Latest / Mental Health Matters for Christians / Ep4 A Pastor’s Double Life: The Sex Addiction That Nearly Destroyed Him | Dr. Mike Courtney

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Ep4 A Pastor’s Double Life: The Sex Addiction That Nearly Destroyed Him | Dr. Mike Courtney · Mental Health Matters for Christians

• 0:00
  You know, you, you don't go into sin just a little bit.
• 0:03
  You go all the way. I had three affairs, but I was
• 0:07
  grooming people all of the time. I was constant.
• 0:12
  I was either I was looking for the next affair, affair partner.
• 0:15
  I was sizing every female that I met, sizing them up, and I would
• 0:19
  compartmentalize that somehow this is in a little box that
• 0:24
  doesn't touch any other part of the box.
• 0:27
  And I can be a good pastor, I can be a good husband, I can be
• 0:30
  a good father. And this and I, I know this
• 0:33
  isn't right. I need to do something about it,
• 0:35
  but at least I'm keeping it in the box.
• 0:44
  Hey everybody, I'm Christine Sneeringer.
• 0:46
  Welcome back to my next episode of the Mental Health Matters for
• 0:50
  Christians podcast. I'm your host, and I'm excited
• 0:54
  to unpack powerful redemption stories with you that will fill
• 0:58
  you with hope and help you get unstuck and experience more of
• 1:02
  the freedom that Jesus promises his followers.
• 1:06
  Have you ever wanted to get inside the mind of a pastor who
• 1:09
  committed moral failings? Well, I sure have, and I had the
• 1:13
  privilege to do exactly that when I sat down with my next
• 1:16
  guest, Mike Courtney, who was in the pastorate for many years.
• 1:20
  And yet he struggled secretly and silently with a sex
• 1:24
  addiction that eventually cost him his ministry and almost cost
• 1:29
  him his family until he got into recovery.
• 1:32
  He went on to become a clinical psychologist.
• 1:35
  In 2006, Mike founded Branches Counseling Center in
• 1:40
  Murfreesboro, TN where he still works today as a pastor or
• 1:44
  counselor and the Director of Care for Church Pastors.
• 1:48
  Mike is the author of a book based on his own recovery from
• 1:51
  sex addiction and restoration called Failure and How I
• 1:55
  Achieved It, which is one of the best book titles I ever heard.
• 1:59
  He and his wife, Doris, speak across the country on the
• 2:02
  intimacy that comes from brokenness.
• 2:05
  He's also a father and a grandfather.
• 2:08
  Welcome, Mike. Thanks, Christine.
• 2:10
  It's good to be here. Thanks for having me on.
• 2:12
  I am so honored to get to speak with you because we did this
• 2:16
  probably 20 years ago. Isn't that interesting?
• 2:18
  It was, it was probably 20 years ago and I think that's how we
• 2:22
  met, that you were interviewing my wife.
• 2:24
  And I for a French show, and it was about sexual addiction.
• 2:28
  That's what we spoke about. And it was about your journey.
• 2:30
  So I've already given it away. But tell us your story.
• 2:34
  How long do we? Have I know right?
• 2:37
  Well, I grew up in a Parsonage. My father pastored always say
• 2:42
  tiny little churches. If we had 40 people, it was
• 2:45
  Easter Sunday and he was giving away a bicycle.
• 2:47
  It was a little little churches and he was he was good at it.
• 2:51
  He was just a great pastor. He was also bipolar and that
• 2:56
  create a lot of chaos in our home.
• 2:59
  When he was on, he was the best. He was just he was funny and and
• 3:05
  articulate and saying like Pavarotti, but he would slip
• 3:11
  into these the what I call the slew of despond and and life
• 3:15
  just became almost unbearable. That up and down, in and out
• 3:21
  just created a lot of unknowing, a lot of father winds.
• 3:25
  I added, I, I couldn't spell father boons back then.
• 3:28
  I, I didn't know that word at all.
• 3:30
  But a lot, a lot of things in me, I always say as I'm talking
• 3:34
  about this, these are reasons, but not excuses I made.
• 3:37
  I made every choice I made, every decision I made.
• 3:40
  But that background certainly contributed to all of this.
• 3:45
  I came out of that and did what any normal red blooded American
• 3:50
  man would do. I became a pastor.
• 3:52
  A lot of affirmation in that seeking that fulfillment that I
• 3:56
  didn't get as a child. Validation and and sense of
• 4:01
  being worth something. Can I back you up though?
• 4:05
  I think you lost a couple siblings growing up.
• 4:07
  Well, we did, and that's some real tragedies.
• 4:09
  Yeah, that certainly contributed to to some of the.
• 4:14
  I mean, we can go really deep in this.
• 4:16
  I was the oldest child and you're three sisters.
• 4:19
  Yeah. And so it kind of is the oldest
• 4:22
  child you take on responsibility for the rest of the leadership.
• 4:25
  Right. Yeah, and so it's, but you know,
• 4:27
  the one thing I knew that whatever happened was my
• 4:30
  responsibility is my fault. So my the sister that was next
• 4:34
  to me, my oldest, the oldest of the girls was killed in an
• 4:39
  automobile accident. She was preparing a little local
• 4:44
  choir to sing on the Bicentennial 1976 thing.
• 4:49
  And the night before she was hit by a driver and and was
• 4:54
  instantly. Killed and how old was she?
• 4:56
  She was 21 at the time. A few months after that, my
• 5:01
  father, partly the stress from that, but but lots of other
• 5:07
  things as well left. He disappeared, ran off with
• 5:11
  someone we didn't know who we didn't hear from him for several
• 5:15
  years. Just absolutely disagree.
• 5:17
  In fact, he he married my wife and I.
• 5:21
  He was still a pastor. So he married my wife and I, and
• 5:24
  the day of the wedding pulled me aside and said, I have my bags
• 5:28
  packed and as soon as the ceremony is over, I'm leaving.
• 5:31
  Your mother. I'm leaving.
• 5:33
  Yeah. So that was, and that was that
• 5:35
  bipolar kind of style that I'm going to.
• 5:38
  I'm going to go down. I'm going to take everybody with
• 5:40
  me. So one of the side notes of
• 5:43
  that, I stood in my wedding ceremony keeping one of the
• 5:48
  biggest secrets that I could ever keep from my wife, from
• 5:51
  everybody else, because that's what we did in our families.
• 5:54
  We kept secrets. And then a few months after
• 5:57
  that, Cherylin, the baby of the family, contracted leukemia.
• 6:01
  She was 15 and she she died from leukemia.
• 6:05
  So our family went from six to three.
• 6:08
  And actually for my mom, because Doris and I married and it went,
• 6:14
  yeah, from six to two for my mom in a short period of time.
• 6:17
  It yeah, sounds like it was not even a year or so it was, it was
• 6:20
  about. 14 months that that whole span of time that all those
• 6:23
  things how? Much did that.
• 6:24
  How much did that tragedy impact you, Those tragedies?
• 6:28
  Well, we, we learned some things when we were growing up.
• 6:32
  We learned that we keep secrets. We learned that you never allow
• 6:35
  anybody on the inside. So I had learned to put my
• 6:40
  little heart in a box and lock it up and not let anybody know
• 6:45
  what was really going on. So we we did what we did.
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  And by we, I mean the whole family.
• 6:50
  We sucked it up and went on and and.
• 6:53
  Where did you? Care of everybody else you know
• 6:56
  we moved a lot OK it's a pretty. Complicated story.
• 7:00
  I was thinking it from the South and and in the South.
• 7:02
  Is it more like about your image right in the church?
• 7:05
  Or well, I think so I think. I think there is the, you know,
• 7:10
  how are you doing? And we don't really want to
• 7:13
  know. We're just making polite
• 7:14
  conversation. So I, yeah, all of that took
• 7:18
  place in Middle Tennessee. I grew up South Carolina was
• 7:22
  kind of home for me. I came to College in Nashville
• 7:25
  and then my family kind of followed me and pastor the
• 7:28
  church not far outside of of Nashville.
• 7:30
  So all of that took place in the Middle Tennessee area.
• 7:33
  Yeah. And I think that probably was a
• 7:35
  Southern thing that we, you know, we're we're interested in
• 7:38
  you. We love you.
• 7:39
  We just don't want to talk about uncomfortable stuff.
• 7:42
  Well, and you, you keep secrets. I mean, that was your family
• 7:45
  dynamic, but maybe part of South Southern culture.
• 7:48
  Yeah, probably you don't let anybody know the the bad stuff.
• 7:51
  So we we handled it by by telling stories about it, by
• 7:57
  preaching sermons about it. My sister is a comedian.
• 8:02
  She told jokes about it. That's how we handled it by by
• 8:06
  writing books, by making it kind of a part of our shtick, a part
• 8:10
  of the the ministry, so to speak.
• 8:12
  But but but never really dealing with I was going.
• 8:16
  To say that just keeps it at a distance and so you don't have
• 8:19
  to really go down in there, yeah.
• 8:22
  You have to, if you deal with it, you have to feel it again
• 8:25
  and say by never really feeling it again.
• 8:27
  So I, I married in the midst of all that.
• 8:31
  I, Doris and I entered the ministry.
• 8:32
  I did a stint as youth pastor. Every good minister needs to do
• 8:37
  a stand as youth pastor in Augusta, GA and then moved to a
• 8:41
  very large church in Ohio and it it kind of there there was good
• 8:47
  and bad to that. It changed my whole perspective
• 8:51
  of the church. It changed kind of the the
• 8:54
  career path for me because I was I was just aware churches more
• 8:58
  than 40 people. I was aware of large mega
• 9:01
  churches and and served on staff there.
• 9:03
  So it opened a lot of wonderful doors, but it also just created
• 9:09
  this high level of needing to perform and never feeling quite
• 9:15
  good enough. I was, I was out of my league
• 9:18
  and over my head from the very first and nobody knew that
• 9:22
  because I was so good at keeping secrets and and all that.
• 9:26
  So are you saying at the mega, I don't know if it's considered a
• 9:28
  mega church, but it's a large church and so you're saying it's
• 9:31
  part of the bigness of the church, maybe contributed to
• 9:34
  that feeling of inadequacy? Yes, I think so.
• 9:38
  And because of the kind of the, the, the father winds and the
• 9:42
  issues of the past, although people were saying you're
• 9:45
  wonderful, you're doing a great job, we're so glad you're here.
• 9:49
  And I was saying it, yeah. But if they really knew, if they
• 9:53
  really knew me, that would not be the case.
• 9:56
  And it's not a far stretch for that kind of self talk to begin
• 10:02
  to happen. Not only the people in the
• 10:04
  church, but my wife, the people around me, and even God.
• 10:10
  You know, if God really knew me, he wouldn't like me very much.
• 10:15
  And so I have to, on the one hand, I have to keep all this
• 10:17
  stuff hidden so nobody knows the real me.
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  And on the other hand, I'm desperate for somebody to know
• 10:24
  the real me And, and maybe like me, maybe they would like me.
• 10:29
  That is a classic recipe for sexual addiction.
• 10:35
  It sounds like what you're describing is shame.
• 10:38
  Uh huh. OK, so you have this core shame,
• 10:41
  core of shame, right? And no, you felt like nobody
• 10:46
  knew you. Right, right.
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  And and that was very intentional because if I allowed
• 10:50
  them to know me, then the shame tells me that they won't like
• 10:54
  you. They won't like and so hungry,
• 10:57
  hungry for affirmation and validation and absolutely
• 11:02
  terrified at the fact at the thought that someone would know
• 11:05
  me enough to be able to to give that to me.
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  I have a a a a great friend actually was a counselor during
• 11:12
  the healing time for me. Ralph Earl, who wrote a book and
• 11:16
  the title is Come Here, Go Away, and it was that.
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  Oh yeah, OK, that's it's ambivalence is what you're
• 11:20
  describing. I I need you.
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  Please tell me that I'm worth something.
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  Please tell me that you love me. No, wait, wait, wait.
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  That's too scary. So, so go away.
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  And I and I, and again, that wasn't, you know, I, I, I
• 11:32
  reference sexual addiction, but that was true in my relationship
• 11:36
  with my wife, with my family, with close friends.
