December 22, 2025 • 38 mins
In this incredibly vulnerable episode, Nate Larkin tells the story of how he returned to lying, hiding, binge drinking, and destructive sexual behavior while leading a sexual recovery organization. You'll also hear Nate's wisdom on how to be vulnerable as a leader and the importance of telling the truth.
Nate Larkin is the founder of the Samson Society, a fellowship of Christian men who are serious about authenticity, community, humility, and recovery. Learn more at samsonsociety.com
Buy Nate's book: Samson and the Pirate Monks: Calling Men To Authentic Brotherhood
Take the Husband Material Journey...
- Step 1: Listen to this podcast or watch on YouTube
- Step 2: Join the private Husband Material Community
- Step 3: Take the free mini-course: How To Outgrow Porn
- Step 4: Try the all-in-one program: Husband Material Academy
Thanks for listening!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Welcome to the Husband Material podcast, where
we help Christian men outgrowporn.
Why?
So you can change your brain,heal your heart, and save your
relationship.
My name is Drew Boa, and I'mhere to show you how.
Let's go.
SPEAKER_01 (00:19):
Today's episode was special.
Nate Larkin, founder of theStanison Society, opens up about
a season of relapse that tookplace in his life while he was a
leader.
And while Nate's story isuncomfortable and may be
triggering for some listeners, Ithink it's really important for
us to witness what can happenwhen a leader begins to drift
(00:43):
and isolate and perform andpretend.
And if you are a leader who iswrestling with whether or not to
share your patterns of secrecyor sexually acting out, I
encourage you to listen.
And at the end of the episode,Nate talks about what went into
his decision to go public withthis and what we truly need in
(01:05):
the end.
If you're ready for a real, raw,deeply personal story of a
leader relapsing and recovering,keep listening.
Today we get the delight ofhanging out with Nate Larkin,
who is the founder of the SamsonSociety, author of Samson and
the Pirate Monks, and alsoco-host of the Pirate Monk
(01:28):
Podcast.
YR! It's great to be with you,Drew.
Thank you for the invitation.
You're welcome.
And I'm really excited about theSamson Society app, which just
launched by the time this comesout.
SPEAKER_02 (01:42):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yep.
We're going to debut it at theNational Summit in Santa Fe, New
Mexico, the weekend of November7, 8, and 9.
Team's been working on it forquite a while.
We actually followed your lead,Drew.
You guys were the first we heardof to go with the Mighty
Networks platform.
And our web platform was gettinga little antiquated, and we
(02:03):
didn't have a workable app.
So we really respect and admirewhat you guys are doing at
Husband Material.
So we shamelessly copied you.
Great.
We're just trying to make iteasier than ever for men to
connect.
Because that's what it's allabout, right?
It's about authentic connection.
It's what we're built for, whatwe're wired for, what we all
(02:25):
desperately need.
And when we can't get it safely,we're vulnerable to all kinds of
workarounds that can lead todisastrous consequences.
SPEAKER_01 (02:35):
And when it comes to free, consistent opportunities
for connection, I refer peopleto Samson Society.
Every day of the week, anywherein the world, you can go to a
meeting and connect with men onthe same journey.
SPEAKER_02 (02:52):
That's it, right there.
Yeah.
And we're really hoping to rampup.
We've got lots of meetings everyday, but we want to have even
more meetings by the end of2026.
Our goal is to have at least onemeeting every hour of every day.
SPEAKER_01 (03:05):
Wow.
One of the things that I wasimmediately struck by when I
first watched you tell yourstory in the I Am Second video,
which is like legendary for menow, is just how vulnerable you
are as a leader, and how muchyou know you need the things
(03:27):
that you're offering.
That has really influenced me.
SPEAKER_02 (03:31):
Here's the dangerous part that vulnerability becomes
more and more difficult whenyou're in leadership.
I mean, it it can, it doesn'thave to, but it can, and it did
for me.
It is possible for us as leadersto start to imagine that so many
people are depending on us, thattheir sobriety, their stability
(03:54):
depends on our continued,unblemished, unvarnished
success.
That when we do start to slip,it just would be too
discouraging, maybe evencatastrophic for me to let
anybody else know.
And it's possible for us asleaders to start to think of
ourselves more highly than weought to think.
(04:17):
Imagine that we're more vital tothis process than we actually
are, and we can start once againto perform.
I was so good at performing thatI hid my addiction for 20 years.
Nobody knew I wasn't caught.
I was really good atmisdirection.
I'm good on stage.
I can freaking perform.
(04:38):
That wiring is still intact.
But performing is deadly for me.
I have caught myself beforeperforming in, you know, in a
recovery meeting.
I'm always inspired whensomebody else does the brave
thing to be brutally honest andexposes my own hypocrisy, and I
(05:00):
realize I'm just taking the edgeoff the truth.
I'm polishing things just alittle bit.
I'm really trying to appear alittle better than I am.
And so sometimes I'm justencouraged by the example of
somebody else's vulnerability toget more vulnerable myself.
But it is possible to go off therails.
And anybody who is a regularlistener to the Pirate Monk
(05:24):
podcast, if they've listenedwithin the last month or so, six
weeks, I don't know when it cameout, they know that we had the
Nate Larkin relapse episodewhere I talked about it.
What I found out is that themessage actually was a great
encouragement to an awful lot ofpeople.
And we're still reaping goodfruit from telling the truth.
SPEAKER_01 (05:49):
Can you say more about what happened?
SPEAKER_02 (05:51):
Here's the thing: relapses don't happen suddenly,
they evolve, right?
It's a misstep followed byanother misstep by another.
A slip is not immediately aslide.
But a slip seen, admitted,corrected, is inevitable.
(06:13):
None of us walk this recoveryjourney perfectly.
All of us lose our footing fromtime to time.
And so it's absolutely essentialthat we be walking with other
people, that we disclose whatwe're doing, that they're
watchful to what's going on, sowe don't wander too far.
But if we start to imagine thatwe're a little bit above the
(06:35):
crowd, if we're performing alittle bit, it is possible for
us to fool ourselves and foolother people.
So in my case, uh Allie and I,you know, we started the Samson
Society in 2004 in Franklin,Tennessee.
At that point, I was six yearsinto my own recovery from porn
and sex addiction, and I'dworked with a sponsor who
introduced me early to going onwalks.
(06:58):
There's something magical aboutgoing on a walk with another
man.
It's got a little easier to talkwhen we're outside.
And, you know, and I also thinkthat there's something to the
bilateral stimulation of walkingthat I think helps the thinking
process and the learningprocess.
So when we started Samson, bythe time we started Samson, I
(07:21):
was already walking with guys.
I'd been walking with guys for awhile.
And I walked the streets ofFranklin, Tennessee for more
than 20 years.
I was a fixture downtown.
I had friends everywhere.
I know that town.
I know every crack in thesidewalk, right?
And it's to me, it's a sacredplace.
And we lived right downtown in ahundred-year-old two-story house
(07:43):
with the master bedroom on thesecond floor.
Now, my wife, who I dearly love,is 10 years older than I am, and
now is experiencing some of thejoys of aging.
And it was becoming increasinglydifficult for her to make her up
the very make her way up thesteep steps to the bedroom.
(08:03):
And I'm gone a lot.
And one of my nightmares was herfalling down those stairs when I
was gone.
Our daughter had, who had livedfor many years in Franklin, was
finally priced out of themarket, and she moved an hour
away to a little town calledMount Pleasant.
When it became clear that we hadto move, we decided to move to
(08:26):
Mount Pleasant.
