.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Right, And that's where the whole you know, powerful eric
thing came in. I was going to all these recovery
programs where the first step is we were powerless over
whatever it is, but they interpret it as we are powerless.
There's that huge difference. Yeah, Other than that day came
(26:40):
along ride Mike. I'm not calling as a powerless anymore.
I'm powerful Eric now.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
God don't make no jump, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
So for me it came down to who am I
as a person? Who do I need to be as
a person? About the value thing? Like where this began
to turn for me is I'm saying in a room
that I'm renting, I'm on a travel assignment. I picked that.
I took that travel assignment, which was going to be
three months. I stayed for six. I extended. But I
(27:10):
took that travel assignment with the plan of committing suicide
on my way home.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Oh wow.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
So I hugged my wife, I kissed my wife, I
say goodbye to my kids. All that stuff got in
my car, went down to Missouri. Like, I'll call you
when to get down there. I know how to wear masks,
I know how to carry shields.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Dude, my whole life.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
So I hugged them and kissed them and like all
this thing. They knew that I took guns down with me.
It's like I'm going to go shooting. I'm going to
be in Missouri. They're probably other people who'd like to
go shooting.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
I'm I'm in Saint Louis, Missouri.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Yeah yeah, and so like not shooting in the neighborhood.
That's very different. Right, But I'm going to meet some
people down there and we'll probably want to go to
the range. I'm going to take some guns, right, But
I also took the gun that I chose because I'm
going to go for a while, walk in somebody's cornfield,
and iowa on my way home, make a loud noise
(28:04):
and that'll be the end of it. That's my plan.
So I'm sitting in my room, I'm holding the gun
in my hand, looking at it like today's not the day.
I'm just thinking about the day, right, and began to
have another one of those unexpected conversations were about I
mean basically that was I wonder how much value you
really have? Well, not any like as evidence by, that's
(28:28):
how nurses talk, as evidence by. I don't have a
good relationship with my wife. None of my friends call
me when I'm traveling. When I get home, I'm just
an interruption to everybody. So none, right, I like collect
a check, I pay my bills. That's my life. Yeah, right,
I don't have any value and it doesn't matter that
(28:48):
the patient who I've never met before, says, thanks for
taking care of me. You did a really good job
starting the IB. It didn't even hurt. Like none of
those things added value, Like, of course I'm good at
my job. Aren't other people good at their jobs? Of
course I am right, but that's not value. So anyway,
I had to go through this big like working through
this is not flipping a switch. And yesterday I felt bad.
(29:09):
Today I feel great. It's not that I did a
lot of freaking work trying to like, do I have
any value? John Maxwell wrote a book lots of years
ago called the fifteen Inviable Laws of Growth. This is
actually law three. I didn't know this then, but this
is actually law three, the law of the mirror, and
it says that you have to see value in yourself
(29:29):
to add value to yourself. I was on the tail
side of that, the tail side of the coin, the
negative side, right is, I don't have any value, and
so I'm treating myself as if I don't have any value. Right, Well,
I had to consider is it possible that I have
value that I don't see, that I'm not aware of.
(29:51):
This is analogous to if you go to the beach
to go metal detecting. You start with the idea that, well,
there might be something valuable out there. So I take
the day off and I spend the money to rent
the metal detector and all this stuff. I get sunburned,
and it's all worth it because I might find something
really cool. I had to go and look for value
inside myself. Not the things I'm able to do, not
(30:15):
the things I have, not any of that kind of stuff,
but value that might be inside me. I had to
start from like, well maybe, just like going metal detecting,
like well maybe, but if there is, that'll be really cool.
I didn't have the idea that to be really cool.
I'm like, well, if there is, that'll be a big surprise.
(30:35):
That's how I started. Yeah, But anyway, So to do that,
I had to treat myself as if I have value,
which is I found out later when I found that book,
I find like the whole that is the law. You
have to see value in yourself to add value to yourself.
So I began treating myself as if I have value.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Love it, love it.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Started treating yourself as if you had value.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Yep, it doesn't mean that I knew that I did like, okay, well,
just like on the chance, it's the same thing you
do for your car. So my son at like at
this point in time, is sixteen years old, so he's
just learned how to drive, right. He's twenty two now
and married and looks at cars differently. But so at
the time he's sixteen's got his first car, and the
(31:24):
car stopped working and he doesn't have any money to
fix it, and he's not controlling his attitude very well.
So he goes out to the car and beats on
it with a hammer, which is not the way that
most mechanics fix cars. So he's beating on the hood
with a hammer. The car doesn't have any value to him,
(31:44):
and he's treating the cars if it doesn't have any value, right, Well,
what do you do with your car if you think
it does have value? You like, make sure that tires
have air you changed old, right, make sure the radiators
got fluid in it, like stuff like that. Ask in
a while, right, yeah, take it to give it a bath, right,
you do things, Probably get them dice on it, because
(32:06):
every car's got to have dice, I guess, or some
weird thing hanging from the hanging from the trainer hitch.
So you do things to add value to the car
because the car has value to you. That's what I
had to do for Steve. I'll just pretend that Steve
has value.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
And I absolutely love your analogy. I absolutely love your analogy.