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  I was, that was true with everybody.
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  Nobody was going to get close enough to tell me what I was
• 11:45
  pretty sure they would tell me if they did get close enough.
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  And that is that I'm just unlovable.
• 11:52
  That is intense, man, you know? Yeah, and that's all I got time
• 11:56
  for. Thanks for that.
• 11:58
  And we'll be a part of this. Wow.
• 12:01
  Because you were just certain you were going to be rejected.
• 12:03
  Absolutely, yeah. You did that come from, like you
• 12:06
  said, the father wound? Was there another wound as a
• 12:09
  child where you got that message, like the message
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  started as a child as you're not good enough.
• 12:16
  And why do you think as APK you're APK And so and I feel
• 12:20
  like there's extra pressure on PKS when I say that I mean
• 12:22
  preacher's kid. Yeah, right.
• 12:24
  And did you feel that pressure to to perform or to live up to
• 12:27
  all these expectations as a as APK?
• 12:29
  Yeah, you know, I that's a, that's a great question.
• 12:35
  And the the traditional answer would be, Oh yeah, PK, that's
• 12:39
  right. But you know, that wasn't the
• 12:40
  case for me. That probably was, that was the
• 12:44
  escape place for me is running into that being a preacher's
• 12:49
  kid, the the opportunities that afforded in terms of state youth
• 12:56
  groups of that kind of thing. And so quite honestly, my days
• 13:01
  as a preacher's kid were wonderful.
• 13:03
  And this is jumping way ahead of story, but I wanted that to be
• 13:06
  true for my children as well. So I don't that that wasn't a
• 13:09
  part. A part of it would be we moved
• 13:13
  frequently, kind of the way my father got into ministry and
• 13:16
  then his, the bipolar and all of that.
• 13:19
  We moved very frequently. By frequently, I mean, I went to
• 13:23
  the first grade and the 12th grade were the only two years
• 13:26
  that I finished the same school that I started.
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  We moved at least once and sometimes twice in the middle
• 13:32
  school so that not allowing myself to make close
• 13:38
  relationships because they were probably going to end pretty
• 13:40
  soon anyway. And then again, they don't know
• 13:43
  what I'm, what I'm hiding from the Parsonage.
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  They don't know what I'm bringing from Penn.
• 13:47
  So I, I think all of that went into this to this shame based
• 13:52
  and fear of, of, of being known and the desperate need for
• 13:57
  people is to know and be known, But but the fear of that not
• 14:00
  wanting anybody to do that. You mentioned what you were
• 14:03
  hiding from the Parsonage. That was just the the crazy.
• 14:06
  Life of your father Yeah, my parents, their marriage was was
• 14:10
  terrible. There was yelling and screaming
• 14:12
  and and my father the you know, when I tell these stories kind
• 14:17
  of out of context, it sounds like these.
• 14:20
  Oh, what a horrible thing it was.
• 14:21
  There was a lots of wonderful things and all this you don't
• 14:24
  know what you don't know. And there were lots of wonderful
• 14:26
  things too. But the first sermon that I ever
• 14:28
  preached, I was 12, my father had gone into this many, this
• 14:33
  depressive state, locked himself in the bathroom with a shotgun
• 14:38
  and threatened to yell through the door.
• 14:39
  He's going to kill himself. This is on Saturday night.
• 14:42
  And all night long we're standing there begging my father
• 14:46
  not to kill himself. And when it came time for church
• 14:48
  the next day, my mother said, go next door.
• 14:51
  In those days, you live right next door to the church.
• 14:53
  Go next door and preach a sermon and and just tell him that
• 14:58
  Daddy's sick. Don't tell him what's going on.
• 15:00
  So the keeping secret and that's the first sermon that I ever.
• 15:03
  That are 12 years old, yeah, probably with no preparation.
• 15:06
  Oh, it was a great sermon. It was really good.
• 15:08
  A. Lot of people came to.
• 15:10
  Work. The altars are lying.
• 15:13
  It was a revival. 40 people care, but that that's what we
• 15:19
  hit that's what we that's what we My mom was a was a people
• 15:24
  pleaser. Keep the peace at all cost.
• 15:27
  And so again, yeah, don't ever don't ever let anybody outside
• 15:32
  know what's going on the inside keep secrets, keep daddy happy
• 15:36
  no matter what you always keep daddy happy.
• 15:38
  So when I'm 35 and 40 years old and I haven't seen my father for
• 15:44
  years, I'm still struggling to keep my dad happy.
• 15:46
  I wonder if he would be happy. I bet he's not happy.
• 15:49
  I bet he's not happy with me. I pastor.
• 15:51
  I was a successful pastor, passing a large church and still
• 15:54
  thinking my dad wouldn't be pleased with this.
• 15:56
  I bet he's unhappy. You feel all of that stuff?
• 15:58
  Yeah. Still trying to get his
• 15:59
  approval. Yeah.
• 16:00
  Yeah. Wow.
• 16:02
  So how did how did things start to unravel for you?
• 16:04
  You're in the pastor at a large church by Ohio.
• 16:07
  And then I don't know how much time transpired before they
• 16:10
  started to unravel. Yeah, I had the the whole story
• 16:15
  is I had three affairs over a period of 21 years.
• 16:19
  They were all about 7 years apart.
• 16:22
  The first affair lasted just a week, the second affair lasted a
• 16:28
  few months, and the third affair lasted over a year.
• 16:32
  And each one more to pray more sordid, obviously more
• 16:38
  destructive. So I were these were from with
• 16:42
  women into the church. Church.
• 16:44
  Church. Yeah, yes.
• 16:45
  And then each one did you you changed churches after each one
• 16:47
  of these, Correct. I read the book and it's but
• 16:50
  it's just been a while since I read.
• 16:51
  I don't know what year this book came out.
• 16:53
  You know, it's 20 years old. It's hard to believe that.
• 16:56
  Yeah, I I read it a long time ago and I know that you moved
• 17:00
  from church to church. Yeah, when before we finish
• 17:03
  this, I'm going to give you a quiz on the book and you have.
• 17:06
  No answer, probably not going to pass it yet.
• 17:09
  Yeah, they would not be. The move would not come
• 17:13
  immediately because we kept secrets, but but that would be
• 17:17
  kind of the the end result of that.
• 17:23
  Pastors are, I don't want to be flippant about this at all.
• 17:26
  I'm not, I'm not Tom Selleck or Tom Cruise.
• 17:30
  But pastors are they dressed nice, they look nice, they talk
• 17:33
  nice, they're nice to people. And so someone would come up to
• 17:37
  me and begin to show a little bit of attention and all of a
• 17:41
  sudden that that hunger, that maybe, maybe this is finally the
• 17:48
  person who will, who will get me, who will know me.
• 17:52
  And that happened repeatedly. And then the, the first time
• 17:58
  that it happens, it's just, I mean, it's just horrible,
• 18:01
  devastating, but it just affirms all of the shame that I had.
• 18:07
  Well, of course I'm going to do that kind of thing.
• 18:10
  I'm a horrible, worthless piece of crap anyway.
• 18:13
  So of course I'm going to do that kind of thing.
• 18:15
  And I always, you know, I say to people now that the the devil's,
• 18:18
  the devil's goal is never to have you do the thing.
• 18:25
  His goal is always to come back and shame you after you've done
• 18:29
  the thing. You know, The thing is just
• 18:31
  setting you up. So for the rest of your life or
• 18:34
  or until you break free from that, he can come back and shame
• 18:36
  you. So what you're describing was
• 18:37
  the self hatred that came after making your marriage vow?
• 18:41
  Yes, I was already, you know, if anybody knew me, they wouldn't
• 18:45
  really love me. Then I would act out on this, on
• 18:48
  this lust. Because you had a taste of
• 18:50
  affirmation, and you're thinking like, oh, OK, yeah.
• 18:53
  And you follow that to its end, and it leads you somewhere.
• 18:56
  You do. And.
• 18:57
  Obviously very quickly you recognize, no, this is not that
• 19:00
  there's not affirmation this, this is just creates more shame.
• 19:04
  So in the first case it, it remained a secret for a long,
• 19:09
  long time. Doris, my wife had some
• 19:13
  intimation of it, but not a lot. We, we, she kind of didn't know
• 19:16
  the Horror Story. So we got through that and we
• 19:19
  stayed another couple of years in that, in that place.
• 19:22
  It was a very large church. So we could kind of, we could
• 19:25
  kind of do that and be lost at I at that church, I was not the
• 19:29
  senior pastor. So I could kind of stay lost
• 19:33
  move, but move from there really as a result of that.
• 19:36
  So obviously untenable living in that, you know, walking to the
• 19:42
  other side of the sanctuary, those kinds of things.
• 19:44
  They want a fresh start. Yeah, so we moved and I became
• 19:48
  the pastor of a church the same. And in the book I've changed
• 19:55
  names and sure. And people will come to me and
• 19:58
  say, oh, I lived in Miami. What was it like living in
• 20:01
  Miami? I never lived in Miami.
• 20:02
  I. Changed the different of the
• 20:03
  city. Yeah, OK.
• 20:06
  So I don't want to, you know, those stories are, are the
• 20:11
  affair partners. It's it's their story to tell.
• 20:13
  They only want to tell their story.
• 20:15
  But in each one of the the churches, that kind of thing
• 20:20
  would happen again, kind of kept it secret.
• 20:24
  We would we would somehow survive for another year or two,
• 20:29
  but ultimately end up moving because of that.
• 20:34
  And that game happened to repeat it until finally built the last
• 20:39
  time I let me let me stop before I say that and say one of the
• 20:43
  things in my own healing, one of the things that I learned and
• 20:48
  Doctor Earl kind of pointed out to me.
• 20:52
  I had I had three affairs, but I was grooming people all of the
• 20:58
  time. I was constant.
• 21:00
  I was either I was looking for the next affair affair partner.
• 21:04
  I was sizing every female that I met, sizing them up as whether.
• 21:09
  And again, I don't know how cognizant I was of that.
• 21:14
  But as I look back at at at patterns and behavior and kind
• 21:18
  of my emotional response to people, that is what was taking
• 21:22
  place. And I, I'll never forget the
• 21:24
  first time that Doctor Earl said you're a predator.
• 21:28
  You're you're a predator. And I end up his words just
• 21:32
  absolutely devastated me. But he was right.
• 21:35
  I was constantly grooming and looking for the next person and
• 21:38
  that kind of thing. So while there were, it was only
• 21:41
  three affairs, it was, it was 25 years of, of this sexual this.
• 21:49
  And, and, and we use the word sexual addiction because we
• 21:51
  don't have a better word, but it's really more of a, of an
• 21:54
  affirmation addiction that I was hungry for and desiring someone
• 21:58
  to affirm and validate me. The last time it it was so
• 22:04
  devastating that it caused a complete collapse of our family.
• 22:09
  And that's a that's a huge part of the of the story.
• 22:13
  So that was finally a turning point.
• 22:14
  But before we get into that, I want to know also, I'd love to
• 22:17
  back up and ask, before all these things, was there other
• 22:20
  things going on? Like did you have a pornography
• 22:22
  addiction or anything like that? You know, I, I, I, you know, I
• 22:27
  will, we'll jump back and forth. I, I work with men now a lot in
• 22:32
  with sexual addiction. And So what we'll talk about
• 22:35
  this quite a bit. My, my porn use came out of the,
• 22:43
  the affairs. I, when I was when I was not in
• 22:46
  an affair, I wasn't, I wasn't necessarily drawn to porn with
• 22:49
  news porn, but when I would enter into it, you know, you,
• 22:53
  you don't go into sin just a little bit.
• 22:55
  You go all the way. And so as I'm drawn into it.
• 22:57
  And part of that quite honestly was I, I think was a need to
• 23:03
  keep myself engaged because it otherwise it was just so
• 23:07
  appalling to me that I would do such a thing that would come.
• 23:10
  I would completely compartmentalize and say this is
• 23:13
  a sexual part of me that I, that anything goes.