And I told myself and everybodyelse that it was no big deal.
Yes, I'm moving away from all myfriends.
Yes, I'm moving away from myroutines.
Yes, I'm moving away from all myconnections, but I'm a good
husband.
I love my wife.
We're moving to be four doorsaway from our daughter and our
(08:46):
grandkids.
It's no big deal.
It's actually a good thing.
I was lying to myself and I waslying to other people.
The resentment was starting tobuild.
I was doing a few things.
I was playing bigger than I am.
I didn't want to own the sadnessand the reluctance and the grief
or admit the resentment tomyself or anybody else.
(09:07):
But we put the house up forsale.
I did all the preparation, thepacking for moving.
We bought a house in MountPleasant, but it wasn't going to
be ready for months.
So we had to pack everything forstorage, and I did that myself.
I could have asked for help.
I didn't.
And then we decided to spend theintervening months with my son
(09:30):
and his family in Amelia Island,Florida.
And now we're going to be ableto stay longer.
Now, Allie can't make that driveanymore.
So the plan was we would do thefinal packing, we'd go to the
closing on the house, I wouldtake Allie to the airport, put
her on a plane, my son wouldpick her up in Jacksonville, and
I'd bring the dog and oursuitcases and I would drive.
(09:54):
As I dropped Allie off thatafternoon, it was already
afternoon by the time, I put heron the plane.
She said, Hey, don't try todon't be a hero.
Don't try to drive straightthrough.
When you get tired, stop.
And I told her I would.
My back was killing me.
I was exhausted.
(10:14):
I was driving away from Franklinand my friends.
And anyway, I stopped south ofAtlanta.
And during this time, by theway, my drinking had been
accelerating.
I was medicating my resentmentwith alcohol.
(10:37):
Stopped that night south ofAtlanta, had dinner at a Mexican
restaurant.
I had one beer that turned intotwo beers and I don't know,
maybe three beers.
But I was clearly out of onebeer territory by then.
All I know is when I came out ofthe restaurant, I looked across
the parking lot and saw amassage parlor.
(10:58):
And I hadn't been in a massageparlor in 20 years.
And suddenly it seemed like agood idea.
My back hurt.
I deserved it.
I told myself it was just amassage, but I knew I knew
better.
But I went in.
And I had the massage completewith a happy ending, right?
(11:19):
Well, as you can imagine comingout of that, I just felt
absolutely horrible.
And my first thought was, oh, Ican't tell anybody this.
I can't tell Allie.
She trusts me implicitly.
I'm she's struggling, I'm herrock.
It would shake her world.
I just can't tell her.
And I can't tell the guyseither, because they're all
(11:40):
dependent on me.
If word ever got out, it wouldprobably destroy the Samson
Society.
So this is one and done.
It will never happen again.
I'm gonna suck it up, I'm done.
And I didn't do it again rightaway.
But the next time I had to goout of town to speak, I did it
(12:02):
again.
Well, then I really gave myselfa good talking to.
And, you know, got serious, gotback into just doing some
journaling and all that kind ofstuff.
All the private disciplines thatare necessary, but not
sufficient to keep us sober,right?
(12:22):
I was neglecting this vitalingredient called honesty and
brotherhood.
But I tried to do it myself.
And I did succeed for the nextcouple opportunities I passed.
That's the tricky thing.
If it's it's tougher for thoseof us who the alcoholics call
the periodic drinks, uh drunksto get sober, because every time
(12:42):
we manage to pass up theopportunity, it feeds the
illusion that we have thecapacity to be sober.
And then when we finally dofail, the condemnation is twice
as bad because the message wehear is you low down.
You didn't have to do that.
unknown (13:02):
You know.
SPEAKER_02 (13:03):
What I did tell myself, I know I had to talk
about this, but what I toldmyself was, you know, the reason
I did it was because I wasdrinking.
I need to stop drinking.
So I resolved to stop drinking,which turned out to be much more
difficult than I thought.
And I that was a safe thing totalk about.
I started talking about drinkingto my friends.
(13:24):
I talked about drinking on thepodcast.
I talked about, and eventually,uh what's called uh Deer Camp.
I was a men's fellowship retreatthing out in the woods in
Mississippi, and it wasn't aSamson thing, and I wasn't in
charge, and I was just one ofthe initiates, just one of the
guys, completely safe.
(13:45):
Up until that, yeah, I did tellguys I wanted to stop drinking,
but I wasn't being completelyhonest about the amount of
alcohol I was consuming or thefrequency with which I was
drinking.
I kept minimizing publicly.
The drinking was worse than Iwas telling anybody, and it kept
(14:05):
getting worse.
But that night out in the woods,I just decided just to dump the
truck, and I told every uglydetail about my alcohol.
And amazingly, the urge to drinkdisappeared.
(14:26):
This was amazing.
I got back home and I'm notdrinking anymore.
Fantastic.
We've got this thing, and then Ifound out I could still act out
sober.
I did it again.
That's just awful.
And now I'm back in the spotwhere it's hard to look at
myself in the mirror.
(14:47):
If I go out to speak, I knowwhat the things I'm saying are
true, but I'm not beingtruthful.
I am charting the road torecovery, and I am telling the
story, but I'm not telling thewhole story.
And that's a rotten place to be,let me tell you.
I went, as to the best of myrecollection, I went to massage
(15:11):
parlors a total of seven times.
Finally, uh, some of the Samsonguys had gone to a really high
intensity intensive with a guynamed Andrew Bowman out in
Washington State.
And I decided, you know what,I'm gonna go there.
(15:33):
And I'm gonna get honest there.
It's not a Samson thing.
I'm not in charge.
These guys are safe.
I'm gonna, I've gotta tell, I'vegot to spill the beans, I'll
tell them.
So I register for the treat.
I actually stop in Denver on theway to act out one last time.
Just like a final toot, youknow, before going into rehab,
(15:54):
you know, like any good addict.
And it was stupid.
That last one, that last one Iplanned.
I planned every detail.
The other ones, yes, I planned,but I didn't admit to myself
that I was planning.
I just happened to bump intothose ones, right?
But this one was planned, startto finish, consciously planned.
(16:17):
And I was it was such a reliefwhen I got to Seattle to be able
to tell these guys what I'vedone.
Now, what I was expecting waskind of some soft, kind
understanding and some comfort.
Oh man! He just confronted mewith the ugliness, not only of
(16:41):
what I'd done, but of thispattern of lying, all this
deceit, just how ugly it was.
And then they told me, okay, yougot to tell your wife, and I
went, no way, absolutely no,absolutely not.
You do not understand.
You don't understand howvulnerable Allie is, you don't
understand the dynamics of ourrelationship, you don't know the
(17:04):
destruction it'll cause.
No, absolutely not.
I said, you owe it to her, youowe it to yourself, you know, I
get free, you don't tell her.
I wrestled and wrestled withthat.
Then they said, I said, look, Iwill tell my closest guys in
Samson, and I'll tell themembers of my board.
(17:25):
I'll tell the guys who I owe itto tell because I've been lying
to them all this time.
But I'm not going to make ageneral announcement, and I and
the word better not get out.
Because, and I actually saidthis, this will tell you how
sick I was, Drew.
I said, the Samson Society isthe bridge to recovery for
(17:49):
millions of Christian men, and Iam the symbol of that bridge.
If word gets out that I haverelapsed, it will blow up the
bridge, and millions of men willperish.
(18:12):
But I was convinced it was true.
I'm indispensable.
And I owe it to these people tolie.