If you were a car, if you had the car,
you would take care of it. You would take care
of the engine, you would polish it, clean it, treat
it not with not with a hammer. You wouldn't bang
(32:45):
on it with a hammer. As a human being, you know,
you can treat yourself as if you have value, even
if you don't feel like you have value, act as if.
I mean, of course you have value. You got to
make no junk.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
So that's how you change your life in other ways too, Right,
says the guy who doesn't run a lot, that I
don't run a lot like that's red ever, But if
I did, if I decided, well, I want to go
and run a marathon, right, But I don't run marathons today.
In fact, I bought a car so I wouldn't have
to run. But if I wanted to start running, it
(33:23):
would really come down to, okay, not what do I
need to do to run a marathon. But it'd be
who do I need to be?
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Yes, to run a marathon?
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Well, I would need to be a person who does
stuff that marathon runners do. What do they do?
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Right?
Speaker 1 (33:41):
So I'd find out what marathon runners do and I
would start to be that person.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Yes, absolutely, And you know, then if you start doing
the things that a runner does, then what does that
make you?
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Eventually I become a runner?
Speaker 2 (33:59):
That's right?
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Right?
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (34:02):
So, oh, I just we could I could talk on
this for quite a while here, but we are coming
to an end here.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Oh well, let's go back to the other, to the
guy you're talking about who is still hiding, Okay, I
doesn't want anybody to know, Okay, So that isolation ultimately
drove me to the edge of suicide. That wasn't the
first time I picked up a gun. I picked up
a gun a lot of times, like when I declared bankruptcy. Right,
take my wife to federal bankruptcy court for a hot date.
(34:33):
That's fun to do, memorable, right, I don't recommend it
for a first date. But anyway, so like, there's been
lots of times, and every time it was easier to
pick the gun up and harder to put the gun down.
But as far as the isolation there hiding thing, then
find somebody. This is a delicate topic. This is not
(34:54):
the same as I broke my leg. It really hurts.
I should find a random doctor I've ever met before
and said, hey, I got it. Like where this bonus
sticking out at perts there? This is not that right.
This is a deeper thing. That's why we never talk
about it. So find the person who you're willing to risk,
because you're not going to know this because you've never
(35:14):
had this conversation. You have to find the person that
you're willing to take the risk. I think that this
person will guard my secret, right, and then I think
that tomorrow I'm still going to have a relationship with
this person. So for me, one of those first people
(35:39):
was my friend Jeff. He was my scuba dive buddy,
and so in a very real way, when Jeff and
I would scuba dive, in a very real way, his
life was in my tank. My life was in his tank.
Because scuba divers carry air for their partner as much
as for themselves mm hmm, in a very real way
(36:02):
when Jeff and I are underwater. We have done this
for a really long time. Scuba diving is really fun,
but so in a very real way, while we're diving,
Jeff's life is in my hands, right or his life
is in my hands. So, but for a long time,
even though if we're going to talk about diving together
and that's a risky thing but we're excited about it,
(36:24):
I still wouldn't talk about my real thing. So eventually
I had to, like I had to take the risk, right. Yeah,
So for the guy that's hiding, that's the first thing
he has to do is find the person that you're
willing to take that risk with and then take it
and you know, gently at first, or jump in the
(36:46):
deep end of the pool like whatever, but you eventually
do have to get in the pool. It doesn't matter
if it's the kid he end or the deep end.
But you do have to have a dive buddy.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
Yeah, And that's that's great advice. You do need to
have a dive buddy to dive into healing this, whether
it is a best friend, whether it's a spiritual leader, priest, whatever,
therapist coach. Two, break the silence and take that dive
(37:21):
with somebody, and that's where the healing is going to begin. So, Steve,
if somebody is interested in learning more about you and
what you do, you're you're coaching us. What's some of
the things that you like to coach on and how
(37:44):
do people find you?
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Well, I'm pretty easy to find. So when I'm working
with an individual, I help people close the gap between
where they are and who they want to be. And
I realized that there's a disconnect between what and who.
But that's on purpose, just like we were talking about
with runners, right, It's not like, well you need to
start running, No, you need to decide who you are
as a person. So for people, I help people to
(38:09):
close the gap from where they are to who they
want to be. And when I work with organizations, I
help organizations create a culture that inspires employee engagement. It
makes people want to be a part of their cause.
So that's what I do. I don't really have a niche,
I guess, but I love connecting with people. So this
(38:31):
is new for me. Right, I've gone from the guy
who I'd never have a conversation in every conversation I
do have is about just the transaction, right to I really.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Enjoy connecting with people right, right, So that's.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
Been that's been its own journey. But anyway, so my
website is maximpact dot com. It A C. S I
M p act dot com and my email is my name,
Steve at maximpact dot com.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
Awesome.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
So if you're feeling mind so, if you're inspired to
reach out to Steve, please do. And thanks for joining
us on this enlightening discussion with Steve McElmurray on the
quote unquote benefits of pornography and we've delved deep into
this challenging topic and I hope you're walking away with
(39:21):
some valuable insights to help you on your journey. If
you've found this episode impactful, please share it with someone
who could benefit from the conversation. And remember, breaking frame
from addiction is not just about what you're leaving behind,
but also about the powerful person you are becoming. Until
next time, I'm Powerful Eric, reminding you that change is
(39:45):
possible and you have the strength to make it happen.
