Or I used to google can I addicted to alcohol?

If you have to google it, you probably had.

I probably I knew I was crazy before we got married.

Back then, it was like premarital prophetic counseling.

I love the people still today, but they should have had prophesied how hard marriage is going to be.

They should have prophesied that our marriage is going to deal with alcoholism and pornography.

I'm ten years sober from alcohol this November.

And you still feel like it's a struggle.

One hundred percent.

Explain.

I will never not desire to drink, and if I ever think that I am okay, I run the risk of relapsing more.

God's been reframing my shame over the past ten years.

But on day thirty eight in rehab, as a pastor's wife and a mom, I had to say my name is Irene and I'm an alcoholic.

If I didn't say it that way, the shackles were not going to fall off and meet Jesus, Jimmy does me.

I'm joking.

I'm not eloheen, but I am hem.

I was intoxicated with something different.

They were both equally destroying our marriage.

I could preach to thousands and couldn't talk to the one I lay next to every night.

I could build a church with an incredible kids ministry, but had no relationship with my own kids.

When was your first relationship with pornographers?

Nine years old?

And I now understand that your introduction will become your appetite until you're healed, I told her, and she could not believe I was that honest.

Yeah, you will always be as sick as your secrets.

I spent eighty thousand dollars on rehab here, y'all, you get it for free.

We just show you.

Yes, he can heal in an instant, but he's also a fan of the process.

We can experience freedom if we are willing.

To do the work.

I don't think that there's no greater teacher than pain, but maybe there is someone Else's woo.

Well up to Dear Future Wife podcasts.

My homies Jimmy and Irene Rollins are in the building.

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I'm going to be sharing the journey.

As I continue doing all the wedding planning.

Let me tell you it's been a lot going on planning for this wedding that will take place on November twenty second.

As I told y'all before.

It'd be live stream for all of y'all who have been walking alongside me through this journey.

It's gonna be powerful, So I'll give y'all more details as that comes down the pipe.

Well, let me tell you something.

It's couples that I always look forward.

To interviewing, and this couple have been referred to me from various friends, and I said, man, I really want to get them to actually live in the DFW Naturalplex.

And so it was so perfect to get this very transparent, very vulnerable couple on the Dear Future Wifie podcast.

Y'all known the Dear Future Wifie podcast.

We live under the moniker.

We keep it lit, live, intentionally and transparently, and the Rawlins does exactly that.

So, without further ado, welp to the Dear Future Wifie podcasts.

My homies Jimmy and I Rowlins are in the building.

Here we are on the.

Count holds its amazing now Jimmy, yeah, Now, there was a little discrepancy before we pushed record about when the last time was the last time?

And what what what what what?

What?

What was you talking about?

Well, first of all, this was like an argument for our marriage.

Well we started tracking it.

What was it?

What was the argument?

Because I have an appetite, you know, and sometimes when you get married, the sexual appetite is not the same, uh huh.

And so we had I'll be like, hey, you know I need frequency, and you know, da da da.

So we came up with this thing, like, you know, three times a week when we first got married, and I thought that we would be going longer, like I'm like, hey, we haven't, and she'd be like, yes, we did.

So she started.

I didn't know that she got a sex calendar and this was We've been married twenty six years and that thing has been filled out.

You know, in some seasons the calendar is it's a good week, you know what I'm saying, it's a good work week.

So so if it's three then it's good no, three is the minimum.

That's the minimum.

That was the minimum, Okay, you know what I'm saying.

And then and.

Then she would be like, no, no, no, we we uh you know we had you know, we came together and you know it was intimate.

You know, I said no, no, no.

We were arguing about it, and then it got to the point where she'd be like, no, this was the date.

And I'd be like, well, that didn't count.

Why don't they count?

Because you know it was too too quick, you know, And I just don't think quickies should always count as because you know, I need her to experience all of me, you know what I mean.

But y'all married, y'all need to do that every time, right.

Sometimes it's like I need to make sure you involved, you know what I'm saying.

Sometimes it feels like, you know, it's a duty coffee and I need to be held.

I need to be help coffee and the donut counts that counts as one on the calend.

I need to be held, you know what I'm saying.

I want to be a little spoon at times.

Jimmy, how tll are you?

I'm six four?

And how your wife?

Sure you want to be you want to be a little spooke.

Yeah, sometimes sometimes I want to be spoon.

You can't see it when she's behind me.

Oh my god, that's what all this tale.

But yeah, this is this is our marriage right here.

And so start.

When y'all walked the studio, it was a debate.

She said that it's been what you say?

I said a week?

He said a week and a half.

I'm like, no, m hm, and you said don't count.

Because it was a quick a general yeah, I could tell she wasn't really wanting to be involved and it was all about especially when she says stuff like this one's all about you.

You know, it's really I can't stand you, but I know you need this and this is for you.

This is for you, which is fine.

I've just we love to joke about it.

We don't really want to good about it.

But since it's been a week and that's like, so we both know we're on tonight.

Okay, yeah, tonight tonight it's going down.

So do you feel like it lacks passion if it's scheduled?

No, I don't feel like it.

We kind of have this rhythm in our heads already that it's.

Going to that we don't let have a conversation, but we.

Don't let a week go by without connecting that way, and that if I'm going out of town or he's going out of.

Town, don't leave that lead a house hungry.

I don't I don't you know what I'm saying.

And that's just understood from understand.

It wasn't something I had to learn in marriage.

Oh we did have to learn it and talk about it and figure out why are we?

So we were argumentative?

You were when you like we would go he would be sulking when he would go out of town, like sulking.

I'm like, what is the sulking for?

And you know, finally I pull it out of him, like you weren't It wasn't it a priority?

You know, I just don't feel like I'm a priority.

And you know you didn't, you know, even make an effort.

I'm like, how.

About you what you want and what you need?

And maybe I can accommodate, But if I don't know, I can't read your mind.

And so then once we like kind of figured that whole thing out, we came to an agreement.

Agreement because here's the thing, it's you can't expect you can't have an expectation.

It's not valid unless it's agreed upon by both parties.

So it has to be spoken.

You have to speak it out loud, and then you got a way.

Is it realistic?

Like is the person even capable?

Like can I give you week in sex three times?

Whatever?

If I'm sick?

Whatever?

You know, is it even something they're capable of?

And then you know, have you evaluated whether.

Or not is it coming from a healthy place?

Is it coming from a healthy place?

Yeah?

Do y'all have mayor's therapists?

We do?

Yeah?

When did yall implement that?

I knew I was crazy before we got married, before you got married, you're crazy.

So we had premarital you know, back then it was like premarital prophetic counseling.

I don't don't know what that means.

I don't know, it's an extra charge.

I don't know why it was called that.

It wasn't called that for real, was it?

It was prophetic?

Yeah, the prophetic premarital prophetic counseling.

And I love the people still today, but you know, they should have had prophesied how hard marriage was going to be?

Right, They should have prophesied that our marriage was going to deal with alcoholism and pornography and all of the things.

But there was really a lot of premarital counseling.

Is like bills and sexual appetite and believe the same thing.

No, I need to know know how to argue healthy that part, how to have a good fight because we're going to fight, yes, But it's like, well, here's what you need to do to communication and teaching us about you know, a definition of submission that's not biblical.

Explain that.

Well, the thing is is like we think submission is like you come under me.

You you know, I'm first, your second, I'm the head, and you know you're the tale, you know.

But submission is a mutual desire that we are both submitted to the call and covenant of our marriage.

So what we look at is this Irine is an individual.

I'm an individual.

Our marriage is its own entity, and we submit to the vision, to the honor, to the call, to the covenant of our marriage mutually.

And so you know, a husbands, you know, love your wives as Christ love the church.

Well how did Christ love the church?

He died for the church.

So am willing to die for our marriage, Like I'm not talking about a physical death.

I'm talking about a submission, a sacrificial nature of mind to lay down my own ones, desires, feelings, thoughts, emotions for our marriage.

Now, Irene can submit to our marriage as I submit to our marriage, understanding that I am the spiritual head of our household.

That doesn't mean that I make all the decisions.

I eat at all the restaurants I want to go to.

I have sex as much as I want.

No, it's we, As Irene said, we have a We've come up with mutual expectations for our marriage that we both sacrifice for, which is dual submission.

Good.

How did that show up?

What were y'all wrestling with in the early stages of your marriage with him having that ideology and maybe leading from that heart posture?

How did you deal with that?

Well?

First of all, tnswer your question earlier.

We've been in counseling for twenty six years.

Twenty six years heavy, fifteen years.

It's been heavy, heavy, like consistent, which has been a game changer.

And I stay in counseling.

He takes breaks from time to time because he you know.

I just I get todd people telling me pulling I'm paying them to persecute me.

I feel like I stay in the work.

I got to keep doing the work because I feel like if I'm not doing work on myself, I'm leaning towards the propensity to relapse in addiction.