It's not the first time in mylife when I've lied for Jesus'
sake, right?
But at any rate, they kept itup.
So it's Saturday night, I'mabsolutely exhausted.
I finally decide to call Allie.
(18:34):
I decide, all right, I get maybethey're right.
Maybe they're right.
I need to tell her.
So I get her on the phone, shesays, How's it going?
I says, Man, this is this isit's quite a quite a weekend.
I said, Look, when I get backhome, I need to tell you
something.
And she said, Well, last timeyou started a conversation like
(18:56):
that, it was Hooker's.
I said, Well, it's it's notHooker's exactly.
She said, just come on home.
We'll be okay.
And at that moment I knew I hadtotally misjudged this woman.
I had totally discounted thefruit of 27 years of recovery.
(19:22):
That there was a foundationthere that wasn't there at first
disclosure.
But this woman has some maturityand some experience.
She's she's done a lot of workherself.
She understands that it's notabout her.
And she has a genuine concernfor me and my health.
And they also told me, Nate, youneed to step back from Samson
(19:45):
and you need to go to treatment.
And I'd never been to treatment,Drew.
When I got started, treatmentwasn't even a freaking option,
right?
And I didn't have the moneyanyway.
So I've never been to treatment.
So anyway, I'm Just crying myeyes out, trying to.
I had a big meeting scheduledfor right after.
Big right after I canceled thatmeeting.
(20:08):
And trying to drive throughtears, and I'm calling the
members of my my close friendsand the guys on the Samson
board, and I call my chairmanand say, look, there's a meeting
next Tuesday.
I'm not going to be there.
I can't be there.
I have to step back.
I've had her, I tell him thestory, and I say, Look, I owe
you the biggest apology.
I dishonored our friendship.
(20:30):
I didn't trust you.
I'm sorry.
And I had a lot of thoseconversations.
And oddly, nobody pulled back.
The amazing thing was they allleaned in.
And actually, in many cases, ourrelationship went deeper at that
(20:54):
moment.
Well, one guy did really getangry.
A couple guys, I mean, they weredisappointed, but they
understood and they s theyprocessed it.
One guy did say, I'm pissed atyou.
He's a good friend.
I'm pissed at you.
What made you think you couldn'ttell me?
(21:16):
Don't ever lie to me like thatagain.
And then he said, you know, howmuch is it going to cost to go
to treatment?
I didn't know how I was goingto.
And he wrote a big check to helppay for it.
So the treatment place I wasgoing to go to, I found it's a
very intense, very professional.
I couldn't do 30 days.
(21:37):
This is a week, but man, it isan intense week with a whole
team of therapists andpsychiatrists and 16-hour days.
They wouldn't accept me until Ihad a therapist.
So I called Roan Hunter, askedfor a therapist.
I said, Roan, you're my friend.
You can't be my therapist.
Who would you recommend?
He says, Well, my therapist isEli Mage, and he's and he's a
(22:00):
legend.
Eli's been around for freakingever.
He knows this territory.
He's also very busy.
But Roan made the call, and Elisaid he would he would see Allie
and me for three days ofintensive work.
So we went to Asheville forthat.
And then he conferred with theteam at PCS in Scottsdale, and I
went.
(22:22):
And I went and cried for a week,true.
And I want to tell you, I hadn'tcried in 50 years.
More than 50 years.
I hadn't cried at my mother'sfuneral, and I hadn't cried
since.
I've been told all along thatgrief is a major part of
(22:43):
recovery.
And I tried to think my waythrough grief, but I'd never
experienced, never processed,never experienced loss.
I hadn't been allowed to as akid, and then never allowed
myself to do it as an adult.
Man, it was so deep and sohealing.
It's amazing, Allie and I, youknow, we got so much closer.
(23:08):
And I we were close already.
But Allie had seen that there'dbeen kind of a distance, because
I was hiding from her, right?
And that distance was over.
And I I had been humbled.
I hadn't been humiliated, but Ihad been humbled, and I needed
(23:29):
that humbling desperately.
I also needed to become moreemotionally alive and more
emotionally available.
And all of that happened onlybecause I was finally pushed to
the point of desperation by arelapse.
(23:50):
Allie now says, and I agree withher, the relapse was the best
thing that's happened to us in along time.
It was freaking necessary.
I wasn't going to get the helpany other way.
I was concerned about goingpublic with it.
And I waited a year before Itold the story on the podcast.
(24:13):
My dip friends did caution menot to do it too early.
I still had a little bit oftrepidation, although I'd gotten
so much positive.
I'm fine, you know, talking withguys, whether they were my close
friends or not, even disclosed,I started disclosing it in
newcomer meetings and thingslike that, small venues.
(24:34):
And I found that every time Idid, it tended to make the room
a little safer and theconversation a little more
honest.
Yeah.
And as it turns out, talkingabout it on the podcast was a
good decision.
I will tell you this, I'vegotten a lot of visits and a lot
of phone calls since thatepisode aired.
(24:57):
People have driven or flownconsiderable distances to come
and tell me things they didn'tthink they could tell anybody
else in order to break a cyclethat was killing them.
So now I'm actually working on asecond book, almost 20 years
after the first, a story.
I'm writing the story of Allieand me.
I want to give hope to othercouples, right?
(25:18):
That you can actually more thansurvive, you can thrive in
recovery.
So I'm working on a memoir.
It's actually an instructionalbook, inspirational book
disguised as a memoir, but I'mtelling our story, right?
I've decided that the story hasto include the relapse.
(25:40):
That may come as adisappointment to people who
want the Hollywood ending.
They want the turn to happenpermanently early on, so that we
just ride off into the sunsetand there's never a problem
again.
The problem with that is itisn't true.
And that fable sets up so manypeople for despair.
(26:06):
So it's going to be a good book.
It'll be funny and it'll beheart-touching and it'll be
informative and it'll be tragicand it'll be true.
SPEAKER_01 (26:16):
It'll be true.
Thank you, Nate.
Yeah.
How are you feeling right nowafter sharing?
Oh, I feel good.
For anyone listening to this ina leadership position, secretly
wrestling with how much toshare, who to share it with,
(26:36):
what's going to happen if Ishare?
It seems like there are so manyleaders who are wondering, how
do I be vulnerable?
Can I be vulnerable?
Is it a good idea?
What would you say to thatperson?
Be careful.
SPEAKER_02 (26:52):
You don't cast your pearls before swine, right?
You don't have to go out andmake a grand announcement to
everybody necessarily.
You don't have to climb up onthe cross and volunteer for
crucifixion.
But if you are in recovery,there are safe places and safe
(27:12):
people.
It's absolutely fatal tocontinue to try to do the
impossible and climb out of thatditch alone.
And actually, I mean, we live inthis crazy upside-down gospel
world.
Our instincts are wrong.
It's only things that die thatlive.
Whoever tries to preserve hislife will lose it.
(27:33):
Whoever tries to preserve hisministry will lose it.
I was absolutely haunted by thestory of Rabbi Zacharias, who
managed to maintain a reputationall the way through death, but
the whole thing blew up whenword got out after he passed.
And it was absolutely tragic.
(27:55):
He didn't believe it at thetime, but I know there were men
in Robbie's life who he couldhave told.
And it wouldn't have destroyedhis ministry.
SPEAKER_01 (28:05):
At what point should a leader go public?
SPEAKER_02 (28:10):
I really leaned on my brothers for that.
I have a bit of an exhibitioniststreak in me.
And having told the initialstory of my addiction so many
times, I can sometimes get a bitof a perverse out of making
people uncomfortable because Iknow this is surgery that's
desperately needed anyway.
