Sexual Desire Isn’t Sin | The Conversation Christian Men Are Afraid to Have
- Jake Kastleman
- Jun 25
- 35 min read
This is a raw, redemptive conversation with Tina Huggins about healing religious sexual shame, restoring trust in marriage, and breaking the real roots of porn addiction.
I sat down recently with Tina Huggins, a certified divorce coach who specializes in high-conflict cases involving abuse and addiction. What emerged in our conversation wasn’t just practical advice for healing porn addiction. It was a roadmap for overcoming deep-rooted shame, transforming relationships, and reclaiming the sacredness of your sexuality.
This episode struck a deep chord, and I want to unpack it here for those who are struggling in silence—especially Christian men carrying immense guilt and fear around sexuality, faith, and love.
If you’re navigating porn addiction, if your relationship is hurting, or if your faith has been inadvertantly weaponized against your healing, this article is for you.
Porn Addiction Is Not the Root Problem
One of the most important truths Tina and I discussed is that porn addiction is not the root issue. It’s a symptom. A signal. A coping mechanism.
Underneath the urge to watch porn lies something deeper—unresolved trauma, perfectionism, loneliness, anxiety, grief, spiritual confusion. For many men, the drive toward porn isn’t about sex at all. It’s about emotional escape. It’s about getting away from the pain.
In the brain, porn floods the system with dopamine—a quick chemical hit that numbs distress. But like alcohol, drugs, or food, it becomes a cycle of chasing relief. As Tina put it, "Dopamine helps take the pain away."
So if we’re going to heal, we have to stop treating the symptom and start facing the pain underneath.
Religious Sexual Shame: The Poison in the Well
For many Christian men (myself included), sexuality has been wrapped in layers of unspoken fear, shame, and secrecy. Even if we’re never explicitly told "sex is bad," the emotional undertone is often one of danger, guilt, and disapproval.
Tina explained this beautifully: "A lot of times what we hear isn’t necessarily what was meant."
The result? We grow up believing our natural sexual desires are sinful. We internalize the message that we're flawed for being aroused, attracted, or curious. When we do eventually struggle with porn, the shame is unbearable. And that shame drives the addiction deeper.
This is sometimes referred to as the "shame cycle":
Sexual desire arises
Fear and self-judgment follow
Shame grows
Porn becomes a way to escape the shame
More shame follows the porn use
The cycle repeats
And this cycle isn't just in regards to sexual arousal or porn. It is the pattern we find ourselves in throughout many areas of our lives.
The fear and shame we experience in other areas necessitates addiction as a response to reduce stress. This may have manifested as any number of addictions (drugs, alcohol, food, TV, social media, etc.), but in our case our brain chose porn.
One crucial part of breaking this cycle is to stop demonizing desire and start healing our beliefs about sexuality itself.
Sexual Desire Is Not a Sin
One of the most liberating moments in my own healing was realizing this: sexual desire isn’t sinful. It’s sacred. It’s human. It’s part of how God designed us. This knowledge has not been perfected in me yet, but I am blessed to be further than I once was.
Desire is not the problem. What we do with that desire—how we channel it—is where freedom or bondage emerges. But simply noticing a beautiful woman, feeling attraction, experiencing arousal—none of that makes you broken.
As Tina said, "You were born to propagate. So in order to propagate, you have to have sexual desire."
It’s when we fear that desire, or hide it, or judge ourselves for it, that we become fragmented. And that fragmentation feeds the compulsion.
The antidote? A practice I teach often: emotional mindfulness and somatic presence. Recognizing your sexual desire, breathing with it, and seeing it as energy—not evil. The more you can see your desire as a normal, powerful part of you, the less you need to suppress or indulge it compulsively.
Along with this, you must learn to call out the other voices and feelings that come up when you feel sexually aroused. You likely experience self-judgment, fear, and the impulse to indulge. You must become deeply aware of these parts of you, seek to understand them, and build healthy relationships with each of them, so that you can lead them rather than being led.
The Role of Trauma, Body Memory, and the Brain
Tina’s unique background in martial arts, natural medicine, and emergency care brought a critical layer to this conversation: trauma isn’t just a story in the mind. It lives in the body.
When we experience deep emotional wounding—especially childhood abuse, abandonment, or sexual confusion—those memories lodge themselves in our nervous system and even our connective tissue (fascia). As Dr. Bessel van der Kolk says, "The body keeps the score."
Until we release that trauma, the body keeps reacting, rather than us consciously responding. That’s why so many men find themselves acting out in ways that feel almost automatic.
Tina described how somatic work and movement-based therapy—like walking while talking or bodywork—can help unlock those memories. But we also need to speak the shame aloud. Talking to a safe person helps release what's been trapped in silence for years.
This is why secrecy is so dangerous. It keeps the body locked in pain.
Why Talking About Porn Addiction Matters
Addiction thrives in isolation. And religious shame often makes isolation worse.
Many men feel something akin to the following:
"I can’t tell anyone. What if they think I’m disgusting? What if they judge me? What if I’m kicked out of my church?"
But silence is the enemy. To heal porn addiction, we must talk about it. We must confess it to someone safe. We must get the story out of our bodies and into the light. This is why porn addiction recovery coaching, therapy, and men's groups are so powerful. They help us break the silence, dissolve the secrecy, and start healing.