And I'm ten years sober from alcohol this November twenty twenty five numbers November twelfth, and I have to be doing the work, like internal emotional soul work in order to like, that's my really my medicine to stay sober.

Ultimately, ultimately it's God.

She often said, as if I'm not working on my recovery, I'm working on my relapse.

Really yeah, So it's that serious.

I saw you pinned, which I really love on your page nine years and so every year do you make that the nupians and so ten you're approaching ten years of sobriety and you still feel like it's a.

Struggle one hundred percent explain, I will never not desire to drink.

I have and if I ever think that I am, okay, I run the risk of relapsing more.

Really yes, yes, and so ten years for me, I'm actually at the point where I'm I don't need to call myself an alcoholic to stay sober because I think that that has attached a lot of shame, and God's been reframing my shame over the past ten years, and I believe that now I I am more comfortable saying that my name is Irene and I have overcome an addiction to alcoholics.

My identity is in Jesus Christ.

I know who I am, but I want to help people out there.

The reason why on day thirty eight in rehab, as a pastor's wife and a mom and a leader in the church and a wife, I had to say my name is Irene and I'm an alcoholic, was because if I didn't say it that way that time and that moment in time, wow, the shackles were not going to fall off.

I had to admit I had a problem.

I had to My life was in the balance because the denial that when you're in an addiction, it's no longer you talking, it's the addiction in your brain is has been hijacked.

So you're fighting to get out of that control from that person, place, or thing.

That hurt had.

Celebrate recovery and it like you're you're fighting, and until you confess it and admit it, it's controlling you.

Did you go through celebrate recovery?

Oh yeah, okay, that's.

Like I'm best friends with the found founders.

Man.

Yeah, when I say that was liberating for me, you know, and I used to I went thinking I had a sexual addiction.

And then after the third day, I realized, God said, you have a sexual addiction.

You have a you have an addiction towards codependency.

You're co dependent on people's affirmations and people approved, people's approval.

And I was like, oh, I don't need people.

I can come home out from the hood.

I don't need say yes you do, Yes you do.

Because every time you cheated on your wife, you cheated on somebody that was a cheerleader.

You cheated on somebody that affirmed you.

And I was like wow.

And at that time, my ex wife and I hadn't even had sex in sixteen months.

I wasn't masturbating, I wasn't doing anything in those sixteen months.

And that's when I started celebrate recovery.

And so but I kept saying, I'm just I'm a filthy dude.

I did everything I said I'll never do.

I cheated on my wife.

I have a sexual addiction, and God was like, no, you don't say yes, I do.

I cheated.

I cheated.

He was like, but you don't.

And so that's when I started uncovering the real issues with me, which when you look at it, that's how God end up Birth and Dear Future Wifey.

That was in twenty ten and in twenty twenty, I do Dear Future Wifey, where I'm sitting on a platform where I'm.

Sharing all my faults, not caring.

What type of pushback I dive from people from a place where I was ten years ago.

I bet I was shoot well fifteen years ago.

At this point, I was like, oh no, I would It would eat me alive if some of the stuff.

If I was in that same mind and said back then and I was read and find videos attacking me or whatever, man, I probably jump off the bridge somewhere.

Well yeah, you know what I'm saying.

And God had to deliver me from that so now he could prepare me for this.

It was a message Bishop to TD Jakes.

I don't know if he was preaching the message or he just went derailed and sent this message dropped this gym.

But I was at the church visiting one day.

I had my I was doing plays back in that time, had the cast there, and he said that, he said something to the tune of God will never be able to use you the way he wants to use you unless he first delivered you from people's opinion.

And he dropped that and I was like what.

And then this dude pastor Wingfield, No, this is this other past this is other deacon.

He tapped me on the shoulder because I was like, God, he can't be talking to me.

And then the dude said, God's talking to you.

He said this is this and I look, I said, hold on, what is going on?

And I sat there and I said, God, you know how I am.

There's no way on God's green earth.

I'm gonna not care what people say about me.

So I don't know if you don't ever use me, because it just doesn't line up with the way my love language is words of affirmation.

So that just doesn't make sense.

And that's what guy had to live and be from.

So it's powerful that you went through that.

You go speak at national convention for that.

When did it How long did you struggle with alcoholism and at what age did it begin?

Well, that's such a great question.

Exactly.

Well, first of all, the early exposure, so ten years old, ten years old, Yes, I'm living in Cameroon at the time, in West Africa, and my dad would get cases of guinness and I asked him one day, Hey, can I have one of those?

He's like, it's vitamins.

I was like, what is it like?

And he said it's vitamins.

Like he joked and said it with vitamins.

I'm sorry, and I took him literally.

So I started helping myself to one a day.

A whole bottle of guinness.

I didn't know about alcohol like people weren't.

It didn't explain it or anything like that.

We were given wine with dinner when we went to special things that overseas.

That's just was the norm.

At what age they allow you to drink?

Well, I was anywhere from Yeah, it was ten and there would be a little glass of wine at my table at nice dinners.

Is that but that that consumption?

Would it make you inebriated as.

No, okay, but it's changing my brain chemistry in early developmental formative years where my brain was being developed, so I was in the beginnings of feeding creating an alcoholic Now, then I go to boarding school overseas in Switzerland, and yes, there was no drinking age, Like everybody was getting wasted, and so I just went you could buy I could go buy a six pack of Heineken a at fourteen for real.

So there's no age limit at least.

Not that I knew of because I just walked in.

I'm telling you, I just walked in and got it.

Like and I had a higher tolerance than all my friends.

I could drink four they were on half a Heineken and they were tipsy.

I'm like, y'all are lightweight, so.

You would drink a whole At ten years old, you would drink a bottle of again.

Yeah, so your dad ever cared you.

He never noticed, he never said anything, so.

You would just be sitting So what do you remember feeling at ten years old?

I don't recall feeling anything.

I just was doing what this one day, Like my parents, I don't think they knew.

And so then like and then I started abusing it up until I was twenty one.

So I mean I'm talking about if I drank, I drank to blackout, drink I was at the club, you like, that's the only way I could loosen up enough to dance.

To you would drink to the point to blacking out.

Yeah, it wasn't a fun night unless you got like I don't remember getting home.

Some days I don't remember, like who brought me home?

How I got there, Like it's a miracle.

I'm alive, and meet Jesus.

Six months later, meet Jimmy.

This does me, I'm joking, was like, meet Jimmy.

Y'all say that she got no Jesus joking.

I'm not yellow, but I am he.

I like met Jesus and like met Jimmy, and then it was like started popping out babies.

I'm in the church world.

You're not supposed to be drinking, per Jimmy.

Like it was like a big no no.

So I didn't drink until I was about thirty two.

We were on vacation and he's he was hiding.

No, I got was saved.

She was hiding.

But she stopped for that.

She did because I was told that, like drinking was sin, so you were able to stand.

It was like, look at his hairline.

That's how she stopped.

I was so codependent, she wanted.

I was so codependent, that's why.

Yeah, and like because I was so about pleasing him, and so you were I.

Want to stopped just because of.

That, because that's how strong I was gripped in.

Uh, someone else's perception of me was more important to me.

Than that where codependency.

Yeah, that's that was the root of Really, that's why I said, you have to be working on your recovery in order to not relapse.

Like, if I'm not working on being staying away from codependency and doing that internal work, it's great because it's if I'm not working on that, it's going to lead to drink the addiction.

So y'all met at what age twenty one?

He was twenty four.

And you stayed sober for ten years.

Yeah, and the moment I picked, you know, the moment that alcohol touched my lips.

It was own.

So what did that happened?

Back?

Because vacation, So y'all was out on vacation while you're with him.

Yeah, and then I grew up like you know, you didn't touch it, you know, religious family, PK.

You know, So I want to rebel.

Every time I drank, it was like rebell.

So we was on vacation, you know, and I remember, like, you know, I see my talking to my friends.

You know, hey man, you know I wanted to be intimate.

You know you should give your wife some wine.

I had no idea what we awakened me and we had wine on that and now it's you know, six years, and she talks about this like literally, I did not know that one was too many and a thousand was not enough, and.

One was too many and a thousand.

She was woke up and it turned into we're leading a church, where pastoring churches growing, I'm speaking around the country, and I was so lost at home.

I felt like I could control I could preach to thousands and couldn't talk to the one I lay next to every night.

I could build a church with an incredible kids ministry, but had no relationship with my own kids.

Like I was intoxicated with something different and they were both equally destroying our marriage.

So when was your first relationship with pornography?

My first relationship with pornography was nine years old.

I was nine years old than you, nine ten and nine.

And I.

Remember the picture.

I remember the boy who showed it to me, I remember where I was standing.

It's crazy to me how my whole life with learning disabilities, I could not remember spelling how to spell words, and had a stuttering problem, severe studying problem growing up.

But I can remember a picture that was formulated in me a nine, and that became my sexual appetite, that picture.

And I now understand that your introduction will become your appetite until you're healed.

Teach, Teach, And.

Then when did she began to know about your private addiction?

Oh?

