Welcome And Why Start Younger

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Husband Material podcast, where we help Christian men outgrow porn. Why? So you can change your brain, heal your heart, and save your relationship. My name is Drew Boa, and I'm here to show you how. Let's go. Hey, thank you so much for listening to my interview with Blake Brinkman, who has become a great friend. Blake is a mental health counselor in New York. He is the author of Alliance Groups, Empowering Student Recovery. He is an expert in helping students and teens get free from porn and other unwanted sexual behavior from a Christian and clinical perspective. And most excitingly, Blake is one of the co-hosts of our newest podcast, Start Younger. Outgrow porn at any age. Start Younger exists because porn is reaching boys sooner than ever, which means healing has to start sooner too. And this new podcast is a place for conversations marked by honesty instead of shame, curiosity instead of fear, and hope instead of hiding. In this episode, you will get a wonderful introduction to who Blake is, as well as the best advice I've ever heard on how to help teens start the process of sexual recovery and finding lasting freedom from porn. If you're a parent or someone who wants to help teens and young adults in this area, you are going to get really great wisdom. If you are a teen, you are going to hear the kind of approach that will actually work for you. It's brain-based, it's emotionally focused, it's story-centered, and it's awesome. Enjoy the episode. Hey, welcome to Husband Material and welcome to Blake Brinkman. What's up, man?

SPEAKER_00 1:45

What is up, my good dear friend? Happy to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

This is really exciting, especially with the launch of the Start Younger podcast, which is helping young men, teens, and their fathers and father figures outgrow porn at any age.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

What a dream. I'm just so excited about it. And to me, there's nothing that excites me more than the idea of teenagers and young men and families getting equipped younger of how do we handle this and how do we walk through a true healing and connecting path through this journey.

Blake’s Teen Story Of Shame

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Blake, what was some of your experience as a teenager who was struggling?

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Oh, man, it was extremely lonely. And then even when it wasn't lonely, when I found a couple great guys who are vulnerable enough about their struggle that I could open up to mine, there was just a lack of deep-rooted support needed. A lot of what I got, even from some amazing people that I love to this day, the advice was essentially read your Bible and pray more. And when I did that, I was like, oh, I can do that. I'm I'm a strong youth group kid. Let me just read my Bible. I'm gonna pray a lot. And when I continued to struggle, now my shame and my core beliefs set in even further there must be something wrong with me. I'm unlovable, there's nothing good about me. I'm I'm gonna be stuck in this forever. Everybody else seemed to read their Bible and pray and get rid of this. And so without that deeper work there, I was kind of left in this best white knuckle attempt I could gather. And at 16 in a highly pornographic, sexually saturated world, my white knuckle skills are not very good. And so it led to years and years of addiction for me, you know, on and off here and there. But it wasn't until I got the deeper work underneath, the real soul core work, that things really started to change for me.

Teens Are Ready For Recovery

SPEAKER_01 3:57

Blake, in your book, Alliance Groups, you say that the accepted wisdom on student recovery and teens getting free from porn for far too long has been that students are too young, immature, and unwilling to do this work.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

That has been the accepted wisdom for far too long. And what we started to learn when we start launching student recovery groups for teenagers is that it's just completely untrue. These teens, when you give them the safety, the vulnerability, the emotional connection access that is needed, they are ready. They are, I would say, even more so, chomping at the bit to take on this journey of digging into the deeper emotions, the deeper core desires, the the shame beliefs that have been built in their narratives and start the strong, healthy work of rewiring those things and the truth of God and his word and who he's created them to be?

SPEAKER_01 4:57

If it is true that students can start younger and that they are willing, they are mature enough, and that they can begin to become self-aware and break free from pornography. What are some of the ways that you adjust how you work with teens versus how you work with adults?