When Churches Reinforce Secrecy Instead of Healing
Many faith communities don’t know how to address porn addiction. Church leaders often lack the training or language to talk about sex, desire, or addiction in a way that is psychologically helpful.
Tina shared that men need to first do their own work—find someone to talk to, get clarity, understand themselves—and then bring that growth into conversation with their pastor. But we need to start that conversation in churches.
As long as porn addiction is taboo, people will suffer alone. But when one man speaks up, others feel safe to follow. Vulnerability creates community.
If you’re in leadership in a church, consider starting a men’s group around topics of addiction, healing, intimacy, and emotional integrity. Your openness could save lives.
The Hidden Risk: Depression, Despair, and Suicide
This part is heavy, but it must be said.
If you’re carrying unhealed shame for long enough, and you’re suffering silently, you’re at risk for despair. For some men, that despair turns to suicidal ideation.
Tina shared that in her work with veterans and addicts, she’s sat with men moments away from pulling the trigger. I’ve talked with men who believed the world would be better without them. And I want to say clearly:
That is a lie.
Your life matters. Your pain matters. And there is healing.
Please don’t isolate. Reach out. Let someone walk with you through the fire. You don’t have to carry this alone. And you are not beyond saving.
If you are experiencing thoughts of suicide, please dial 911 or go to your nearest emergency room.
Healing Porn Addiction Starts with a Single Act of Courage
There are a thousand techniques and tools I could teach you—and I do, in my coaching program. But none of it will help until you take that first step:
Tell the truth.
Tell someone. Get help. Stop hiding. Whether it’s a coach, a mentor, a therapist, a trusted friend—you need someone to hold space for your story.
Because this isn’t just about quitting porn. It’s about reclaiming your integrity. It’s about becoming the kind of man who can sit with his wife, hand in hand, and say, "I want to heal. I want to be whole. I want to be free."
And you can. You can recover from porn addiction. You can heal your relationship. You can rebuild your sexual integrity. And you can write a new story, one rooted not in shame, but in love.
Full Transcription of Podcast Episode: 101: Sexual Desire Isn’t Sin | The Conversation Christian Men Are Afraid to Have
Jake Kastleman (00:01.806)
Tina Huggins, welcome to the podcast. It's so awesome to have you.
Tina Huggins (00:05.592)
Thank you very much, Jake.
Jake Kastleman (00:07.628)
Yeah, you have an incredible story. Your work is so unique in so many ways and so powerful and profound, think, in its meaning and how you help people in very difficult situations. I wondered if we could start by you just telling a bit about what I see as a really amazing story and tell people kind of what you've done in the past professionally and how it's led you here with what you're doing now.
Tina Huggins (00:37.496)
Sure, Jake. I have lots of parts and pieces to what makes me who I am and what brought me here. I'm a certified divorce coach and my specialty is working in high conflict divorces. That where abuse was in the background. And I focus that work for men because there's just not enough support for men.
I'm also a restorative family mediator and the word restorative is a huge important word in that aspect because in restorative that means that I work in trying to keep the people if they can stay together together. But if not, we want to uncouple them so that there's two holes, not two halves. So that was huge. I'm also certified in transition and recovery after the divorce, after abuse, after
all of the stress and everything that the individuals have been through. I work with both men and women, but like I said, I focus my work towards men. And then I'm also a conflictual co-parenting coach. I got that certification and I continue my certifications in the high conflict. The training and everything I do is in the high conflict so that I can help my clients go from the chaos to bring them back down to solid footing and
This way I can help them make better choices for them and their children as they move forward. And by helping them do that in the case with divorce, I'm able to keep their divorce costs extremely low, saving sometimes in one specific case, $100,000. I've worked in natural medicine. I've worked in emergency medicine. And because I have gone through some
things in my life where my thyroid was really messed up and doctors couldn't help me. I went to the natural medicine and started studying a lot about how hormones and the thyroid and all of the body works together so that I could come to this point. And that helps me with my clients in a way that I understand exactly why their brain isn't working. I understand exactly why they're making choices that they normally wouldn't make.
Tina Huggins (02:59.755)
why they're sticking their head in the sand and why they're afraid, why fear is so important to them. It all connects back in to the hormonal side of the body. So technically that's where I come from. I mean, there's lots of other parts and pieces that brought me here, but those are the main ones that helped me to help my clients as they move forward.
Jake Kastleman (03:22.306)
Like you said, many parts and pieces, all sorts of expertise in multiple kind of fields. And something I found fascinating about your story as well is you did work with women in really challenging situations. Was it a halfway house or do I have that completely wrong?
Tina Huggins (03:24.151)
You
Tina Huggins (03:39.17)
So it wasn't a halfway house. I'm a martial artist and so I've been sent in to battered women shelters and helped women learn self-defense. So, and I worked with law enforcement. So at times I would literally physically put myself between the abused and the abuser to protect them and the children. Because I was a female, I wasn't considered a threat to a man.
In some cases where women were involved and it was the other way around there was a little bit but I was trained well enough that I was able to keep the conflict down and never cause problems in those situations. So that's there. I've also helped lots of people get into AA and NA. Helping them at that point, suicide or getting their children back was huge and most important to them.