• 23:17
  And then the other part of me I kind of can keep separate from
• 23:21
  that. So, so there was porn used, but
• 23:23
  it was, it was kind of almost always in the amidst, in the
• 23:26
  midst of the, of the affair process.
• 23:29
  So. It sounds like your conscious
• 23:30
  was very much alive at the time, but it's so it's like, you know,
• 23:34
  you weren't doing the porn. Other times when you're getting
• 23:37
  this relationship, you're like, that's when it came up.
• 23:40
  Oh, you're, you know, you're doing this anyway and, and you
• 23:44
  got to get up and preach on Sunday, right?
• 23:46
  So. It must have been guilt, I mean.
• 23:48
  Oh yeah. Well, again, you know, we
• 23:51
  compartmentalize or rationalize, we minimize.
• 23:53
  Those are the things that we do. And, and I would
• 23:55
  compartmentalize that somehow this is in a little box that
• 24:00
  doesn't touch any other part of the box.
• 24:03
  And I can be a good pastor, I can be a good husband, I can be
• 24:06
  a good father. And this and I, I know this
• 24:09
  isn't right. I need to, I need to do
• 24:11
  something about it, but at least I'm keeping it in the box.
• 24:16
  I'm keeping that in that box. So compartmentalize it or
• 24:19
  rationalizing, you know, I, this is look what my father did.
• 24:24
  I mean, look at, look at all. And this makes perfect sense to
• 24:28
  me based on my circumstance. All that or minimizing, you
• 24:32
  know, I there's worse. I've heard worse.
• 24:35
  Now, Doris would not she hadn't heard worse.
• 24:38
  She wouldn't agree with that. But that's that's what you have
• 24:40
  to do to survive. It is so just just crazy making
• 24:47
  that that you that in order to survive in that kind of chaos,
• 24:51
  you have to do all kind of mental gym gymnastics.
• 24:54
  Yeah, I was thinking mental gymnastics.
• 24:56
  So I was also thinking like, it's like you're gaslighting.
• 24:58
  Yourself. Oh yeah, yeah, like, it's not
• 25:01
  that bad. Tell a different story and yeah,
• 25:03
  absolutely. Wow, that's got to be
• 25:05
  exhausting. Oh, I I've heard of if you work
• 25:08
  with addicts, one of the things they will say is, man, I got so
• 25:11
  much smarter when this was over. I was, I didn't know how much
• 25:14
  brain power I was using to keep the story straight to to
• 25:18
  remember what, who, that kind of thing.
• 25:20
  So yeah, I got, I got smarter, I got more relaxed.
• 25:23
  Life just got a lot better once I got through all of that.
• 25:26
  All these secrets are gone. How does that affect you?
• 25:28
  Like as you're doing this, you're also you're, you're the
• 25:31
  pastor, but you're also, you're raising kids.
• 25:33
  How does that affect you as a parent?
• 25:35
  My my. Yeah, two boys and.
• 25:38
  Two boys, yeah, two sons. My relationship with my father
• 25:43
  was so hurtful and so when and my fault.
• 25:47
  Both my parents are are deceased now, but my father's my father
• 25:52
  had a story. And so I have I've reconciled
• 25:55
  with that. I've, I've, we never became best
• 25:59
  friends, but we, but we reconciled and I recognize that
• 26:02
  he brought a lot of pain into his marriage that create all
• 26:06
  this, but that relationship was so painful that I did determine
• 26:12
  that I was going to be a good father, that I was not going to.
• 26:14
  And I was, I was, I was a great father.
• 26:17
  My wife said, you're a great father.
• 26:18
  My boy said your great father. Everybody.
• 26:21
  I was a great father except for this organization.
• 26:25
  And so I was, I was engaged in their lives.
• 26:28
  I was, I was supportive and affirming and all the things
• 26:31
  that I did not get when I was growing up.
• 26:34
  And we had this wonderful, wonderful relationship, a
• 26:38
  really, really good relationship, until this all
• 26:43
  fell apart. And one of the early stages of
• 26:46
  that, my oldest son was young in college, and we had hired him to
• 26:54
  work as a youth pastor in our church.
• 26:57
  OK, this is the church where you're pastoring and this is
• 27:00
  about the time everything's. Going to blow up and, and he
• 27:03
  came in and he confronted me with something that he had seen
• 27:07
  and it confronted me. And first of all, I, I, I lied.
• 27:10
  I just, I lied about the whole thing.
• 27:12
  But I remember thinking, Christina, I remember thinking,
• 27:15
  and this is, I mean, more than his mother, more than anything,
• 27:19
  my relationship with my boys is the most important relationship
• 27:22
  in the world. And I remember thinking, I don't
• 27:25
  need this. I don't have to take this from
• 27:27
  him. I, I can, he can just, he can
• 27:29
  get out of my life. I don't know.
• 27:30
  And the next thought was, Oh my God, have I gone that far?
• 27:36
  That the most precious thing in my life, I would be able to, I
• 27:41
  would be willing to discard because of this, not because of
• 27:44
  the relationship, but because of having someone confront me about
• 27:49
  about my guilt and what was going on in my life.
• 27:51
  I'm not, I'm not willing to do that.
• 27:53
  So I just so that just was it was a wake up call for me, but
• 28:00
  it was so we were so enmeshed in the in with the affair partner
• 28:05
  and all that was taking place. But it wasn't long until my
• 28:09
  youngest son then discovered a we had moved by the way.
• 28:13
  So we so we moved. That's how we remedied that.
• 28:16
  You moved away from that. Church from that church moved.
• 28:18
  And that was where you were. You were in a relationship with
• 28:21
  somebody, yes, extramarital, and you moved.
• 28:24
  Your son confronts you and then you ended up moving.
• 28:26
  And end up moving, yeah. So you start.
• 28:29
  Somewhere else, the move is not. It's not nearly as much because
• 28:34
  of that relationship as it is just because of it.
• 28:37
  If I'm going to have to deal with guilt, if I'm a, then I'm
• 28:39
  just not going to do it. I'm going to just go somewhere
• 28:41
  else, start over fresh. We'll never have to bring this
• 28:45
  up again, never have to talk about it again.
• 28:47
  Now, Doris was aware not of all the details, but she was
• 28:51
  certainly aware that that this was just terribly unhealthy and
• 28:58
  and probably unfaithful relationship taking place.
• 29:01
  So we moved. But while in this new church, we
• 29:04
  hadn't been there long, my youngest son, Jacob, found some
• 29:09
  phone bills where I was continuing to be in contact with
• 29:13
  a fair partner. We have moved several states.
• 29:15
  From the previous from. The previous.
• 29:16
  So you stay connected to the person, OK.
• 29:19
  And he found proof of that. Yes, brought that to his mother.
• 29:23
  His mother left. Call me one day.
• 29:26
  I was at the office. We had not been there long
• 29:30
  enough to buy a house. We were still living in an
• 29:31
  apartment and she said there's no need for you to come home.
• 29:35
  By the time you come home, Jacob and I will be gone.
• 29:38
  And I jumped in the car and drove home.
• 29:40
  I, you know, you're not thinking clearly.
• 29:43
  Thinking back, I realized she was already gone.
• 29:45
  She was on the road when she said walked in and she was gone.
• 29:50
  And that was the moment where I knew there would be no more
• 29:54
  hiding this there, No. And again, the the greatest
• 29:59
  concern for me was not the, you know, reconciling with God or
• 30:06
  healing from the the the affair partners or or restoring.
• 30:10
  The greatest thing is people are going to find out what will they
• 30:13
  think. Your reputation was your
• 30:15
  greatest concern. So it's gone, no ministry, no
• 30:20
  career, no, no nothing to to prop me up.
• 30:24
  And I remember setting in the and I would say setting in this
• 30:27
  dark apartment. It wasn't a dark apartment.
• 30:29
  It was a there's a beautiful apartment on a nice golf course
• 30:33
  in Orlando, FL and I'm sitting there and, and my life had just
• 30:37
  absolutely come to an end. And and in retrospect, it's one
• 30:43
  of the greatest moments of all. Life, right, It was rock bottom,
• 30:46
  but at the time, it didn't feel like it was a good moment.
• 30:48
  But that's the turning point, right?
• 30:50
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
• 30:51
  So. So she leaves with your son.
• 30:53
  Your other son's already off of college, right.
• 30:55
  OK. And I guess did she out you to
• 30:59
  the church? I mean, you know, because you
• 31:01
  said that was or did you just out yourself with?
• 31:04
  That point, well, it there were some, some rumblings, I think
• 31:09
  the church and although it was a new church, we'd only been there
• 31:12
  for a few months. They could see she would she
• 31:14
  would be gone a lot and she would just go home to to visit
• 31:18
  her family. She just, she was so broken.
• 31:20
  She was she was so broken by this.
• 31:23
  She is so there was rumblings and and them feeling this
• 31:26
  anyway, when she left, then I knew there was there was no
• 31:31
  place to go but to say to the church, look, this is what's
• 31:35
  happened and I knew that I would that my minister would be would
• 31:38
  be over. I went immediately went to the
• 31:42
  college where my son was and went in to see him and I was a
• 31:47
  great dad. We had a great relationship and
• 31:50
  I went in to see him and Josh said Dad, don't ever come back
• 31:54
  again. I don't ever want to see you
• 31:56
  again. Wow.
• 31:57
  So as absolutely, I mean it, if there is a rock bottom that that
• 32:02
  was it. That was absolutely rock.
• 32:04
  Bottom Were you going to see him to tell him yourself so because
• 32:06
  he was going to hear it eventually from his mother, or
• 32:08
  were you? Yes, and he had already heard.
• 32:10
  I, I was going to, to kind of tell my side of it, not, not to
• 32:16
  argue with his mother, but try to, you know, help him under the
• 32:21
  compartmentalize, rationalize and minimize, try to help him
• 32:23
  understand as as much as he could.
• 32:25
  And so Doris left and she left. She left to get a divorce.
• 32:28
  She was done and, and rightly so, she needed to be.
• 32:33
  She needed to be done so. So where'd you go from there?
• 32:35
  So you leave and you're done. Your job is over.
• 32:39
  Your kids don't want anything to do with you.
• 32:41
  Your your your life is done. So what happens?
• 32:44
  How do you pick up the pieces from that point?
• 32:46
  I. How does your worst moment
• 32:48
  become your best? Moment yeah, we while we were
• 32:52
  still it maybe it's helpful to I don't do this very often, but
• 32:57
  kind of put some some geography to OK, sure.
• 33:01
  The the church where I had the the last affair that was in in
• 33:05
  Tennessee. My wife is from Tennessee.
• 33:07
  So she came back to Tennessee to her home.
• 33:09
  We had moved to Florida. So while we were in Tennessee
• 33:15
  seeing if we can say this thing, we saw a counselor, wonderful
• 33:21
  professional therapist, Barbie White.
• 33:24
  And we had, we had talked through this.
• 33:25
  It, it didn't work. I'm I'm lying to her.
• 33:28
  Counseling doesn't work if you're lying to her.
• 33:31
  The fact I remember going to Barbie one time, Doris and I and
• 33:37
  she something happened in the course of that conversation and
• 33:40
  she touched a nerve. She she about my father and I'm
• 33:46
  I'm sobbing into a pillow. I mean just broken sobbing into
• 33:50
  a pillow. When we left her office, we got
• 33:53
  in the car. I'm trying to compose myself
• 33:55
  enough to drive home and doors patted me on the arm.
• 33:58
  She said see, aren't you glad you can?
• 34:00
  And I said hell no and I will never come again.
• 34:04
  I will never. Go because you got in touch with
• 34:06
  some people. Yeah, yeah.
• 34:07
  So Doris came back, talk to Barbie and Barbie called me and
• 34:12
  use the the phrase I had never heard in my life.
• 34:15
  She said, she said, Mike, this is an addiction.
• 34:18
  You, you are, you have a sexual addiction and you need to go
• 34:22
  someplace to get help. You can't do this on your own.
• 34:25
  And I have a place I'd like for you to go.
• 34:28
  It's in Phoenix, AZ, Scottsdale, AZ.
• 34:31
  And I want you to go there. And at that point, I was so
• 34:33
  broken that, you know, she could have said go to Timbuktu, that I
• 34:38
  would have gone. I said yes, you were very open.
