How To Be A Man: Freedom From Addictions

In this episode of the Manhood Tribe Show, host Don Ross addresses the hidden pleasures and addictions that many men struggle with, such as pornography, alcohol, and sports betting. He challenges men to identify these vices and break free from them by bringing their struggles to light and confessing them to trusted friends. 

The episode emphasizes the importance of overcoming major obstacles to truly become the extraordinary men they are meant to be. 

Don also introduces the concept of a 'sin cycle,' guiding listeners through the phases of temptation, action, regret, and respite, and stresses the significance of confession and community support in achieving lasting freedom.

00:00 Introduction: Hidden Pleasures and Struggles
00:37 The Manhood Tribe Show: Resources and Series Overview
01:32 Understanding the Pillars: Manhood, Camaraderie, and Freedom
03:00 Facing Obstacles: Everyday Challenges for Men
04:14 Hidden Pleasures: The Allure and Consequences
04:54 Addictions and Allegiance: The Struggle for Control
11:43 The Addiction Cycle: Understanding the Phases
21:17 Breaking Free: The Power of Confession and Camaraderie
29:37 Manhood Challenge: Taking Action Towards Freedom

Want to know how you measure up as a man? Take our free quiz, called How Manly Are You? and learn how you can get better at being a man. Download for free at manhoodtribes.com/manly.

Transcript

Don Ross: 0:00

Because life is hard, almost all of us as men have some kind of hidden pleasure that we go to as a way of trying to make things feel a little better. Maybe that's porn or alcohol or sports gambling or whatever it is for you. You know what the thing is that you don't really like to talk about and typically feel a great deal of shame over. If we're going to be the extraordinary men that we were meant to be, we're going to have to get some freedom from those kinds of struggles. And in order to do that. We're going to have to do the one thing that none of us really wants to do. Let's talk about that today here on the manhood tribe show. Guys want to know how you measure up as a man? I've got a great resource for you. It's called how manly are you? And it's a free quiz that you can take to figure out how you stack up against what it means to be a man. And when you take the quiz, you'll also get some free resources to help you figure out how you can get better as a man in the areas where you would like to grow. So go to manhoodtribes.com/manly to download your free. How manly are you quiz today? That's manhoodtribes.com/manly. Hey guys, welcome to the manhood tribe show. I'm Don Ross. I'm your host, and it's really good to be with you here as we are continuing in this series. Uh, about how to be a man. We've really just kind of set out from the beginning to say that our world has made a mess of trying to help us understand what it means to be a man and how to be able to do that. Well, And so we've tried to talk about that here at manhood tribes, from our three big pillars. So those things are manhood, comradery and freedom. We started this series by going through the five marks of manhood to talk about that first pillar as a way of just saying here's what we think it means to be a man and every man needs to possess these five marks to demonstrate how to be a man in their world. And then we moved on to talk about comradery, where we said that comradery is about building these kinds of deep and lasting relationships with other men around you. And that you need not only adventure and fun, but also a real depth of relationship that requires stripping away all the outer layers and getting down to the essence of who you are as a man with some other men that you can trust to be able to do that with. All of that is needed. But now we need to get onto the third pillar, which is really talking about this idea of freedom. Freedom is really all about overcoming the major obstacles in your life as a man. And now. Let's be honest for all of us as men and our world today. We are overwhelmed with obstacles. I mean, just trying to get up, get out of bed and get out the door in the morning can feel like there are 15 different obstacles in the way before you can ever get there. And it's not just small things, right? I mean, it can be small things like there's something broken in your house that, you know, your hot water is not working or your air conditioner's not working or the. You know, door knob on your bathroom, isn't working like it's supposed to. And so there's always some kind of nagging thing that requires your attention or more likely, it's a bigger thing. Like you come down for breakfast and some kind of argument explodes between you and your wife or you, and one of your kids or between one of your other family members in themselves. There's all kinds of things that are going on for us as men, where we feel like, gosh, there's just more here than I know how to handle. There are more obstacles in my life than I have the capacity and certainly the skill to be able to deal with. And because of all of that, we, men can tend to get ourselves into even more trouble when it comes to those kinds of obstacles. Life is hard and because life is hard. We can tend to reach for some things that will make life feel. If not a little easier, at least a little more pleasurable, at least a little softer. At least we can find some things that will help us to. Endure the hard. And numb the pain, even if, just for a moment as a way of being able to escape. To check out. To just say, maybe even I deserve this. I have to put up with so much crap throughout the day. Don't I deserve just a little bit of something. That's just for me. The problem is that when we go to those kinds of things, And you probably know what kinds of things I'm talking about, but we're going to get into those specifics here in just a little bit. When we go to those kinds of things, we start to give ourselves over to them in ways that really threaten one of those marks of manhood that we talked about early on. And that's the idea of allegiance. We start to find something that we are willing to