And in order for them to get their children back, they had to come off of the drugs in this case or the alcohol. But drugs was the main thing that I worked with with the younger people.
Jake Kastleman (04:44.174)
Yeah, I've had personal experiences of friends and others who've been in those situations and needing to come out of their addictions to be in a place to get their kids. It's, yeah, good for you for helping in such very emotionally loaded circumstances and volatile kind of circumstances. That's, people really need that. So good for you. One of the things we're gonna talk about today and really what this...
will be focused in on is this aspect of sexual shame and kind of what, well, a lot of the people who listen to my podcast are religious, right? They're Christian and I myself am as well. Love my faith, but also it can be very, it can be something that can for some people really drive that sexual shame and sexual isolation. And so you've had experience working with people in addictions, you've,
done a lot of work again with hormones and in some other areas that I think you have some great insights here. And we had a previous conversation where you were sharing just things that I was like, man, it's just spot on. So really we're gonna talk about that today. And the first kind of question I wanna ask Tina is you've kind of talked about how men are taught that sex is bad, right? Especially those of us with religious backgrounds.
And we may logically know that's not the case, but emotionally we really can feel that, even unconsciously. So when we grow up in religious homes, we can come away with that idea sometimes. How does that early messaging kind of twist these concepts we have of sexuality as adults? And what do you see there?
Tina Huggins (06:34.945)
So a lot of times what we hear isn't necessarily what was meant for us to hear, but because it comes in from a religious background, we tend to learn things that put us in shame, decisions that we make specifically in relation to sex. And so those things kind of get ingrained in our head. And once they're ingrained in our head, when we make a choice to
have sex when we make a choice in this case, we're talking about porn addiction, when we make a choice to watch that porn, we instantly take shame in. We take that as bad. We tell ourselves we are bad. So we not only take what we've heard, other people would say that we're bad. Now we're telling ourselves that we're
Jake Kastleman (07:18.232)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jake Kastleman (07:28.066)
Yes. Yeah. And I think this is so crucial because I remember when I struggled with my own pornography addiction for 10 years, I struggled with multiple other addictions as well. But that's, you know, a whole nother story. Many of my people who've listened to the podcast know about that history. So for me, I thought that if I just feel bad enough about it, right, if I just feel enough shame about it, if I can.
Criticize myself enough into changing and I will power my way through I can get out of this and One of my friends. My goodness Portnoy, I'm forgetting his first name. That's so funny. But anyway, he has a fantastic book Silicon Valley porn star he was talking about how he really defines He defines addiction as it's a shame cycle so it begins with
shame. In other words, for those who don't know, shame is the belief, I'm not good enough, I'm a bad person, there's some way I don't match up or I'm too much, know, people don't accept me, right? I'm not loved. There's that underlying for me as a kid, it was this underlying kind of assumption is just unconscious, this feeling I carried with me all of the time. And I had perfectionism, right? And perfectionism is really
this coping mechanism of if I just do everything right and I make no mistakes, then people will accept and love me. That's kind of one way of looking at that. And so underneath, I felt I wasn't enough and this led to multiple addictions of food and video games when I was young. And then I hit puberty and that led right into pornography addiction of it began with the shame. And then coupled on top of that, as you're saying, is this shame about sexuality. I really...
Again, this is totally unconscious. I didn't understand. saw it this way, but this implicit message of sex is dangerous, sex is bad, sex is something that is like it's dirty or it's forbidden or it's secret. While I was never told that explicitly, there was very much this implicit message that I got of that. And so when I began viewing, you know, just starting out with pictures and things like that on the internet when I was really young and getting curious,
Jake Kastleman (09:47.488)
I felt overwhelmed with this feeling of immense shame. So of course I kept it secret, right? Because that secrecy goes right along with the shame. And then this addiction built in the background. But it all starts with the intense shame that is then leading me to want to kind of escape that feeling. And then the more I engage with the addiction, the more shame that I feel, the more I want to escape that shame. It's just a cycle that goes on and on and on. What are your thoughts about that cycle?
Tina Huggins (10:16.907)
Well, that's a normal cycle and shame and guilt are the reasons why the cycle continues. And in order to break the cycle, we have to let go of the shame and guilt. That's the only place in this specific situation. We'll even see that in drugs and alcohol aspect as well. Food is another one where we'll see this, but porn addiction itself because
You know, in the case with food, nobody thinks food is a problem because we have to have food to live. Well, and we fill in porn addiction that, of course, we don't need that to survive. But that issue right there is not necessarily true. Now, porn's not needed for survival. But in order for us to propagate the earth,
Jake Kastleman (10:52.941)
Mm-hmm.
Tina Huggins (11:11.601)
sex is necessary. So we have to separate the sex from the porn to understand the way our bodies are made. And in order again to get out of all of this, we have to let go of the shame.
Jake Kastleman (11:27.246)
So let's talk about that, letting go of the shame and the guilt. There's a lot behind that. What are your thoughts about how we do that? How do we let go of shame and guilt surrounding this?