Stay strong, stay powerful, and I'll see you on the
next episode.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
If you're struggling with poorn or sex addiction, reach out
to Air at Powerfuleric dot comm
So Solomon writes about right, the prostitute reduces you to
a loaf of bread and all those other kind of things.
Right in Proverbs, especially in the world of church, we
apply that to men are being used, being turned into
the loaf of bread. But the truth is that everybody
in the transaction loses.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
This is porn talk.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Here's your host, Eric Zuzak.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Yeah, so all this time, like when when that happened?
That's nineteen eighty eight, nineteen eighty nine. That's not true,
nineteen ninety eight, nineteen ninety nine, something like that. So
the day before this story really starts the day before that.
So I'm innocutated as a kid, I'm innocudated against Christianity. Right,
But and I have this like, I know you hate me,
(00:50):
and also I'm still obligated to read this freaking book.
So I hate reading the Bible. I know God hates me,
So of course I'm not super inclined to talk to
him too much because he's just always pissed. Right. It's
like going to see your manager that you know doesn't
like you.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Right.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
And of course I don't want to go to church,
which is easy for me because I'm a truck driver,
So I'm never really around anywhere, right, And when I
do go, I know how to smile for the camera
and say the churchy things that you expect to hear,
so that you would think I'm one of you.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Right.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Brene Brown talks about masks and shields, and I like
fully stocked on masks and shields. So well. Anyway, So
the night before, what's happening is I'm on my way
to California in my car. I'm in my way to
California to fight about a ticket that I shouldn't have gotten.
I got lots of tickets that I really earned, but
this one I shouldn't have gotten. But on my way there,
(01:47):
I stopped in Wells, Nevada, at a at a truck stop.
While I'm looking at the menu at a table. When
I flipped it over, there happened to be a map
for this whorehouse. And I could drive there today. It's
been lots and lots of years. I could drive there
today without looking at it because I had been so
well trained. I wasn't thinking about that kind of stuff.
I wasn't expecting it, I wasn't looking for it. I
just turned it over and bam, it was there, and
(02:09):
it caught me. I turned it over right away, and
I got up and left, like left. But I can
still see the map today. I can still see the map.
So anyway, I start driving. I got to go to California.
I got a couple hours further down the road and
broke down in some small town somewhere. And so now
(02:29):
I'm in a hotel overnight because it's too late and
the shops are closed. I won't get fixed until tomorrow.
I start thinking about this map. Of course, now I'm
in small town somewhere in Nevada in the desert. I
can't do anything about it. So next best thing is,
maybe this would be better. I'm going to go to
a bar and I'll hook up with that girl, because
of course, we all know that all women in bars
(02:50):
just are waiting for Steve to walk in, right, I'm sorry,
that's the fantasy. Anyway, So I'm just about to leave.
I got my hand on the door hand. I'm just
about to leave, and I hear do you want to win? Like?
I hear it, like you and I are talking to
each other, do you want to win? Like? Well, I
(03:12):
don't know what we're playing, but yeah, like yeah, I'd
like to win with no more commitment than like, what
kind of pizza do you want to eat? So that
starts this conversation, which basically is, if you want to win,
just stay inside. All you got to do is stay
inside and you win. No Bible verses, no preaching, no
nothing like that. I'm not talking about anything else. It's
(03:33):
just if you want to win, stay inside. Well, I
finally went to bed, and I didn't go to bed
because I wanted to stay inside or I wanted to win.
I'm like, if I go to bed, the boys will
probably stop talking to me, right because I'm tired of
talking about it. So I woke up in the morning.
I can't the court's not going to push the date
for me. So I lose there, and I'm pissed about that.
(03:54):
I turning around to go back then, and I'm coming
close to Wells Nevada. I'm getting closer, and I hear,
how are you doing this morning? Like, well, pretty good?
Actually I slept actually way better than I expected to.
And for the first time ever, I heard something that
sounded like somebody was genuinely happy for me. I had
never heard that before, or at least I had never
(04:16):
accepted that somebody would be genuinely happy for me, but
that's what it sounded like. It was like, I think
that's because you won. And then I remember the conversation
the night before, like, oh, yeah, I guess I did win.
So the Bible verse is if you resist a double,
he'll flee from you. I guess it also works if
you just go to sleep. So I did win. Well,
I'm getting closer thanto that I'm thinking about that and
(04:38):
how happy I am that I won. And then I
start thinking about this map I saw yesterday and I'm
coming back to that town. So I start to get
off at the exit for the truck stop, which is
also the exit for this brothel. I'm like, did you
like winning last night? If you want to win again,
all you got to do is stay on the road,
And I go through all these gymnastics. Well, I'm just,
(04:59):
you know, gonna get off and like why you're not tired,
Why you don't have to go to the bathroom, Why
you're not hungry, Why you've already gotten mountain dew next
to You've got a bunch of them next to you,
Like there's no reason to stop. Why you don't need gas, right,
and I stopped anyway, So I'm just gonna hang out
with the truck stop for a little bit. Well, I'll
(05:21):
just I'll just drive over there while just go inside.