serve, because it brings us a little bit of pleasure. A little bit of relief. A little bit of ability to manage just one more day of all the other crap in our lives. And so our allegiance starts to shift. It starts to turn towards this thing that can feel really good. Maybe that thing for you is something of a sexual nature. Maybe it's pornography. Like it is for many, many men in our culture. And when I say many, I mean, almost all. That's how pervasive pornography is in our culture right now, but maybe it isn't just pornography. It could be some other form of sexual temptation. Prostitution or masturbation or having an affair or a same-sex relationship that no one knows about or you name it. It can be anything that's going on there. That for you is not only a source of temptation, but also at least momentarily, a source of pleasure. And then probably at some point a source of shame and guilt and something that you deeply regret. Maybe for you. It's not something sexual. Maybe that's not the place that you tend to go to for those kinds of things. Maybe it has something to do with finances. Like you're a spender, you love racking up the toys and the gadgets and the things that kind of give you a momentary glimpse of happiness to just be able to own that thing. or, you know, you're a big spender and you want to be able to have the boat and the second home and the. You know, you name it. And so for you. It's not only working towards those things, but finally being able to purchase them as well. Maybe for you, it's more like spending your money on some risky things like sports betting or like scratch off gambling, you know, going to the gas station and picking up some lottery tickets. But it's not just an occasional thing. Have fun. It's a. Every time you do it. It's kind of your release for being able to have just a little bit of pleasure. Maybe it's some kind of substance, it could be alcohol, it could be drugs. It could be the things that we don't want to really call drugs these days, but that are just as problematic, whether that's marijuana or. Vaping or, you know, Some other form of supplements or pills, uh, that we don't really want to talk about in that way anymore, but that are providing that same kind of relief and release for us. That began to be the sort of thing that we start to serve. Okay. So you know what it is, you know what the thing is in your life that you go to as a form of escape as a form of pleasure as a form of relief. As just a way to be able to handle how difficult your life is. You know what that thing is, or maybe it's multiple things. The challenge is that. To be the man that you were meant to be. You're going to have to get free of those things. Otherwise, they will get to a place where they are controlling you. And it's not just an issue of you're occasionally going to this thing for some form of pleasure. But it really has a hold on your heart and eventually a hold on your life. And it might not be something that's being outwardly destructive to your life at the moment. But inwardly, you can just kind of tell. I'm not sure I could do without that thing. I'm not sure that I could make it through my life if I didn't have a couple beers every evening. I'm not sure that I could make it through my life if I didn't have a hookup opportunity on the weekend. Whatever it is, you know, what's going on there. It's not, again, it's not necessarily destructive, but it is becoming a crutch. It's becoming something that has a hold on you. That isn't good. And that's because to be a man, you've got to know that the things that you are giving your allegiance to are worthy of your allegiance. And right now we, as men are giving our allegiance over to so many things. That are not worthy of it. That are only using us when we think we're using those things. But it's actually the other way around. Those things begin to have a grip on us in such a way that we aren't free to be able to give ourselves over to the things that are really worthy. Of our attention of our importance of our passion in life. Of our full heartedness. We've got to be able to have mastery over ourselves in such a way that we can really give our allegiance to the things that are actually worthy of it. And so the things that we're talking about today, I'm going to throw them into this category that we're calling addictions. Okay. But that's, that's a little bit of a misnomer in the sense that you may or may not be clinically addicted to the things in your life that are bringing you into this kind of cycle of serving an allegiance and some unhealthy ways. Okay. It might not be a full blown addiction, but the point is that you are giving your. Allegiance over to something that doesn't deserve it and figuring out what that is, why you're doing it and how to break free is going to be a necessary part of what it means to become the man that you were really meant to be. And the man that God intends you to be. Now. All of these things are going to hold us back as men. Whether that comes in some form of addiction, like I've talked about, or whether it comes with the shame in the aftermath of committing the act of whatever it is that you're doing, or whether it's the exposure that comes along with even being found out for the thing that you do. Uh, or just, and we'll talk about this some more, a little bit, uh, And an episode later, the spiritual opposition that comes along with giving yourself over to something that doesn't deserve your allegiance. There are so many factors at play here and what makes this really unhealthy? And really dangerous. It holds you back from being the man that you are capable of being, and that's because you're not free. You're not free to be able to place your allegiance where you really want to, because you are bound up in some other thing. So let's talk a little bit about how that happens. Okay. What I want to share with you is something that is sometimes called a sin cycle. It's sometimes called the addiction and shame cycle. There's a bunch of different names for it, but it's really just the idea of how is it that we get sucked into these things