Roane and Ben discuss the importance of open communication and self-control in marriage, as well as the need to address distorted thinking patterns in men's groups. They emphasize the value of constructive feedback, shared wisdom, and safe spaces for men to share their experiences without fear of judgment. By fostering these environments, men can gain insight into their thought patterns and behaviors, leading to personal growth and more authentic relationships.
Ben Derrick 0:04
Welcome to the Sex God and Chaos podcast. The conversation built to help you address the mess, connect the dots and defeat addiction. Doing your work matters because if nothing changes, then nothing changes. Life is tough, and we're here to help. I'm your host, Ben Derrick. And as always, I'll be joined by Ron Hunter. Let's jump right in. Rollin back again to being podcasters.
Roane Hunter 0:30
Yeah. I think we should just do this all day, every day. What do you think?
Ben Derrick 0:36
This is one of my favorite roles? I mean, I, you know, I don't I don't know what that says about me. But I'm like, Man, I really enjoy doing this.
Roane Hunter 0:42
I know it's crazy. I don't know keeps growing like it's growing, we may be able to do it. Full time. However, that works. We gotta figure out that it's the money thing. We haven't figured that out yet.
Ben Derrick 0:54
Oh no. No, we are in trouble. Right. We should mention for our listeners, we were pushing well beyond 20,000 downloads, which that blows my mind.
Roane Hunter 1:04
It's crazy. Yeah, yeah. But like in podcast world, I that puts us like in top 10% of all podcasts, which is crazy.
Ben Derrick 1:14
You mean, You? yeah.
Roane Hunter 1:17
It's us. There's no, yeah. Oh, my gosh, yeah. It's just kind of surreal, in a way. And I do need to share this. I'm looking at our Riverside FM studio, on my computer. And there's pictures, just images past episodes that we've done. And I wish we could like maybe we'll just put it out there on social media. But there's a picture of you, like your head is it's like, perfectly positioned with antlers coming out each side. Like, did you kind of work with that when you're in that in that room?
Ben Derrick 1:55
If I did, I would never admit it. But I do. I was noticing during the interview, this guy's looking at me with horns.
Roane Hunter 2:02
Perfect. I know.
Ben Derrick 2:05
Alright, to get to something of significance? Yes. It is funny, I guess it'd be more fun if it was easy. We were discussing Off mic, especially after our most recent episode about sex being mutual inside of marriage, that it would be an excellent idea for people to listen to this with their significant other or independently and then talk about this because there's a certain level of power in the neutrality of, hey, these people are saying these sorts of things. How do you feel about that? Here's how I feel about that. We would love for people to start using this content in that way. And some already are.
Roane Hunter 2:42
Oh, yeah, there's no doubt. Like just you know, listening to the podcast, with your significant other would probably be a great way to actually generate discussion about these hard sensitive topics.
Ben Derrick 2:59
When you say discussion, that sounds very different than art. Yes. Oh, yeah.
Roane Hunter 3:03
Because you know, man, this, this stuff that we talk about? It is it is so often it is such a charged issue. And we say it we said on the last episode, we say it a lot is like man, the communication is the key to making all this work. And so often, we don't want to talk about it, because there's lots of anxiety wrapped around it. Rejection fears, all the stuff, but but just to listen to kind of a neutral party, talk about something. And then why would you think about that might be a way to generate a great discussion. Yeah.
Ben Derrick 3:43
it's much easier to say, Yeah, I think Ben was wrong there instead of I think you're wrong. Blame it on us. We don't know. Yeah.
Roane Hunter 3:51
We're safe. Yeah. I would tell people all the time. I don't know if you like, yeah. When you want to, like go there with heart discussions. Just like I always say, you know, man, Roane, my crazy counselor. He told me I should talk about this. I think he's crazy. What do you say?