(28:31):
So I kind of have that heartlesssurgeon's approach, right?
Yeah, I don't think there's aone-size fits-all story.
But I think, first of all, Ithink it's a mistake to try to
get forgiveness from everybodyby making this public apology
right away as a way to geteverybody's forgiveness.
(28:53):
We've seen a lot of guys makethat mistake.
I don't know.
The church at large is notreally good at forgiving failed
leaders.
I think it's absolutelyessential to face fully the
facts of what you've done, howit went down, who it affected.
I'll tell you what, Andrew andTrent were right.
(29:15):
I needed to step back.
I needed to go to treatment.
And then I needed some time tointernalize what I learned in
treatment, to walk it out, youknow, to get back solid on a
good road before I stepped backinto leading Samson.
So I did, I stepped back.
(29:36):
It was just kind of myunexplained absence from podcast
for a while, and Aaron Porterjust carried.
We had some I had a bunch ofepisodes already in the can, so
they went for a while, and thenAaron just took over.
And I just stopped going out andspeaking, and I just stayed here
and did my work.
Here's the thing.
I got reckless, man.
(29:57):
Before the slip.
Early on in Samson, I had apolicy.
Nate never travels alone.
And so Allie had the first shotat every trip, and if she didn't
want to go, then one of mybrothers went with me.
And I maintained that policyfor, oh, 15 years.
And then I started, you know, itstarted to get expensive.
Allie couldn't always go withme, and it wasn't always easy to
(30:20):
find a guy, and it gotexpensive, and I was doing fine.
So I dropped that policy.
I uh was not good at makingmyself visible and accountable.
There were times when nobodyknew where I was.
And I was okay with that.
I excused it.
Having had this wake-up call, Imean, when I got back, we put
(30:42):
the old, I put, I put the oldguardrails back in place.
I don't travel alone anymore.
I've got 360, you know, life 360on my phone and two different
circles, I got friends watchingme, I got my family watching me.
Everybody knows where I am atall times.
(31:03):
And I feel safe with that.
By the time I was stable, andwhen I knew that my disclosing
it publicly would be good forthe public and not for me.
I wasn't doing it for personalreasons.
I wasn't doing it to try tosalvage a reputation.
(31:24):
I was doing it to try tostrengthen a brotherhood and
encourage other people to somebadly needed healing.
Then it was an appropriate timefor me to say it.
SPEAKER_01 (31:35):
I can see how going public with a relapse or a
pattern of secrecy could beserving a leader's own agenda
rather than for the good ofothers.
SPEAKER_02 (31:46):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (31:47):
Yeah.
So you had to discern that.
SPEAKER_02 (31:50):
Yeah, yeah.
And it wasn't just mydiscernment.
I mean, Allie was in on thedecision.
My close friends were in on thedecision.
SPEAKER_01 (31:58):
What did Allie need from you after she found out?
SPEAKER_02 (32:03):
It was amazing, man.
She just needed me to be close.
That's all.
She knew I was wrecked.
She knew I was sorry.
The crazy thing is she didn'tneed anything.
She just wanted me.
SPEAKER_01 (32:20):
And it would have been okay if she needed
something else.
SPEAKER_02 (32:26):
She didn't ask me to, you know, put the location
thing on my phone, but I wantedto give it to her, right?
She didn't ask me to, you know,put my my old guardrails back in
place.
But I was already, you know,wanting to do that.
How beautiful that she wantedyou.
Yeah.
(32:47):
Yeah.
Yeah.
The instinct to hide is an oldinstinct.
It runs deep.
Because I'll tell you what, Igrew up in Christian
environments that were not safeto tell the truth.
I learned to lie out ofself-preservation.
We're wired for survival.
I learned to lie to survive.
(33:09):
And there's still this part ofmy brain that says it's too
dangerous to tell the truth.
You have to lie to survive.
But I live in a world todaywhere it is not necessary for me
to lie, and I forgot that.
You know, I go to a wonderfulchurch, but I did tell the
pastor, and I got kind of this.
(33:30):
The way he responded was just alittle, I thought he doesn't
really get it.
But I have entire communities.
I got the Samson Societycommunity.
It's safe.
Husband material, I know, issafe.
I'm in a pure desire group.
It's safe.
I don't have to lie anymore.
(33:52):
I don't have to lie to my wife.
I don't have to lie to myfriends.
I don't have to lie to myself.
And unfortunately, I forgot thatfor a while.
SPEAKER_01 (34:05):
What does it feel like to be telling the truth
again?
SPEAKER_02 (34:10):
Oh, it's uh yeah.
Yeah.
But anybody who's, you know, hasexperienced getting honest knows
what a great relief it is.
SPEAKER_01 (34:19):
And your fears didn't come true?
Living a lie is a hard thing todo.
The bridge is still intact.
SPEAKER_02 (34:25):
Yeah.
And you know what?
Even if I had lost somerelationships, regaining my
integrity would have been worthit.
But the amazing thing is, Ireally didn't lose any
relationships.
If anything, they got deeper.
SPEAKER_01 (34:42):
That's what I see in husband material as well.
Whenever one of our leaders getsto the point where there's
something really significantthat they need to disclose to
the community, the outpouring oflove is just an avalanche of
(35:05):
appreciation.
SPEAKER_02 (35:06):
Yeah, yeah.
We have to keep pushing backagainst this diabolical,
perfectionistic, demandingversion of recovery that in the
end is legalistic, that isungracious, that takes us away
from the healing love of acompassionate and understanding
Heavenly Father.
SPEAKER_01 (35:27):
Amen.
Yeah.
A father who says, Come home.
Yeah.
Yeah.
unknown (35:35):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (35:35):
Just like Ali told you, come home.
That's what it was.
Maybe God was speaking throughher.
SPEAKER_02 (35:41):
Yeah.
You think?
Holy slow.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (35:50):
And I also appreciate you sharing your
experience at the intensivebecause sometimes we need to be
confronted.
SPEAKER_02 (35:56):
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
I don't like to be confronted,but my ego is strong enough.
There are times when I requireit.
SPEAKER_01 (36:04):
And there's a way of confronting with compassion and
curiosity.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (36:11):
I really was resistant when they came at.
They were not being cruel, butthey were being firm.
Yes.
SPEAKER_01 (36:18):
And sometimes if I had to critique my own
community, we could probablygrow in being firm.
SPEAKER_02 (36:30):
Yeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (36:31):
Because we don't want to become comfortable.
SPEAKER_02 (36:34):
Right, right.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (36:35):
I think there's a difference between a safe space
and a comfortable space.
Very good.
That is a vital distinctionright there.
Yeah.
And something I've learned fromAndrew Bauman is maybe we should
call it a brave space.
Because it won't be comfortable.
SPEAKER_02 (36:53):
Yeah.
I always want to think that it'smy brilliant ideas and it's my
great successes that are goingto make a difference in this
world.
When Paul always talks aboutbeing a fool for Christ, and
this idea, as it turns out, it'smy failures that are most
useful.
SPEAKER_01 (37:15):
That's true.
Right?
He says, I will boast about myweaknesses so that the power of
Christ may rest on me.
Not my strengths.
Yeah, not my performance.
Yeah.
Not my good morals or Christianreputation.
(37:36):
It's like, no.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (37:39):
I'm making a run at that chief of sinners thing that
Paul has claimed.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
And he was still an apostle.
SPEAKER_01 (37:51):
Yeah.
Thank you for your vulnerabilityand your leadership in how you
have responded to this relapse.