So I killed that voice. I made it stop talking
to me. I'm sitting at the bar inside there. I'm
watching a bunch of like super old people, like they
look like footballs that have been left outside in the desert.
While I'm there, the strongest man I've ever met came in.
(05:46):
This brothel advertises free showers, like great big sign right,
so truckles will see it from the interstate. And that's
a nice deal for truck drivers because you only get
a shower for free if you got fuel at that
truck stop, right, But you might have to wait a
long time, and it might not be clean, and it
might might might might whatever. So they advertised free clean showers. Yeah,
(06:08):
of course somebody's gonna stop, right. That's a lost leader
for them. So this guy comes in. He's got his
little uffel bag. He's like, you guys have free showers,
and so of course they start trying to upsell him,
and they go back and forth a few times. The
strongest man I've ever met and the woman who's selling things,
I'm sorry, selling people, and he finally he's angry now
(06:31):
like your sign says free showers? Do you have free showers?
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yes? Or no?
Speaker 1 (06:35):
They took him back, he took a shower, left a
few minutes later, and I sat there on the stool
the whole time like, oh, I wish I could be
that guy. Yeah, and I couldn't get up well anyway.
So I spent a total of about eight hours there
and drank a lot of super expensive sprite and hit
a really overpriced frozen pizza that they got at the
(06:56):
grocery store, you know, And it finally gave in to
this walking menu that I've been looking at all day, right,
and so I finally picked one and spent a lot
of money. So I'm leaving. I'm a few miles down
the road from Wells and you know, from that town.
And I hear that really hurt. I'm expecting to hear yelling, screaming,
(07:22):
you know, slamming cupboards like all that kind of stuff.
I'm used to that That's what I'm expecting here. I
didn't hear any of that. I heard that really hurt.
Like that hurt me because you and I have a covenant.
You understand contracts, so we'll use contract, but it's really
a covenant, which is a lot stronger. But and my
side of it is that I'll never leave you or
(07:44):
forsake you. And so what that means is that I
had to go with you. I sat at the bar
with you, I was with you when you went back
in that other room. Like I died for that, And
so that really hurt. Wasn't screaming, wasn't yelling, It wasn't
like finger pointing trying to make you feel bad. It
was simply just open communication, which was weird. I'd never
(08:05):
experienced that before. It was just open communication. This is
how that made me feel.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
And this was after this is on your way home
from brothel? Right yeah, And uh, you know, I don't
know why this popped in my head right now. But
when I was young, there's a movie with Dolly Parton
and Sylvester Stallone called The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,
(08:34):
And believe it or not, it was a musical. It
is a strange movie, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
with Sylvester Stallone and Dolly Pardon, a musical about a
whorehouse in Texas, and there's a song in the movie
called Texas had well I just remember this from the
(08:56):
Texas has a Whorehouse in it. Oh my goodness, Oh
my lord. That was that was crazy like And also
just another side tangent too. I had watched this YouTube
video that had compiled a lot of the TV popular
TV shows from the eighties and such, and I'm like,
(09:20):
I watched every single one of them. The amount of
you know, all those TV shows, that movie that was
on cable, the best of Little Whorehouse in Texas, all
this stuff that we jump into our minds. So but anyway,
I digress. You were you're telling your story. So you
heard this this voice that said that really hurt.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yeah, So that's unfair fighting, right, I'm expecting screaming, yelling,
and instead I have this like open communication. That's just
unfair fighting. And that was the beginning of the idea
that that Jesus wants to have just a relationship with me.
(10:03):
I want to do things with you. I want to well,
I am going to go places with you because we
have this deal, right, but also I want you to
come places with me. That was the beginning of that
idea for me. All the time when I was doing
that stuff. So I'm not married at that time. All
the time when I'm going to those places, when I'm
going to those kind of bars and whatever, I a
(10:24):
long time ago stopped looking at the pictures or stopped
looking at the bodies and would look at the faces.
And what I saw and in the faces, I looked
at the eyes. So what I saw was blank, Right,
I know how to smile for the camera. I saw
(10:45):
people that knew how to smile for the stage. Right,
That's what I began to see. And I began to
see I'm still doing it. I mean not right now,
but at the time. Right, So I'm still doing it,
but I'm recognized while I'm doing it that I'm in
a transaction. Right, So I'm accepted here only because I
(11:07):
have money. I'm a truck driver. I don't have gods
of money, but I'm only I'm accepted as long as
I have money.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Right.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Well, anyway, so I stopped driving a truck. I come
back to Madison and Madison, Wisconsin, that's where I graduated
high school from. And now I'm like in a town
and I'm going to have to be a part of
the community. So I can't do some of the things
I've trained myself to want to go do right. But
(11:37):
I also don't want to be around other people because
what if you found out that I look at this stuff.