Ben Derrick 4:07
isn't that wild? Yeah, that's crazy. I'd never do that. Yeah. Well, we were picked to talk about today, um, and I'm excited to hear about this for my own personal growth. So I may have to watch that. But we have we were discussing what happens prior to the addiction cycle. So it'd be good to give maybe a brief description for our listeners who aren't familiar with that, that there are basically four points along the line of an addiction cycle. Some people compare it to a dryer that it just tumbles. You know that we start with fantasy and then we move into ritual, then we get to acting out at the bottom then we go over to shame and shame is what sets us up to the top of the cycle to participate again and fantasy ritual acting out and shame. Such a sinister process and I know we've done episodes on that and it finds its way into a lot of episodes actually because It's such freeing information to be able to explain the fact that you are involved with this behavior repetitively doesn't necessarily mean that you're choosing it over and over and over again, the shame begins to drive in a way that pushes you up into the top of the cycle. But there's something that happens prior to the addiction cycle that is really, really powerful and universal. It doesn't just have to do with sex, there's so many other things that it impacts. So at great risk of having a multi episode topic, I would love for us to jump into the idea of distorted thinking, and what distorted thinking does to us as individuals.
Roane Hunter 5:39
well as CSAT, and training under Dr. Patrick Carnes, when when Dr. Patrick Carnes works with the addiction cycle, there's two components that he adds in, up to the top of the circle, where preoccupation fantasy reside. There's, there's arrows that, that, that come into that. And so the next movement, there's triggers in in the the initial process starts with distorted thinking, and that distorted thinking can be certainly the old, toxic shame messages that we walk around with, like, I'm not enough, I'm inadequate. And in that gets tapped into and then, and then there's a trigger of some kind, but But it all emanates from this distorted thinking. And oftentimes, it can be just distorted thinking around sex in somehow, like, I'm entitled to this, I deserve this. It can be connected to the resentment I have towards my wife. Like somehow, you know, she's She's so mean to me. Well, I deserve this. I mean, that that's a deep form of distorted thinking, right? And so this distorted thinking goes, Really there's, there's deep roots there. And I mean, if we're really going to do recovery, that's what we got to be becoming aware of, and figuring out.
Ben Derrick 7:15
As you're talking about it, it sounds very similar to core beliefs, the way we talk about core beliefs. Are these things kind of co located?
Roane Hunter 7:22
I believe they are, you know, the the core beliefs. Certainly, we so often we're talking about that those are the again, the I Am messages, it's not I did bad, I am bad. The difference between guilt and shame. And but then I think there's another layer of distorted thinking that gets into what we've been told and taught and what we believe. Around around sex in the distorted thinking around sex is absolutely just unbelievable. It's a minefield. Oh, yeah. Because I mean, we live in a pornified culture. The today's generation, you know, we learned about sex through porn. Now, just think about that for a minute. I don't want to, I know what you mean. But it's like, oh, my gosh. And then when you think about the movies, the music, the media, everything that we see, I mean, it is distorted when it comes to sex and sexuality. I mean, the Hollywood romance movies, you know, You complete me and all that. But all of those things play such I mean, they all play into it. You know, I mean, when somebody's sitting in my office, and they start talking about, oh, you know, we've fallen out of love. I mean, I don't do it. I probably have, I don't think I've done it, but I just want to look at him and go, like, are you serious? Right? Yeah, you cannot be serious. Because you don't fall in and out of love. I mean that in I mean, these are like, good Christian people. Supposedly, it's like, man, there's there's no biblical, ancient wisdom, whatever you want to call it, that that would like talk about this idea of falling in and falling out of love. It doesn't work that way. So I mean, just that in and of itself. I mean, that's a deep level of distorted thinking.
Ben Derrick 9:31
That causes a lot of damage, and probably a lot of unnecessary divorces. If we're being frank, right. Yeah, there's no doubt. Now I have found and this is just a little bit of personal history here. It's a lot easier to identify someone else's distorted thinking, Oh, yeah. Yeah, I can clearly see where you're thinking distortedly here, but we all actually have it and I think the danger that you and I discuss a lot is the distorted thing. Thinking is, by necessity connected to our histories. So, in that way, it feels very normal for us to feel this way. One that we've talked about on this podcast often is that the holy grail of sexuality is mutual orgasm. If that didn't happen, like it happens in the movies, then something's wrong. Something's wrong with you, or something's wrong with me. We got to fix this. And you can just see how sinister these very false things are when they move in. Because we begin to take them so personally.