that we know really aren't good for us. And that a lot of times we really deeply regret. And yet at the same time, we keep going back to them. We keep circling back around on this pond that we don't really want to be at and know that is toxic for us. And yet we find ourselves going back to it again and again, and again. Why is that? And what happens there? There's really kind of four phases that I want to describe to you of this addiction cycle. Again, depending on what version of this you might look up, you might see more cycles than that. You might see seven or eight stages of this cycle. They might all have different names, but these are the basics that I really want to kind of cover. Okay. It's basically this, it is thinking about the sin. Uh, committing the sin. Feeling regret about the sin. And then lastly, what I'll call respite or cooling off. Okay. So four phases. Thinking about doing the thing. Doing the thing. Regretting doing the thing. And then cooling off. All right now, again, there might be some other kind of nuance to some of those stages or some additional things that other people would add in. But these are the basics. Here's how it works. You begin to get a tempting thought. Okay. Let's say that your go-to form of pleasure is food. That when life gets really hard, what you want is just a snack or a treat or something. In the pantry, that's just going to help you take the edge off of how difficult your life is. So you've been home from work, you know, for a little bit part of the day. And you're sitting around the dinner table with your family and the conversation just goes awry. And before you know it, you guys are back into an argument that you've had many, many times over and it doesn't go anywhere new this time. And everybody's yelling at each other and somebody storms off from the table and somebody throws something and it just, it just gets out of hand. And you're so tired of it. You're so tired of how difficult all of that can be, and that it doesn't seem to be making any more progress. And after dinner is cleaned up and dishes are put away and you go to just sit down on the couch and take a breath. The thought comes to you. Man. There's some Oreos up in the pantry and those would be really good right now. And so you start thinking about the thing, you know, that you don't need those, you know, that they're not going to be helpful to you in the long run. And in fact, you might even be trying to like eat well. And you know, that those things are just going to kind of sabotage the greater plans that you have for your own health and your fitness. But the thought is there. Gosh. Life has been hard. Conversation around dinner. Was just awful. Those Oreos would taste really good right now. And so you're thinking about the thing. You're thinking about doing the thing. That's the first phase. Temptation. The thought is in your head and you're mulling it over. You just can't get it out of your head. It sticks there and it floats around in your head and it keeps tempting you, and you try to find a way to distract yourself and you get into another conversation with somebody else. Or you look at something on your phone or you pull up a TV program to watch our, you know, whatever. You're finding ways to try to distract yourself, but yet that thought keeps floating there and it keeps floating there in such a way that it's pulling on you. It's almost like you can feel like you've, you're tethered to those Oreos in the pantry and you just can't help yourself. You've almost got to go get them. There seems like there's no way that you can avoid it until eventually. You give in. And so that's the second phase. You do the thing. You go to the pantry, you get that pack of Oreos. And maybe you get two or three. Maybe you get six, maybe you get a whole sleeve. Maybe you get the whole pack. And some ice cream to go along with it. I mean, You know, like whatever it is, you, you know how it goes, you're doing the thing. And that's the second phase. And maybe as a part of that phase, or maybe some people would hold it as distinct from that phase. You enjoy the thing. Okay. So let me tell you the thing. About all of these temptations about all of these addictions, about all of these sins. A mentor once told me sin will always deliver its promised pleasure. Sin will always deliver its promised pleasure. And what that means is that it's tempting you because it seems like it's going to be something that's going to feel good. And it will, it will feel good maybe for just a moment, but for a moment. It is going to be what it said. It's going to be, it's going to feel like relief. It's going to taste good. That pleasure is going to be there. You are going to enjoy those Oreos. Maybe it's for a short moment, maybe it's for a long moment. But you're going to enjoy them. The sin will deliver its promised pleasure. But then you're going to move into the third phase, which is where you regret doing the thing. And depending on how significant the thing was, is going to depend on how much regret you feel and whether or not it just feels like regret, or it might feel more like guilt or it more might feel more like shame. But there is going to be some kind of regret to your action. You're going to think. I knew I shouldn't have done that. I didn't even want to do that. And yet here I am doing it all over again. You might feel guilty about it in the sense of like, I tried so hard. I even set up some boundaries for myself to not do this again. I knew that I wasn't supposed to. I had a plan of how to make it not work. And yet here I am blowing it all over again. Or more likely. And more damaging is that you're going to feel some shame. Shame is when you get into the place where you start saying, what's wrong with me, that I keep doing this thing. Shame becomes deeply personal. It's not just about the action anymore. It's not just about what you did. It's about who you are. Something is wrong with me. I am so broken. I am such a screw up. I ruin everything. You start playing these messages over and over in your head. And as you do that, you're just wallowing in the