I told her day one.

Oh really, the problem with this is me.

So you told them how to say?

We were at st We were in Maryland, at Saint Stephen's and Saint Stephen's Maryland on a day vacation, like, let's just go hang out for a day.

He was broke.

Let me just keep it real.

Day vacation.

We were broke, and this looked like vacation because it was me a some water and I was like, hey, I need to talk to you, like I want to make sure we grow in our marriage.

And I felt like the greatest form of accountability.

I was already married.

Yeah it should be you.

And I said this is early on, like maybe year one, And I was just sitting there like, I need you to know this has nothing to do with you.

I have a dysfunctional pharmacy inside of me that was introduced to me at nine.

And when I don't feel validated, when I feel insecure, I've noticed when I feel lonely, I turned to that dysfunctional pharmacy.

And back then I thought it was addiction, like you said it was an addiction.

It was codependency, right, And I said, I hope that you can be a covering for me in this area.

That's and pray for me in this area because like, because I was told that, you know, the best kind of prayers are the ones that come from the one you lay next to every night.

Teach say that again.

People don't need hands laid on me by a pastor.

I can get hands laid on me by my partner.

That's what I'm talking about, right next to me.

Why am I waiting to go to church when the church is laying right next to me?

God, you know, that's why Jesus, like literally scripture, God caused the church and his relationship with us as the church at marriage and so like I told her, and she was like, oh my gosh, like she could not believe I was that honest and that vulnerable, and it wasn't pretty at First, what I love is she didn't react.

She didn't emotionally hijack and and and talk about how what I am saying is affecting her hold on.

So how did you know that not to do that?

I didn't.

I think, I honestly feel like it was the Holy Spirit when a man opens his soul like that.

Oh I shut up, yep, most women can't do that.

I'm about say, who taught you that?

Because that's that's something that I believe typically has to be talked.

But your instructor was the Holy Spirit.

It had to be because I was too young to know better.

Right, There's so much I didn't know, and it's like something silenced me because I had It was like a reverent moment, like I had to be still and silent and just allow him to Like this man was opening and so I'd never met another human being that was this honest I didn't.

Part of it was I didn't know what to do or say.

And I think, to looking back at it in hindsight, bias.

God was actually healing the no talk rule in her family that she grew up.

So we believe that your spouse is the blueprint for your growth.

Right, So like in that moment of me being transparent, like it was kind of like, well, he's talking about something that I'm not, so I'm not gonna talk because she was in a no talk world.

But she was a great.

Listener, and so I unpacked two things to her that day.

It was that and it was, Hey, there's this girl in college that never had a sexual relationship with I always wanted to date.

We never dated.

We were just really good friends.

And sometimes I desire her friendship, which says to me that we need to be better friends.

And that day, same day, I told her that, and I ended it with this, I want you.

I want you to be my best friend.

I don't want to have desires outside of And then I said this, and I want you to be my sexual desire.

That's what I said, Like I didn't know any other way, and I'll never forget.

That started my daily prayer that I still pray today.

God when I wake up this morning, I prayed it this morning, made my eyes only desire the body of my wife, because it's real out here in this culture.

And I twenty six years, we've been faithful, twenty six years.

You know, we've been great.

Like when I say, great, I'm talking about for one another.

Yes, but struggles, fights, all the things that everybody goes through.

But one thing that we have vowed to each other, and this is this is not theology.

So I'm gonna say that on purpose.

Is that before I a cheat on you, I'll leave you because I hate you that much.

Yeah, that's good.

So we've never gotten to the place of leaving, and so like even through I have I want to leave, I want to quit, I want to divorce.

When she was going through the alcoholism, for it for years and not admitting it, it was the hardest thing ever to And then I would negotiate with my own healing by saying, I deserve to look at this.

I deserve this picture, I deserve this this clip to look at this is before scrolling.

No, you had to be intentional to have pornography.

You had to pay for it with the hoping that she didn't see the cable bill.

Look, I was negotiating with what was eternal, with something that was fantasy.

Let me ask you some Mareen him being as vulnerable and transparent early on, why wasn't that the foundation for you to be open about your alcoholism?

Hm?

Wow, That's a great question, I think because it wasn't in me like this fact like we always we marry what we didn't have right growing up to try to reconcile something that has been missing, and I didn't have that, that openness, that honesty, no secrets.

I didn't know how so as much as we were in therapy, it had been ingrained in me to keep this mouth shut.

You do not speak about something super personal, like you wipe the tears, don't let anybody see you cry.

You get what I'm saying, Like that is just too much vulnerability.

And so everything about him that he did I loved, but made me so uncomfortable to do it for myself.

It took.

Jesus, the Bible and a whole lot of just breaking of that like belief system.

That start and this started in rehab, and it took that day thirty eight of rehab.

I had done all the work admitted, you know, sexual abuse in my childhood.

I finally said that out loud.

That was the next question I'm about to ask you.

I was about to ask you what other things that you keep silent?

Oh?

I kept that That one was and that was a big one because that was one of the things that led me to drink in the first place.

The undealt with trauma, right yep, And all the pent up emotions that about pain and hurt and things I've resented about him had built up and I never expressed it.

I just didn't know how.

I don't know how else to tell you that.

I'm sure there are listeners out there people who were like, I know what she's talking about.

Like, you don't even know how to articulate in words what it is you're experiencing on the inside.

All you know is.

That person place thing you're using to take you somewhere else to ease the pain that feels better than the the pain of the and the courage it's gonna take to actually say it out loud.

I just couldn't.

And it took rehab in them really retraining my brain to get me to be open and honest.

I remember when, fifteen years in our marriage, I'm hearing why our sex life was such a struggle, Like I'm like, and I'm like what Like, Like, I did a lot of other stuff, but I waited until we got married to go all the way, to go all the way.

And so I was like, you know, when you're growing up in church, in the religious family, that becomes a trophy right to wait to actually trauma.

I'll explain that.

But I feel like when we got healthy, when she told me, it gave me definition to our dysfunction.

And I feel like many couples, if you're listening right now, like you will always be as sick as your secrets.

Period.

Your marriage will always be as six as the secrets that you have in it.

And then if it's not a secret, if someone else knows something and that your spouse doesn't know, that's actually emotional cheating.

There it is, and it can be of the same sex.

And so what I did that day, Yes, I was frustrated, yes, but it gave me like relief that our sexual dysfunction wasn't mine, like I'm not performing or I'm not good at something, or why can't we do that.

I didn't know that she was sexually abused, and that was what the person you know.

Well, that's why I needed to drink to abbreviate the stress that I was feeling every time we went to be intimate.

I didn't realize that I was being I was being triggered by several like it could be all your senses.

The body keeps score, so site, smell, touch, all the things.

If I got triggered, I didn't know that I was going getting all like you know, trauma reacting and I didn't know I was drinking at that and he thought I was drinking at men.

And now I have definition to dysfunction.

Now you took it as rejection.

I did, And that's what happens.

People leave, people get divorced, People separate because they're like, am I crazy or are you crazy?

Well, we're both crazy and with both the blueprints, So let's unpack our crazy so we can hear together.

Like saying.

So I started asking her questions like, hey, how are you feeling right now?

And I started asking her question to drawing it out of.

Her, training her in the good parts of me to be real and vulnerable.

See, Transparency is what I let you see.

Transparency is what other people see.

Vulnerability is letting you know why I act the way I act from what you see.

That's giving people definition to dysfunction.

Y'all messing me up right now, because I know this is helping so many people.

I know for a fact.

It's like it's certain guests that I'll be talking to and I'll be present in the conversation, but then I'll hear in the spirit realm and I'm hearing how it's been deposited into people's minds.

It's like I just heard a woman's scream, you know, like while she's telling this story, I just.

Heard a one and just start screaming, you know.

What I'm saying.

It's like I'm hearing these things.

I'm like, am I supposed to say it's a trigger warning right here?

Or what?

It's like my mind is just like going between these spaces, not wanting to ruin the moment, but I'm hearing breakthrough take place.

I'm hearing men get reference to being like, wow, now I need to be more emotionally involved in.

The sex life of our marriage.

It's certain questions.

When you find out one in five women have been victims of sexual assault, and with black women is one and four, then you need to have these conversations because if you just go one, two, three, four, and then you say, hold on this woman, maybe somebody I may have married a woman that is wrestling with that internally.

Let's have the conversation.

Least be at base camp and say hey, I was wondering, have you ever been a victim of sexual assault?

And then let them go.

I've been I've always wanted to share this with somebody, and then that's going to create a greater deal of intimacy and now you're really truly knowing that person that you SAYD vows with.

Uh.

And so it's just it's just it's just it's just a lot in this And first of all, thank y'all for this vulnerability and transparency, because especially in the office and the position of pastors, as y'all been a lot of times people just don't share that type stuff.

They just may not about to share that they struggle with pornography, and they're not going to talk about I've never before Irene, and I know how powerful ministry is, but I never heard nobody talk about alcoholism in church.