SPEAKER_00 5:18

It's a really good question. It in a lot of ways, it's the exact same, but there are some nuances and some differences naturally. I think with teens, one of the first things you're really trying to do is build as much trust as possible. Without trust, there's just nowhere this journey is gonna go. With most of the teens I've worked with, there's this feeling of you're just here to talk at me. You're here to tell me here's the ABCs, the XYZs. You know, it's a lot of times what they've experienced at church and Bible study, school, etc., is I'm supposed to sit here and be quiet and you'll tell me as the expert of what needs to happen next. And most teenagers don't respond well to that. They want to build trust. They want to know that you've been there. And so a huge piece of my work with teenagers is sharing a bit of my own story. And obviously a very safe, regulated way. There's not a need for certain details and things, but trying to be really authentic and vulnerable about my struggle with addiction, what it felt like as a teenager, the emotions and core desires that I was trying to solve and meet in illegitimate ways. And when I do that, their eyes start to pop up, their ears start to perk up a little bit. It's like, wait a minute, this this isn't what I expected. And I'm a little more interested in hearing this conversation. And so that that's a big one. And then when you have trust, you can really just have a conversation of here, here's all the things and the this one's similar, but a no-judgment space, right? Of I I don't judge any teenager for how they got into their addiction, struggle with pornography, sexuality, et cetera. Something I fully believe that's been taught to me is our stories make sense. We we didn't just wind up here because there's something inherently wrong with us or too far gone. Our stories and experience have crafted us to this point. And if we realize that we can give space for others in their story and their experience and start to destabilize the shame that's been a core root for them for so long.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

I hear you saying that one of the important things we need to do as adults to build trust and create safety for teens is to tell our stories.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

In my opinion, there's no other way. Like we we have to be willing to go first as leaders in vulnerability, authenticity, sharing what this has looked like for us. Without it, teens get the sense of, well, you're you're part of that perfect group that either didn't struggle with this or once you got these tools, you figured it out and it was done away with very quickly. And so they need to hear me say, like, it took me years, years and years of this. I know what this feels like. I know how frustrating it is when you feel like you're going two steps forward, one step back, or one step forward and two steps back. And it that's the process, and that's where healthy learning and growth can come from if we can correct some of these mentalities and core beliefs around it.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

I love how in alliance groups you say we can create these safe cultures for teens rather than making them wait in decades of addiction.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

Amen. I mean, that that that's it. I mean, for for a long time when me and some fellow pastors we started asking around of what help is there for teens? There's tons of teens coming to us of, hey, I'm struggling with addiction and I want help, but I don't know where to go. We started asking around and trying to find the place that there's got to be something out there that helps these teenagers. There's a million great recovery groups out there, and we just couldn't really find any. And so the the implicit, you know, communication there is just wait. You'll you'll have to figure it out until then. And those years of setting in the addiction are some of the most profound. And so if we can get there in these young ages where the brain is still changing and transforming and building some of its deepest roots, how could we not go and get in that space with these teenagers? I mean, I think of myself at 16, I would have been desperate for this type of work.

SPEAKER_01 9:45

Like, what is some of the deeper work that you guide students

Find The Root Under The Habit

SPEAKER_01 9:49

into?