What if you found out that I've found out a
way that I'm still buying porn or whatever. Right, I
don't want you to know. And so I'm really just
isolated and lonely. It was a softball game, actually, that's
(11:58):
an accidental softball game that began breaking me out of that. Also,
at that time, I don't talk to anybody. Like every
conversation I had was Everything in my life was transactional.
Everything the conversations I would have when I was a
truck driver. I don't care what the weather's like. I
don't care that you've got a new house, that you
(12:19):
got a new puppy, or that your puppy died. I
don't care. I need to know how many doors, what
palettes like, when does I have to be there? That
kind of stuff. That's it, right. So when I became
a contractor, that's what I was doing in Madison. When
I became a home improvement contractor, I had to learn
how to talk to people. So I had to learn
how to have conversations, which was super hard for me.
(12:44):
I did it with a tool called form Family Occupation
Recreation M is the message because I could just let
you talk like are you married to you live around here?
What kind of work do you do right? What do
you like to do for fun? That's for? And then
is the message. And I was in control of whether
I delivered the message like let's get together again, I'd
(13:06):
like to put your roof on, you know what, or no,
I'm not interested in talking to you, And so I
didn't deliver the message. But I had to use a
tool to learn how to be able to talk to people.
And so then I get married. And marriage is going
to make it better because now I live with someone
(13:26):
who's going to want to have sex with me, And
won't this be great? And I've been trained by the
stuff that I've looked at and the stuff that I've done,
what that means and what kind of activities to expect,
So won't this be great?
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Ye?
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Well, as it turns out, I found out that women
who are real and are not air brushed don't have
the same desires or attitudes that the women who are
(14:03):
being paid to behave.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
That way. Yeah, shock, Steve.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
We need to change gears here and wrap up this episode.
Let's go into just one more what's another benefit of pornography?
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Again?
Speaker 1 (14:23):
That whole title was meant to be facetious.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Sure, of course, and so.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
The outside of streaming services, that's the social benefit that
was real, right, And I discovered it by having to
do that. I decided, like, if I'm doing I may
as well do the research and like find out right
and give this thing a fair shake. That's the thing
that was real. I guess potentially, how somebody there's an
old dead philosopher from some country who thought things were
(14:53):
good if they turned out good. I don't remember what
his name is, but basically that was his idea. And
so in that attitude, if you look at it that way,
then a woman who finds herself about to be evicted
or homeless or whatever. I guess guys too, is typically women, right,
and just perform for a little bit and they'll get
(15:14):
some money and then they can stay in their house
or pay for school or whatever their thing is. So
I guess to a point that would be a.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Benefit comes with a big hidden cost, right.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
The cost is it's not it's not a value for
value exchange. Like if I bought your car. I gave
you some money and you gave me the car. Well,
we both got we both benefited in the transaction. Right,
this is different even if I feel like I benefit
in the moment because this feels good to me right now. Well,
(15:51):
the truth is like when I spent that eight hundred
dollars that time, I didn't have eight hundred dollars to
just get rid of, right, So that created other that
created financial problems for me, like that one event. So
it wasn't a value for value exchange. But depending on
(16:11):
how somebody looks at benefit that would be one is
that typically a woman, but a man too, can turn
a fair amount of money relatively quickly, and you don't
have to go to school.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Yeah, I just before we jumped on here, I was
listening to a woman that was in porniraphe for many
years and she said, she said, honestly, at the very beginning,
it was good because I got all this money. But
then she said she quickly learned that yeah, she had
all this money, but she said she felt really terrible
(16:44):
about herself. She you know, was depressed. And so it's
like that money is kind of like blood money. You know,
it's hurting other people.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
And so yeah, so Solomon writes about right, the prostitute
reduces you to a loaf of bread and all those
other kind of things right in proverbs. But the truth
is that who's doing the selling and who's being sold.
So I'm having to give up money for fake name,
(17:21):
diamond or whatever right to play with me. And so
she's selling me and turns me into a loaf of
bread because she's using me for my money. But on
the other side of that, I'm not developing a relationship
with her. I don't even care that I know that
her name is not real, but I don't care. I'm
(17:41):
only interested in using her for the thing that I
can get from it. So we, especially in the world
of church, we apply that to men are being used,
being turned into the loaf of bread. But the truth
is that everybody in the true transaction loses. Everybody is
(18:04):
playing with the fantasy of or illusion of intimacy, but
instead what gets delivered for both of us is separation, shame,
just hiding, like all that kind of stuff. Right, Like
I don't want people in my community when I was
(18:25):
in Madison, right, like, I don't want you another guy
at church to find out I do this thing. Well,
the woman that you're just talking about also didn't want
other people to find out. She might say she's an actress,
but she wouldn't want just everybody to find out that
she was a porn actress.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Yeah, and now let me jump in there. So when.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
They're being paid to have sex on camera, it's a prostitute. Yep,
So the uh you know one of the other so
called ben if it's a porniography is And clearly, like
I said, there clearly are benefits because people wouldn't keep
doing if there weren't. Is that temporary, very temporarily horn
(19:13):
good feeling at the moment of ejaculation, but then after
comes mountains of guilt and shame right right.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
The other side of that is when you find yourself
in an actual relationship. Well then what so like I
go into my marriage with these and of course we
didn't talk about it because I don't want to talk
about all these things that would be like I don't
want women to know that I've spent that many years
(19:46):
using women, right, and that's disgusting, and what are all
these other things? And so I also didn't want to
talk to my fiance about it. I finally decided I
had to because it's like, well, I mean, this is
where the relationship is going to end. But whatever she
should maybe find out now before she broke broken engagements
(20:07):
probably better than a divorce, right, So I decided this
will be better for her. I actually told her as
a way to sabotage my relationship, that's what I was
really doing. I was trying to sabotage it. And so
that's just like unhealthy thinking. But I have these unrealistic
(20:32):
expectations of what sex and marriage is going to be.