• 34:40
  I will go yes. Yeah, by this point, you're
• 34:42
  finally open, broken and teachable, right?
• 34:44
  Yeah, yeah. I knew I knew one thing.
• 34:47
  I knew that I and, and this is the grace of God even to be at
• 34:52
  this point, but I knew that I I would not live another day just
• 34:59
  accepting things the way they were.
• 35:01
  That I would fight against this. And I didn't know if I could get
• 35:03
  well, I might spend the rest of my life fighting against it, but
• 35:07
  I would spend the rest of my life fighting against it.
• 35:09
  I would not accept that this is just the way I am.
• 35:12
  OK. So you weren't going to just
• 35:13
  resign to this is how we're going to end?
• 35:16
  I know no imagination that that my marriage would be saved, my
• 35:21
  relationship with the boys would be.
• 35:23
  And I just knew that I was, that I was going to change.
• 35:26
  I did not want to be like this. There were some issues and, and
• 35:31
  there's some, you know, this is a, it's a, it's a God story.
• 35:34
  This is, this is not a Mike Courtney story.
• 35:37
  This is a God story. Along with finances.
• 35:40
  This place was incredibly expensive.
• 35:44
  Yeah. And so we, we had, I had a
• 35:49
  fairly nice house in Tennessee. We move again.
• 35:52
  We hadn't been gone long enough for the house to sell.
• 35:56
  So Doris came back to Tennessee and and she said I will, I'll
• 36:00
  put the house up for sale for Sale by owner.
• 36:03
  So she put a sign in the front yard.
• 36:06
  I, I talked to PCs, Psychological counseling
• 36:10
  Services is a place in Scottsdale.
• 36:12
  I talked to them and they said this is how much it's going to
• 36:15
  be to come. It was, it was $15,000 a week.
• 36:21
  Wow. And I needed to be there for
• 36:22
  three weeks, but because as a minister I could go for half
• 36:25
  price. So it's only going to be $23,000
• 36:28
  for me to go for three weeks, for three weeks.
• 36:30
  Wow. And that's decades ago.
• 36:32
  So yeah, that would be like 6 figures, yeah.
• 36:36
  So Doris sold that. I mean, as soon as I have that
• 36:42
  conversation, like the next day, Doris called and said we, we
• 36:47
  sold the house. Wow.
• 36:48
  We cleared $23,000. We cleared exactly.
• 36:54
  And I mean. That's profit, you mean?
• 36:55
  Yeah. And if she had had, even in her
• 36:59
  most generous moment, she should have said so.
• 37:02
  I'll give you half, right? So you're halfway there, but she
• 37:05
  said you can. You can have a she.
• 37:07
  Was really rooting for you. She was.
• 37:09
  She wanted me to get. Y'all, we're like.
• 37:11
  She was a little tear. Yeah, I just.
• 37:12
  Thinking of yeah, even though she's not trying to keep the
• 37:15
  marriage, she's like she wants to it to invest in you.
• 37:18
  She wants me to be. That had to be humbling.
• 37:21
  Oh, incredible. She is in the in the forward of
• 37:25
  my book, I wrote that that she is the hero of my story.
• 37:29
  I'm not the hero. She's the hero of my story and
• 37:31
  to this day that we, you know, I'm, I'm spoiling the surprises
• 37:37
  again. We have been married 48 years.
• 37:40
  God's just done great things our life.
• 37:42
  But she's she's an amazing hero. So we had the money.
• 37:46
  Go off to. US 3.
• 37:48
  Weeks and you're all fixed. Yeah, it just absolutely wasn't.
• 37:51
  I've made the way to magic wand everybody.
• 37:53
  Sure. Yeah, I tell people all the
• 37:56
  time. I said there was there.
• 37:57
  There was a miraculous healing moment.
• 38:02
  There really was. But I so I said it was it was
• 38:06
  God's job to get me clean and sober.
• 38:10
  It's been my job to stay that way for the for the last 25
• 38:14
  years. There was a moment where I it
• 38:20
  all, it all kind of came crashing in or gloriously come,
• 38:24
  I'm not sure which one, but it just the, the light just came on
• 38:28
  and I, I became aware of the of the source of this.
• 38:32
  I became aware of the, of the depth of the pain.
• 38:34
  I became just in an in an instant I saw that then it's
• 38:40
  it's unraveling the spaghetti. It's just, it's weeks there
• 38:45
  months afterwards and really years of I'm continuing to, it's
• 38:50
  interesting that, you know, now it 25 years after that,
• 38:54
  something will come up and I'm triggered.
• 38:56
  But I say, oh man, I, yeah, that's what that I remember that
• 38:59
  now. So, so I, I, I feel like I got
• 39:04
  well there. That was God's job.
• 39:06
  It was my job to to learn more about that.
• 39:09
  The same process. I'll tell you the story, if
• 39:12
  that's OK, about 1. Moment because I yeah, like, I
• 39:14
  love all this stuff. I I was in Doctor Earl's office
• 39:22
  and he had used that word predator.
• 39:24
  You're a predator. Oh, that's where you're at.
• 39:26
  Yeah, you have. You, you prey on these people.
• 39:29
  You've been grooming people. Or I said, I don't want to be
• 39:32
  that way. I don't want to be that way.
• 39:33
  He said, I don't blame him. Nobody would want to be that
• 39:36
  way. And then he said literally what
• 39:38
  I just did a while ago, he said, OK, that's all we have time for,
• 39:41
  I'll see you tomorrow. How he say this is either he's
• 39:45
  either the greatest therapist in the whole world or the luckiest
• 39:48
  guy in the whole world because I was just, I was broken.
• 39:52
  But he said, no, we're done. You need to go home and process
• 39:54
  that, deal with that. So when I was staying in a
• 39:56
  little CD hotel in Scottsdale, AZ, sent Doris a text and said,
• 40:06
  I'm done. I can't do this.
• 40:08
  Sell everything. I'm moving to Mexico, really
• 40:12
  ever see? You're just going to run away.
• 40:13
  I never I never entertained harming myself.
• 40:17
  I don't know that was never. But but to just escape from all
• 40:21
  of it, it was just being confronted with with my own
• 40:26
  depravity was more than I could take.
• 40:29
  So I'm I'm just done. I had one more counselor to see
• 40:35
  that day. And so I saw her talk to her
• 40:38
  about all this and she said as counselors do, she said, are you
• 40:42
  first of all, are you safe? You're not going to do anything.
• 40:44
  So no, I'm, I'm, but I'm not, I'm not coming back.
• 40:48
  I'm, I'm, I'm on my way to Mexico.
• 40:50
  I'm not coming back. And she said, OK, that's fine.
• 40:53
  She, we, I tell you what, we have an appointment at 9:00 in
• 40:56
  the morning. Will you come see me?
• 40:59
  Keep your 9:00 appointment. And then after that we want to
• 41:01
  go. So I again, probably smartest
• 41:04
  counselor in the whole world. I don't know.
• 41:07
  So I, I'm, I'm going back to the place just thinking I promised I
• 41:14
  would go back, so I'll go back. Isn't that interesting?
• 41:16
  I'm unfaithful to my wife, I'm unfaithful to my kids, I'm
• 41:19
  unfaithful to God. But I promised this counselor
• 41:21
  I'd come back at 9:00. So I so I.
• 41:23
  You got to keep that one, yes, Yeah.
• 41:25
  So I'm, I'm on my way to go back and see her at 9:00.
• 41:30
  Before that, there was a, a 12 step meeting that I attended
• 41:34
  every morning and I went to the 12 step meeting finished it went
• 41:38
  out. I'm sitting in the lobby waiting
• 41:40
  to go waiting for my 9:00 appointment.
• 41:43
  And a man by the name of Carl, who was also in that 12 step
• 41:46
  meeting came out and sat down beside me.
• 41:50
  And Carl always say to people, I don't know if you've ever been
• 41:53
  in a clinic for men with sexual addiction, but the last thing
• 41:56
  you want for one of the sit right beside you, Carl, sit
• 41:59
  right beside me. He's one of these that talk too
• 42:01
  loud and too close and he got right in my face and he said, I
• 42:06
  was praying for you today. Now this wasn't a Christian
• 42:11
  place. God called to know that I
• 42:13
  prayed. I didn't know that he prayed.
• 42:14
  All we knew about each other was first names and kind of what we
• 42:17
  done to be there. And so I was praying for you.
• 42:20
  God gave me a verse of Scripture for you.
• 42:23
  Zephaniah 317 The Lord is mine. He delights.
• 42:28
  He will deliver you. He delights in you and rejoices
• 42:32
  over you with singing. And then Carl said, do you know,
• 42:36
  you know, I'm interrupting myself to say I remember 20
• 42:40
  years ago setting and telling you the same story.
• 42:43
  I remember that interview now, Carl said, do you know that last
• 42:47
  this morning when you woke up, the God of the universe sang
• 42:50
  over you and Christine? All I can say is that when he
• 42:56
  said that, I mean, I have heard some of the greatest preachers
• 43:00
  in the whole world and Nasty Carl said, do you know the gods
• 43:05
  hanging over you? And when he said that, I said,
• 43:11
  yes, I do know that for the, for some reason, for the first time
• 43:16
  in my life, I do know that I, I do believe that to be true.
• 43:21
  And that was the that was the turning point, all of the shame
• 43:25
  and all the remorse and all that that in in the midst of all of
• 43:31
  that. And it's and it's always been
• 43:32
  interesting to me that that I could not believe that until
• 43:38
  Doctor Earl said your predator, you're you're been grinning on
• 43:42
  people. You're I, I had to see the very
• 43:45
  worst before I could understand how miraculous and Marvis it is
• 43:51
  that God would sing over me and I and that was a moment that
• 43:55
  absolutely changed everything. I went in to, to GAIL, who was
• 44:00
  the counselor at 9:00. I told her what had happened,
• 44:03
  said I'm look, I'm ready to go. I don't know.
• 44:05
  I don't know what, but this happened and, and Carl said this
• 44:08
  and I'm, and I for the first time in my life.
• 44:12
  And GAIL said, let's call Doris and see if she'll come.
• 44:18
  And I immediately I thought, Oh my, I'm feeling so good.
• 44:23
  I don't want to do what I don't. What if they call her and she
• 44:26
  says no? I mean, that's just going to
• 44:28
  devastate me. I don't, I don't want to do
• 44:30
  that. And then my next thought was
• 44:32
  what if they call her? She says yes, that's that's
• 44:35
  going to devastate me. I don't know.
• 44:37
  What to do? They're both devastated, Yeah.
• 44:39
  Yeah, I'm, I'm scared. No, like either way, that's
• 44:41
  right. And and again, amazing as she
• 44:46
  is, Dora said. Yes, I will.
• 44:47
  I will come and I'll spend the last week and and so Doris came
• 44:52
  out and that was. Is that for like couples
• 44:55
  counseling or? Something.
• 44:55
  Yes, they did some. They did some work with both.
• 44:57
  So you went from like, I'm going to Mexico to I'm going to do the
• 45:00
  I'm like couples counseling. I'll.
• 45:01
  Furnish this and let and let Doris come and she came and, and
• 45:05
  God did a great work in both of us.
• 45:07
  Now, when that week was over, we, we were not reconciled.
• 45:12
  We didn't say this is this is going to, we're going to make
• 45:15
  it. But we said we're willing to
• 45:16
  give it a try. We remain separated for almost a
• 45:19
  year. I continue to do therapy.
• 45:22
  She started in her own treatment program.
• 45:25
  OK, Was she getting treatment for?
• 45:28
  Well, her self esteem issues, you can imagine what that did
• 45:31
  for her for depression and and all of those things that was
• 45:34
  greatest in her. Yes, she as as Doris says, she
• 45:38
  says she found out she was as sick as I was then she asked her
• 45:42
  now the difference is he made me that way.
• 45:44
  But but yeah. And so we remain separated for
• 45:48
  almost a year. Now I'm curious, you did you go
• 45:50
  back to Tennessee? You're both in Tennessee?