SPEAKER_00 9:49

Uh, no, that's a lovely question. It stems really from this idea of getting to the root of what is driving my actions, my behaviors, my thoughts towards pornography, towards sexually intense, you know, material of some kind. And without that deeper work, the natural conclusion we make as kids and teenagers is well, there just must be something wrong with me. And I can guarantee that is just not the true answer. And so this deeper work is kind of take some time, but it's layering through of first, let's let's get an understanding of what emotions are going on within me. You do such a great job communicating this, Drew, of porn being a pacifier. It's one of our most consistent emotional regulators growing up in this sex-saturated world. And so we learn at a very young age that when I feel something uncomfortable, when I feel something dysregulating, I can go to porn, masturbation, et cetera, and I don't feel these things as intensely anymore. Unfortunately, as teenagers, we're often not aware of the long-term effects that is causing in our brain. And so first we want to get a gauge of what's going on for me and emotionally, when am I most prone to be drawn towards temptation, pornography, et cetera? Is it when I'm scared, when I feel embarrassed, when I feel ridiculed? Is it when I'm feeling mad and I'm out of control and I feel like I have no agency, I have a sense of powerlessness going on? Is it when I feel sad, I'm I'm alone, I feel isolated, I don't feel a sense of belonging, right? And that's gonna give us so much healthy, I like to call them puzzle pieces. If we're kind of trying to connect all these different layers, it's gonna give us healthy puzzle pieces of getting down to this core. And if we can get those pieces, the real deep work of getting down underneath that is what is the core desire we are trying to meet? This comes from Faithful and True, a big part of my recovery journey of we try to meet legitimate desires in illegitimate ways. And so underneath it all, there are these God-given desires that are good. They use the seven core desires. And Drew, I love your stuff. You've laid out like 40 desires of what we often look for in pornography and acting out. And so, but the the seven are things like uh my desire to be blessed, to be chosen, to be affirmed, to belong, to be heard and understood, to be safe and truly emotionally safe, not just physically safe. And so oftentimes, the more we dig into our stories, we can see I'm actually desiring something that's really good. But because of my story, my experience, I've learned to meet that need in an illegitimate, hurtful, harmful way of pornography. And the more we can pull that layer out, I now get all sorts of agency and access to how do I meet these desires in God-given, legitimate, good, and healthy ways.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

I absolutely love Blake's approach and would strongly recommend him for anyone doing this work, but especially for teens, it's emotionally focused, it's story-centered, it's brain-based as well. And he also really emphasizes community and doing this in a group context. There's just so much to learn from Blake. How do you see the teen brain affecting all of this?

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Oh, goodness, one of my favorite questions. I'm gonna nerd out here for a second. So if you'll let me go with this, of I the brain's obviously way more complex than this, but I like to break it up into kind of four components of we have our bottom survival brain, really in charge of fight, flight, freeze, fawn, our right emotional brain, picking up all of these implicit cues, memory, nonverbals, etc. And really both of those are driving a lot of the ship in our teen years. They they're tracking those things and kind of making decisions without even fully our kind of conscious knowledge of such things. Then we have our left logical brain, you know, literary logic, all that good stuff. And then we have our top, I like to call it the decision-making brain, the prefrontal cortex, which in most of our engagements with teenagers, this isn't just recovery, but oftentimes what I see in churches, uh, schools, etc., we're really trying to rely on the left and top brain with teenagers of, hey, if you read the right stuff, if you learn it, if you study it, you will make the right wise decision moving forward. And the reality is that we're just missing the bottom and right brain of what's going on in a teenager. And until we stabilize that safety and really give them that feeling that they don't need to fight, they don't need to fly, they don't need to freeze or fawn, not a whole lot's gonna happen in a healthy, regulated way. And so that's the core, that's the trust piece we talked about earlier, right? If if we can build trust, that's gonna create so much safety in their brain system. Now we can dig into these right-level emotions, the desires, the things that are going on underneath, what they read from a connection point is a big thing I run into with parents of, but I said the right thing, right? And then their teenager through their right brain heard something completely different. And so getting into all of those messages and narratives is going to get to the core of what we really need to talk about and discuss. And so if we can really kind of stabilize or connect with these parts of the brain, now we get all sorts of access to, well, what does the left brain need to hear? What's the things we really need to study, work on, and read and practice together that's actually impacting me at those safety and right emotional brain levels. And now I'm empowered to make the right decisions as a teenager. And most of us have heard something to this degree of the prefrontal cortex, the top brain, it isn't fully developed until around 25 years old. And so, really, we want to be a part of helping teenagers grow and develop these muscles.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

I love this bottom-up approach of starting with the most developed area of the teen brain before we get to the least developed area. That's right. Just makes a lot of sense when you lay it out

Safety First Parenting That Works

SPEAKER_01 16:54

that way. What are some of the most common mistakes that parents make when trying to help teens outgrow porn with good intentions?