They just don't talk about it.

Well, you know what I'm saying.

They just never said I struggle with alcohol you like what, because it's so normalized nowadays.

It's Sunday Fun Day is on the same day as church, you know what I'm saying, And so people go leave church and go to happy Hour.

It ain't no big ain't no big issue.

So it's just good that you're giving a reference to all of this.

When you started, when he started dialing, dialing into you from an emotional standpoint, how did that start helping you from a sexual experience, start healing that child of the trauma.

Yes, so first of all, I feel like, Jimmy, you made space.

I feel like I have to look at him when I do this.

You made space for my humanity, my brokenness, and because you had laid the foundation of honesty and vulnerability, it's like my knowwher knew that I could trust you with what I was laying on the table.

So I began to bring him into Okay, right now, I am experiencing.

I'm tense, so I need you to do this specifically.

And so my work to do was figuring out how to admit it that I was struggling in that moment and you're literally about to have sex.

But and how do you do that without getting out of the mood?

Right?

But I'm like, if you want me to be fully engaged, I'm going to need your help to get present.

So I gave him specific things like touch like he'll touch me, and hold like my knee and like ground me and bring me into the present, and it helped my body to come go from the past into the present, and that became my new memory.

So when the trigger would come up, and again it could be a scent, it could be a touch, like I could close my eyes and certain images cross my eyes and I would just say, hey, I need you to help me be present, so that it's a one liner.

And we came up with that together so that he didn't kill the mood, but then it helped me come into the present.

So it's like, no, I'm safe here, I'm okay, I'm okay, you're okay.

I had like certain statements that are one liners that I would say that would bring me out of the trauma ree acting little girl and into the present safety.

And we had.

Prayer together where he like literally helped care for her, the sixth seven year old little girl, the ten year old little girl.

He literally prayed over her, talked to her, shared with her how her worth and her value and like said, you know, I'm so sorry that happened to you.

And I also faced the little girl and comforted her and said, I'm sorry your innocence was taken, and you know, we walked through that together.

And let me tell you that what the Lord you think is lost is not lost.

In the Book of Joel, it talks about like how he'll like what.

The restore warm warm?

Yeah, he restored it as if it didn't happen like this, like literally the spirit of manassa forgotten like through this you and.

Me, and I think real you know, in those moments, not that it was easy, because, like you know, sexual desire can be very selfish.

Absolutely, and I think realizing that, you know, I've heard, you know, people talk about worship and marriage and you know, getting in the mood and all of those things.

But when you really look at the true theology of marriage, that God created me and her to be fruitful so that we could multiply, so that we.

Could bring Heaven to earth.

In those moments, I had to understand that my assignment was different.

My assignment was not to have my wife to teach.

My assignment was to heal my wife.

And the only way that I could heal it if she confessed it.

Confess your sins the God that you may be forgiven.

She was forgiven.

Confess your sins to one another.

You may be healed.

But was my job to be a conduit for healing.

So I had to say things like, hey, we don't have to do let if you just want to be held, I'm cool.

I had to say things like hey, be present, it's me.

I had to say things like hey, let's just stop and pray.

Right.

It wasn't easy.

I don't want anyone listening to think that.

No, this was.

Me accepting my role allowing the Holy Spirit to change, which was a dysfunctional pharmacy going to seek things to cover up this.

No, God was using me to cover it in a way that would bring her back to present and we would have conversations like afterwards, are you good?

I had to get to places where I didn't finish because the work of the completed, finishing work of Jesus.

It was my assignment to help that take place.

And so as if I had tears or whatever, style just say.

And so now fast forwarding, I'm starting to realize what intimacy really is because we say we love people, but that love is a very cultural love.

We know now God's love.

It looks for sin, it looks for dysfunction, it looks for everything that it's not in order for it to be defined in what it was created to do.

So when we say God is love, God's love doesn't have any other agenda but to reconcile teach.

So when I say I love my wife, I'm not saying give me food, give me sex, give me babies.

I'm saying, what can I do to reconcile the thing inside of you that was dysfunctional, trauma, triggers, whatever.

And I like to say it this way in our marriage, my love is at his best when you're at your worst.

That's God's love.

While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

There was no quota of scripture, reading, church attendance or anything.

God loves us at our worst period.

You know what's so interesting, It's like you were unpacking a minute ago.

God, were you somebody that was dealing with their own sexual addiction to cover somebody else who had been violated from a.

Sexual actep Like, is it something?

Yeah, it's God's obniscience.

He said I needed Jimmy to go through what he went through.

I need you to go through what you go through.

But if y'all are surrendered and submitted, that's what true submission is submitted to what God says that I can use this to breathe healing in this relationship.

I just had a first time revelation of an area that I resented for.

A long time.

And what's that talk about it?

So I love when God does this, Like I had no idea that he wanted to heal something else in me today, And never have I felt shame.

I didn't want to shame her about her past and body count versus mind mine was higher and all of the things.

I waited until we got married to have sex.

And honestly, I would ask God, like, is that driving my pornography?

And just to have to see what something else is?

Like yep, And I realize just now when you said those words, just right now, the Holy Spirit, you know I might.

Have to give you an offer.

The Holy Spirit said to me, Know, the reason I had you wait is because you're the only person that could give her some thing to No other guy was able.

To give her, no one.

And I've been struggling internally from time to time with like like I was a good looking dude, I said, No, I've been in situations in college where I'll never forget.

I was in the car with a girl.

You know, got to a place where we were ready to go and the lights came on in a car that was off.

This is not I'm not BSA.

Y'all can text comment whatever you think.

This is my real reality.

I ain't getting paid for this.

I'm telling you right now.

I remember the girl's name, I remember where we were aparked, I remember all the things, and the lights on the car came on and I thought it was my mom praying against that moment, I did not know that that was Irene's future and we hadn't met yet.

I was able to give her something that no other man was able to give her.

And it's not until this moment right here that I can say I no longer resent that I recognize why God reserved me to be a part.

Of healing you, the kinsman, redeemer just right now, that is my soul.

Because we've talked about this, I'm like, are you resentful?

Like?

And I we asked that I don't.

Mind sharing this, like I asked him, I'm like, do you ever like?

Like I've asked him over the years several times, like do you resent me?

Because it took me so long to get honest about my body count?

Because it was way high and compared to him, and well he didn't technically have one.

And then I'm like, but you saved yourself, your whatever.

Wonder what it's like.

It was a body count, but it was my hand I'm just telling you that's just the truth.

I don't want nobody to think that I was just ahead.

I'm you did other things, okay, but that's not.

Edit it out.

I'm sorry, But his journey.

I had handy.

So what you was saying is in this moment, we've had those conversations.

Yeah, And like I always wondered if like he would struggle with like the more temptation because he hadn't had any other partners but me.

But then at the same time, I was kind of like that was the biggest gift he gave me.

And I'll tell you why, the amount of uh baggage I had from uh sexual abuse from childhood.

But then men, you know, date rape and all the other things.

Like I've never had anybody not just grope me, not look me up and down in a sexually explicit way, undressing me with their eyes.

That's what drew me to him.

We worked together, and I'm like, this guy ain't like if he was checking me out, he didn't just made sure I didn't see him doing it, you know what I mean.

I'd never met anybody who did that.

Then you saved yourself from marriage.

Well does that people actually do that?

Did you feel unworthy to be with him?

But the fact that he had that moral compass in him, I said, I think I could do life with somebody like this because that integrity I'd never seen in my life.

Not that he was perfect, but the fact that he didn't just want me for my body I'd never seen.

I don't know if we would have worked out.

I don't know if we would have gotten married if he hadn't given me that.

That's how that's that's why I say the omniscience of God.

And from one man to another, Jimmy, I want to just tell you that I honor respect you for having that level of discipline where you don't have all these women that you've spread your seed.

You had all these people that from a physical standpoint, you know, of course you said the imagery that's in your mind, you know, has plagged you since nine years old.

But the fact that you haven't become one with another woman on this earth and even though you've wrestled with feeling, resentment, feeling all the feelings that you fell throughout this twenty six years of marriage, you still it's twenty six, right.

You still never stepped out and said, you know what, I'm finna see for myself.

I know you've experienced this.

I know you did this.

I know that you know you.

You didn't tell me that you dealt with alcoholism, and that's making me feel rejected.

And then I'm gonna go ahead and go I'm gonna go ahead and go all the way.

The fact that you operated with such discipline that you didn't do that from one brother to another.

I salute you, King, because that's powerful.

It's very rare.

I want to take time to actually applaud that because we're not we're as men, we're told the opposite.

It's like you.

Ain't never had you only had one person time man, man, you ain't never really lived, like you ain't really really lived unless you had a whole lot of bodies.

You know what I'm saying.

We're taught that at sixteen years old, and recognize that the hardest thing for me to be faithful in marriage is because when I said I do I brought all these women in the bed with me, not realizing that in my mind, my body didn't say I got married.

My body don't know that your spirit is married.