SPEAKER_02 (38:00):
I'm in the company of good men who helped me do the
right thing.
SPEAKER_01 (38:04):
Well, guys, if you want to connect with Nate and if
you want to go to the SamsonSociety and find more safe
spaces to be truly honest andvulnerable so that you can be
held, so that you can be healed,go down to the links in the show
notes and always remember youare God's beloved son.
And you, he is well pleased.
Welcome to the Husband Material podcast, where
we help Christian men outgrowporn.
Why?
So you can change your brain,heal your heart, and save your
relationship.
My name is Drew Boa, and I'mhere to show you how.
Let's go.
SPEAKER_01 (00:19):
Today's episode was special.
Nate Larkin, founder of theStanison Society, opens up about
a season of relapse that tookplace in his life while he was a
leader.
And while Nate's story isuncomfortable and may be
triggering for some listeners, Ithink it's really important for
us to witness what can happenwhen a leader begins to drift
(00:43):
and isolate and perform andpretend.
And if you are a leader who iswrestling with whether or not to
share your patterns of secrecyor sexually acting out, I
encourage you to listen.
And at the end of the episode,Nate talks about what went into
his decision to go public withthis and what we truly need in
(01:05):
the end.
If you're ready for a real, raw,deeply personal story of a
leader relapsing and recovering,keep listening.
Today we get the delight ofhanging out with Nate Larkin,
who is the founder of the SamsonSociety, author of Samson and
the Pirate Monks, and alsoco-host of the Pirate Monk
(01:28):
Podcast.
YR! It's great to be with you,Drew.
Thank you for the invitation.
You're welcome.
And I'm really excited about theSamson Society app, which just
launched by the time this comesout.
SPEAKER_02 (01:42):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yep.
We're going to debut it at theNational Summit in Santa Fe, New
Mexico, the weekend of November7, 8, and 9.
Team's been working on it forquite a while.
We actually followed your lead,Drew.
You guys were the first we heardof to go with the Mighty
Networks platform.
And our web platform was gettinga little antiquated, and we
(02:03):
didn't have a workable app.
So we really respect and admirewhat you guys are doing at
Husband Material.
So we shamelessly copied you.
Great.
We're just trying to make iteasier than ever for men to
connect.
Because that's what it's allabout, right?
It's about authentic connection.
It's what we're built for, whatwe're wired for, what we all
(02:25):
desperately need.
And when we can't get it safely,we're vulnerable to all kinds of
workarounds that can lead todisastrous consequences.
SPEAKER_01 (02:35):
And when it comes to free, consistent opportunities
for connection, I refer peopleto Samson Society.
Every day of the week, anywherein the world, you can go to a
meeting and connect with men onthe same journey.
SPEAKER_02 (02:52):
That's it, right there.
Yeah.
And we're really hoping to rampup.
We've got lots of meetings everyday, but we want to have even
more meetings by the end of2026.
Our goal is to have at least onemeeting every hour of every day.
SPEAKER_01 (03:05):
Wow.
One of the things that I wasimmediately struck by when I
first watched you tell yourstory in the I Am Second video,
which is like legendary for menow, is just how vulnerable you
are as a leader, and how muchyou know you need the things
(03:27):
that you're offering.
That has really influenced me.
SPEAKER_02 (03:31):
Here's the dangerous part that vulnerability becomes
more and more difficult whenyou're in leadership.
I mean, it it can, it doesn'thave to, but it can, and it did
for me.
It is possible for us as leadersto start to imagine that so many
people are depending on us, thattheir sobriety, their stability
(03:54):
depends on our continued,unblemished, unvarnished
success.
That when we do start to slip,it just would be too
discouraging, maybe evencatastrophic for me to let
anybody else know.
And it's possible for us asleaders to start to think of
ourselves more highly than weought to think.
(04:17):
Imagine that we're more vital tothis process than we actually
are, and we can start once againto perform.
I was so good at performing thatI hid my addiction for 20 years.
Nobody knew I wasn't caught.
I was really good atmisdirection.
I'm good on stage.
I can freaking perform.
(04:38):
That wiring is still intact.
But performing is deadly for me.
I have caught myself beforeperforming in, you know, in a
recovery meeting.
I'm always inspired whensomebody else does the brave
thing to be brutally honest andexposes my own hypocrisy, and I
(05:00):
realize I'm just taking the edgeoff the truth.
I'm polishing things just alittle bit.
I'm really trying to appear alittle better than I am.
And so sometimes I'm justencouraged by the example of
somebody else's vulnerability toget more vulnerable myself.
But it is possible to go off therails.
And anybody who is a regularlistener to the Pirate Monk
(05:24):
podcast, if they've listenedwithin the last month or so, six
weeks, I don't know when it cameout, they know that we had the
Nate Larkin relapse episodewhere I talked about it.
What I found out is that themessage actually was a great
encouragement to an awful lot ofpeople.
And we're still reaping goodfruit from telling the truth.
SPEAKER_01 (05:49):
Can you say more about what happened?
SPEAKER_02 (05:51):
Here's the thing: relapses don't happen suddenly,
they evolve, right?
It's a misstep followed byanother misstep by another.
A slip is not immediately aslide.
But a slip seen, admitted,corrected, is inevitable.
(06:13):
None of us walk this recoveryjourney perfectly.
All of us lose our footing fromtime to time.
And so it's absolutely essentialthat we be walking with other
people, that we disclose whatwe're doing, that they're
watchful to what's going on, sowe don't wander too far.
But if we start to imagine thatwe're a little bit above the
(06:35):
crowd, if we're performing alittle bit, it is possible for
us to fool ourselves and foolother people.
So in my case, uh Allie and I,you know, we started the Samson
Society in 2004 in Franklin,Tennessee.
At that point, I was six yearsinto my own recovery from porn
and sex addiction, and I'dworked with a sponsor who
introduced me early to going onwalks.
(06:58):
There's something magical aboutgoing on a walk with another
man.
It's got a little easier to talkwhen we're outside.
And, you know, and I also thinkthat there's something to the
bilateral stimulation of walkingthat I think helps the thinking
process and the learningprocess.
So when we started Samson, bythe time we started Samson, I
(07:21):
was already walking with guys.
I'd been walking with guys for awhile.
And I walked the streets ofFranklin, Tennessee for more
than 20 years.
I was a fixture downtown.
I had friends everywhere.
I know that town.
I know every crack in thesidewalk, right?
And it's to me, it's a sacredplace.
And we lived right downtown in ahundred-year-old two-story house
(07:43):
with the master bedroom on thesecond floor.
Now, my wife, who I dearly love,is 10 years older than I am, and
now is experiencing some of thejoys of aging.
And it was becoming increasinglydifficult for her to make her up
the very make her way up thesteep steps to the bedroom.
(08:03):
And I'm gone a lot.
And one of my nightmares was herfalling down those stairs when I
was gone.
Our daughter had, who had livedfor many years in Franklin, was
finally priced out of themarket, and she moved an hour
away to a little town calledMount Pleasant.
When it became clear that we hadto move, we decided to move to
(08:26):
Mount Pleasant.
And I told myself and everybodyelse that it was no big deal.
Yes, I'm moving away from all myfriends.
Yes, I'm moving away from myroutines.
Yes, I'm moving away from all myconnections, but I'm a good
husband.
I love my wife.
We're moving to be four doorsaway from our daughter and our
(08:46):
grandkids.
It's no big deal.
It's actually a good thing.
I was lying to myself and I waslying to other people.