SPEAKER_00 17:03

Great, great intentions. And really just how you put it, we we kind of treat the brain backwards, right? And so we start with things like, well, just make the right decision. Just don't do that. If you're in a temptation moment, call somebody, you know, reach out to me, right? Great, amazing parent saying, I want to be a part of this. You can reach out to me, you can call me. When we're in that moment of temptation as teenagers, we don't really even know how to use that part of our brain yet of, oh, this would be a wise action to call somebody to get support. And so what that leads to is more shame for the teen of why can't I do this right? Why don't I make the right decisions? And that's why it can be so helpful. We walk through this with the teenagers, and they find it really helpful of, oh, this part of my brain that I suck at isn't going to be fully developed for another 10 years. And so we often start there, then we go to that logic left brain, right? Of, well, let's read these verses. Let's think about how God thinks about this.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

Or even logical left brain ideas about why porn is bad, or the negative consequences that can come from it.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

Exactly. A huge approach I've seen over the past couple of years is teaching teenagers about the massive abuse and trafficking that is going on, which, once again, 100% true, 100% needed and valuable and good, when that's our only intervention structure, it creates that same level of here's why you logically shouldn't do it, but yet I still continue to do it. So now I have even deeper shame about why I'm doing this and why I keep getting drawn back into this. You know, if we can reverse this, if we can start at that bottom brain and just create so much safety. You know, if to boil it down with deep simplicity, if you're wondering, what do I do with my teenager in this journey? Make it safer by any means possible. And the big mechanisms to do that are number one above all else, like we've kind of talked about of sharing my story, my vulnerability, my authenticity in a regulated, safe, healthy way. Not me dumping on them and using them as my emotional kind of punching bagger therapist, but letting them know, hey, I've got wise adults with me that I process and I'm connected to, that they love me and care about me. You are not carrying this on my shoulders. And I want to be really honest with you about what my struggles looked like in this area so that you know you can ask me any questions about it. You there, there's no bad, wrong, silly questions. Curiosity is one of our best muscles in this area. And so, hey, let's talk about it. The more conversations, the better. We are a long ways away from the one talk mentality of if we can have one talk about sexuality, that should cover it. We're really looking for, I don't know, we haven't put a number on it, true, but maybe a million talks about sexuality in some way, shape, or form. The more we talk about things, the easier it is to access.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Right. And that's why we have started this new podcast. Exactly. In order to help start those conversations. And there doesn't have to be an end to them.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

Exactly. It just to become common fabric of this is something we talk about as a family. It's not scary or weird or abnormal. It's just common fabric. And so if if we can do that, if we can make these conversations safer, and there's less and less judgment. There's a sense of just deep love and compassion of, hey, I get it. I get how hard this must be to be in this. And you know what? Something I say to every, every client, every teen, every person I work with that I would encourage parents to use with their teenagers is you know what? If I lived in your shoes and your experience and your story, I would probably be making the same decisions that you are. I get it. It makes sense. And it's really hard, and I'm with you in it.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

That sense of relational safety is something I want to emphasize too. Anything we can do or say to help a teen feel seen, heard, understood, cherished, supported, not alone, that's where we start.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

That's it, man. That's it. Though those are the things that we often think of what what piece of information do They need from me right now? What what's the right verse? What's the right wisdom or logic? If they can get that, they'll be they'll be good. And really it's it's the list Drew just listed. What can I do to make them feel heard? Yeah. Make them feel safe, make them feel loved, blessed, affirmed.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

To be able to trust that no matter what I say, I'm still going to be accepted. It's not going to threaten the relationship. And no matter how well or poorly I succeed in sexual recovery, like that performance doesn't change my parents' opinion of me.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