• 45:53
  I was, I was still living in Florida.
• 45:56
  So you, so you were like, OK, so I went back to Tennessee.
• 46:00
  I mean back to Florida. We, we put together a separation
• 46:04
  contract, which is interesting that I do that four or five
• 46:08
  times a week now with couples, helping them work, put together
• 46:11
  a separation contract that said I could call her once a week on
• 46:17
  Friday afternoon, That's all. Couldn't, couldn't text, e-mail
• 46:20
  anything, but I could call her once a week and I can see her
• 46:25
  every other week for lunch. So every other week I would
• 46:28
  drive to Tennessee and we would eat lunch together on Friday.
• 46:33
  And, and that was our, that was the only contact that we had.
• 46:36
  And I need to be working on me and she need to be working on
• 46:39
  her. We did that for about 3 months
• 46:41
  and I'll never forget. You drove away.
• 46:44
  You drove. I would come up.
• 46:45
  That far for lunch. Yes, yeah.
• 46:48
  And I and I also had found a counselor here as well.
• 46:51
  OK. So I'm seeing a counselor in in
• 46:54
  Orlando and then I would see a counselor here every other week
• 46:57
  with the idea that I would eventually transition to he or
• 47:01
  she would become the. That makes a lot of sense.
• 47:03
  So you started to build a support network here?
• 47:05
  Yes. Before we but I'll never about 3
• 47:08
  months into that, Doris said the next time you come we will go to
• 47:14
  supper and I said you know lunch is an appointment, supper is a
• 47:18
  date. So this is a whole different
• 47:20
  level, this all different level and God started this amazing
• 47:25
  work in US. I've eventually knew back to
• 47:30
  Middle Tennessee, bought a house, remodeled the house, and
• 47:35
  we had our pastor come and pray over the house and bless every
• 47:40
  room. And the last thing he did is he
• 47:43
  took door sign of the bedroom, put his hands on us, prayed over
• 47:46
  us and everybody left endorse state.
• 47:49
  And that was the that was the beginning of this
• 47:53
  reconciliation. Yeah.
• 47:54
  All right. So what were you doing
• 47:56
  throughout this time? Because it sounds like this was
• 47:58
  a, you know, a year separation. What were you doing for work?
• 48:01
  Because you weren't a pastor anymore, So what were you doing
• 48:04
  for work? And then how was your
• 48:05
  relationship with your boys? Was that growing also at this
• 48:08
  time? I I one of the things that that
• 48:13
  again, this is the the goodness of God and and I, I recognize as
• 48:18
  I work with man that it's not always this way.
• 48:21
  They're not all married to Doris for one thing, but the church
• 48:26
  had been very kind and I had about four months that I I
• 48:32
  really didn't have to worry about like severance bags.
• 48:36
  And so I that kind of help. And then I had, I had as a
• 48:41
  pastor you, you know, you learn how to unplug toilets and you
• 48:45
  know. Pay a bathroom.
• 48:46
  Yeah. So I.
• 48:49
  Actually started buying houses and an auction doing buy these
• 48:57
  just really rundown broken little houses and I would work
• 49:01
  on those and and fix them up and then flip them.
• 49:04
  So I was flipping, flipping houses.
• 49:07
  So that's what I was, I was doing.
• 49:09
  And the house that we that we ended up moving into was one of
• 49:14
  those. I bought it kind of as a project
• 49:16
  and it, and again, there's so many stories.
• 49:19
  I don't want to get too far ahead, but to say we still live
• 49:22
  in that house today. There there came a time where we
• 49:27
  said, you know, we should, you know, this is 10 years ago.
• 49:30
  We should sell this house real estate market in Middle
• 49:32
  Tennessee. We should sell this house.
• 49:34
  And so we put it for sale, sign up.
• 49:36
  Realtor stop said, well, I'll pay whatever you're asking.
• 49:40
  We will give you a pay for all the expenses.
• 49:43
  And Doris and I sat at the table and started to sign the
• 49:45
  contract. And then we said, we can't sell
• 49:47
  this. This is our story.
• 49:49
  Our story is in this house. So we'll, we'll die in that
• 49:51
  house. It's a, it's a small little
• 49:53
  house, but it's, it's where God wants to be.
• 49:56
  But I was working on that house and remodeling, tearing out
• 50:01
  drywall and a car door slammed and my two sons walk in.
• 50:07
  Jacob, our youngest son. Jacob had initially wanted to
• 50:11
  he, he is a lot like his father. He's a rescuer.
• 50:14
  He wanted to rescue me. He wanted to come live with me.
• 50:17
  He wanted to come take care of me.
• 50:19
  And, and his mother was healthy enough to know that that wasn't
• 50:23
  a good thing. So he did.
• 50:25
  Josh is the one that said, I don't ever want to see you
• 50:27
  again. So I'm I'm tearing the drywall
• 50:30
  out of this house and I hear a car door slam and the the two
• 50:34
  boys walk in and Josh starts tearing out drywall beside me.
• 50:40
  And he just said, you need any help?
• 50:42
  And I said, yeah, I could use some help.
• 50:44
  And I'm just weeping. That was that was the beginning
• 50:50
  of opening the door to that relationship.
• 50:53
  About three years later, Josh and his girlfriend invited Doris
• 50:58
  and I had to go to supper with them.
• 51:02
  And we're at Outback Steakhouse. And Josh said Jennifer and I are
• 51:10
  going to get married and dad, will you marry us?
• 51:14
  And I just I'm crying in my tangy tomato dressing and and
• 51:19
  Dora said that means yes, Josh, he will.
• 51:22
  So that this that complete feeling.
• 51:26
  You can't even answer, I know. Yeah, yeah, so, but.
• 51:29
  You weren't really a pastor at that point, but you still I
• 51:31
  guess had credentials or something.
• 51:33
  Well, I know I had to, I had to get credentials back so that he,
• 51:37
  he was giving me a dear warning. Yeah.
• 51:39
  OK, Yeah. So that was neat.
• 51:41
  So the relationship and, and, and a part of this whole mental
• 51:44
  health thing, It's interesting how not everybody heals at the
• 51:48
  same time, on the same level, in the same way.
• 51:51
  Sure, Jacob, who was the rescuer, we wanted to come take
• 51:54
  care of me. When all of that finally settled
• 51:58
  down and, and by the time that Josh was OK with me, then Jacob
• 52:02
  kind of gave himself permission to be mad.
• 52:06
  So we went through about a year where Jacob and I had a very,
• 52:09
  very strained, very limited relationship 'cause he was
• 52:12
  really mad. It was it was finally say he
• 52:14
  knew I was going to be OK, so it was safe enough for him to be
• 52:18
  mad at me. And then and now they are the
• 52:21
  joy of my life. They they think I'm the greatest
• 52:25
  thing since sliced bread and I love them dearly and my
• 52:28
  grandson. So God has done an amazing
• 52:30
  thing. Wow.
• 52:32
  Yeah. So can you take me from the
• 52:37
  restoration to when you get into the fight, would you become a
• 52:41
  counselor and you start helping pastors who are in crisis?
• 52:45
  Yeah. Like basically people like you.
• 52:47
  Yeah. Oh, there's nobody.
• 52:49
  There's nobody like me, right? I guess I mean, but I mean.
• 52:53
  That is one of the the real, the real benefits that a pastor will
• 52:57
  come in. He's so broke and he tells his
• 52:58
  story and I can lean up and say, listen, I see your affair.
• 53:02
  I raise you two more and then they can throw in a porn
• 53:05
  addiction throughout the boot doors.
• 53:10
  And I just, we're healing. We just, we needed to heal.
• 53:13
  And and I, I think God can use every story.
• 53:16
  I think he and his plan all along is to redeem our stories.
• 53:20
  But I think sometimes we try to hurry that along too soon.
• 53:24
  And I always say to BBV, you have to heal.
• 53:26
  You have to take time for your own healing before you begin
• 53:30
  trying to figure out how God is going to use this as a as a
• 53:33
  ministry. So we were just healing.
• 53:35
  We just, we just felt like we needed to do that.
• 53:38
  Good for you. So you are rushing that.
• 53:39
  No, it was a, it was probably about three years went by and we
• 53:45
  got a phone call. Two things happened at about the
• 53:48
  same time. We got a phone call from James
• 53:54
  Robinson. Got life today.
• 53:56
  Yes. And James said, I have heard
• 53:59
  your story and I would like for you to come appear on Life
• 54:03
  today. And I said, yeah, sure.
• 54:06
  Who is this? He said no real.
• 54:08
  You thought it was. Yeah, that was really.
• 54:10
  Thank God. Why don't you be on live with it
• 54:11
  so I can? Hear your story though.
• 54:12
  Were you? Were you?
• 54:13
  Public. Well, I think no, I think
• 54:15
  probably through my sister, in all honesty.
• 54:18
  She had she had appeared on his program a lot, the comedian.
• 54:21
  Yeah. And so he said only it appear on
• 54:24
  life today and said OK, yeah, OK, I will.
• 54:27
  And then she said, he said, do you have a book?
• 54:32
  I said, no. He said, well, you, you have to
• 54:33
  write a book before you can be on like today.
• 54:35
  A part of the I, I, you know, this is OK.
• 54:39
  I think the part of how they fund that is the artist brings a
• 54:43
  book on and they sell those books.
• 54:45
  And a big part of that goes into the the Life Today ministry.
• 54:48
  And so you need to write a book. I said, OK, yeah.
• 54:52
  And to his credit, his secretary would call me about once a month
• 54:58
  and say, James wants to know how you're doing with that book.
• 55:01
  James wants to know how that books come on.
• 55:02
  I'm not going to write a book. I was going to say, how do you
• 55:05
  thought about writing a book? So you had thought about it.
• 55:07
  So this guy put you up? To it but but she can so finance
• 55:12
  I think I'm I think I'll have to write this book so I sit down
• 55:15
  and begin to to tell the story failure and how I achieved it
• 55:19
  and and how God did you said what he had done in that and the
• 55:22
  big part of the book is that is if I hear any rave reviews on
• 55:29
  the book. The big part is the honesty of
• 55:32
  saying I was trying to manipulate counselors.
• 55:35
  I was manipulating my children is is the honesty about my own
• 55:38
  dishonesty in the in the midst of that, so wrote a book called
• 55:41
  failure and how I achieved. It How'd you come up with that
• 55:43
  name? That is such a good I.
• 55:45
  Don't know I, you know, obviously we, because we're
• 55:48
  evangelical Christians, we have to give credit to God.
• 55:50
  So I think the Holy Spirit did it, but it's just one night we
• 55:54
  we were talking about what's that's ask failure and how I
• 55:57
  achieved it. That's so.
• 55:57
  You just came away, so nobody said anything.
• 56:01
  It is a really clever title. Well, thank you fans it it has
• 56:04
  opened so many doors, particularly for healing.
• 56:08
  I've, I, I've had so many phone calls that will start with, I'm
• 56:14
  a pastor. I read your book.
• 56:16
  You know, that's kind of the the beginning of that.
• 56:18
  I'm trying to see who published your book.
• 56:19
  It's it was self published. Self published.
• 56:22
  Yeah. My brother-in-law, Shonda's
• 56:24
  husband, who's passed away since then, really helped a lot with
• 56:27
  it. But yeah.
• 56:29
  So that appearance on life Today began to did the phone begin to
• 56:39
  ring and pastors began to call and say, Hey, saw you on life
• 56:43
  today. I'd like to come talk to you
• 56:45
  about this. Could we, could we come meet
• 56:47
  with your wife and, and you about that same time, Barbie
• 56:51
  White, the counselor that Doris and I had seen and the counselor
• 56:54
  that sent me to PCs, she called and her husband's name is Dee.
• 56:59
  She said Dee and I would like to take you to lunch and we went to
• 57:01
  lunch and she said I have Barbie is an incredible gifted
• 57:05
  therapist, but she's also devout wonderful Church of Christ lady.
• 57:11
  And she said I've never done this and my Barbie's older than
• 57:17
  I am said my whole time I've never done this.