regret of what you have done. And maybe that comes along with some kind of pledge of, I'm never going to do that thing again. And you re up your efforts to try to say. I'm going to make sure that I don't do that thing again. And here's how I'm going to do it. I'm going to put more boundaries in place. I'm going to put the Oreos in a place where I can't get to them. I'm never going to buy Oreos again, you know, whatever it is, you're making all these kinds of pledges and promises that are based in your willpower of how you can try to make sure that you're not going to do that same action again. And then at some point in time, all of that seems to just kind of subside and you move into a cooling off period, a respite. That's the fourth phase. Where everything has kind of relaxed for a moment. You're not feeling guilty, but you're not also feeling tempted at the moment. You're just kind of. In this cooling off phase where things seem like they might be okay, especially, you might be lured into the idea that if you really tried to put some new boundaries in place or, you know, muster up some more willpower, you might really even be thinking in this cooling off Oh, man, it's working. I'm doing okay. I'm doing much better. I'm not going to go back to who that guy was, who made those mistakes. I'm not going to do that again. In the cooling off phase. You can get lured into thinking that that's going to be okay. But somehow one way or another, you're going to end right back up. At phase one. This is a cycle. It's going to start over. You're going to get tempted again. And some of that is because life is hard and those hardships are going to come right back at you. They're not stopping. Some of it is also because we live in a world that is both physical and spiritual and you have spiritual opposition. You have spiritual forces who are vested and seeing you fail. They want to see you stuck in this addiction cycle. They want to see you keep making these same mistakes and not be able to break free from it, because if you could break free from it. Then you could be a real threat for good. You could be a power that would have to be dealt with. But as long as you are stuck in this cycle, They don't really have to worry about you. And so they're going to spend a lot of effort on keeping you serving and giving your allegiance over to these things. That are not worthy of your allegiance. They are vested and seeing you remain stuck. And so what we want to do is talk about how do you get free. What you need men. Is freedom. You need a way out from that cycle. And for it to not be just a temporary way out. You need a way to be able to get true and lasting freedom from these things that are controlling you from these things that don't deserve your allegiance. But how do you do that? Where does that kind of freedom come from? And how do we go about getting it? I opened the episode by saying that if we were going to be the extraordinary men that we were meant to be, we're going to have to do the thing that most of us never want to do. So now it's time to talk about it. Actually we've kind of already talked about it, but now it's time to put it in some more context. If you want to be able to break free from the addictions and the controlling negatives in your life. Here's the truth. You're going to have to talk about it. You're going to have to confess it. You're going to have to bring what is hidden in the dark and your life out into the light. And you need to do it with men that you trust. You need to do it with your brothers in your tribe. Who you love and who love you and can hold in confidence what you are saying to them, but can also help fight for you to be able to break free from these things that are holding you back. So. You're going to have to talk about it. You're going to have to open up. You're going to have to, as we talked about in a previous episode, you're going to have to get naked. You're going to have, to be honest about the things that have their hooks in you. You're gonna have to admit to the things that you have done that you don't want to have to admit to. You're going to have to bring what's in the dark, out into the light. There simply is no other way. To be able to gain freedom. And that's because as I mentioned, they're spiritual forces here at work and keeping you trapped and they work in the darkness. That is their specialty. They love hidden things because that's where they have power. When you start to bring it out into the light, they lose their strongholds over you. They lose their ability to keep you oppressed. And in this cycle, And so what you have to do is figure out a way to be able to open up about these things to other men whom you can trust. That's why it's so important that we develop comradery with other men is because if we want freedom and we sure need it, we've got to have some other men around us who can help us get there, who can help free us by being the men that we can trust with the things that we need to be honest about. Coming out of hiding. Breaks the power of the addiction cycle. And you can do it at any stage of the cycle. Okay. So. If you're noticing that you're having that tempting thought. You can break the cycle by going and talking to somebody about it by being open and saying. Hey. I know that there's this pack of Oreos up there in the pantry, and I'm feeling really tempted about it. Could you help me do something about that so that I don't give into that temptation? Cycle broken. Okay. Now that's a simple one. It may be more complex than that, right? It could be something really deep and secretive. Like I'm having an affair with my wife. It could be something really deep and secretive, like. I'm having an affair. And my wife doesn't know about it. And then you've got to figure out what all that confession is going to look like, but it's still going to take confession. Maybe you need to confess first to some men. That you trust, but you're also going to have to confess to your wife. And there is going to be damaged and fallout that's done from that confession. Because the truth is, is not the confession. That's