Tina Huggins (11:39.01)
We have to let go of the dogma first. What we've heard, what we've been taught, what we think is the truth, is other people's understanding from their viewpoint of what life should be or shouldn't be like. So we have to plug our ears to what we've been told and we have to again, separate in this case, the porn from the sex.
And intimacy, which involves sex in many cases, but not always, intimacy is something we all need. And most men, not all, have a love language of touch. It doesn't ever have to go into the sexual direction, but touch is important for humans, for all babies. If we don't touch babies, and we see this when we go to Russia, when they have all of these babies,
that are born and have no home, those nurses set them aside and never touch them. When they're adopted by Amish families, they come over and they become quite violent children as they grow because they've never been touched, they've never been loved. And so we need that. That is a normal human instinct is for us to touch. When babies are born, you can go back to the beginning of history. When they were born,
The mother carried them around doing whatever she was doing. The baby was always with them because they didn't ever stay in one place at the time. So baby was always there being hugged and touched. We come to this life here and now, and we've been taught all of the Christian parameters around sex. Sex is necessary and it is something we're born with the instinct to have because we were born in the beginning to propagate the earth.
Well, if we have no instinct to have sex, then we could never have propagated the earth. So God had to give that to us in order for us to propagate. Look into the animal kingdom and how that works. They were born with the same thing. Theirs might work a little bit differently than the human aspect, but they're born with it. So in order for us to let go of that shame and guilt, we have to see exactly
Tina Huggins (14:01.323)
how we were built to propagate the earth, to make the earth grow with humans. So does that answer your question, Jake?
Jake Kastleman (14:08.43)
In a lot of ways, you know, it's, this is one of the things that I work on with my clients and teaching them healthy sexuality. I think we can easily get caught up in, if I have sexual thoughts and desires and inclinations, there is instantly this fear surrounding them. I think the fear and the shame surrounding them is so much of what, well,
fear, shame, and then subsequent self judgment. Right? So that's a lot of very intense negative emotions surrounding sexuality. And when I write as a man, if I see a woman walking down the street or out in public, whatever it might be, she's, you know, dressed in a beautiful outfit, she's gorgeous. And there's this, you know, kind of this feeling of physical attraction or sexual desire. And for a lot of the men that I work with, there's instantly also this
There's kind of the inclination to really indulge in that. There's deep self judgment about that. There's immense shame and fear surrounding that. And so one of the things I work with them on through emotional mindfulness and embodiment of emotion and parts work is to be able to separate out all these parts of them that are speaking in all these voices about this sexual desire where
The sexual desire itself, no problem. This is very normal. This is very human. This is very manageable. It is a strong force, but I'm actually capable as a human being of holding that and accepting it, right? Being like, yeah, here it is. It's all the other, these other very painful emotions that come along with it of fear, shame, self judgment.
Right? And this subsequent also the desire to escape, kind of using it, right? Like I'm going to indulge in this and just go into this lust and let it take me over. All of that is completely overwhelming, right? Unless we're able to get present with it. And so over time, as we can, we can actually pick apart those pieces and separate them. Then we can get down to the core of, yeah, their sexual desire and physical attraction. This is part of me as a
Jake Kastleman (16:29.708)
as a human being. This is something that's built into me and it's acceptable for it to be there. Now I'm a master of my own mind and I can actually direct that for forces of good in my life rather than a force of destruction. Do you have any thoughts about that and kind of these burdens we carry surrounding it of fear or shame or those other kinds of things?
Tina Huggins (16:54.615)
Well, we won, just like you were saying, we have to separate out. To see this beautiful woman and to have what feels and what you acknowledge as sexual desire is one thing. Following through that sexual desire is another thing. You were born again, we as humans were born to propagate. So in order to propagate, you have to have sexual desire. And you're gonna have sexual desire for many women.
One you might like blondes or brunettes and so whenever you see one that looks like that they might catch your attention and Being able to label that. she's beautiful Doesn't mean that you're going to go sleep with her. It doesn't have to take that I mean you can just right away go she's beautiful and acknowledge that you know that that in itself is great because that is what we were born with
Jake Kastleman (17:41.059)
Right.
Jake Kastleman (17:53.356)
Right, absolutely. That's kind of one of the tools that I teach is just that recognition of beauty. And that can be really hard for someone when they've dealt with years of pornography addiction that's really twisted the way that their mind naturally works, where it's just engaging in this lust so automatically. But the actual, I've had experiences that I feel like have been very beautiful of recognizing that beauty in other human beings to be like, wow.
What a beautiful creation of God, you know, just like, it's, you know, just wonderful to see another human being who's so gorgeous, right? And that can be actually a really joyous experience and it can be something that kind of comes and it goes and there's no kind of that controlling or taking me over. There's just an appreciation of beauty, which I think is what we're ultimately kind of meant to have. There's just all these other things that twist it, unfortunately.
Tina Huggins (18:51.987)
Mm-hmm and some of that twist comes from the dogma what we learned is children because we right away take our sexual desire, which is normal and we say this is bad and Because it just keeps coming because it's normal then we start taking it down a bad rabbit hole Because we think it's bad and so then that perpetuality starts in there, you know the guilt the shame
creates it again. And why does it create it again? It creates it again because we need to hide from it. That's why people drink in excess. That's why people drug. That's because they've had, you know, and I'm going to go backwards into my life. I was molested as a child. And, and in order for, for people that have been there, that have been in the molestation side, I was not one of them, but
Jake Kastleman (19:39.598)
Hmm.