The resentment was starting tobuild.
I was doing a few things.
I was playing bigger than I am.
I didn't want to own the sadnessand the reluctance and the grief
or admit the resentment tomyself or anybody else.
(09:07):
But we put the house up forsale.
I did all the preparation, thepacking for moving.
We bought a house in MountPleasant, but it wasn't going to
be ready for months.
So we had to pack everything forstorage, and I did that myself.
I could have asked for help.
I didn't.
And then we decided to spend theintervening months with my son
(09:30):
and his family in Amelia Island,Florida.
And now we're going to be ableto stay longer.
Now, Allie can't make that driveanymore.
So the plan was we would do thefinal packing, we'd go to the
closing on the house, I wouldtake Allie to the airport, put
her on a plane, my son wouldpick her up in Jacksonville, and
I'd bring the dog and oursuitcases and I would drive.
(09:54):
As I dropped Allie off thatafternoon, it was already
afternoon by the time, I put heron the plane.
She said, Hey, don't try todon't be a hero.
Don't try to drive straightthrough.
When you get tired, stop.
And I told her I would.
My back was killing me.
I was exhausted.
(10:14):
I was driving away from Franklinand my friends.
And anyway, I stopped south ofAtlanta.
And during this time, by theway, my drinking had been
accelerating.
I was medicating my resentmentwith alcohol.
(10:37):
Stopped that night south ofAtlanta, had dinner at a Mexican
restaurant.
I had one beer that turned intotwo beers and I don't know,
maybe three beers.
But I was clearly out of onebeer territory by then.
All I know is when I came out ofthe restaurant, I looked across
the parking lot and saw amassage parlor.
(10:58):
And I hadn't been in a massageparlor in 20 years.
And suddenly it seemed like agood idea.
My back hurt.
I deserved it.
I told myself it was just amassage, but I knew I knew
better.
But I went in.
And I had the massage completewith a happy ending, right?
(11:19):
Well, as you can imagine comingout of that, I just felt
absolutely horrible.
And my first thought was, oh, Ican't tell anybody this.
I can't tell Allie.
She trusts me implicitly.
I'm she's struggling, I'm herrock.
It would shake her world.
I just can't tell her.
And I can't tell the guyseither, because they're all
(11:40):
dependent on me.
If word ever got out, it wouldprobably destroy the Samson
Society.
So this is one and done.
It will never happen again.
I'm gonna suck it up, I'm done.
And I didn't do it again rightaway.
But the next time I had to goout of town to speak, I did it
(12:02):
again.
Well, then I really gave myselfa good talking to.
And, you know, got serious, gotback into just doing some
journaling and all that kind ofstuff.
All the private disciplines thatare necessary, but not
sufficient to keep us sober,right?
(12:22):
I was neglecting this vitalingredient called honesty and
brotherhood.
But I tried to do it myself.
And I did succeed for the nextcouple opportunities I passed.
That's the tricky thing.
If it's it's tougher for thoseof us who the alcoholics call
the periodic drinks, uh drunksto get sober, because every time
(12:42):
we manage to pass up theopportunity, it feeds the
illusion that we have thecapacity to be sober.
And then when we finally dofail, the condemnation is twice
as bad because the message wehear is you low down.
You didn't have to do that.
unknown (13:02):
You know.
SPEAKER_02 (13:03):
What I did tell myself, I know I had to talk
about this, but what I toldmyself was, you know, the reason
I did it was because I wasdrinking.
I need to stop drinking.
So I resolved to stop drinking,which turned out to be much more
difficult than I thought.
And I that was a safe thing totalk about.
I started talking about drinkingto my friends.
(13:24):
I talked about drinking on thepodcast.
I talked about, and eventually,uh what's called uh Deer Camp.
I was a men's fellowship retreatthing out in the woods in
Mississippi, and it wasn't aSamson thing, and I wasn't in
charge, and I was just one ofthe initiates, just one of the
guys, completely safe.
(13:45):
Up until that, yeah, I did tellguys I wanted to stop drinking,
but I wasn't being completelyhonest about the amount of
alcohol I was consuming or thefrequency with which I was
drinking.
I kept minimizing publicly.
The drinking was worse than Iwas telling anybody, and it kept
(14:05):
getting worse.
But that night out in the woods,I just decided just to dump the
truck, and I told every uglydetail about my alcohol.
And amazingly, the urge to drinkdisappeared.
(14:26):
This was amazing.
I got back home and I'm notdrinking anymore.
Fantastic.
We've got this thing, and then Ifound out I could still act out
sober.
I did it again.
That's just awful.
And now I'm back in the spotwhere it's hard to look at
myself in the mirror.
(14:47):
If I go out to speak, I knowwhat the things I'm saying are
true, but I'm not beingtruthful.
I am charting the road torecovery, and I am telling the
story, but I'm not telling thewhole story.
And that's a rotten place to be,let me tell you.
I went, as to the best of myrecollection, I went to massage
(15:11):
parlors a total of seven times.
Finally, uh, some of the Samsonguys had gone to a really high
intensity intensive with a guynamed Andrew Bowman out in
Washington State.
And I decided, you know what,I'm gonna go there.
(15:33):
And I'm gonna get honest there.
It's not a Samson thing.
I'm not in charge.
These guys are safe.
I'm gonna, I've gotta tell, I'vegot to spill the beans, I'll
tell them.
So I register for the treat.
I actually stop in Denver on theway to act out one last time.
Just like a final toot, youknow, before going into rehab,
(15:54):
you know, like any good addict.
And it was stupid.
That last one, that last one Iplanned.
I planned every detail.
The other ones, yes, I planned,but I didn't admit to myself
that I was planning.
I just happened to bump intothose ones, right?
But this one was planned, startto finish, consciously planned.
(16:17):
And I was it was such a reliefwhen I got to Seattle to be able
to tell these guys what I'vedone.
Now, what I was expecting waskind of some soft, kind
understanding and some comfort.
Oh man! He just confronted mewith the ugliness, not only of
(16:41):
what I'd done, but of thispattern of lying, all this
deceit, just how ugly it was.
And then they told me, okay, yougot to tell your wife, and I
went, no way, absolutely no,absolutely not.
You do not understand.
You don't understand howvulnerable Allie is, you don't
understand the dynamics of ourrelationship, you don't know the
(17:04):
destruction it'll cause.
No, absolutely not.
I said, you owe it to her, youowe it to yourself, you know, I
get free, you don't tell her.
I wrestled and wrestled withthat.
Then they said, I said, look, Iwill tell my closest guys in
Samson, and I'll tell themembers of my board.
(17:25):
I'll tell the guys who I owe itto tell because I've been lying
to them all this time.
But I'm not going to make ageneral announcement, and I and
the word better not get out.
Because, and I actually saidthis, this will tell you how
sick I was, Drew.
I said, the Samson Society isthe bridge to recovery for
(17:49):
millions of Christian men, and Iam the symbol of that bridge.
If word gets out that I haverelapsed, it will blow up the
bridge, and millions of men willperish.
(18:12):
But I was convinced it was true.
I'm indispensable.
And I owe it to these people tolie.
It's not the first time in mylife when I've lied for Jesus'
sake, right?
But at any rate, they kept itup.
So it's Saturday night, I'mabsolutely exhausted.
I finally decide to call Allie.
(18:34):
I decide, all right, I get maybethey're right.
Maybe they're right.
I need to tell her.
So I get her on the phone, shesays, How's it going?
I says, Man, this is this isit's quite a quite a weekend.
I said, Look, when I get backhome, I need to tell you
something.