But your body is sitting up here saying your body is like just a couple of years ago, you smashing us other, you just you just what are you talked about?

You said I do?

And so the reality is we normalize all of these acts that we do, and then where we trick and let me tell you what the biggest lie that happens.

Isn't this crazy?

How we normalize the day before we get married.

Like I said, I'm getting married November twenty seconds and I'm being married by you know, my circle of Christian men that we ain't doing no you know, going to strip clubs and all that stuff.

Now we're gonna have words of affirmation ceremony where we talking, we affirm each other.

So, but think about how normalize it is to go have your last night of fun.

So we go, quote unquote bye bye bye standards.

Go have fun.

Don't tell your wife this it's your last night.

You're gonna go do whatever.

God knows whatever.

Strippers get get your little get some head, get whatever, you want, and then walk down the aisle and holy matrimony, right and make covenant.

It make a whole covenant.

Your body was just doing that twenty four hours ago.

Lessen twenty four hours ago, and then here you are walking down there talking about I take these vows to honor, respect you and all this.

But I'm gonna keep this secret.

Now.

I'm gonna start off the marriage with a secret that happened twenty four hours ago.

I'm supposed tell my wife.

Ain't gonna tell my wife.

Hey, I just it was just some strippers and y'all slept with one of them.

You're not gonna do that because it's never okay while y'all were dating each other, But the night before you take vows, it's normalized that you're gonna do some things.

And hey, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

That is so good, Like you want to go.

I want to say something real quick.

Just the fact you hit on the normalization, Like we have normalized.

We've conformed to the things of.

This world absolutely, and it's like we that I conformed to alcohol.

That was my choice, like, oh, everybody drinks like and then I used it as rationalization for my medication to use it as medication, and over time, it took six years for me to be like completely needing rehab.

Six years from.

That start, and it just got heavier and heavy, went from you know, casual not well, you know, moderate drinking to like abuse of it and hiding vodka and water bottles because we thought about it so much, Like but I had.

I took advantage of the fact that it was so normalized in culture, and then nobody talked about it in the church, so I hid it.

So the hiding made it grow even more, and it turned into something I couldn't stop on my own and needed help to stop.

And you called it medication, which is interesting because your dad called it vitamins.

Yeah, isn't that crazy.

I think what you were saying like, I want to talk to the person who's listening, I do not want you to feel condemnation, right like sexual appetite.

You know what, you know, you haven't had a model the culture that we All of those things are real.

But one thing I was thinking about when you were talking is that we want the benefit of marriage, not realizing scripture talls us to wait, you know, until we it's in the covenant of marriage.

But when we wake up the benefit of marriage, which is a sexual relationship with a human before I'm married, we get the warfare of marriage without the covenant to make you stay.

God, dog, that's good.

Yeah, So I was thinking about you cooking right now.

This is all you might need to travel with God.

I'm getting revelation and I don't normally have.

But I think about this, like, why your relationships on working is because you have given this human a benefit of marriage without the covenant to handle the warfare that you're waking up.

And if you would consider that, you don't need.

To try test drive all of the things, because that's not what you're created.

Your marriage is created for it.

Trust me what I'm telling you this.

The reason that I'm sitting here on this couch, not perfect but free, is simply this.

I have nothing to hide, and I have someone to tell it to whose prayers, commitment, accountability, and support is only there in the confines of the covenant of marriage.

And now we.

Have the covenant of marriage to heal one another right without the duplicity of that warfare from people strongholds, uh gener soul sizes of people that we never have the covenant with to stay there.

It is the reason why it ain't working because you ain't got the covenant to stay, not because they cheated.

I'm trying to tell you right now.

Our marriage is not perfect, but.

It's free because there's no secrets.

And like I still say things.

I still say, hey, can we not go sit on that side of the beach because that song bikini is real?

And I still say I ain't never had an ab in my life, right.

I know the girl wants some abs.

It would be nice, but you know I've given up on that.

But I'm I'm good with my dad, but with no annoying Yes, what's.

The use of you know?

She she she got a big booty, right, but can't pray you to breakthrough there?

It is like, I'm not This is not a preacher thing.

This is the reality of chains being broken off of me because I yielded to that God created this person for me to show everything I'm not so that God's love could become reality to me.

That that's why I got to go to wait, to go to church to worship there.

It is, it's right here, It's right here, and vice versa, and vice versa.

You literally taught me value and worth for myself because you said, I'm not We're not gonna have sex before marriages, just we just can't.

And you've explained all your reasons why.

I'll never forget.

It was our first date.

He set that boundary, and I poked.

Him on the shoulder like this, I'm like, are you real?

I'm like, oh, my god, years old?

Yeah, he was twenty twenty three years old and I'm twenty twenty one, and I'm like, are you real?

Like, if you're valuing yourself that much, I should be valuing myself.

I had never seen it, and you know, I need to value myself like that and not allow someone because trust me, sometimes it was me stopping us from.

Having sex before we got there.

Yeah, it was because it trouble, That's why.

Yeah, and now I got a batty what yeah, let me see, let me see.

I was like, wait, wait, wait, remember he was drying.

He was like, what I loved is is that.

When she came into you know, full discipleship and her Christianity journey, she took it so seriously because that was her appetite outside of it.

So now me saying this, she's now all in and I'm like.

Oh, you ain't that safe, Like, come on, we good and she was like, no, no, no, the word of God says I really went in.

I was like, why are you saving all the way?

You know what I'm saying.

But the gift that we were able to give one another.

I didn't just give her a gift because she was my first.

She gave me a gift because she redeemed what I thought was fantasy in reality.

So now I don't have to play out of fantasy.

I was about to ask you that.

I was about to say, what did the unraveling look like from going from fantasy to reality?

And you just touched on it really?

Yeah.

Number one, keeping it a buck, Yeah, like the real thing is the right thing, you know what I'm saying.

I had a whole lot of practice, you know, with handling, and I didn't realize that there's somebody better, right.

I think that's that's real.

I think the second thing is is just the journey of exploration and the journey of now you know, my body is not my own now and it took the decision let me say all this, Oh, the decision to stop is the easy part.

The process of commitment to what you decided is the hard part.

Now this is crazy, and just because you given to a moment doesn't mean you're not healed.

Teach this side of eternity.

There's no perfection is it's a process.

And as they went, they were here, and as they went when yeah, they were here, I'll say it like this, thank you.

Twenty years ago I had back surgery, back surgery.

I was I could not walk.

Had her needed this.

I went had the surgery.

Surgery was awful.

The lady I wake up from anesthesia and she says something that Nurse Betty.

Nurse Betty said, the pain of recovery is far worse than the pain of the injury.

And Nurse Betty in that hospital bit I just had surgery, said you gotta get up and walk.

And I was like, no way, no way, it hurts too bad.

And she said those words, Sonny, I'll never forget it.

You'll get healed as you go.

The race.

Don't stop or don't start when the gun goes off.

It starts when you decide to get up.

And so I've had to get up several times.

I have not been perfect.

I have watched pornography, you know, after I made the declaration.

I thank god now that I'm getting more distance away from being free from even but I got a card catalog here.

I don't need to watch something that's stored in my mind.

I have to be very careful to continue to allow Irene to take those cards out and replace that with something that's healthy.

How long has your sobriety been sobriety?

What you mean from pornography?

You mean like never looking at it again?

So I would say it this way, how do I classify pornography?

Am I going to sites and signing up for things?

No?

Am I scrolling sometimes too long and pinching.

Like looking at social media?

Social media is soft porn, It really is.

And here's what I'll say, Like, I've struggled.

I'm not perfect, but I'm free.

And that's gonna be hard for some pastors and some leaders and some apostles and preachers who who would judge that and say like, no, you need to know I am in the process of being healed.

And I would love to say because here's the Also, I also struggle with food addiction.

Right, I was four hundred and twenty pounds, It was four hundred and twenty four How.

Long going doing this, this whole thing.

It was emotional weight.

Guess where it came from the church.

Guess why?

I know because I did the work, the trauma work, and I went back and visited every single thing that I completed that I did well.

The reward was food in church, food after service, food preached a good message, food starting a small group.

Food.

In our culture, a.

Dinner plate was a reward, celebration, right, And so what happened was is anytime I did good at anything, it was a reward.

That reward turned into also when I did bad, when I was lonely, when I was isolated.

And I'm saying all of this again.

What I have to say.

So if you were to ask me, am I sober from food?

I can't because I need it to live.

If you ask me, am I sober?

If I'm sober from pornography?

I don't have to visit a site?

What is?

There are thoughts in my head that I'm not sober from.

There are women that are walking.

We did a whole podcast on just because we got married don't mean she got ugly.

Now I have to be that.

I can say that person is attractive, but I'm not attracted, and I'm telling myself attractive is humanity.

I noticed God's beautiful creation, and sometimes I notice it a little too long.

Right, there's some beautiful people in the world.

I noticed people looking at me.

And I'm like, wow, I got a good line right now, you know, and that that person will be attractive?