Tina Huggins (19:50.292)
many of those girls and boys when they're young, they start into the alcohol or the drugs and they go into that section. And many of the men that I have worked with that were sexually molested, they get into porn in a very violent aspect. It is something where they like to watch the violent end of that. And
Jake Kastleman (19:57.635)
Yeah.
Tina Huggins (20:15.563)
then we start that guilt. And then, you know, in women we'll see where they eat a lot. So they abuse food, alcohol and or drugs and they gain a lot of weight. And that weight is a protection. It keeps men away from them because now they're obese and they no longer attract a man. So subconsciously they've done that. Subconsciously we watch the porn, subconsciously we drink. These are the things that we've done like an aspirin for a headache.
that we've done to get away from the pain. And this is why it's so perpetual. If you get to a point where you see this beautiful woman and it drives you to a place you think is unhealthy for you, well, now you're back in the corner watching porn because the porn takes that pain away from you. It's just this massive perpetual aspect.
Jake Kastleman (21:10.338)
That's beautifully laid out. I think it often it almost feels illogical the way that the human emotion works and the mind works. But I think when we're able to dig more into the complexity, then can start to make sense. Like, wow, no wonder we cope using these different mechanisms. And I wondered if you might have more to say on why a man with
history of abuse because I have clients with the same might Especially if it's sexual abuse about why they might turn to porn if you have any insights on that
Tina Huggins (21:51.66)
The aspect to that is it kind of locks. Okay, so now I'm gonna go back into natural medicine. So when we have a trauma, it will lock itself in our body. And in mind-body medicine, there's specific muscles that it'll lock itself into. the fact is it locks itself. And once it's locked in, it's a scar. It is an emotional scar.
and it is a physical scar inside that muscle, so to speak, because it's locked and they won't talk about it because of the guilt and shame. So they can't release it verbally. And if they can't release it verbally, it can't come out of the body. So when you work on things, there's twofold to this. And this is why some therapists are learning today.
to take their clients out for a walk in the park as they do their therapy because then we've got the physical aspect and we've got the talk aspect. We one have to, and we're gonna go into the Catholic religion. So you and I talked briefly about this earlier. The Catholics have, they go to their father and they confess their sins. So they talk it out. That helps to release some of their shame. And then,
Jake Kastleman (22:48.27)
Mm.
Tina Huggins (23:10.795)
That Catholic father will give them a rosary aspect that they have to go through and say with the beads, okay? So they have their rosary, that's movement, okay? That movement helps to release some of that. They say, so there's verbal, they spoke to the father, there's verbal, and then they have the work that they're gonna do with their rosary. And so that is partly why some of them don't deal with the same stuff that other religions do.
because they have to confess, they have to talk about it. And here we are with the rest of us, we sit here in silence because we're too ashamed of what we've done to talk about it. And there's the perpetuality of it again.
Jake Kastleman (23:55.95)
And I think it's worth saying I had a Owen Marcus from meld on the podcast a while back. He talked about we talked about somatic work and how emotions do lodge in different parts of the body. Because I think for a lot of people, for me, when I first heard about that, I was like, that's so weird. What are you even talking about? How? Because we have this and you laugh too, because I think you've had years of understanding this.
And you also know that people think that way, but we have this view in modern Western psychology, which I think is really shifting, but that all emotion happens up here in the brain, right? That's where it all is and that's it, period. And Owen Marcus really opened up my mind to just, talked about the fascia, right? That deep tissue, the tissue in our body that holds emotion.
Reading the Body Keeps the Score by Dr. Vander Kolk. my gosh, amazing book that opened up my mind further that yeah, this like this is, it's researched, it's real. There's actually emotion throughout the body and it can become locked as you say, which really brings in its mind, body as a whole. It's all one. It's not just in the brain. Yeah.
Tina Huggins (25:14.711)
Mm-hmm.
So true, so true. And the fascia is the connective muscle. Everybody doesn't understand that. So if you've ever taken the skin off of a chicken and those bubbly things, that's fascia. And when we have memories that lock, when you go through and you feel the body, you'll feel this hard knot. That is the memory that's located in that fascia. And so when I would do physical work with the clients, that's what I went in to do, is I went in to break that.
Jake Kastleman (25:29.25)
Mmm.
Tina Huggins (25:47.02)
fascia. They talked while I worked and I released and the more they talked the easier the release came and so these are super duper important communication. So in the fact that now we're having to talk to somebody about porn addiction, shhh, you know we have to be careful and we do. We need to talk to somebody that's safe. Talking with you is safe and they need to talk about that.
They also need to talk to their partner. I will find this in the relationships that I deal with that are breaking apart that when porn addiction is involved, the woman shames the man just as much or more so in some cases than the man shames himself. And in this case, she's creating the perpetuality, not just her alone, but some of her actions are creating that perpetuality. We as the woman,
involved in this. We need to be supportive. This is an illness just like alcoholism, just like cancer. And we have to be supportive when we need to start deep diving in to figure out why. Because in a lot of cases, it doesn't have anything at all to do with their relationship with their partner. And in a lot of cases, it's not even really the sex or the porn itself.