And she said, Well, last timeyou started a conversation like
(18:56):
that, it was Hooker's.
I said, Well, it's it's notHooker's exactly.
She said, just come on home.
We'll be okay.
And at that moment I knew I hadtotally misjudged this woman.
I had totally discounted thefruit of 27 years of recovery.
(19:22):
That there was a foundationthere that wasn't there at first
disclosure.
But this woman has some maturityand some experience.
She's she's done a lot of workherself.
She understands that it's notabout her.
And she has a genuine concernfor me and my health.
And they also told me, Nate, youneed to step back from Samson
(19:45):
and you need to go to treatment.
And I'd never been to treatment,Drew.
When I got started, treatmentwasn't even a freaking option,
right?
And I didn't have the moneyanyway.
So I've never been to treatment.
So anyway, I'm Just crying myeyes out, trying to.
I had a big meeting scheduledfor right after.
Big right after I canceled thatmeeting.
(20:08):
And trying to drive throughtears, and I'm calling the
members of my my close friendsand the guys on the Samson
board, and I call my chairmanand say, look, there's a meeting
next Tuesday.
I'm not going to be there.
I can't be there.
I have to step back.
I've had her, I tell him thestory, and I say, Look, I owe
you the biggest apology.
I dishonored our friendship.
(20:30):
I didn't trust you.
I'm sorry.
And I had a lot of thoseconversations.
And oddly, nobody pulled back.
The amazing thing was they allleaned in.
And actually, in many cases, ourrelationship went deeper at that
(20:54):
moment.
Well, one guy did really getangry.
A couple guys, I mean, they weredisappointed, but they
understood and they s theyprocessed it.
One guy did say, I'm pissed atyou.
He's a good friend.
I'm pissed at you.
What made you think you couldn'ttell me?
(21:16):
Don't ever lie to me like thatagain.
And then he said, you know, howmuch is it going to cost to go
to treatment?
I didn't know how I was goingto.
And he wrote a big check to helppay for it.
So the treatment place I wasgoing to go to, I found it's a
very intense, very professional.
I couldn't do 30 days.
(21:37):
This is a week, but man, it isan intense week with a whole
team of therapists andpsychiatrists and 16-hour days.
They wouldn't accept me until Ihad a therapist.
So I called Roan Hunter, askedfor a therapist.
I said, Roan, you're my friend.
You can't be my therapist.
Who would you recommend?
He says, Well, my therapist isEli Mage, and he's and he's a
(22:00):
legend.
Eli's been around for freakingever.
He knows this territory.
He's also very busy.
But Roan made the call, and Elisaid he would he would see Allie
and me for three days ofintensive work.
So we went to Asheville forthat.
And then he conferred with theteam at PCS in Scottsdale, and I
went.
(22:22):
And I went and cried for a week,true.
And I want to tell you, I hadn'tcried in 50 years.
More than 50 years.
I hadn't cried at my mother'sfuneral, and I hadn't cried
since.
I've been told all along thatgrief is a major part of
(22:43):
recovery.
And I tried to think my waythrough grief, but I'd never
experienced, never processed,never experienced loss.
I hadn't been allowed to as akid, and then never allowed
myself to do it as an adult.
Man, it was so deep and sohealing.
It's amazing, Allie and I, youknow, we got so much closer.
(23:08):
And I we were close already.
But Allie had seen that there'dbeen kind of a distance, because
I was hiding from her, right?
And that distance was over.
And I I had been humbled.
I hadn't been humiliated, but Ihad been humbled, and I needed
(23:29):
that humbling desperately.
I also needed to become moreemotionally alive and more
emotionally available.
And all of that happened onlybecause I was finally pushed to
the point of desperation by arelapse.
(23:50):
Allie now says, and I agree withher, the relapse was the best
thing that's happened to us in along time.
It was freaking necessary.
I wasn't going to get the helpany other way.
I was concerned about goingpublic with it.
And I waited a year before Itold the story on the podcast.
(24:13):
My dip friends did caution menot to do it too early.
I still had a little bit oftrepidation, although I'd gotten
so much positive.
I'm fine, you know, talking withguys, whether they were my close
friends or not, even disclosed,I started disclosing it in
newcomer meetings and thingslike that, small venues.
(24:34):
And I found that every time Idid, it tended to make the room
a little safer and theconversation a little more
honest.
Yeah.
And as it turns out, talkingabout it on the podcast was a
good decision.
I will tell you this, I'vegotten a lot of visits and a lot
of phone calls since thatepisode aired.
(24:57):
People have driven or flownconsiderable distances to come
and tell me things they didn'tthink they could tell anybody
else in order to break a cyclethat was killing them.
So now I'm actually working on asecond book, almost 20 years
after the first, a story.
I'm writing the story of Allieand me.
I want to give hope to othercouples, right?
(25:18):
That you can actually more thansurvive, you can thrive in
recovery.
So I'm working on a memoir.
It's actually an instructionalbook, inspirational book
disguised as a memoir, but I'mtelling our story, right?
I've decided that the story hasto include the relapse.
(25:40):
That may come as adisappointment to people who
want the Hollywood ending.
They want the turn to happenpermanently early on, so that we
just ride off into the sunsetand there's never a problem
again.
The problem with that is itisn't true.
And that fable sets up so manypeople for despair.
(26:06):
So it's going to be a good book.
It'll be funny and it'll beheart-touching and it'll be
informative and it'll be tragicand it'll be true.
SPEAKER_01 (26:16):
It'll be true.
Thank you, Nate.
Yeah.
How are you feeling right nowafter sharing?
Oh, I feel good.
For anyone listening to this ina leadership position, secretly
wrestling with how much toshare, who to share it with,
(26:36):
what's going to happen if Ishare?
It seems like there are so manyleaders who are wondering, how
do I be vulnerable?
Can I be vulnerable?
Is it a good idea?
What would you say to thatperson?
Be careful.
SPEAKER_02 (26:52):
You don't cast your pearls before swine, right?
You don't have to go out andmake a grand announcement to
everybody necessarily.
You don't have to climb up onthe cross and volunteer for
crucifixion.
But if you are in recovery,there are safe places and safe
(27:12):
people.
It's absolutely fatal tocontinue to try to do the
impossible and climb out of thatditch alone.
And actually, I mean, we live inthis crazy upside-down gospel
world.
Our instincts are wrong.
It's only things that die thatlive.
Whoever tries to preserve hislife will lose it.
(27:33):
Whoever tries to preserve hisministry will lose it.
I was absolutely haunted by thestory of Rabbi Zacharias, who
managed to maintain a reputationall the way through death, but
the whole thing blew up whenword got out after he passed.
And it was absolutely tragic.
(27:55):
He didn't believe it at thetime, but I know there were men
in Robbie's life who he couldhave told.
And it wouldn't have destroyedhis ministry.
SPEAKER_01 (28:05):
At what point should a leader go public?
SPEAKER_02 (28:10):
I really leaned on my brothers for that.
I have a bit of an exhibitioniststreak in me.
And having told the initialstory of my addiction so many
times, I can sometimes get a bitof a perverse out of making
people uncomfortable because Iknow this is surgery that's
desperately needed anyway.
(28:31):
So I kind of have that heartlesssurgeon's approach, right?
Yeah, I don't think there's aone-size fits-all story.
But I think, first of all, Ithink it's a mistake to try to
get forgiveness from everybodyby making this public apology
right away as a way to geteverybody's forgiveness.
(28:53):
We've seen a lot of guys makethat mistake.
I don't know.