And because I've never had a relationship, I never had
to practice or develop the skill of having those kind
of conversations because in a transaction, there's very little trans
there's a very little conversation, right, and it's about like
(20:56):
what toppings do you want on your hamburger? Like that's it. So, yeah,
it is true if we wanted to stretch the word,
if we wanted to stretch the definition of benefit, that
we could manufacture some but compared against the cost of
getting that benefit, no.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Right, And that's that's a great way to put the
cost benefit, Like what there are some benefits to porniography,
Are they worth the cost?
Speaker 2 (21:34):
And there's a huge, huge cost.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Porn does a lot of the same things in the
brain that other drugs would do. The drugs drugs I
might sniff or snort or inject, right, does a lot
of the same things in the brain. And so that's
why we talk about porn as an addiction, because son
of a gun, it is. And so the problem is,
(21:58):
like I have these un that so I'm always joning
for my fix, right, if I'm going to be an
addict that I'm always joning for my FM thinking about
where can I get my next fix? Right, I can
shoot up again when I get off work. And I
get off work at four today, so I got three
hours left I and I'm off work, and then I
can shoot up, right that kind of thing, and I'm
(22:18):
off for two days. And so they'll never know, right,
that kind of thing. And that's where so it puts
sex instead of just being a part of an overall
relationship like the way it was designed to be, and
then it works like really really good instead of being
a part of an overall relationship. Instead it's this primary
(22:39):
focus way up here that everything else becomes subservient to
second two, right, including relationships like relationships that I still have. Right,
So suppose, well, I'm married, but in fact tomorrow, I'm
leaving town tomorrow to fly down to the floor. And
(23:01):
so maybe I go and hook up with somebody in
Florida because I've been looking all this time, because I'm
gonna have freedom. Nobody knows me like all this kind
of thing, right, So if that's an active addiction, Holy Kyle,
that's why that kind of thing makes it really dangerous, right,
(23:24):
Because what porn does, especially as we progress in it,
it elevates, artificially elevates, but it elevates sex to some
super like this is the primary thing I need to get. Yeah,
So that that title was entirely meant to be facetious,
(23:45):
like mocking, mocking my opponent. In fact, I wrote it
as angry because I realized that of all the things
we brought on that hunting trip. As an eighth grade boy,
I've very very few times I've been out, like I
really need a set of dry socks right now, right,
But so I got introduced to porn as an eighth
(24:07):
grade boy sitting on a rotted log next to some
other kid whose name I don't know, and that thing
had had a control on my life for a super
long time. So when I started writing that thing, I
wrote it out of being like I really thought about,
I am mocking my enemy and I'm fucking going to war,
(24:28):
So I did.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
So, what would you say to someone that's listening right
now that is really struggling with this addiction and has
pretty much kept it to themselves. They haven't said anything
to anyone, but they're just kind of silently struggling.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
What would you say to that person.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
That I understand? Yeah, because I lived it for a
long time. Ultimately it drove me to being suicidal. Probably
don't have time to going to that story, but ultimately
it drove me to suicidal because and ultimately all of
the people that I've known, so I've been an er
nurse and i have mental health background, and so I've
talked to lots and lots of people who are somewhere
(25:15):
on the pipeline of suicide. And it doesn't matter what
the researchers say. They're probably super smart people and they've
read lots of paper and then they get peer reviewed
and that's all wonderful. I've talked to people on the
ground who are in the middle of it. They talk
about suicide very differently than the people who write about
it and read about it. The people who live it
talk about it differently. So nobody who is like, I've
(25:38):
just shot myself. I just overdosed. I was just about
to step off a limb with a news tight around
my neck. None of those people said I was thinking
about dying by suicide. No, they're all, I'm going to
kill myself. The researchers say, like, the gentler way to
talk about it is that that person died by suicide. Well,
the people who live in it, they don't use language.
(26:01):
They used very plain language. I'm going to kill myself.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Ultimately, the reason that we all get there, the route
might be different, but where we all land is I
don't have any value. Yeah great, and that's where that's
where I landed. I don't have any value.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Right, And that's where the whole you know, powerful eric
thing came in. I was going to all these recovery
programs where the first step is we were powerless over
whatever it is, but they interpret it as we are powerless.
There's that huge difference. Yeah, Other than that day came
(26:40):
along ride Mike. I'm not calling as a powerless anymore.
I'm powerful Eric now.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
God don't make no jump, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
So for me it came down to who am I
as a person? Who do I need to be as
a person? About the value thing? Like where this began
to turn for me is I'm saying in a room
that I'm renting, I'm on a travel assignment. I picked that.