Now is my dysfunction being attracted to their dysfunction or their good looks?

To feel something in me that's not healed?

Right, So I want I don't want to scapegoat this question.

Yeah, pornography will always be I told I mean last week, there will never be a day that my flesh doesn't like the body of a naked woman.

The same thing she was saying about.

Yeah, and it doesn't make me bad.

I literally was talking to my therapist about it this week because I'm like the label labeling myself an alcoholic, I feel shame, right, condemnation a little bit, And.

I got something sad in that because Okay, no, but no, I want you to finish.

Sure, yeah, but like, but at the same time I know that I have If I'm not honest and say that I still have a desire for alcohol, and then like, how can he help me?

Overcome that, like he helps me by it.

Sometimes if I'm emotionally not in a good place, we don't sit by the bar.

I sit with my back.

We just didn't the quification last week.

Yep, And like I didn't need that for a while.

But I've been dealing with some things this summer that brought it back up again, and it's making me realize that, oh my gosh, I still have this desire to drink.

It doesn't make me bad.

Yes, that's good what we're about to say, jam.

So I need to say this because when you asked me the question, I paused in my brain for a second.

And I didn't pause because I don't want to be honest.

I paused because I went through the cycle of what are people going to say?

Right?

And I want to come at that and address that.

So, just like those people on here who were listening, who like you've you've ingested everything we're saying.

You may be a pastor teacher, preacher, whatever you are, please be careful of this thought.

Don't judge people because they sin differently than you.

There it is, and.

If I am being honest to help people and the help myself, that there are situations that I just can't be in.

There are places that I just can't go.

Why because I don't want to wake up the beast?

Right, Please don't be dealing with diabetes and being overweight and be so self righteous that you come after people with alcohol and pornography and unforgiveness.

It's crazy to me the church that I grew up in that there are people who speak in tongues but can't say I'm sorry.

So I'm gonna keep it a buck.

Always check on me.

She has every password that had.

I had to make a guardrail for a long time.

You know, when you're driving, there's a guardrail, but there is a line before the guardrail.

I don't want a guardrail.

I want a line in the road that goes says danger is coming.

That's good.

And I try to keep myself away from that.

And I'm honest enough to tell my wife, Hey, babe, I'm struggling.

That's good.

So can I say something that will help people?

I think this is just real quick.

So abstinence does not mean sobriety woo.

Abstinence just means you stopped using that relationship to get you high.

Ah, you're so smart.

Yes women, yes men, You could be addicted to love the high you get when you get into that new relationship and you keep chasing it, but you keep trackting the same person.

So it's dysfunctional and in a minute things.

Get hard, you're out, and that's why you're on your sixth marriage.

Hey, no judgment here, but just stopping a behavior is the beginning of your sobriety journey.

Who decides it's the beginning of her recovery means to a return to a natural state of health in mind, soul, and strength to regain or take back what has been stolen.

Or lost, to recover it, to recover.

So we are all in recovery is it begins when we stop using.

But the sobriety journey is so individual.

I get a angry if somebody tries to tell me if I broke my sobriety or not or whatever.

No, I know, trust me.

I know if I alcohol touches these lips, I have definitely broken my sobriety in the sense that if I went to take a drink and I understood what I was doing and I drank one time, I feel like I need a cutbear.

I ordered a Tapa Chico and it had liquor at the bottom.

And here's the thing.

I said, there, like you're in there.

I always double and triple check my drinks because nobody is messing with my sobriety, right, It's super important to me.

I asked this chick too.

I said, I have an allergy to alcohol.

You cannot like because everybody else had.

They were drinking and the glasses look the same.

I'm like, it's a top of Chico.

What is that?

I asked for lime?

She said, it's lime juice.

I took a sip and I spit it out.

There was alcohol in it.

Did I break my sobriety?

No, she called, But I called.

First of all, I was so upset.

I was crying like and I said, I reamed the lady out in a like a nice way.

I'm a nice person, I'm peacemaker.

Yes, I said, I need you to understand the severity of this.

So if I had a shrimp allergy, you literally just gave me a shrimp and I'm calling nine to one one and going to the hospital.

I said, if I drink alcohol, it makes me crazy and I can't stop at one.

That's good.

So, and then I called later because I was out of town.

He called tragiesus.

Don't try me because.

And she wouldn't want to tell me the place because she knew.

You know, you're crazy.

Yeah yeah, but you still have been.

Delivered from your craziness.

I'm trying.

I'm trying.

It's a little bit.

I think.

I'm so grateful for what you do, because how do we get this message out with people that don't do church?

That's it, This is it, bro, That's what God told me to do.

When I started the podcast, I wanted to be what I wish was afforded to me.

So it's like I was struggling in marriage.

I was struggling in my Christian walk, and I said, why don't we ever talk about this?

I can't but celebrate recovery is what birtha.

When I was in Celebrate recovery, I was afraid to go there.

I was like, these people are gonna know my business.

I don't know these people.

I'm not finna do this.

I went to Covenant Church in Carrollton's the multicultural church, and I was like, I'm not going to be telling these folks all my business.

And God said I need you to get free.

And I was like Okay, well I'm gonna go ahead and go there.

And I said, in that thing, and I was listening to people, and I was like, there is no way on God's green earth we should be telling each other all our business like that.

And God just started having me open up.

And the more I started opening up and sharing stuff, I said, oh, we all got issues, the difference between me and everybody else.

And then I started listening to other people.

I was like, man, as.

Bad as all.

I'm like, what you're doing this?

And I'm doing that?

And it started normalizing seeing to say, listen, we all have fallen short of the glory of God.

So let's talk about it.

We can't get free unless we talk about The Bible clearly says confess your false one to another so that you may be healed.

So the reason why a lot of us are walking around with di ease, this ease in our body, is because a lot of us just not confessing some of the stuff that we're dealing with.

The God allowed you to walk in freedom.

The thing that you keep echoing so many times, Jimy, and this conversation is that are we free?

We may deal with this, but we free.

We deal with it.

But we free.

That is such a powerful thing.

It's the most powerful word that we could ever use, because that's exactly what Jesus came to do, is set the captors free.

And so y'all are in marriage, holy matrimony, in covenant, free, dealing with whatever y'all deal with in y'all's relationship, the struggles, the arguments, the fallouts, the fuss into.

All that which all marriages deal with.

That.

But y'all say, hey, but we free.

We ain't hold nothing, we ain't hide nothing from each other.

And I'm telling you that is so powerful.

I'll share this.

A couple of weeks ago, probably about almost a month now, I gave my fiance I'll share this.

When I got home, she was like, I was working in my office and I got home.

She said, text me when you get home, and I said I And then I got home and didn't text.

It was probably about one o'clock in the morning.

And then she called me next morning said you didn't text me.

And then I said, listen, I'm so used to being single.

I ain't used to be texting nobody when I get I just I'm just not used to that.

I said, what I'm gonna do is something I ain't never deal with nobody.

I'm gonna give you access.

I'm gonna share my location, you know.

And she has a she has an iPhone and I had an Android.

I said, I am going to share.

I said, let me see if Google Maps have that have that thing.

So I went and found said, ooh, I can share my location.

And I sent it to her.

And when I sent the to I said, you don't understand what that made me feel like.

She said, well, I said, I feel so free.

I said, I'm not.

I'm not holding nothing from you.

I'll giving you full access to my whereabouts.

You have.

You have everything, You have access to my when you come here, you.

Can see it.

You got the app on the phone, you see who come in and out of my house.

You got everything.

And I sat there on the phone and I said, I'm gonna share this with you.

I've never been this free in my life.

I said, I've never walked in this level of transparency.

I've never walked in this level of vulnerability.

I've never walked in in a relationship where I've given total surrender of access in my life ever.

And I said, it feels good.

I told her One day, I was going to CVS and she was here visiting, and I drove the CVS.

Normally, when I go somewhere said I'm a ride with you and this, and in this day she was like, uh, you just go ahead and go.

I went to CVS, go get us some stuff, and I called her when I got back.

I said, you know what felt good?

She said what I said, Normally in the past, I'll done call some chick on the way going to CVS.

I would have talked to some woman or whatever.

I said, don't talk to nobody.

You know what I'm saying, I said, I talk to nobody.

I said, I have no need, Yes, I have no need to go outside of you to get any needs met.

And I said, and the truth is even sharing that made me a little scared, because I said, if I tell her that I'm not aware that I would do this, if it's weaponized against me, well, how can you even think about calling another one?

I don't even trust you to go CVS.

It's like you're missing the point.

The point is I went to CVS and I didn't do that, and I don't do anything.

But if you talk to the wrong woman, she'd be like the fact that you even thought about is a problem.

And then what would that dude, Jimmy shut down like hey, telling you that no more?

Yeah, And so I shared that whether she was like, you know what was so great about it?

I had you go to.

CVS just to see what you was gonna do.

And she said, in the fact that you came back and said this, come on, what's so powerful to me?