That's right. And the beauty of that is that it doesn't change God's opinion of us. Right? That that's where we learn it from. And so much of that gets twisted, especially for teens growing up in Christian cultures of, well, God loves me when I'm doing well in sexual recovery, but when I'm messing up and I'm acting out, man, his love must run out the window. And it's just not true. It took me a long time to relearn this core belief. God is with me. He loves me even in the midst of my struggle and is smiling upon me in my sanctification journey as I learn and grow through these things.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Amen. There's a blessing I sometimes give when I'm praying for people that I feel like is so perfect for this. The Father loves you, the Son died for you, and his spirit lives in you. Amen. Like that is always true. Come on, man. At our best, at our worst. Sometimes when I'm celebrating a new milestone with somebody, like one month of freedom from porn, six months of freedom, one year of freedom, I feel it's important to add I'm so happy for you. And if that wasn't true, I would still love you and I would still be right here.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

That's right. Which is so, so key. And I love that you pointed that out of not making our blessings and our affirmations dependent on performance. Of that that can take such a left turn for teens in recovery of, well, I only get these attaboys and I only see my mom or dad smile when I come back with a clean report card. And it's like I I tell all the teens I work with, like, the fact that you are doing this work, that you are engaging. You may have acted out every day this week, but you are in process. Like, what a celebration. How, how special, unique, and amazing are you? We're so born and bred in the shame culture, they're like, no, I can't receive that. I didn't do good enough, right? And we're that's what we're rewiring. And so any chance we get to rewire these ideas is such a beautiful moment.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

I love that. Lavishing affirmation whenever possible.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

That's right. It sounds to me like a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset. Like, I see you going to group, I see you putting in the work, I see you practicing, learning, developing self-awareness, taking this seriously at a young age. That's amazing. It's amazing. How cool is that? You you are growing so many healthy muscles. Right. And what if that was a parent's response upon hearing about a teen struggle with porn for the first time? Wow, that was so brave of you to tell me. Thank you for trusting me with that.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Oh man, how much would that change for our teens out there? Because I can tell you this even in the greatest homes of all time, the teens I talk to, they are terrified to bring up this conversation. To be met with such love, grace, blessing, and affirmation can change the whole trajectory of their journey.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

Yeah. I remember as a teen hearing a family member say, you can tell me anything you know, anything at all. And I just did not believe it.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

And it probably was not actually true. It's a classic example of something easy to say, hard to prove. And we really have to go through the hard work of proving that concept of you can tell me anything, and I will still meet you with deep love, grace, connection, belonging, etc. And sometimes parents are like, well, where does the boundary come in? Or what what do we do next? And those are all important, don't get me wrong, but let's start here. I promise you, if you start here, we can revisit those conversations the next day, the next week, even, of letting them feel the sense of this security, this connection, belonging. And I just take a deep breath in that. And now mom dad brings up an idea of what do you think about what's a good plan forward in this journey that we're growing in, that we're learning a ton of healthy muscles. Now I'm I'm pretty open to receiving that.

The ICE Model And Repair

SPEAKER_01 27:19

Yeah. Blake, as you work with parents, you have this ICE ICE parent model. Could you talk more about that?

SPEAKER_00 27:26

Absolutely. It's it's a little something I've drawn up for just framework of what does this look like as a parent? What are the kind of the key pillars? If I do these things, I'll be oriented in the right direction with my kid going through recovery. And so it it's ICE is because it spells ice and it's easy to remember. I made this many years ago for the record. But I like to start with C actually. And so C is this idea of celebrate and communicate. When essence is C, celebrate is I want to celebrate these core desires in my children. The blessing, affirmation, heard and understood, belonging, chosen, safety, good, healthy physical touch. I want to fill those buckets up as much as humanly possible. No matter what else is going on, if I do that one, things are going to be heading in some great directions. I can promise you that.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

And it's not a guarantee for a particular outcome or a formula for changing behavior, because that's not the point.