The church at large is notreally good at forgiving failed
leaders.
I think it's absolutelyessential to face fully the
facts of what you've done, howit went down, who it affected.
I'll tell you what, Andrew andTrent were right.
(29:15):
I needed to step back.
I needed to go to treatment.
And then I needed some time tointernalize what I learned in
treatment, to walk it out, youknow, to get back solid on a
good road before I stepped backinto leading Samson.
So I did, I stepped back.
(29:36):
It was just kind of myunexplained absence from podcast
for a while, and Aaron Porterjust carried.
We had some I had a bunch ofepisodes already in the can, so
they went for a while, and thenAaron just took over.
And I just stopped going out andspeaking, and I just stayed here
and did my work.
Here's the thing.
I got reckless, man.
(29:57):
Before the slip.
Early on in Samson, I had apolicy.
Nate never travels alone.
And so Allie had the first shotat every trip, and if she didn't
want to go, then one of mybrothers went with me.
And I maintained that policyfor, oh, 15 years.
And then I started, you know, itstarted to get expensive.
Allie couldn't always go withme, and it wasn't always easy to
(30:20):
find a guy, and it gotexpensive, and I was doing fine.
So I dropped that policy.
I uh was not good at makingmyself visible and accountable.
There were times when nobodyknew where I was.
And I was okay with that.
I excused it.
Having had this wake-up call, Imean, when I got back, we put
(30:42):
the old, I put, I put the oldguardrails back in place.
I don't travel alone anymore.
I've got 360, you know, life 360on my phone and two different
circles, I got friends watchingme, I got my family watching me.
Everybody knows where I am atall times.
(31:03):
And I feel safe with that.
By the time I was stable, andwhen I knew that my disclosing
it publicly would be good forthe public and not for me.
I wasn't doing it for personalreasons.
I wasn't doing it to try tosalvage a reputation.
(31:24):
I was doing it to try tostrengthen a brotherhood and
encourage other people to somebadly needed healing.
Then it was an appropriate timefor me to say it.
SPEAKER_01 (31:35):
I can see how going public with a relapse or a
pattern of secrecy could beserving a leader's own agenda
rather than for the good ofothers.
SPEAKER_02 (31:46):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (31:47):
Yeah.
So you had to discern that.
SPEAKER_02 (31:50):
Yeah, yeah.
And it wasn't just mydiscernment.
I mean, Allie was in on thedecision.
My close friends were in on thedecision.
SPEAKER_01 (31:58):
What did Allie need from you after she found out?
SPEAKER_02 (32:03):
It was amazing, man.
She just needed me to be close.
That's all.
She knew I was wrecked.
She knew I was sorry.
The crazy thing is she didn'tneed anything.
She just wanted me.
SPEAKER_01 (32:20):
And it would have been okay if she needed
something else.
SPEAKER_02 (32:26):
She didn't ask me to, you know, put the location
thing on my phone, but I wantedto give it to her, right?
She didn't ask me to, you know,put my my old guardrails back in
place.
But I was already, you know,wanting to do that.
How beautiful that she wantedyou.
Yeah.
(32:47):
Yeah.
Yeah.
The instinct to hide is an oldinstinct.
It runs deep.
Because I'll tell you what, Igrew up in Christian
environments that were not safeto tell the truth.
I learned to lie out ofself-preservation.
We're wired for survival.
I learned to lie to survive.
(33:09):
And there's still this part ofmy brain that says it's too
dangerous to tell the truth.
You have to lie to survive.
But I live in a world todaywhere it is not necessary for me
to lie, and I forgot that.
You know, I go to a wonderfulchurch, but I did tell the
pastor, and I got kind of this.
(33:30):
The way he responded was just alittle, I thought he doesn't
really get it.
But I have entire communities.
I got the Samson Societycommunity.
It's safe.
Husband material, I know, issafe.
I'm in a pure desire group.
It's safe.
I don't have to lie anymore.
(33:52):
I don't have to lie to my wife.
I don't have to lie to myfriends.
I don't have to lie to myself.
And unfortunately, I forgot thatfor a while.
SPEAKER_01 (34:05):
What does it feel like to be telling the truth
again?
SPEAKER_02 (34:10):
Oh, it's uh yeah.
Yeah.
But anybody who's, you know, hasexperienced getting honest knows
what a great relief it is.
SPEAKER_01 (34:19):
And your fears didn't come true?
Living a lie is a hard thing todo.
The bridge is still intact.
SPEAKER_02 (34:25):
Yeah.
And you know what?
Even if I had lost somerelationships, regaining my
integrity would have been worthit.
But the amazing thing is, Ireally didn't lose any
relationships.
If anything, they got deeper.
SPEAKER_01 (34:42):
That's what I see in husband material as well.
Whenever one of our leaders getsto the point where there's
something really significantthat they need to disclose to
the community, the outpouring oflove is just an avalanche of
(35:05):
appreciation.
SPEAKER_02 (35:06):
Yeah, yeah.
We have to keep pushing backagainst this diabolical,
perfectionistic, demandingversion of recovery that in the
end is legalistic, that isungracious, that takes us away
from the healing love of acompassionate and understanding
Heavenly Father.
SPEAKER_01 (35:27):
Amen.
Yeah.
A father who says, Come home.
Yeah.
Yeah.
unknown (35:35):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (35:35):
Just like Ali told you, come home.
That's what it was.
Maybe God was speaking throughher.
SPEAKER_02 (35:41):
Yeah.
You think?
Holy slow.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (35:50):
And I also appreciate you sharing your
experience at the intensivebecause sometimes we need to be
confronted.
SPEAKER_02 (35:56):
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
I don't like to be confronted,but my ego is strong enough.
There are times when I requireit.
SPEAKER_01 (36:04):
And there's a way of confronting with compassion and
curiosity.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (36:11):
I really was resistant when they came at.
They were not being cruel, butthey were being firm.
Yes.
SPEAKER_01 (36:18):
And sometimes if I had to critique my own
community, we could probablygrow in being firm.
SPEAKER_02 (36:30):
Yeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (36:31):
Because we don't want to become comfortable.
SPEAKER_02 (36:34):
Right, right.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (36:35):
I think there's a difference between a safe space
and a comfortable space.
Very good.
That is a vital distinctionright there.
Yeah.
And something I've learned fromAndrew Bauman is maybe we should
call it a brave space.
Because it won't be comfortable.
SPEAKER_02 (36:53):
Yeah.
I always want to think that it'smy brilliant ideas and it's my
great successes that are goingto make a difference in this
world.
When Paul always talks aboutbeing a fool for Christ, and
this idea, as it turns out, it'smy failures that are most
useful.
SPEAKER_01 (37:15):
That's true.
Right?
He says, I will boast about myweaknesses so that the power of
Christ may rest on me.
Not my strengths.
Yeah, not my performance.
Yeah.
Not my good morals or Christianreputation.
(37:36):
It's like, no.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (37:39):
I'm making a run at that chief of sinners thing that
Paul has claimed.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
And he was still an apostle.
SPEAKER_01 (37:51):
Yeah.
Thank you for your vulnerabilityand your leadership in how you
have responded to this relapse.
SPEAKER_02 (38:00):
I'm in the company of good men who helped me do the
right thing.
SPEAKER_01 (38:04):
Well, guys, if you want to connect with Nate and if
you want to go to the SamsonSociety and find more safe
spaces to be truly honest andvulnerable so that you can be
held, so that you can be healed,go down to the links in the show
notes and always remember youare God's beloved son.
And you, he is well pleased.
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