Roane Hunter 10:33
Oh, yeah, I mean, you know, anything that you watch on TV, is do what's promoted, as somehow this is what it takes for you to be sexual. And that can be everything from the bright toothpaste to the right cat food, I don't know. I mean, that just like the sex sales man, and they're, they're pumping it down our throats, every chance they get in, and you got to wake up, it would kind of begin to like, think and examine, like, is that? Is this good? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would say that there's just really there about nothing good. When it comes to sex and sexuality. In the media out there. That's just everywhere. Yeah, it's
Ben Derrick 11:25
something that it's just heartbreaking for me that we're not being honest about, especially the culture is the carnage in the chaos to use our word that ensues when that sort of distorted thinking is embraced, encouraged, and grows immediate. It does not end well for people. But we're not following them around and saying, Hey, how did that distort a thinking turnout three years from now? Oh, yeah. But I think we are in it's a dangerous position to be in in society today to try to speak the truth in this way. But we're trying to say on this episode, that distorted thinking is not just a you problem. It's not a me problem. It's a we problem, right? So as we move in, and we discuss these things with the people that matter to us, may be asking for that feedback on ways that we've got our wires crossed a little bit sexually, our thoughts around sex. And I would say even even more around parenting around money around all the large issues that happen inside of marriages, there is absolutely distorted thinking going on inside both parties of the couple.
Roane Hunter 12:30
Oh, gosh, you know, when this is kind of keeping with the theme of the podcast is like around sex. I mean, the human body is an amazing creation right? In there, there's one of the amazing things is that there are actually there are limits that have to be in place. You know, in Bible speak, we talked about the fruits of the Spirit, and one of those is actually self control. And, you know, God Himself practice self control in the creation story. Because at a point, he looked at it, and he's like, yeah, that's enough. Right. And, and as human beings in some way, we have to understand that there is a limit. And it's like, at some point, we have to say, that's enough. Right? And when you think about, like, just the idea, I mean, food and sex are so paralleled when it comes to the gist of this this whole topic. Really? Yeah. Because the the food disorders kind of mirror the sexual disorders. So yeah, we talk about anorexia. Well, we, we talk about sexual anorexia. We talk about bulimia. Well, we talk about the binge and purge cycle, which is what most guys are doing. And so food and sex are correlated. And you know, it's interesting. In in Corinthians when Paul is writing about talking about food. Well, he goes right to the next topic of sex. It's really interesting that those are tied together smart. It's like, I mean, I love Krispy Kreme donut could go get a dozen.
Ben Derrick 14:18
me too! my family doesn't. He doesn't, right. Really? I'm telling you, they don't yeah, they're like that they're too sweet. Oh, just can't you know, that's a bunch of lightweights.
Roane Hunter 14:28
Yeah. But I mean, like, Okay, if I go and just eat, you know, three dozen Krispy Kreme Doughnuts right now, which I could do. I'm probably not going to that. I'm not going to feel very well. And then if I do that consistently without limits, without at some point saying that's enough. Well, it's gonna be problematic because I'm gonna probably weigh 400 pounds and I'm gonna have diabetes. No doubt.
Ben Derrick 14:57
No doubt. Yeah, that will be Are you the result? No, that we know this right?
Roane Hunter 15:03
So it's always so interesting to me how we want to take like sex, which is part of the body, and we want to make it something else. But when you look at the just the order the creative design, like it, it's all part of it. And there has to be limits. And when we violate those limits when we operate outside of the order, well, there's chaos. We, I don't know. Watch the news tonight. There's gonna be some sexual chaos story. Probably involving some politician, or pastor. Yeah, yes. Yep.
Ben Derrick 15:43
Or pastor. Yeah, just just recently, an organization at the top of the Christian ecosystem. The one of the front runners in the new new wave of attractional. Church. Yeah,
Roane Hunter 15:54
there it is.
Ben Derrick 15:57
Kind of email yesterday. Yep. So yeah. Alright, so you've piqued my curiosity, though, because I'm the guy that's thinking. All right, I believe you. It doesn't take me long. I believe you. How do I own distorder? distorted thinking? I don't, that feels like a really complicated process.