SPEAKER_00 28:37

That's right. Saying things that are true of my love and care for you. And as parents, maybe if you're not feeling the truth of those things, that's a great area to dig into in your own story and journey. Get some wise adults around, get a therapist, a counselor, a coach who can help you navigate that of here's what I'm feeling, and I don't know where to go from here. But in essence, yes, speaking the truth over our kids and how we feel about them to once again build that trust and safety in their brain of no matter what happens, I know these things about my mom and dad. And then C communicate is basically just talk about anything and everything with the same open, non-judgmental curiosity is good tone. If we can talk about anything, anything is on the table between us. I may not have all the answers, but I'm not gonna fly off the handle at you. I'm not gonna get scared and anxious. And let me say this point too of we are going to get scared and anxious. We're gonna get upset as parents. Another key part, probably a conversation for a whole nother time, but is how do I repair? How do I come back to these conversations? Say, hey, I got a little anxious, and as I was processing, here's why I think it was, and here's how I want to change that moving forward. I want to own that and I want to do this differently. And so I want you to keep trying this with me, and I want to keep practicing how we make conversations completely free and open and safe.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

Yeah, as we seek repair, I think apologizing for ways that we have not parented well means more, maybe than even doing it perfectly.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

I have not coined this phrase or term, or and I don't know who has. A lot of parenting experts have said it, but the most important parenting quality is repair of when kids get to see their parents mess it up and come back to them with deep humility, ownership, kindness, and care to say, hey, I messed up, and I'm aware of that, and here's why I think it will uh it happened. Here's what I'm working through in my own story, journey, and community to rectify that. And here's my commitment to you of what I want to try and do differently in the future. That can change everything for a teenager and create such safety and trust that, hey, my mom and dad's not going to get it right every time. But when they do get it wrong, I trust them to repair and come back to the middle with me.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

Yeah, it shows that the teen can even confront and challenge their parent, and that's okay. And it also shows that the teen can make mistakes too and still be restored.

SPEAKER_00 31:31

That's huge. Right. And that that's such a common dynamic of I haven't seen enough of mom and dad fail in healthy ways that I assume there's no way for me to fail in healthy ways. We don't have to be perfect, and we can model that. Amen. That that's it right there. The other components are uh I'll I'll go to E now, is really uh one of my favorite ones is exploring their world. Just explore, get involved in their interest and their desires, engage what's going on around them. I've seen a tendency with parents be like, that that TikToking or that social media, like, I don't get that. I don't understand that. Get curious about it. What do you like about it? What draws you towards it? What what's fun? What what does your group, your community, you know, do together with it? What, you know, and just get that curiosity from a a true, genuine, authentic perspective of I'm not trying to sway away from this maybe at this moment. Right now, I just want to learn more. What are the desires of your heart that pull you towards this? And then the other E is be an example, that same vulnerability piece of I'm gonna live out and walk my journey, my story, maybe even my recovery a little bit in front of you as well, and see that you're not the one who has to go first in this family. I'm going to lead the direction and the pace of how we do some of these things. And then just to finish up, I is invite an independence of inviting them into our process, into these conversations, saying, hey, you have some buy-in here. Let's create a boundary together. I don't want to just give this to you. I want you to be a part of building this. You've seen all the parameters, the factors at play. What do you think is a good idea of a boundary, a guardrail, community needed in this process?

SPEAKER_01 33:26

Right. So not necessarily giving teens authority or complete control over boundaries around tech or things like that. Aaron Powell But giving them a voice and a choice to at least be part of the decision-making process.

SPEAKER_00 33:40

A hundred percent. The assumption I've seen from a lot of parents I work with is well, they're gonna say, you know, I get my phone 24-7 all the time, and I get to call my friends and do whatever I want. And in reality, when we practice this, often teens are they come up with really great stuff. And they might need a little bit of tweaking, a little adjustment, and that's where we answer back in an inviting conversation, right? Of like, what do you think about this? Don't you think that that could potentially be a problem? What what do you think about this idea? Well, that could work here. What if we adjust here? And it creates such two-way dialogue, which a key point of this independence, right, is let's say our kids are 16. We've got two years until they're really, in a lot of ways, off in the world on their own. And so what a what a great time to be building these muscles with them before they have to take the training wheels off and exercise them on their own. And so creating this two-way process and dialogue is going to be so, so helpful for building these muscles for whatever they're to come across in their 20s.