Because as I said, I'm not gonna ride with you, I'm just gonna see what you do, and said, you came back and actually started sharing what your propensally would have been in the past and you didn't do it, which was healing for her.

So it's just when you walk in that level of freedom, Thank you Holy Spirit.

When you walk in that level of freedom, not only are you walking in freedom for yourself, but I remember going through this program at my old church where they the mantra was with this men's ministry was free men, Free Men, And I said, I'm literally walking through this freedom and I'm freeing her from certain ideologies that she may have that may be watching.

Can I really trust him?

I'm gonna take vows with this man.

He had a propensity in the past to step outside of his marriage is it's a good gamble, and God is doing the work ahead of time, creating vulnerability and transparency to heal what not even became a monument in our relationship.

So it's just beautiful.

So that's why I'm loving all of this that we're having right now.

You wrote this book Shame.

What made you birth this?

Well?

First of all, I wanted to bring the knowledge to people because, like you said, we aren't talking enough about addiction.

And I didn't know.

As much as I was heal saved by the Lord in church serving God and his purposes, I knew nothing about addiction and I fell into it and I didn't see it coming because I was I had lack of education and awareness.

So I wanted to give people the gift of basically the gist of my journey from early exposure to rock bottom ending up in rehab.

But then the gift of all the things I've learned that were dysfunctional became like my rock bottom became the foundation of this healthy life that I get to live.

And so I thought I was going to die in shame.

My medical file said toxic shame.

I had shamed myself to oblivion I didn't need anybody helping me.

I shamed myself verbal abuse in my own head, okay, and shame carried shame from my you know, even just being in my mother's womb.

I thought when I got to rehab, they were going to start addressing I'm like, he's trying to make me stop drinking, and we're arguing all the time.

They're like, no, no, no, no, where.

What were the circumstances around your birth?

What was happening when you were in your mother's That's.

Where we start.

So the reality of this journey, what we think were shameful about, Like, we can experience freedom if we are willing to do the work.

You have found a good woman who is willing to do the work alongside you.

That's the I tell my kids.

There's someone out there for you who's willing to do the work.

That's all we ask.

They're not going to be perfect, but I want to give just a broad overview of what I'm giving.

Okay, I spent eighty thousand dollars on rehab.

Y'all, you get it for free.

Go in there.

All the resources.

It's not just the story of Irene.

I'm educating.

What does addiction.

What are the signs to look for.

I used to google am I addicted to alcohol?

If you have to google it, you probably have a problem.

But the root of all my dysfunction and why I writ was shame, and so it had me hiding and it was toxic and it almost took me out.

So let's not focus on alcohol.

That was just a symptom of the shame that was really destroying me on the inside.

I think that's good when I read the book.

Before the book, I read the person as we learned through this that you can't break a stronghold with a strong effort, and a lot of people are trying to stop, trying to get better, trying to Paul gets his indication about in Second Corinthians when he's talking about strong and I'm going to paraphrase because he talks about the weapons of our warfare are not carnival might of pulling down the strongholds.

A stronghold is a liar accusation that the enemy plants in the minds of God's children that are contrary to the word of God.

And so what we learned in what Ireen learned in this book was before she was addicted to alcohol.

She was addicted to a negative thought, and that thought was that a good God who says she's fearfully wonderfully made, would not allow her to experience abuse.

So what she thought was is that she came off an assembly line.

She was just one of a dozen, not one of a kind, not God's masterpiece, not fearfully and wonderfully made.

Maybe God she skipped that process from being made.

And she was addicted to a thought that I'm not enough.

And when we she did the work of taking the thought captive, realizing that theology and therapy don't have to be at war with one another together right, realizing that maybe God doesn't have to part a red sea anymore because he the miracle is teaching men how to build bridges, and yes, he can heal in an instant, but he's also a fan of the process and the miracles.

Sometimes is him equipping a therapist to have discernment that part, to help you through a process that part.

In this book, we just show you that, and she just shows you even in all of our books, is that freedom happens.

Let me say this way, deliverance most often happens by Donkey.

And here's what I'll say, Father Abraham, the greatest act, and what why?

God made him the benchmark of faithfulness as God told him the sacrifice son Isaac, it says he left immediately and saddled a donkey fast decisions, slow process, And I think sometimes we're like by donkey, really healing by donkey, three miles an hour max speed by Donkey, yep, slow.

The greatest act of sacrifice.

God didn't give him a ferrari to get there.

You know how much contemplation he must have said, am I gonna lay down?

Because what we know is when he's taken Isaac up the mountain, Isaac says, I see the wood, I see the knife.

Where's the sacrifice?

What do you do when your sacrifice is talking to you on your way to lay it down?

Teach, you've got to take the thought captive by figuring out how I get this crazy amygdala in the back of my brain flight fight or freeze, to create a new neural pathway to the frontal cortext where that's where my problem solving is and my discernment is and my scripture reading.

And take those thoughts captive there it is and submit it to truth.

So when we.

Say things like, when we don't know what we are to pray, the Holy Spirit makes intercession for us.

No, when we need to shut up negativity and allow the jacked up amygdala areas of my brain to let the Holy Spirit take over so that I can take those negativity, that those negative thoughts captive, and make it obedient.

This is played out at the Wall of Jericho.

Oh a shout's gonna bring a shout ain't gonna change nothing but the decibels.

Read Chapters Joshua six, verse nine and eleven.

It says he he told Joshua, do not shout, Do not say a word until until you hear the other priest blow the horns.

How in the world does Joshua get six hundred thousand foot soldiers to be silent at their hardest moment?

How do we circle a wall with six hundred thousand people and no one's allowed to talk to.

Get the message at the same time, to be quiet, be quiet.

Which is funny because that's what they would do at that whole Beyonce concert, and they made it a whole challenge wherever they went to everybody be quiet at one time and all that.

But to know that that's what God man, You're gonna have me preaching.

To take a thought captive is as simple as starving negativity awfulizing.

It's always going to work out for everyone else and not me.

My mama always did this.

I'm never gonna get healed.

You're circling a wall.

No, you're cycling a wall that God told you to circle.

You want to break the cycle fast negative thoughts, Let the Holy Spirit read God's word.

No weapon formed against you was gonna prosper.

I am telling you right now, I'm studying this right now.

All up until that point, God had dealt with the weapon, but Israel had to deal with the wall.

I feel like God's saying in this culture, I'm gonna take care of the weapon, but you're gonna have to go to counsel and take care of the wall.

That part.

The power of your shout will be strengthened by the silence of your circle.

That's good and your steps by Donkey slow.

Irene climb Mount Kilimanjaro in twenty twelve, which was the beginning of her sobriety, and she preaches a message called you Huru, which means that she summited the mountain freedom, and she did this at Women Evolve last year.

Listen to this.

She was trying to get up the mountain fast because she was in shape, and the guy kept saying.

Which means slowly, slowly, slow down, like.

You'll literally get sick if you go too fast with the altitude sickness free.

Im kept slow and I kept trying to get I just want to get it over with.

I wanted to get to the top.

I thought it'd be, you know, just quicker, come on, just climb, and they put me at the back of the line.

They're like, no, slow down, you're gonna get sick.

And sure enough, people were vomiting.

People were sick all along the way because they were going too fast.

Slowly, slowly.

I almost wore my sweatshirt that says on it today because yeah, and this.

Is what we feel.

You're listening to this, you're like, I want that.

I want to heal it.

Man, we can tell you've done the work.

But then it's continued work.

The work you're doing amazing.

I can just hearing the language.

You're like, man, I want that slowly, slowly.

What we're saying is this, I don't think that there's no greater teacher than pain.

But maybe there is someone else's and right now, learn from us.

And that's the gift we're giving you in our books.

Well, let's talk about you.

Because Jimmy don't know how to do math.

Math might might have been a struggle in class because he talked about two equals one.

So it was this book about.

So two equals one is helping couples pre marital engaged.

We got couples, we got singles reading it that how do I figure out my marriage equation?

And at the forefront of marriage was a command of mankind be fruitful, multiply subdue.

So we have dominion that word fruitfulness is the This is an equation.

Right, We're not multiplying fruitfulness, We're multiplying fractures.

And this book is about how.

Two completely crazy people can have a marriage that's completely committed, made one not numerically in the area of wholeness, and so made we unpack not just our story.

This is how you should talk to one another when it's difficult.

This is how you have a good fight.

These are the eight core emotions that you need to learn how to circle through.

This is a talking stick.

No one talks until to not you said this earlier.

How me and I real talk about this.

How I get so many dudes that were coaching saying my wife just anything I share, it's about her.

It's called emotional hijacking.

And the reason that he shut down is not because he doesn't want to talk.

You're not a safe place, and we're trying to give you the tools to say things like, hey, babe, I noticed yesterday when this happened that you seemed a little off.

Can you tell me more about that.

They don't know how to have these conversations versus being accusatory and just saying you were rude yesterday.

And I got a buddy said, man, that's punk language.