It's the drug, the dopamine that it causes. They're having trouble with their parents. Their parents are ailing. They're having trouble at work. Their siblings giving them problems. A workmate. Something is causing something to shift for them. the way to hide is to either hit the bottom of a bottle or in this case, go to the corner of the room in the dark and turn on the porn. And then we have dopamine that hits and that dopamine
helps take the pain away and helps them hide. If they would talk about the problem, they wouldn't need the porn. So there is another aspect of where we need to talk. What is the true issue that causes the porn? In your case, it started when you were very young and part of that went back into your home. If you were able to find somebody to talk about, you probably would have never leaned towards porn.
Jake Kastleman (28:12.674)
Yeah, exactly. I couldn't have said it better myself. It's those other relationship challenges, traumas, issues, again, the work stress or, you know, unfulfilled dreams or grief or shame or fear or perfectionism. So many things that are so much deeper that are underlying. I always say that porn addiction is just, it's just a symptom. It's just a symptom of deeper underlying challenges that can
they can go across a very wide spectrum. There's always common themes. So I wanted to kind of re-center in on just with reference to kind of the dogma or religiosity surrounding sexuality. So do you think that the way that churches or leaders in churches kind of talk or avoid talking about porn addiction
unintentionally reinforces the secrecy, the isolation. What do you think kind of needs to change? I think this is a difficult position for a lot of people who are in churches and understanding how do I even address this with people? They're untrained in that, but how do you think that that dialogue needs to shift?
In a religious sense or a spiritual sense, how can people address this?
Tina Huggins (29:42.146)
So you can't without knowledge and ability of what's going on, go to the pastor, the person in your church. You can't go to them without, in my world we call it facts. We can't go to them right away. So we need to go and get the help. They need to get a hold of you first. They need to have these conversations. They want me to learn who they are and why this might be taking place for them.
Once they spend enough time with you, then they need to have that frank conversation with their pastor, with the person in charge of their church. They need to be able to, to one, have compassion for them, their own self. If they can have compassion and love themselves when they go have this conversation with, with the person in charge, then, then they're able to have that frank conversation and say, look,
This is something not only do I need your help, but I'm sure there are other people in this congregation that need our help to go through this. And just start the conversation, because once the conversation starts to open, you find that there are a lot of men, especially in the church, that have the same issue, not necessarily have leaned into the porn yet, but they feel guilty because they look at a woman and think she's beautiful.
These conversations need to happen. And once we have that conversation with the person in charge of our church, a lot of times we can end up with a men's group. And I see men's groups being so healing and so wonderful because once one person like yourself opens up and speaks about the topic, then somebody else feels safe enough to share a little bit, somebody else. And pretty soon we all have shared.
and we're all there for each other in support and the healing process that needs to go forward.
Jake Kastleman (31:42.936)
Yeah. Yeah, it's powerful. Powerful to, I love the saying, secrets keep you sick. And so the truth sets you free. And having people to relate to, obviously. So how can a man who is deeply ashamed of his past choices, kind of begin to see his story and what he's been through as a source of strength, as something that's
can be a positive in his life rather than this thing is that's just, you know, this proves to me I'm such a horrible person. How can you begin to shift that perspective?
Tina Huggins (32:24.235)
Well, they have to learn. They can't just start shifting on their own. So their first thing is, is they found this podcast, they found you, they're starting to listen, they're starting to make shifts. And then the next thing is, is they need to talk with somebody, they need to talk with you. They need to start their healing process by asking for help. That is the first and foremost that they have to do.
because the spouse is going need to be brought into this at some point. That's, you know, where I come in at the restorative place. We have to restore who we are and we have to restore the family. We have to remove that dogma. We have to remove the fact that this guilt and the shame is there. We can label it. We can even feel it.
where it's located in our body, what it feels like in our body. We can talk about that when we're talking with somebody like you or somebody that goes through the somatic work. Those are some of the things. Well, what does it feel like? Where is it located? Is it sharp? Is it dull? Very much like a doctor would ask. Once they start this process, then it's just one of these things. And you're gonna have to let that cat out of the bag. That's just a fact. You have to.
Jake Kastleman (33:28.992)
Mm-hmm.
Tina Huggins (33:43.678)
ask for help. And once you let the cat out of the bag, the cat is going to go disappear. It's not going to stay around you forever. The cat is going to go find someplace else to be. So once you open this up, you bring your skeletons out of the closet, then it's no longer there to haunt you. You have to ask for the help. You have to start someplace. Here is a good place to start. You're listening. Now they need to call and ask for help.
Jake Kastleman (34:14.958)
Yeah.
So earlier when you were talking about kind of wives playing into the shame cycle or partners playing into the shame cycle, betrayal trauma is extremely challenging and the post-traumatic stress disorder that goes with it or something akin to that is very challenging for partners. So what do many wives of men that I work with think
that they're choosing porn over them. They think that it's their fault or an inadequacy on their part, or they feel they really can't trust their spouse and understandably so they go through this great pain. What do women often misunderstand? And again, as I say this for, I know I have a lot of spouses listening, so I wanna really validate that pain, that it's real. But what do they misunderstand about what's really going on?