SPEAKER_01 34:52

We don't want them to remain completely dependent on us. So that's the ICE model. Maybe you could call it the CEI model for anybody who wants to use that different acronym.

Start Younger Launch And Closing Blessing

SPEAKER_01 35:05

It works for me. So if you all want to hear more of this, please go over to StartYoungerPodcast.com and get the Start Younger Podcast. It's now available. It's Blake, it's me, it's Dr. Doug Carpenter, new episodes every two weeks, going deep into topics like this, but still making it even more accessible. I mean, so much of what we're talking about truly is the same for adults and teens, but maybe it needs to be adjusted just to be more relatable, to be more accessible, to be easier to get on board with. Because like the brain is incredibly complex. But your four-part summary of like these four regions of the brain, anybody can understand, including teenagers. So, Blake, why are you excited about this new podcast?

SPEAKER_00 35:59

Oh man. Do we have another hour? Just kidding. Start younger's everything you know I've believed in for a really long time, and it's just been so fun to link up with you and Doug and in the same mindset of if we really believe in this process of outgrowing porn and helping all people untangle from sexual addiction of any kind, we have to start younger. We we're all well aware that the exposure age is around nine to ten years old and continues to get younger. And so if we call it 10, by the time most 15-year-olds contact me, they they've had five years of full-blown addiction setting in. And so if we're making them wait till 18 to get some really meaningful help of some kind, we're just way too far behind the ball. And so it breaks my heart in some ways and it gets me so excited that we're we're changing this narrative in some ways of let's start younger, let's start as early as possible with healthy biblical, therapeutic, brain-based recovery practices that build community, build trust, build safety, and really can help teenagers. And I mean, I could tell y'all story after story of just the magical things these teenagers say, the the connections they make in their story and journey and how it completely changes their struggle is it's mind-boggling. It's, you know, it's amazing. Could you share just one? Oh man. There there's so many. I'm trying to think of my favorite one. I think anytime a teenager just puts true words to their story and their struggle, if they they untangle this idea of, I don't watch porn because I'm a bad guy, it makes sense of why I'm drawn to this porn because it it made me feel safe. It made me feel chosen. And now I'm finding different ways, healthy ways that I can fill up those buckets. And now that I see everything for what porn really is, it's starting to lose some of its appeal to me. Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 38:18

Recovery can set in sooner. Recovery can set in while the brain is in this neuroblastic state and become a template for the rest of our lives. It can, man. Amen. So the Start Younger podcast is for teens, the Start Younger Podcast is for young adults, the Start Younger podcast is for the people who are helping teens and young adults. We would love to have you listen. Go down to the link in the show notes to find the podcast. Blake, what is your favorite thing about student recovery? Wow.

SPEAKER_00 38:55

Uh set me up with this one. I'm like, I'm gonna need another hour again. I think student recovery is it's funny. It's not something you can necessarily see, but if you kind of take an imaginative vision of you get to see the trajectory of these teenagers change by so dramatically of the the meaningful work we are doing with them in these ages, it it will change their 20s, their 30s, their families, their marriages. It it just has the ability to change everything of their relationships with God, of having a true, just such a more truthful relational understanding of who he is and how he sees them. I mean, there's that's probably too broad, but man, does it get me excited? I think it's true.

SPEAKER_01 39:47

When I was in high school and college, sexual recovery was my most powerful spiritual formation. Like this totally changed my view of who God is, how much he loves me, and what community looks like. And that has transformed the rest of my life just because I started younger. You're absolutely right. This is not just sexual, it's spiritual too.

SPEAKER_00 40:17

Amen, brother. That is so good.

SPEAKER_01 40:20

If you all want to connect with Blake, please go down to the link in the show notes. You can find his website, redefined studentrecovery.com, and please listen to our new podcast, Start Younger. Blake, thanks for being with us.

SPEAKER_00 40:33

It's been a joy, my friend.

SPEAKER_01 40:35

Excited for more. And guys, always remember you are God's beloved son, and you, he is well pleased.