I took that travel assignment, which was going to be
three months. I stayed for six. I extended. But I
(27:10):
took that travel assignment with the plan of committing suicide
on my way home.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Oh wow.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
So I hugged my wife, I kissed my wife, I
say goodbye to my kids. All that stuff got in
my car, went down to Missouri. Like, I'll call you
when to get down there. I know how to wear masks,
I know how to carry shields.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Dude, my whole life.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
So I hugged them and kissed them and like all
this thing. They knew that I took guns down with me.
It's like I'm going to go shooting. I'm going to
be in Missouri. They're probably other people who'd like to
go shooting.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
I'm I'm in Saint Louis, Missouri.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Yeah yeah, and so like not shooting in the neighborhood.
That's very different. Right, But I'm going to meet some
people down there and we'll probably want to go to
the range. I'm going to take some guns, right, But
I also took the gun that I chose because I'm
going to go for a while, walk in somebody's cornfield,
and iowa on my way home, make a loud noise
(28:04):
and that'll be the end of it. That's my plan.
So I'm sitting in my room, I'm holding the gun
in my hand, looking at it like today's not the day.
I'm just thinking about the day, right, and began to
have another one of those unexpected conversations were about I
mean basically that was I wonder how much value you
really have? Well, not any like as evidence by, that's
(28:28):
how nurses talk, as evidence by. I don't have a
good relationship with my wife. None of my friends call
me when I'm traveling. When I get home, I'm just
an interruption to everybody. So none, right, I like collect
a check, I pay my bills. That's my life. Yeah, right,
I don't have any value and it doesn't matter that
(28:48):
the patient who I've never met before, says, thanks for
taking care of me. You did a really good job
starting the IB. It didn't even hurt. Like none of
those things added value, Like, of course I'm good at
my job. Aren't other people good at their jobs? Of
course I am right, but that's not value. So anyway,
I had to go through this big like working through
this is not flipping a switch. And yesterday I felt bad.
(29:09):
Today I feel great. It's not that I did a
lot of freaking work trying to like, do I have
any value? John Maxwell wrote a book lots of years
ago called the fifteen Inviable Laws of Growth. This is
actually law three. I didn't know this then, but this
is actually law three, the law of the mirror, and
it says that you have to see value in yourself
(29:29):
to add value to yourself. I was on the tail
side of that, the tail side of the coin, the
negative side, right is, I don't have any value, and
so I'm treating myself as if I don't have any value. Right, Well,
I had to consider is it possible that I have
value that I don't see, that I'm not aware of.
(29:51):
This is analogous to if you go to the beach
to go metal detecting. You start with the idea that, well,
there might be something valuable out there. So I take
the day off and I spend the money to rent
the metal detector and all this stuff. I get sunburned,
and it's all worth it because I might find something
really cool. I had to go and look for value
inside myself. Not the things I'm able to do, not
(30:15):
the things I have, not any of that kind of stuff,
but value that might be inside me. I had to
start from like, well maybe, just like going metal detecting,
like well maybe, but if there is, that'll be really cool.
I didn't have the idea that to be really cool.
I'm like, well, if there is, that'll be a big surprise.
(30:35):
That's how I started. Yeah, But anyway, So to do that,
I had to treat myself as if I have value,
which is I found out later when I found that book,
I find like the whole that is the law. You
have to see value in yourself to add value to yourself.
So I began treating myself as if I have value.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Love it, love it.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Started treating yourself as if you had value.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Yep, it doesn't mean that I knew that I did like, okay, well,
just like on the chance, it's the same thing you
do for your car. So my son at like at
this point in time, is sixteen years old, so he's
just learned how to drive, right. He's twenty two now
and married and looks at cars differently. But so at
the time he's sixteen's got his first car, and the
(31:24):
car stopped working and he doesn't have any money to
fix it, and he's not controlling his attitude very well.
So he goes out to the car and beats on
it with a hammer, which is not the way that
most mechanics fix cars. So he's beating on the hood
with a hammer. The car doesn't have any value to him,
(31:44):
and he's treating the cars if it doesn't have any value, right, Well,
what do you do with your car if you think
it does have value? You like, make sure that tires
have air you changed old, right, make sure the radiators
got fluid in it, like stuff like that. Ask in
a while, right, yeah, take it to give it a bath, right,
you do things, Probably get them dice on it, because
(32:06):
every car's got to have dice, I guess, or some
weird thing hanging from the hanging from the trainer hitch.
So you do things to add value to the car
because the car has value to you. That's what I
had to do for Steve. I'll just pretend that Steve
has value.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
And I absolutely love your analogy. I absolutely love your analogy.
If you were a car, if you had the car,
you would take care of it. You would take care
of the engine, you would polish it, clean it, treat
it not with not with a hammer. You wouldn't bang
(32:45):
on it with a hammer. As a human being, you know,
you can treat yourself as if you have value, even
if you don't feel like you have value, act as if.