Tina Huggins (35:14.199)
Good day.
Jake Kastleman (35:18.208)
inside of their husbands.
Tina Huggins (35:19.925)
Well, you hit the nail on the head with the fact that they take the blame themselves. So now, just like in an alcoholic, where you have the Al-Anon person hides the alcohol, the alcoholic hides the alcohol. So now you've got that same kind of thing. Now you've got that shame and guilt, and it's running through, in this case, the woman. And it could be partner, even if it was a same-sex partner, it'll be the other partner.
They feel like they're not good enough. not, they don't have that. So what she needs to do, that person needs to start understanding. One, it's not you. And in rare cases is it even about sex. It's about the dopamine. And if I go back into my recent past, I lost my husband. And so I understand that dopamine hit almost in the same aspect of pornography.
because it involved hypersexuality caused by the hormones of the shift and because of the stress that I went through. So I completely understand that. But if we as the wife, the woman in this can just step back and have compassion for our mate who we love and adore, first and foremost, it's not your fault. And you're not the reason why this is happening. They are hurting.
It's just like having cancer or being an alcoholic or drug addict. It's now in this case, it's the dopamine hit that they're getting from this. that dopamine takes the pain away. Why are they in pain? Now it's time for us to be kind and loving and gentle and not harsh and strict and difficult because that is perpetual. They're going to drop back into it again. And
We want to be supportive in their healing process. So we need to to come with them to have these conversations with you. They need to have conversations so that they can understand how to support their partner as they go through the healing process. And in the the natural realm of natural healing, we say it's three months plus one month for every year that they've dealt with. And that's just a general aspect. And they're going to slip.
Tina Huggins (37:43.426)
They're going to slip up. Whether they're going to end up back in that corner watching porn or just thinking about it and chastising themselves for it. We just need to know that that is possible, that they're going to slip. But that's okay. So we slip, we fall down. What does the little baby do? They stand right back up and they start toddling all over again. It's okay to have a slip up. It's just not okay to keep doing it. And it's not okay to stay there.
Once we connect those dots, like I had talked with you before we started the show, once I connected my dots as to what was going on and I went light bulb moment and aha moment, then I was like, now I know how to get out of this. I stopped at the point of the dopamine hit, which was me, was my phone and every ding I was having in my phone. And once I was able to stop that, set my phone in the other room where I did my work.
and then just check it when I was in the middle of stuff that once I stopped that dopamine hit, then then I was on the healing path. I wasn't healed because it's always going to be an issue that and I can tell you now stress causes that to happen. Stress is going to drop us into that. Stress is what's going to cause us to want to go sit in the corner with our porn or our bottle. And and that is where we need to deal with it. We need to go to the root.
Jake Kastleman (38:56.941)
Mm-hmm.
Tina Huggins (39:08.361)
And as the wife, she needs to help and be supportive because it's not her fault. It's not his fault. It is the root that needs to be handled.
Jake Kastleman (39:21.928)
And I love what you say, Tina. And as you're saying it, I'm also having like the almost certain kind of reactions from some spouses that I'm hearing, which is this, isn't he culpable for his decisions though? Isn't he choosing this? Don't I need to hold him accountable?
Tina Huggins (39:49.228)
Yes, those are great words to cause it to all happen all over again. Yes, he's making those choices, but not all of those choices are conscious. He's learning to make them consciously, but until he gets to the point that he can make them consciously, this is a disease, this is a problem, and we have to support that. Just like when...
When our children are sick in bed, we take them water, we take them juice, we take them what they need to have. Now it's our time as a wife to support him and bring him what he needs, which is love and support and do our best to have understanding. Yes, these are decisions he's making, but not all of them are conscious.
Jake Kastleman (40:38.956)
Yeah, yeah, and I think that there is a, it's kind of the middle way, this straight and narrow path between enabling versus trying to control or judge, right? Can I walk this narrow path in the middle, which is this love, this support without enabling him in his addiction? Can I actually be this space of,
understanding and compassion and also of the support and you need to do this work because I want you to be happy and I want our relationship to be good and yes this does hurt me when this happens. I also understand there's other reasons that this is that this is going on right this isn't you're not doing this purposely to hurt me I think that's I see that all of the time is there's this feeling the the man who's struggling with the addiction has of
this massive weight that overwhelms him. Not just after he's relapsed, but all of the time of I'm hurting my wife, I'm hurting my loved ones, I'm falling short as a husband, you know, and this feeling of I'm a bad person, this is who I am. He already feels all that weight.
even if sometimes he uses coping mechanisms of anger or kind of shutting down or withdrawing from his feelings, that weight is down there. It's inside. And sometimes it flares up real big and it overwhelms him. And other times it's just this simmering kind of feeling in the background. I think a lot of wives feel like, or partners feel like, I have to remind him of that. I'm like, part of him is very, we're very well aware.
and carrying that burden all of the time. That balance is difficult. And so like you say, having those conversations and working with people who are trained in it or have knowledge in and experiences, very helpful.