• 57:19
  But God has told me to tell you that you should consider
• 57:26
  pursuing a being a counselor. And I said Barbie, I don't I
• 57:31
  don't know. I don't know how safe that feels
• 57:33
  to me. Kind of my my danger zone was
• 57:36
  being a place where I dressed good talk good show you
• 57:39
  compassion. I don't know if I feel safe
• 57:41
  doing that and I certainly don't want to go back to school again.
• 57:45
  I had master's degree in theology at that point.
• 57:47
  I don't want to go back to school again.
• 57:49
  She said, well, I'm just telling you what God told me.
• 57:50
  You can do whatever you want to do with it.
• 57:52
  But those two things happened about the same time.
• 57:56
  And so we said, I think this is what I'm supposed to do.
• 57:59
  So I went back and pursued a, a graduate degree in clinical
• 58:04
  psychology, earned APHD in that. And again, all of this is kind
• 58:11
  of happening about the same time.
• 58:14
  I, I, I wasn't sure what we were going to do with that.
• 58:18
  I wasn't sure we're you know, how we're just, we're just going
• 58:22
  through the steps that we feel like we're supposed to go
• 58:24
  through. And a man in town called and
• 58:29
  said, I understand you're looking for a building.
• 58:32
  And I said, no, Sir, I'm not. And he said I was involved in
• 58:35
  Celebrate Recovery and and essay and 12 step.
• 58:40
  I've been involved in that community for my own healing,
• 58:42
  right. But he said, well, I have a
• 58:45
  building that God has told me you're supposed to look at.
• 58:48
  These are God's stories that, you know, are just out of the.
• 58:52
  And so we drove over and and Tom Crook sat and talked to him This
• 59:00
  this building on Armory Drive. Tom said, tell me your story.
• 59:05
  He's a he's a gruff, intimidating businessman.
• 59:09
  Tell me your story. And yeah, so I don't know.
• 59:12
  I mean, they didn't. I began to tell him, I'm
• 59:14
  weeping. Doris is weeping.
• 59:16
  He starts weeping. He's going through the same kind
• 59:18
  of thing. And he just slid the keys across
• 59:20
  the table. He said, here you can have this
• 59:23
  building and do what you want, when you want, when you can pay
• 59:27
  something, then then pay. That's the that's, that's it.
• 59:31
  So I don't know the, the branches would be here today if
• 59:36
  we hadn't had that start. We had a couple of years of
• 59:40
  having a, an adequate, it wasn't the most wonderful building in
• 59:42
  the whole world. Wasn't it was an adequate
• 59:44
  building. And so we had that afforded us
• 59:50
  that we had that that building to use, Yeah.
• 59:52
  So we just want to give you a building.
• 59:54
  Yeah, we and you weren't done with school yet at that point.
• 59:57
  No, I'm still Yeah, we are. We are seeing people.
• 1:00:00
  We had a couple of pastor couple from Philadelphia called and
• 1:00:05
  said, hey, we're at the airport and we we want to see you and
• 1:00:10
  your wife. And I said you.
• 1:00:13
  He said we're from Philadelphia, so you're getting ready to leave
• 1:00:15
  Philadelphia and coming up. Said no, we're at the Nashville
• 1:00:18
  airport. We were already flump and I
• 1:00:20
  said, well, where are you staying?
• 1:00:22
  I mean, what you said we don't know.
• 1:00:23
  We don't have any money, but we just came to see you.
• 1:00:26
  So I invited them. Doris and I go and pick them up.
• 1:00:28
  We've never met these people before.
• 1:00:30
  Brought them into our home. We have a small little home.
• 1:00:33
  Let them stay for three or four days while we talked to them.
• 1:00:36
  When that was over, Doris said. Our marriage has survived a lot
• 1:00:41
  of things. If you do that again, I'm
• 1:00:42
  leaving you. We are.
• 1:00:43
  We're not doing that. Meeting host people.
• 1:00:46
  Yeah. Brain people.
• 1:00:47
  But. People begin to come with, So
• 1:00:50
  we're we're seeing couples spending a weekend with them,
• 1:00:53
  talking to them. We're we're already doing this
• 1:00:56
  without the, without knowing for sure what we were doing and
• 1:01:02
  without a place to do it. And now all of a sudden the
• 1:01:04
  place falls into place, Barbie says.
• 1:01:06
  You need to do this on a professional basis and I and I
• 1:01:09
  go back to school all that's happening at the same.
• 1:01:11
  Time. So are these these are pastors?
• 1:01:12
  Are these pastors that have also crossed boundaries and had
• 1:01:15
  affairs? Many times, many times, pastors
• 1:01:18
  in crisis. The church that I was involved
• 1:01:22
  in, which is a wonderful church, wonderful denomination.
• 1:01:25
  They have as, as most denominations do they have
• 1:01:28
  counseling opportunities available, you know, hotlines,
• 1:01:33
  you could call that kind of thing, but but pastors are not
• 1:01:37
  going to do that. That is that is too threatening.
• 1:01:39
  They don't want to see people in their own town in.
• 1:01:41
  Their own community because in everybody can know your
• 1:01:43
  business. And so here we were, nobody had
• 1:01:47
  ever heard of us that we were anonymous little town in 10 at
• 1:01:51
  Middle Tennessee. And so pastors just began to
• 1:01:54
  come in in the early days of that a story that kind of this
• 1:02:02
  part of that. So we were in that building,
• 1:02:04
  painting the building to get ready to open their finally
• 1:02:08
  enough pastors had come to our house that we said we need it.
• 1:02:11
  So we took Tom's offer and we're painting the building a little a
• 1:02:17
  little tiny man should Donkey Johnson who come later.
• 1:02:22
  We found out he is a Bishop. He's.
• 1:02:28
  From Sierra Leone and a Bishop, over 400 churches in Sierra
• 1:02:33
  Leone. He had been in America preaching
• 1:02:39
  at churches and we didn't know it, but this little building we
• 1:02:42
  were in, there had been a church there.
• 1:02:43
  So he just came in to see if that church was still there and
• 1:02:47
  started. We started talking.
• 1:02:49
  Oh, so he just wanders in this building that you're fixing up.
• 1:02:51
  That's going to be your. Just walked in Yeah, OK.
• 1:02:53
  And we talked for a few minutes just very engaging a guy and
• 1:02:57
  then he said I have a word from God for you and I thought, oh
• 1:03:01
  brother, I know where this is going.
• 1:03:03
  I'll end up giving this guy $200 up, but this is.
• 1:03:07
  And he's had a word from God for you and he And he said to
• 1:03:10
  Dorsey, I want you to write this down.
• 1:03:14
  I had just written the book that James very I was going to.
• 1:03:18
  Ask how long did it take you to write this book it.
• 1:03:21
  Took it took about. It took about a month to write
• 1:03:27
  the story. I mean, it just came out, but
• 1:03:29
  then it took another three or four months to really kind of
• 1:03:31
  work through it and process it and find it, find someone I
• 1:03:34
  didn't have. Years or whatever so.
• 1:03:36
  No, it was, it was from the time James said you write this book
• 1:03:39
  until it came out and prank was probably 6 months.
• 1:03:43
  Yeah, it wasn't. It wasn't a terribly long time,
• 1:03:45
  right? OK, I would.
• 1:03:47
  It's it's been 20 years. I'd like to go back and and
• 1:03:50
  rewrite it and kind of add what's happened in the last few
• 1:03:53
  years. So anyway, so Shedonke said, I
• 1:03:56
  want to, I have a word for you. And he began by saying you think
• 1:04:00
  you've been a failure, but you're not.
• 1:04:03
  And I, I said, do you know I just wrote a book?
• 1:04:05
  He said, just be quiet. And I said, OK, I'm sorry, you
• 1:04:08
  think you've been a failure, but you're not.
• 1:04:11
  God is going to use you. You think your ministry is over,
• 1:04:14
  but your ministry will be greater than it ever would have
• 1:04:16
  been before because God is going to use you.
• 1:04:19
  You're going to be a Carpenter. Put a put a hammer and nails on
• 1:04:23
  your wall because other ministers will come to you and
• 1:04:27
  they'll tell you stories that they can't tell anybody else and
• 1:04:32
  you'll fix them and they'll go back out to ministry.
• 1:04:36
  And in that way, your ministry will be greater than ever would
• 1:04:38
  have been. And then he said the line that
• 1:04:42
  that absolutely resonated with me.
• 1:04:44
  He said, you will do this and no one will know your name.
• 1:04:49
  And, and you know, I Dorsa, I looked at each other as I've
• 1:04:53
  spent the last 45 years of my life trying to get people to
• 1:04:57
  know my name. And now all of a sudden he said,
• 1:05:00
  you're going to do this and no one know your name.
• 1:05:02
  And to this day, that was the birth of branches.
• 1:05:05
  And, and you know, we'll talk in a minute about where branches
• 1:05:08
  has gone. But this day we, it's, it's not
• 1:05:11
  a huge town. We'll go into town and I have on
• 1:05:13
  a branches shirt. People say, oh, do you go to
• 1:05:16
  branches? We love branches and you know,
• 1:05:18
  but nobody know. They don't identify me with
• 1:05:21
  branches. And and it's, it's not a it, it
• 1:05:25
  is it's found out by the people who need to find out about it.
• 1:05:29
  I will say, at this point, we have 5 offices around Middle
• 1:05:33
  Tennessee. Oh, so this isn't the only
• 1:05:35
  location and just say what branches is.
• 1:05:38
  We are nonprofit behavioral Health Center.
• 1:05:41
  We do counseling, depression, anxiety, marrow issues,
• 1:05:48
  restoration, recovery, addiction, all of those things.
• 1:05:51
  We have 30 therapist, we see about 15,000 people a year.
• 1:05:56
  It's, it's been an amazing thing.
• 1:05:58
  We do psychiatric Med management.
• 1:06:02
  We do Christian life coaching. Yeah, we have, we have just,
• 1:06:06
  it's a, it's a pretty significant organization now
• 1:06:12
  that sees people from all over the world.
• 1:06:14
  We do intenses where people will come from all over the country,
• 1:06:18
  literally all over the world. We've had people come from
• 1:06:20
  England, from, you know. For to do like a therapy
• 1:06:22
  intensive. They'll do a a week, the thing
• 1:06:25
  that I did in PCs, right? Yes, they will come.
• 1:06:29
  And yeah, yeah, or no. Scottsdale.
• 1:06:31
  Scottsdale. Yeah.
• 1:06:32
  And the best part of that whole story, and so that's branches.
• 1:06:37
  About 10 years ago, my son who is a psychiatric PA called me
• 1:06:45
  and he said, dad, do you think there'd be a place for me to
• 1:06:48
  branches? This is Josh.
• 1:06:49
  You said dad, don't ever come back again.
• 1:06:51
  I want to see you guys. Do you think there'd be a place
• 1:06:53
  for the branches? I I started crying in my tiny
• 1:06:56
  tomato dressing again. Yes, absolutely.
• 1:06:59
  And about 3 years ago I stepped down and Josh is now the
• 1:07:03
  director. The son who said I don't ever
• 1:07:06
  want to see you again, don't ever come back in, is now the
• 1:07:09
  director. Took over branches this ministry
• 1:07:12
  that you found it, yes, yeah. That's just a neat neat.
• 1:07:15
  Thing how long has branches been in operation now?
• 1:07:17
  20 years, we're here. 20 years. And you have.
• 1:07:20
  This is your headquarters where we're sitting right now.
• 1:07:23
  And you have other branches. We do branches, branches and.
• 1:07:27
  Branches. It is interesting that people
• 1:07:29
  will say, oh, I've heard her branches and they really have.
• 1:07:32
  It's just a, it's just a, a common name that people think
• 1:07:36
  they have. We have a it was it was born
• 1:07:41
  with the idea that we would there would be a marriage
• 1:07:44
  between state license therapist and pastoral council.
• 1:07:48
  I was going to ask you. So it's explicitly Christian.
• 1:07:51
  It is. We are flagrantly Christian.
• 1:07:53
  The place that I went to in PCs, they were wonderful.
• 1:07:56
  They're great Christian people, but you could go and not know
• 1:08:00
  that it's Christian branches is flagrantly Christian.