I mean, of course you have value. You got to
make no junk.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
So that's how you change your life in other ways too, Right,
says the guy who doesn't run a lot, that I
don't run a lot like that's red ever, But if
I did, if I decided, well, I want to go
and run a marathon, right, But I don't run marathons today.
In fact, I bought a car so I wouldn't have
to run. But if I wanted to start running, it
(33:23):
would really come down to, okay, not what do I
need to do to run a marathon. But it'd be
who do I need to be?
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Yes, to run a marathon?
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Well, I would need to be a person who does
stuff that marathon runners do. What do they do?
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Right?
Speaker 1 (33:41):
So I'd find out what marathon runners do and I
would start to be that person.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Yes, absolutely, And you know, then if you start doing
the things that a runner does, then what does that
make you?
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Eventually I become a runner?
Speaker 2 (33:59):
That's right?
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Right?
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (34:02):
So, oh, I just we could I could talk on
this for quite a while here, but we are coming
to an end here.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Oh well, let's go back to the other, to the
guy you're talking about who is still hiding, Okay, I
doesn't want anybody to know, Okay, So that isolation ultimately
drove me to the edge of suicide. That wasn't the
first time I picked up a gun. I picked up
a gun a lot of times, like when I declared bankruptcy. Right,
take my wife to federal bankruptcy court for a hot date.
(34:33):
That's fun to do, memorable, right, I don't recommend it
for a first date. But anyway, so like, there's been
lots of times, and every time it was easier to
pick the gun up and harder to put the gun down.
But as far as the isolation there hiding thing, then
find somebody. This is a delicate topic. This is not
(34:54):
the same as I broke my leg. It really hurts.
I should find a random doctor I've ever met before
and said, hey, I got it. Like where this bonus
sticking out at perts there? This is not that right.
This is a deeper thing. That's why we never talk
about it. So find the person who you're willing to risk,
because you're not going to know this because you've never
(35:14):
had this conversation. You have to find the person that
you're willing to take the risk. I think that this
person will guard my secret, right, and then I think
that tomorrow I'm still going to have a relationship with
this person. So for me, one of those first people
(35:39):
was my friend Jeff. He was my scuba dive buddy,
and so in a very real way, when Jeff and
I would scuba dive, in a very real way, his
life was in my tank. My life was in his tank.
Because scuba divers carry air for their partner as much
as for themselves mm hmm, in a very real way
(36:02):
when Jeff and I are underwater. We have done this
for a really long time. Scuba diving is really fun,
but so in a very real way, while we're diving,
Jeff's life is in my hands, right or his life
is in my hands. So, but for a long time,
even though if we're going to talk about diving together
and that's a risky thing but we're excited about it,
(36:24):
I still wouldn't talk about my real thing. So eventually
I had to, like I had to take the risk, right. Yeah,
So for the guy that's hiding, that's the first thing
he has to do is find the person that you're
willing to take that risk with and then take it
and you know, gently at first, or jump in the
(36:46):
deep end of the pool like whatever, but you eventually
do have to get in the pool. It doesn't matter
if it's the kid he end or the deep end.
But you do have to have a dive buddy.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
Yeah, And that's that's great advice. You do need to
have a dive buddy to dive into healing this, whether
it is a best friend, whether it's a spiritual leader, priest, whatever,
therapist coach. Two, break the silence and take that dive
(37:21):
with somebody, and that's where the healing is going to begin. So, Steve,
if somebody is interested in learning more about you and
what you do, you're you're coaching us. What's some of
the things that you like to coach on and how
(37:44):
do people find you?
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Well, I'm pretty easy to find. So when I'm working
with an individual, I help people close the gap between
where they are and who they want to be. And
I realized that there's a disconnect between what and who.
But that's on purpose, just like we were talking about
with runners, right, It's not like, well you need to
start running, No, you need to decide who you are
as a person. So for people, I help people to
(38:09):
close the gap from where they are to who they
want to be. And when I work with organizations, I
help organizations create a culture that inspires employee engagement. It
makes people want to be a part of their cause.
So that's what I do. I don't really have a niche,
I guess, but I love connecting with people. So this
(38:31):
is new for me. Right, I've gone from the guy
who I'd never have a conversation in every conversation I
do have is about just the transaction, right to I really.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Enjoy connecting with people right, right, So that's.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
Been that's been its own journey. But anyway, so my
website is maximpact dot com. It A C. S I
M p act dot com and my email is my name,
Steve at maximpact dot com.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
Awesome.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
So if you're feeling mind so, if you're inspired to
reach out to Steve, please do. And thanks for joining
us on this enlightening discussion with Steve McElmurray on the
quote unquote benefits of pornography and we've delved deep into
this challenging topic and I hope you're walking away with
(39:21):
some valuable insights to help you on your journey. If
you've found this episode impactful, please share it with someone
who could benefit from the conversation. And remember, breaking frame
from addiction is not just about what you're leaving behind,
but also about the powerful person you are becoming. Until
next time, I'm Powerful Eric, reminding you that change is
(39:45):
possible and you have the strength to make it happen.
Stay strong, stay powerful, and I'll see you on the
next episode.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
If you're struggling with poorn or sex addiction, reach out
to Air at Powerfuleric dot comm
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