Tina Huggins (42:42.913)
So one of the things I'm just gonna touch on right here, you guys carry this weight and wives, I want you to know this, they're carrying this. When that becomes, and this is gonna hurt me, when that becomes too much, suicide is the next option. And we don't want them to go there. This is where I started my work is back in helping people walk through this. I sit today with many vets and I hold them.
Jake Kastleman (43:01.966)
Mmm.
Tina Huggins (43:11.253)
as they want to pull the trigger. We don't want to push them to where the only option they have to get out is suicide. So please be supportive, be there, love them as they go through this healing process. Again, this is not all conscious. Most of it at this point is probably subconscious and it's only, they're only doing it to get away from the pain. If you had to choose one versus the other, I bet you wouldn't choose suicide for them.
So please be kind and gentle as they go through this.
Jake Kastleman (43:44.888)
Thank you, Tina. I appreciate that. I think the emotion behind that for you is real world experience with people going through this stuff.
Tina Huggins (43:55.639)
sure is.
Jake Kastleman (43:58.072)
You've seen it. And sometimes that ends up very, bad. so people being able to support each other and wind up in a good outcome. It's much better.
So what, I think we've really touched on this, but what advice would you give to couples who are trying to heal together, especially when there's this spiritual or religious shame that's woven into the sexual aspect of the relationship or there's this conflict going on, what advice would you give to them as they're trying to navigate this?
Tina Huggins (44:35.991)
Well, again, ask for help. That's your first thing. You have to ask for the help. What my prayer for you is to get to the point where when the man is needing support right here, right now, he can go to his wife and they can sit together and they can talk through this. Because once we can get to the point that we can talk through this, there's intimacy there.
She's holding his hands, they're sitting together, they're snuggling on the couch or the chair. They're together. Wow, maybe he's crying. Maybe he's going through his, but as long as she can be there and listen with compassion and love, this has nothing, nothing in most cases to do with her at all. He just needs that time, that love, that compassion. And that's my prayer for you is to get to that part where you can both go sit alone.
and be together in a loving manner and talk about.
Jake Kastleman (45:34.558)
And we were talking before this episode about, you know, I said painful emotions are opportunities for growth. Man, do they suck. They're terribly painful and they can be very, very challenging. But I love what you say about this can actually be an opportunity for the growth of the relationship and the development of this intimacy. It really can be that. And I think
when that healing is taking place and that deepening of connection that can then drive the recovery, right? Again, as I say that, I don't want to place this weight of responsibility on the partner. It's not up to them to fix this addiction, but they certainly can be of great help in the process. Yeah.
Tina Huggins (46:23.361)
Yeah, it's a point, you know, we go through the difficult times, a plant, a plant doesn't have it easy at all. acorn tree could die many, many, many, many times in the life of it. It goes through hurricanes, it goes through the difficulty to get through the ground, it gets brushed on and stepped on by animals. So it only gets to be the strong tree by going through the hard times.
Jake Kastleman (46:52.822)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yep. That's like us as individuals and in our relationship. That's really good. That's really good. Well, kind of the last question I want to answer or I want to ask you here, Tina, is what truths have helped you or the men that you've worked with transform the shame into healing? What are some of the most crucial things that you think have helped that process?
Tina Huggins (47:00.407)
Mm-hmm.
Tina Huggins (47:20.673)
just being able to be accepted. And when I'm working with them, I accept them for who they are. I help them to accept themselves for who they are. Once you accept this and you can let go of the shame and the guilt right here, at least for this moment, you have to let go of it many times during the process of this, but we let go of it right here, right now. I help them realize that they are important and that they're seen and that they're heard and that they're cared.
And being there for them and letting them know that is the seed that's planted to help them be able to move forward. Once they can accept the fact that this is, it's something that you can't change the past, but we can root in our present and we can step forward. And knowing that we might fall off of the wagon, that's just a possibility. It's going to happen to most people.
And if that happens, you just get back up. It's not the end of the world. This too shall pass. If you look behind you and all of the tough stuff that you've been through, you're here. You made it. You made that choice to be here. Let's make that choice to let go of the shame and the guilt, at least for this moment. And then there'll be more moments that we can let it go until it's gone and we don't have to hold onto it.
Those are the things that we need to do. Those are the things that I help my clients with as they go through their situations. don't, there's absolutely nothing I hold against my clients.
Jake Kastleman (49:02.124)
And I love what you say there about relapses or these slips, these bumps in the road. My father, who's been in this field for over 20 years, he will often say when a client has relapsed, he'll say, the teacher has emerged. Are you willing to learn? There's something here for you, right? Again, that opportunity for growth. You're experiencing this so that if you choose, it can change you for the better. That's really good.
Tina Huggins (49:32.535)
Amen.
Jake Kastleman (49:33.176)
really good. Well, Tina, if people are in need of your help and your specific skills, where can they go to find you?
Tina Huggins (49:40.513)
Well, you can email me at coachtinawin.com or you can call or text me at 719-580-6684.
Jake Kastleman (49:59.246)
Fantastic. So what a special conversation, Tina. Thank you so much. It's been a privilege for me and yeah, yeah, really special. So thank you.
Tina Huggins (50:04.247)
You're so welcome.
Tina Huggins (50:09.121)
Thank you for having me, Jake.
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