• 1:08:03
  Now we see people who are not Christian.
• 1:08:06
  We see people who are Muslim. We see people, we don't cram
• 1:08:09
  that down your throat, but but everyone who comes signs a
• 1:08:12
  waiver. We understand that this is a
• 1:08:14
  Christian facility. When I do counseling, I will say
• 1:08:17
  to them, hey, that's the language I use.
• 1:08:19
  If I was a sailor, I'd probably cuss like one.
• 1:08:22
  I'm a Christian, so I'll talk about how good God is.
• 1:08:25
  And that's just the language I use.
• 1:08:26
  So it's flying up with a Christian.
• 1:08:28
  We are, we're not as good at the mix between state licensed
• 1:08:32
  therapists, pastoral counselors as I'd like for us to be.
• 1:08:35
  We're we're probably 80% state licensed therapists and we have
• 1:08:38
  a few pastoral counselors. I wish we could expand that
• 1:08:41
  some. We actually have a range that
• 1:08:47
  just we started a school training pastoral counselors and
• 1:08:51
  helping them get certified. Quite honestly, part of that
• 1:08:55
  hope and they can do it for all over the country.
• 1:08:56
  But we're hoping that some of those can we can add to our
• 1:09:00
  staff. It's hard to find really good
• 1:09:03
  pastoral counselors. What?
• 1:09:05
  What's the difference though? I mean, I, I so like you want
• 1:09:08
  more pastoral counselors? Right.
• 1:09:11
  Is is that because do they focus more on discipleship?
• 1:09:14
  Well, there is, there is less of a difference here then there
• 1:09:19
  might be in other places. We are because of the waivers,
• 1:09:24
  because of the things that we signed.
• 1:09:25
  We're very, very open and our our state licensed therapist are
• 1:09:32
  very free to talk about faith to to bring up issues of faith not
• 1:09:36
  to feel constrained from from that.
• 1:09:38
  But we do we do work to the highest level of of a
• 1:09:44
  restriction that there is. And so we even our pastoral
• 1:09:47
  counselors follow all HIPAA guidelines, reporting
• 1:09:50
  guidelines. We we act as if legislative, we
• 1:09:56
  act as if we are all state licensed therapist.
• 1:09:59
  They they sometimes are are not quite as open to to bring up
• 1:10:07
  issues of faith other sick license therapist.
• 1:10:09
  And so there's some of that. But here that's not the gate.
• 1:10:12
  The state license therapist have a different level of training.
• 1:10:15
  It's it is more dealing with behavioral health psychological
• 1:10:18
  issues personality disorders, those kinds of things.
• 1:10:23
  The pastoral counselor they're they're they start with biblical
• 1:10:30
  responses. What does the Bible say about
• 1:10:31
  this? Now they have learned they're
• 1:10:33
  smart. They've learned a lot from
• 1:10:35
  rubbing shoulders and having staff meetings once a week with
• 1:10:39
  state vice and service. Hey, have you thought about, you
• 1:10:42
  know, considering this here's a there's a modality that we use,
• 1:10:45
  we use EMDR here quite a bit. I was.
• 1:10:47
  Going to ask you. Yeah, I love that.
• 1:10:49
  We we love EMDR. We're introducing a new that's kind of
• 1:10:54
  kind of the almost the next EMDR called lens therapy.
• 1:10:58
  I've never heard of that low energy neurofeedback with Yes
• 1:11:04
  Dan. Is that have to do with brain?
• 1:11:06
  Brain waves you actually taped up to some brain waves.
• 1:11:09
  They can monitor what's going on and then apply very low energy
• 1:11:13
  magnetic to certain fields and, and help with, It's great with a
• 1:11:18
  treatment resistant depression with with brain functioning
• 1:11:25
  disruptions like ADHD, those kinds of things.
• 1:11:28
  And so we are several of our counselors have just gotten
• 1:11:31
  trained in that. We're kind of doing the soft
• 1:11:33
  opening of that for a while. Is this.
• 1:11:35
  What do we call? Is it something good biofeedback
• 1:11:37
  or neurofeedback? It is very, it's very much like
• 1:11:39
  neurofeedback. It is kind of a, a less
• 1:11:42
  intrusive random neurofeedback. But all that to say, all kinds
• 1:11:47
  of modalities, all kinds of things that we do, but it is,
• 1:11:53
  you know, Christ is at the center.
• 1:11:54
  When we first started, I would try to say, oh, we need to be
• 1:11:57
  make sure we're very professional and let's don't
• 1:11:59
  talk about Jesus all the time. And now we we all we talk about
• 1:12:02
  Jesus as soon as they walk through the door.
• 1:12:04
  We're on with the Jesus. Yeah.
• 1:12:08
  Oh, that's awesome. So this is a full service
• 1:12:11
  counseling, psychiatry, psychology even like to the
• 1:12:15
  point of like prescribing meds I guess.
• 1:12:18
  Yes, we don't have psychiatrists, but we have
• 1:12:20
  psychiatric mid level managers. We have a a couple of PA
• 1:12:24
  physician assistants in a couple of nurse practitioners plan.
• 1:12:29
  So we do, we do prescribe medication, everything, Yeah.
• 1:12:32
  Yeah, Now you you're, you came from the sexual addiction
• 1:12:35
  background. Is this is branches known for
• 1:12:38
  that or what would you say you're known most for in terms
• 1:12:42
  of helping people with? When, when, When Branches was
• 1:12:46
  born, we called it Branches Recovery Center, which was a
• 1:12:51
  terrible name because everybody thought that's what we do.
• 1:12:54
  We do addiction recovery and every drunk or or drug addict or
• 1:13:01
  what they would send to us and we love them and we'll help them
• 1:13:03
  where we can. But that's not what we do.
• 1:13:06
  We are not. And so even the sexual addiction
• 1:13:10
  piece of this is it. That's not, there are two or
• 1:13:15
  three counselors that kind of love me and have followed my
• 1:13:19
  story. And so they've done a lot of
• 1:13:20
  subsequent training in sexual addiction, But that's not
• 1:13:24
  primarily we, we primarily do across the board family type
• 1:13:30
  issues, depression, anxiety, grief, anything that you can
• 1:13:36
  imagine, behavioral mental issues that, that you and, and
• 1:13:42
  again with our state license therapist personality disorders,
• 1:13:45
  you know, DSM 5, all kinds of issues.
• 1:13:48
  So we do just counseling across the board.
• 1:13:51
  Sounds like there's pretty much nothing you don't do in terms of
• 1:13:53
  the counseling world. Yes, we, you know, we obviously
• 1:13:56
  there there will be cases that are that we feel like man we
• 1:14:00
  know we know a specialist in this.
• 1:14:02
  I know I know counselors that are that specialize in in I'm
• 1:14:07
  one of the same sex attraction. I'll refer people then I know
• 1:14:09
  counselors that specialize in, in reef recovery.
• 1:14:13
  Autism is one of the things that comes up now on the spectrum
• 1:14:17
  that we know counselors and specialize that we, we will help
• 1:14:19
  where we can, but we're also quick to refer and say this is
• 1:14:22
  some place we need to go where we can.
• 1:14:25
  We try to keep that Christian connection.
• 1:14:29
  And so we've tried to develop a network of, of, of believers who
• 1:14:33
  who counseling these things. The other piece of branches
• 1:14:36
  though that that we are known for, remember the place that I
• 1:14:41
  went was $15,000 a week and I got to go for $7500 a week.
• 1:14:46
  So when branches are born, I, it felt like I was saying you need
• 1:14:50
  to do this in a way that no one has ever turned away, that
• 1:14:53
  finances are never the issue. And so we never turn anyone
• 1:14:57
  away. If someone calls and says, you
• 1:15:00
  know, I had no money, I need to come, my marriage is fall apart.
• 1:15:05
  I have 0 money and we'll say fine, we will see you and you'll
• 1:15:09
  you'll have the best counselor that we have.
• 1:15:11
  That doesn't affect your level of of treatment at all.
• 1:15:15
  And I have no idea how that works.
• 1:15:18
  Somehow we have managed for 20 years to God is just blessed and
• 1:15:23
  and but yeah, so that's. Well, I think put what, because
• 1:15:27
  I, I, because your sister, the comedian, I've heard that, you
• 1:15:30
  know, I, I remember talking one time years ago, her saying
• 1:15:32
  something about speaking at a like a banquet for this
• 1:15:36
  ministry. And so I thought it was like a
• 1:15:38
  fundraising bank. So I'm guessing that some of
• 1:15:41
  those funds might go to to offset the cost of offering free
• 1:15:45
  services when when it's somebody who couldn't afford.
• 1:15:48
  It yes, we are a nonprofit organization, yes, and so we
• 1:15:51
  have a lot of a lot of churches will partner with us and say,
• 1:15:55
  hey, we like, you know, we want to just give you a certain
• 1:15:57
  amount every year and let us send people to you.
• 1:16:00
  A lot of corporations, organizations.
• 1:16:02
  We when Josh you're over, one of the first things that he did is
• 1:16:09
  we had kind of always done that just kind of trying to figure it
• 1:16:12
  out in the hallway as we're in between sessions and he said
• 1:16:15
  let's hire somebody who can really lead us in that.
• 1:16:18
  So we hired a development director and she's wonderful.
• 1:16:21
  I have a, a neat story I'll tell about all that if it's OK.
• 1:16:24
  Sure, please. She's she's wonderful That so,
• 1:16:27
  So yes, we have a fundraising, an annual fundraising bank with
• 1:16:32
  ours coming up March this 6th, I think, or something like that.
• 1:16:35
  And yeah. And so we went in, in little old
• 1:16:41
  ladies will send in $10 a month and that you know, somehow our
• 1:16:46
  our budget is about 80% self sustained in terms of client pay
• 1:16:54
  and that kind of thing. And then about about 20% comes
• 1:16:57
  from terrible. OK, but that's that's a very
• 1:17:02
  important 20% Sure that makes a huge difference.
• 1:17:05
  Sure, yeah. Oh, can you tell me the story
• 1:17:09
  about how tennis played a role in your recovery?
• 1:17:12
  Because, you know, I love. Tennis.
• 1:17:14
  I know you love tennis and we need to play I.
• 1:17:16
  Know I don't want to play sometimes.
• 1:17:18
  The weather's been so bad lately, the last couple days
• 1:17:20
  here in Nashville. But you said I I was so
• 1:17:23
  intrigued, like how tennis could have been a part of your
• 1:17:25
  recovery or or an integral part of your recovery.
• 1:17:27
  I am, you know, you, you. I don't know if you're bringing
• 1:17:31
  out the best in me or the worst in me, but I'm naming names.
• 1:17:33
  I don't know. Let's go.
• 1:17:35
  Robbie. Richard.
• 1:17:36
  I was in Orlando, FL. That's where I I said, when I
• 1:17:39
  wrote the book, I said I was in Miami.
• 1:17:41
  And people will say, oh, you live in Miami?
• 1:17:43
  No, I was in Orlando, FL Robbie was in our church.
• 1:17:47
  We'd only been there a few months when all of this fell
• 1:17:50
  apart and Jacob brought in the phone bill.
• 1:17:53
  I was disclosed, doors left, all of that.
• 1:17:56
  And Robbie came and knocked and he said, posture possum, let's
• 1:18:00
  go play tennis. I'd, I'd play tennis like in
• 1:18:03
  college, we would go at 3:00 in the morning, somebody say, hey,
• 1:18:07
  let's go play tennis. You know, that's not with my
• 1:18:08
  tennis. And maybe maybe once or twice a
• 1:18:11
  year, you know, take the kids out and hit.
• 1:18:13
  I, I knew nothing about it. I, I think I can keep score, but
• 1:18:17
  that was about it. Robbie was a great tennis
• 1:18:20
  player. He's from, from India, a, a big
• 1:18:24
  guy, 64 huge guy. And so we would go out and
• 1:18:28
  Robbie would smash tennis balls at me and then we would sit on
• 1:18:33
  the court and I would cry and Robbie would, would minister me
• 1:18:36
  and love me and pray over me. And, and so we just, we started
• 1:18:40
  playing tennis two or three times a week while I was in
• 1:18:43
  Orlando in those four months that I was, I was just.