Roane Hunter 16:14
Oh man. Great question. I think, you know, one of the things we talk about just in our men's community, which is, you probably you and I, it's kind of our lab experiment, right? I mean, we, it's so great, because we have such a deep and rich man's community. And we do life together. And there's guys that are just man, they're willing to be honest and vulnerable, and talk about anything and everything, tell it all, but oh my gosh, but in a way, it's kind of like, where does that happen? You know, we're fortunate, because of just that level of sharing. And so, you know, one of the things that we talk about in our men's groups, and all the stuff that we do, is like, I've got to be coming up against, you know, right thinking, healthy thinking, in order to change it. And that's one of the things we say that happens in our men's community doing life together. Like when a guy talks about, hey, you know, if you, if you want to masturbate, you should just, I don't know, tell your wife, that's what you're gonna do. And just go ahead and do that in the living room or something. Like, there's gonna be, there's gonna be guys that are going to look outside like, dude. Yeah, but But I mean, that's, that's a crazy example. But I've actually heard that in a men's group. And then the beauty of what happens is, the guys that come around that in line, like, No, man, that's twisted, but that, again, where that guy was coming from, is like, okay, she didn't want to, so I'm gonna tell her, I'm not gonna hide it. She's not gonna, that's not gonna be a good experience for you.
Ben Derrick 18:03
No, this is not going to end well.
Roane Hunter 18:05
But literally in his head, he thought that that was a good thing to do. And so I mean, that's kind of a stupid example. But it's real. I've got to be talking about this stuff in order to get feedback from others that that are further down the road that have more years of experience. They've got more wisdom. And certainly, you know, biblical wisdom, ancient wisdom, life wisdom. I don't know what you want to call it. But there's there is this real thing. That's called wisdom. And if you sit with people that have experienced a lot of failures, and doing a lot of stupid things, and like correcting those things, they're probably guys that can help you a whole lot.
Ben Derrick 18:51
You don't always have to learn from your own mistakes. Let's just come on guys.
Roane Hunter 18:55
Yes. Yeah, actually, you could listen to somebody that's been down the road and go, Okay, I'm gonna do that.
Ben Derrick 19:02
I can tell you with 100% accuracy when a man is completely screwed. And that's when the only person who has been telling him the truth is his wife, because he's gonna disregard disregard that she's not a source of truth or wisdom. Exactly. You know, but then when a guy gets in your face and says, Man, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard. Do you actually believe that? Well, yeah, okay. Well, you need to keep coming back.
Roane Hunter 19:28
Yeah, and then in the end when you have always say, you know, the the circle the circle don't lie, right? In when a guy's just like, spouting this stuff is so powerful when it does get spoken into not in like, the Baptist preacher kind of way. Again i had...
Ben Derrick 19:50
Oh, no, it's okay. I'll let I'll let it pass.
Roane Hunter 19:53
But not trying to shame a guy but actually like the in in our circles a guy actually feels and experiences care he feels cared for. And he feels compassion. And we're actually like, correcting like a good father would correct a son, right? You're doing it in a way that's loving and caring. But you're correcting in the way that that our crazy distorted thinking gets corrected. I don't know if there's, I don't know of another way that that could happen.
Ben Derrick 20:27
Yeah, I think I agree with you. And I know we're actually cutting right down to it in this episode, which I'm not upset about in any way. But I do think we would need to say there are a couple of alternatives that other people try. That's self talk, like, I'm just going to try to talk myself out of this. I'm gonna go work on myself. Yeah, I'm going to work on myself. I'll be back when everything's better. And then we don't we never see him again. Exactly. I'm going to just read a bunch of stuff or watch a bunch of stuff on YouTube, or the spiritual version of that, as I'm just going to attend as many church things as possibly can.
Roane Hunter 20:59
If I hear some more sermons, that's going to make a difference. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Cuz I just asked, gosh, we're for that. We're not saying any of those things are bad. Yeah. But in order to affect change, there, those things are minimal.
Ben Derrick 21:14
Okay, I know this is this is going to be hilarious, because I'm going to sound like a Baptist preacher, when I say this. For there to be change, right, there has to be an exchange. And there's no exchange me sitting in front of YouTube, or me sitting in front of a book or me passively. And I'm saying this demands specifically, me passively sitting in some church service. There's no exchange, I don't have to review there. I don't have to actually take that internal distorted thinking external, and then have that get response. That's what feedback is, I can just sit there and kind of talk myself into or out of anything, completely internally. So many people try that it never works.
Roane Hunter 21:56
When you think about the I mean, the model of church, you know, passively sitting listening to a sermon. Like, I mean, that fits so well for so many men, because I can just sit there. And you know, this, I mean, in our groups, man, there's guys, it'll show up. And I get we think their wife's making them or something, in that, they won't say a word, we'll let that go for a minute. But at some point, somebody's gonna look at him. And like, Dude, you got to start talking.
Ben Derrick 22:27
Help us get to know you better. Exactly.