doing the damage. You've already done the damage. The damage is just hiding in the darkness right now. You can choose to bring it out into the light and possibly gain freedom. Or something else, we'll bring it out into the light and only cause you more damage. So it's time for you to figure out how to bring that thing out into the light. Now, again, like I said, you can do this at any stage. You can do it at the tempting state. You can do it. In the stage where you're actually doing the thing. And I know this sounds silly, but depending on what the thing is, that might be the appropriate place to be able to talk about it. You're driving on the way to the bark. And you know that you're going to have a few too many because your life has sucked that day. And you just want some relief. And you call a friend and say, I'm making a mistake. I'm doing the thing right now. I'm on my way to have too many. Or maybe you've already had too many and you need to call a friend and say, I've had too many. I need you to help me break out of this. Okay. Either way you can do it then. When you're in the place of regret and guilt and shame, this is probably honestly the, the most common place that men choose to try to break the cycle because the feelings of regret are so big, that that feels like the time that we want to say. I want to do things differently. And so we look for ways to be able to do that. But more often than not, we look for ways that are just about our own willpower. Here's how I can muster up some more strength or some more courage or some more boundaries or some more, whatever to make sure I don't do it again. But we rarely ever will say here's who I'm going to go talk to, to ask him to help me to not do this thing again. You can also do it during that cooling off period, when it's time to be able to say, you know what? I like, I don't want to make these same mistakes again. And although things seem like they're okay right now, I know that I'm vulnerable to temptation again in the future. So I need to reach out to a friend who I can trust and tell him what's going on so that if, and when I get tempted again, I can talk to him about it and it won't be a surprise. He will know that it's coming and he will know what to do to be able to help me. All of those things are necessary. If you're a man of faith, like I am, and you are familiar with the Christian scriptures. Then there's some things there that, you know, that are pointing you to this. In the book of James, we hear the idea that we should confess our sins to one another so that we can be healed, that the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. Meaning that we need to take this to our brothers so that we can experience healing so that they can pray for us, fight for us to help us to be able to be free. The apostle John wrote about it in a way where he said, God is light. And in him, there is no darkness. There are no hidden things when it comes to God. But if we claim to have fellowship with him and we walk in the darkness, And we lie and we don't live out the truth. Now that's pretty damning right there. If we're being honest. If we're claiming to walk with God, but we're keeping our sins hidden, then we're not really walking with God because there's no darkness in God. We need to bring things out into the light. And that's what he says. If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. There's our brothers. And the blood of Jesus, his son purifies us from all sin. When we confess our sins, we can be healed. And the power of Jesus can come to cleanse us now. It might happen overnight. It probably will not. It's going to take many, many attempts and successes of breaking this cycle in order for you to really be able to gain freedom. But this is the only way to do it. And so I want to encourage you men. To let you know that freedom is possible. You can be free from the addictions and the shames that are controlling your life. But in order to do that, you are going to have to open up. And be honest with some other men in your life about what's going on. You've got to bring the darkness into the light. Now to close out this episode, as we always do, I'm going to give you a manhood challenge. That's going to relate to that. To help you take some action, to be able to move towards the light. So let's jump into our manhood challenge. All right, guys, welcome to another manhood challenge, a segment here. That's part of the manhood tribe show. I'm your host, Don Ross. And I want to give you a challenge today that is going to help you in the area of allegiance, which is one of our five marks of manhood. In particular, one of the ways that we talk about allegiance is that we can say that there can be these controlling influences in our lives. Things that we have given our allegiance to that aren't really worthy of that allegiance. And so today I want to help you break free from some of those things so that you can give your allegiance to something that actually deserves it. So what I want you to do is to identify one addiction cycle in your life where you feel like you are just really stuck. Now, if you're not familiar with an addiction cycle, if you're hearing this manhood challenge apart from listening to our whole manhood tribe show, I want to encourage you. To go and listen to that. So you can get some understanding, but for those of you. that listened or watched the episode, you will know what I'm talking about and you'll know the places where you're feeling stuck. What I want you to do is to make a plan. To chat with a friend who you can trust about what is going on for you in that cycle. What are you feeling tempted towards? What mistakes are you making and what kind of regret, guilt and shame are you living with? Because of those choices. I want you to bring the darkness into the light, and I want you to begin to watch what kind of freedom can be yours by doing so. Okay, this is an allegiance challenge, but it's going to take a lot of courage as well. So this is a great test for you as a man, and I hope that it brings you some great success and open some doors to freedom for you.