• 1:18:47
  And so as I continued on this healing process, I, I just
• 1:18:53
  continued to play tennis and then and became an avid tennis
• 1:18:56
  player and love it and got pretty good at it.
• 1:19:00
  And then one day it dawned on me, why do I love this so much?
• 1:19:04
  I, I gave up golf, I gave up basketball.
• 1:19:06
  I didn't play anything but tennis.
• 1:19:08
  And it dawned on me, the tennis is so connected to my healing.
• 1:19:13
  It's so much a part of my healing story.
• 1:19:16
  So today I play, I play 3 or 4 times a week.
• 1:19:20
  I, I, it is my mission field now I play with heathens and, and
• 1:19:26
  they know me and you know those. Hey, Doctor Courtney, you, you
• 1:19:30
  know, you ought to come over and pray for him and say, sure, I'd
• 1:19:33
  love to do that. It's a great, it's a great
• 1:19:36
  mission field. And I, and I love it.
• 1:19:38
  I absolutely love. It so it just, it started at
• 1:19:41
  that low point in your life and you just kept doing it.
• 1:19:44
  And then so you have this connection of of of this with
• 1:19:48
  your healing. And God has been good and I, you
• 1:19:53
  know, I will never reach a point where I say I am just
• 1:19:55
  absolutely, completely healed. But but there are very few.
• 1:19:59
  There will be a time where the, you know, the frustration begins
• 1:20:02
  to rise up. I get a little cranky or
• 1:20:04
  whatever. And Doris will say.
• 1:20:06
  You can go play tennis. That's that's her.
• 1:20:08
  You go, go play tennis. So she knows that's a good
• 1:20:11
  album. For you, Yeah, Yeah.
• 1:20:12
  So you love that? That's great.
• 1:20:14
  Oh, yeah. Thank you so much for unpacking
• 1:20:16
  your story for me again, Twitch. You know, I know, you know.
• 1:20:20
  Yeah, it's been a long time. You know, I have some what do
• 1:20:23
  you call rapid fire questions. Oh my goodness.
• 1:20:25
  Yes, so I always love to end an episode with these questions
• 1:20:29
  which you chose the ones you wanted.
• 1:20:31
  So all right, you ready for rapid fire around?
• 1:20:35
  Here we go. What's 1 spiritual practice that
• 1:20:38
  always re centers you? Well, this is.
• 1:20:41
  Tennis, I guess, right? Yeah, Yeah.
• 1:20:43
  Tennis, deeply spiritual, talking about love Yeah.
• 1:20:45
  I mean, it's just a great Yeah, You know, this is nothing fancy
• 1:20:50
  or special, unique. But my devotional life has
• 1:20:53
  become incredibly important and I am at a place in life again.
• 1:20:59
  Not everybody is there, but I'm semi retired so.
• 1:21:04
  So every morning starts with a good hour or hour and a half in
• 1:21:10
  devotional time. I love, I just love.
• 1:21:13
  Yeah, I'd love to say I pray for an hour and a half.
• 1:21:15
  I really read the Bible for about an hour and then pray for
• 1:21:18
  about 10 minutes. I just, I love the Bible.
• 1:21:20
  I just, I love the reading and the studying and it so that,
• 1:21:24
  that devotional time every day, consistent, same place, same
• 1:21:29
  chair, same time in the morning, just me and God and a cup of
• 1:21:33
  coffee. I love that so.
• 1:21:36
  That's great. OK, here we go.
• 1:21:38
  What's what book besides the Bible shaped your spiritual
• 1:21:42
  journey the most? Yeah, I I there I have to pick
• 1:21:48
  three seasons early on in in my early ministry, my early life.
• 1:21:56
  Richard Foster's celebration of discipline, just it just
• 1:21:59
  powerful and, and trying to appreciate and learn to live a
• 1:22:04
  more, a more spiritually disciplined life.
• 1:22:07
  That's always been an important part of, of.
• 1:22:09
  So I thoroughly enjoyed that and got to meet him way back then
• 1:22:13
  before there was text or, or whatever emails.
• 1:22:17
  I actually wrote him a letter he wrote back.
• 1:22:19
  And that was meaningful for our healing for Doris and I, she
• 1:22:25
  introduced me to a book that Beth Moore wrote called When
• 1:22:29
  Godly People Do Ungodly Things. That was absolutely so
• 1:22:33
  redemptive and, and, and weeping over that.
• 1:22:36
  It's a book that I have read 20 times and given to people.
• 1:22:41
  And every time I opened up that one chapter read to my cry over
• 1:22:44
  that's this, that's and then of late in the in the last 10 or 15
• 1:22:49
  years, I fall in love with Richard Rohr, who is always say
• 1:22:54
  my favorite heretic. And he wrote a book called
• 1:22:56
  falling upward, which is which is if, if there is a must read
• 1:23:02
  book for for people who are trying to kind of redeem the
• 1:23:07
  past, it would be that falling upward.
• 1:23:09
  And it's just the story of recognizing how what how God
• 1:23:13
  uses what Richard Rohr calls necessary suffering.
• 1:23:17
  And I and Christine, I would not be sitting here talking to you
• 1:23:21
  today. We would not be in this building
• 1:23:23
  or there would not be a branches had it not been for the
• 1:23:26
  necessary suffering. So falling upward is is powerful
• 1:23:29
  in my life. Yeah.
• 1:23:30
  That's great. Thank you.
• 1:23:31
  I'm excited to check those books out.
• 1:23:34
  All right, what's one thing that instantly caught?
• 1:23:37
  Wait, can I go back to the book for a second?
• 1:23:39
  Best book I've read. Not like Christian book.
• 1:23:42
  Have you read Andre Agassi's biography?
• 1:23:46
  But I've read some bits and pieces I want to read.
• 1:23:49
  So good. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:23:51
  So good, all right? What's one thing that instantly
• 1:23:54
  calms your nervous system? My sister and I have 100 acre
• 1:24:01
  farm. She owns 95 acres and I don't
• 1:24:04
  know 5 acres, but on that 5 acres there's a little cabin and
• 1:24:09
  I, I go there at least monthly as much as I can.
• 1:24:13
  I try to get away there. I right there, that's a good
• 1:24:15
  place to ride. But when I, when I turn, it's
• 1:24:19
  about an hour from here. When I turn on to the road, then
• 1:24:23
  call your Rd. that goes back to that cabin.
• 1:24:27
  I'm I'm frustrated, I'm angry, I'm worried about stuff and I
• 1:24:31
  turn on that road and just everything changes so that in a
• 1:24:36
  in an instant calms everything about me.
• 1:24:39
  Well, that's great. OK, What's a mental health myth
• 1:24:43
  you would like to erase? You know, Doris has a, a saying
• 1:24:48
  people will say, well, all that Mike went through, what was that
• 1:24:52
  sickness or sin? And Doris says yes, yes.
• 1:24:58
  And, and so the myth I would like to replace is that there is
• 1:25:02
  this distinction between the the the mental and the spiritual,
• 1:25:09
  between the supernatural and and and the.
• 1:25:13
  Like the separation that you have in your mind.
• 1:25:15
  They are. It's the same thing.
• 1:25:18
  It's the same thing we do EMDR and we do inner healing prayer
• 1:25:23
  and they are the same thing with a different language set.
• 1:25:26
  You know, we are Paul says, I pray to your whole body, soul
• 1:25:29
  and spirit be preserved by and we, we are spiritual beings who
• 1:25:34
  who have psyches and have to figure out how to heal them.
• 1:25:38
  But that myth that that that you can do 1 without their, I don't
• 1:25:41
  think you can do spiritual stuff without really having addressed
• 1:25:47
  your emotional behavioral issues.
• 1:25:49
  And I don't think you can be completely healed emotionally or
• 1:25:52
  mentally without dealing with the spiritual stuff.
• 1:25:55
  OK, I'm, I'm glad you said that because I find that one of the
• 1:25:58
  reasons I wanted to do a show on faith and mental health was
• 1:26:00
  because I feel like a lot of Christians sometimes only want
• 1:26:03
  to focus on the spiritual health.
• 1:26:05
  And I feel like there should like we're all of those things.
• 1:26:08
  And if you do it to the exclusion of your emotional
• 1:26:12
  health and and mental health, like you're, you know, you can
• 1:26:15
  learn your Bible, but are you able to have flourishing
• 1:26:18
  relationships? Yes, yeah.
• 1:26:21
  And and you do yourself a disservice.
• 1:26:25
  And I think you do God a disservice when you're not
• 1:26:28
  willing to address behavioral issues, mental issues, family
• 1:26:31
  origin issues, those kinds of things.
• 1:26:33
  Because people will say, well, man, I, I, I gave my heart to
• 1:26:36
  God. I'm no happier.
• 1:26:37
  I'm still depressed. What is he ever go back and deal
• 1:26:40
  with the with the tapes that you're playing and you have to
• 1:26:42
  deal with that step. So yeah, I think, I think to
• 1:26:45
  just dispel that myth that you can do 1 without the other, that
• 1:26:49
  they are two separate things is I think that's important.
• 1:26:53
  Thank you for saying that. All right.
• 1:26:54
  Are you an early bird or a night?
• 1:26:56
  Oh, I'm an early bird. I, I, I love 435 O clock in the
• 1:27:01
  morning. I usually get up about 4:45
• 1:27:03
  every morning. That's my time to get up.
• 1:27:05
  But I, I can't put two rational thoughts together after 8 O
• 1:27:09
  clock at night. So I'm very much an early bird.
• 1:27:12
  Actually, I like the early morning eye and my wife that we
• 1:27:16
  got his. We have the most amazing
• 1:27:18
  marriage, except that part of it.
• 1:27:21
  She's a late night person. She's not our 21st.
• 1:27:24
  So we just kind of agreed that we'll meet somewhere in the
• 1:27:27
  middle. We'll be all right so well.
• 1:27:29
  You know, opposites attractive, I guess.
• 1:27:31
  Yeah. All right, here's the last, the
• 1:27:33
  last rapid fire question. What's a risk you're glad that
• 1:27:37
  you took? I'm glad that I asked Doris when
• 1:27:46
  she said, will you come for supper next time?
• 1:27:50
  I asked her if you want to go to a movie too, and she said, yeah,
• 1:27:54
  we'll go. We'll go to a movie that that
• 1:27:57
  turned it into a a real date. There were two movie playing
• 1:28:02
  movies playing. One was Diary of a Mad Black
• 1:28:05
  Woman. Love that movie.
• 1:28:07
  Well, we weren't going to go see that.
• 1:28:08
  How about a guy, a woman shooting her house back?
• 1:28:10
  I knew we weren't going to see that.
• 1:28:11
  So the other was Shrek. So we wouldn't see Shrek.
• 1:28:13
  OK, but when the movie ended it was in June.
• 1:28:18
  And that's a love story, right? It is.
• 1:28:19
  It is. Yeah, they're green best guilt
• 1:28:22
  love story. Yeah, it was in June.
• 1:28:24
  We walked out to the car. I'm getting ready to get in the
• 1:28:27
  car and drive back to Florida. And so I opened her door for her
• 1:28:31
  to get in this huge June moon, and I opened the door for her to
• 1:28:36
  get in, and she started to get in.
• 1:28:38
  And then she got out. I'll get teary eyed.
• 1:28:41
  And she walked up to me and she put her arms around me and just
• 1:28:45
  held me for a minute. And I said, we're going to be
• 1:28:48
  OK. I, I think we're going to make
• 1:28:52
  it. I'm so glad that I took the
• 1:28:54
  chance. When she said the next time you
• 1:28:56
  come for supper, I said, would you like to go to a movie?
• 1:29:00
  Yeah. Wow.
• 1:29:02
  That's great Like I, I love your story.
• 1:29:04
  I could hear it again and again. Well, I think we should do this
• 1:29:07
  again in 20 years. Thank you so much for.
• 1:29:10
  Thank you for letting me a part of it.
• 1:29:11
  I appreciate you. I'm glad for our friendship.
• 1:29:14
  Yes, thank you.