Roane Hunter 22:29
Tell us your story. And what's the greatest fear for guys in the circle? That it is always? I don't, I don't want to I don't want to talk. I don't want to tell my story. I don't want to do those things. Because his fear is he's going to say stupid things, although he's definitely going to. But his fear is he's going to be rejected, because that's been his experience in other venues. Right? Yep. Church, for example. Because if you don't follow the, you know, the conformity, if you're not conforming to the thinking, then you're probably going to get, you know, ostracized, kicked out, or, or put on the prayer list. And so, there's got to be this avenue where a guy sees it modeled. And then he begins to, like, talk himself. And, you know, when you think about that, growing up, you probably didn't get a chance to talk about those types of things with dad, right? It was something shameful, or something embarrassing, or something you didn't know anything about. And you didn't want dad to think that he didn't, you didn't know anything about it, you know? It. I mean, all of these things go back to this, that core core part of us is like, Man, I want to be accepted. I don't want to be rejected, I want to be validated, I want to be affirmed. And we just see it so often, you know, guys sitting in a group and not talking. And then you know, when they start talking, we hopefully we offer grace, because most of the time, they can't string a coherent sentence together. That makes sense, but they're talking.
Ben Derrick 24:11
Yeah we're getting reps. Yeah. That's why we say this great phrase. We're glad you're here. Absolutely. Because we're trying to answer all of all of those things. So to get to kind of the bottom of it here on this episode, we're what we're saying is, you've got to start talking and we always put this little comma to safe people. Oh, to say people not at Walmart, not a Walmart out speaker and I think we would even say do not try this first on your spouse. This this is a bad idea. You need to get reps with like gender. This is why we have male and female groups. You need to be in those environments, learning how to let that internal dialogue out. So that when it is responded to because man, I've been in a lot of those scenarios and attention You're saying, you hit these plateaus and your growth and you think you're okay. And then you like, you realize, oh, no, there's another distorted message. And I get that same feeling, letting that one out. I may have talked about all sorts of embarrassing things in my story in my life, I'm known, but when I hit a new realization, and I've got to be verbal about that, I go to that same emotional place. It's just that fear that we talk about so often that you've got to push through, but what's the alternative? The alternative is being stuck in distorted thinking and hurting yourself and other people for the rest of your life? That sounds miserable.
Roane Hunter 25:36
It is. Yeah, we know those guys. You know, it's interesting. I'm doing the Samsung society has a recovery marathon. It's a pretty cool concept. And there's 12 speakers. I'm one of them. And my, my, my piece is on the fifth step, and the idea of integrity. And even in that, we'll talk about distorted thinking, you know, the, the opposite of integrity, I believe is is rationalization. Right? Right. I can rationalize myself into believing that I am not violating my integrity. That, that that's how that's how that works. Right? Because my integrity is really internal to me. Integrity is not necessarily honesty, except for honesty with myself. Yeah, right. That's terrible in being honest with others. It's so it is honesty, but it's not like morality. Right? It's so I want to be honest. But I can also rationalize my way into not being not being transparent, not sharing. And it is, it is certainly a form of distorted thinking. But if I'm sitting in circles, if I'm talking about this stuff consistently, and I have guys that know me, like intimately because that's what we're doing. We're practicing intimacy, like, they're, they're gonna be able to, like, call it out when they see it. I mean, you've sat with got, you've heard rationalization, and it's like, dude, oh, it's BS, right? That's right. And if I'm sitting in a circle, like, I want that feedback, totally, I mean, I believe that the measure of a man's maturity is his is his ability, or his inability to receive feedback from safe trusted people,
Ben Derrick 27:44
wise people, wise people, the more that people know us, in fact, I've been in those circles and been called out for not disclosing my distorted thinking by hiding, just with my nonverbals. That's how well the people, the men that I've trusted him with my life in my life. I can tell you, across the table, something's going on. Yeah, what's up? What's up, and they will even follow it up by saying, don't call me this afternoon. I'm here right now. Right? Yeah. So it I think, unlike a lot of other things, we're saying over this distorted thinking you almost have to attack you've got to go for 100%.
Roane Hunter 28:22
Yeah, and it's not an accountability group. You know, those. Those are mostly just sin management. Those are not helpful. It is really, the name we say it all the time. It is the cure for what else is its connection in connection on deep levels? is where live change happens.
Ben Derrick 28:53
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