Exactly.

I want you to finish because I want to say this finish okay, and like and then I'm saying this, I'm grown, I'm strong, Like I'm using this language and it's working, and I'm like, you know, I got a vulnerable request if you're in a bad mood, or can you just text me so I know what I'm coming into, so that I can come into I've been stressed, I've been traveling on the road.

I have expectations so that I know what I'm walking into that's my vulnerable request.

Can we agree on that?

And you don't know that we teach this, Yeah, you only know what you know.

That's why we're I like to encourage education.

And I love your podcast because it's exposure to so many different things.

And I'm an avid learner, so I love your podcast for so many different reasons, all the guests, and it's like, people are like, how did that happen?

Miracle happened through the grace of God.

But it wasn't a one and done counseling session.

It is a repeated you become what you repeatedly do that part.

So if if I want to transform this mind to be renewed and please the Lord, I have to use the same new thing over and over and over because I will always resort to my adaptive child, to my little the little girl that was hurt and wounded.

I'm always gonna need jerk react to that.

So the more I practice these skills that we and these tools that we give you in the book, you become you're literally not gonna want to even be around people that don't are doing the work and using the tools, because you're gonna start getting irritated by how unhealthy you become.

So not that we're better than but you start to become more and more aware about unhealthy people.

And they think it's normal to have a conversation that way, that it's accusatory or just emasculate to your spouse or your man, like dude, you can be strong but an assertive, but to communicate in a respectful way like right now.

Like some people would struggle with that.

You asked me a question and she's answering it right.

They would they'd be like, I know that.

I don't need to win, like this is.

We didn't fight writing this book together, and we fight not about that because we want to give away so that people, if you're single, this is your litmus test.

Should I marry this person if they don't read this.

And so many.

People contact us and say we're not getting married after they went through that.

They went through it because the person don't represent that.

I don't.

I don't think it's the it's the greatest thing of all time.

I don't think it's you know, here's what I think.

Too many of us want the alter call to change this.

I'm asking the Altar Call to change my ability to stick to a process.

The altar call is homecoming to get back on the field.

It stop thinking a prayer at the altered church gonna fix you, ask for it to give you the power to go out and work out a process.

Let me ask this question for where I'll let you go because a lot of times, you know, we got people that would look at deliverance a certain way and say, how is it that God hasn't delivered you?

Because they may look at deliverance a certain way.

So I want to give words to y'all.

But when you hear if someone leads a comment and say, well, I used to smoke cigarettes and God delivered me.

He took the taste out of my mouth.

I'm not tempted by it.

I can hang around my uncles who smoked cigarettes, and then I don't even have a taste for it.

No more.

God took the taste out of my mouth for it.

I've been truly delivered.

And that's not what I'm hearing from y'all.

How do y'all reconcile that language.

I'm very happy for that person, Like I wish spontaneous variety was part of my journey, but it wasn't.

So God blow you, and I'm so glad it is possible, and I'm praying that people who listen to this podcast realize that, oh my gosh, something is out of moderation my life.

In fact, I'm realizing I'm losing power over I'm like, I don't have power over this thing that I thought I was okay with it.

It's actually causing my life to become unmanageable.

The consequences are increasing, and as I'm listening to this podcast, I'm starting to feel like I need to stop consuming that thing or watching that thing or whatever, because I'm headed towards being addicted in my brain, being hijacked where I can't stop without help.

Maybe you've gotten a DUI or two or three and you think you're okay moderating your alcohol, but really you're struggling with the consequences.

Still, it is possible, and I believe people are going to get spontaneously sober from this podcast by the power of Jesus Christ.

Period the Holy Spirit will go.

It happens, but it doesn't mean there isn't a process for us all.

And God didn't fail that part because it was by Donkey.

Yeah, and I in my life I told you.

Twenty seventeen, I was four hundred and twenty pounds.

I prayed to wake up thirty pounds less.

I prayed to wake up one hundred pounds less.

I acknowledge that God does instantaneoum miracles, but a lot of times I think that we want deliverance and it robs us the opportunity to learn discipline that part, and.

So I don't need help right here.

This is the process for me that.

I can't be have sobriety and food, but the discipline, the stop when i'm full, the discipline to go to the gym, scipline.

I'm a cyclist now, it's crazy.

I'm a black cyclist on a little bit.

I don't know if I want you on that outfit.

I got that tight outfit.

All the whole thing I'm telling you right now, he went.

But I want to tell you all this.

I had this picture.

I pray to lose weight, but stare at a treadmill would close on it.

Yeah, he would hang his clothes on it.

Why why are we praying for some things that we can change through process?

And it's not a theology issue.

God heals instantaneously all throughout Scripture, all throughout scripture, but sometimes he goes on the three day journey and comes back and gives us the key.

How can we purchase these.

Book Amazon anywhere?

Looking for Jimmy and Irene anywhere books you sold Amazon?

The website we do?

What is it w W W dot two equals one dot com?

Why do you always say w dot?

I don't know what two equals one?

Show?

I'm fifty one, saw something w W I did?

I did world wide web, world wide Web, my.

Dot this is just a a C T P dot.

Dot.

So how can we support you?

How can we follow you on social media?

I am I am Jimmy Rollins and Irene Rollins and we got something really cool coming up, uh at the end of at the beginning next year.

What can you talking about?

It's called Better Marriage University.

Good Better Marriage University is a thing.

It is coming.

It is online coaching, cohort, it is community, it is conferences.

There's an app coming out that you can ask us questions on and we want to walk with you and your spouse through this.

We have professors, we call them coaches.

That are also groups that put you in small groups.

We have right now we have about three hundred couples worldwide that we coach, but we're revamping it and making it bigger and better.

AI is absolutely amazing using all that.

So we want to invite you into our ecosystem.

If anything, we're gonna laugh a lot.

That's good.

That's what people need.

Man.

We hate to laugh and build community and accountability.

And because I'm telling you cannot do marriage alone.

It's impossible.

If you try to do your marriage by yourself, just y'all too, and be like, what happens in this house stays in this house.

It's just us, you're gonna fail.

Yep, you're gonna fail every time.

And so I'm glad.

You know, I love with our building.

I love just who y'all are.

You know, like I said beginning this episode, it's very rare to find very transparent and vulnerable people period, and then ministry and then people that have been pastors.

You know what I'm saying.

It's like, okay, now.

That's because that's just that's an oxy moroon, you know, it's like you can't be that vulnerable and transparent.

Like even asking you that question, you said, your mind went automatically into what are people going to?

You know, people gonna say this, they're gonna dissect this, they're gonna do this, and it's so unfortunate that we're supposed to be vulnerable.

People say, I just wish people were more transparent.

I wish more men could be more vulnerable and transparent, And you're like, well, how's that worked out?

Every time a man tells you something transparent?

Then social media, I can't believe run, run, don't let this love find me, all this stuff that's real, make it.

He's like, what, so, it's crazy.

And that's why I always try to give voice and space in my heart and mind to what's edifying and not trying to destroy.

Some of these people just not even on the level to receive the level of transparency and vulnerability that it takes in order to cultivate a love like this.

They just don't.

They just don't haven't done the work enough to be able to hear it and not be triggered to hear it and not be traumatized and be like.

That's healthy.

That's actually healthy because you got to be able to hear it and go that's actually help.

I would love to be able to share with my mate everything I would never share with anybody else.

That's what it's supposed to be.

But people be like, now I don't need to know everything.

I don't need to know her body count.

I don't even know his body count.

I don't want to.

If you even asked me that question, you ain't my person, you know.

I've heard people say that.

I see people on social media be like, if a man ever asked me how many people I slept.

With, that's none of his business.

He is not my person.

I'd be like, so you want this random dudes to come up there and just start telling you stuff like you know I have that woman for and then now he's mad.

But if you just told him, he be like, I already know about you.

That's big soul, that's real, and he's sitting there.

I always say, I tell by fiance, you're going to always be the smartest one in the room.

I want to empower you with wisdom and knowledge so that if any woman comes up to you and says anything, you like, oh I know you, Oh yeah, he told me about you.

You dated him last year and y'all did this, and y'all okay, y'all remember you.

They be looking like, make.

My baby jump at all at all.

At all, And so that's what I mean by having that level of transparency.

But Jimmy, I will admit that for you to be able to share that with her at twenty two years old, twenty three years old, that's unheard of.

Most people not walking in that level of transparency to be like, here's my sword, because she can stab you with it any time, anytime, she can weaponize it against you and be like, I see you on your phone, You're ever looking at porn?

You're like, gosh, I'm just looking at at Facebook right now.

I don't know because I know you can't trust you with a phone because you may be on porn every time I turn.

You're like, god, I.

Wish I've never told you that.

You know what I'm saying, and it can be weaponized.

And that's what a lot of men are listening to, or even women may listen and go, I'm afraid to be that vulnerable with somebody because they could weaponize it against me.

Instead of the beautiful thing about it.

What if that level of transparency is what's going to identify that person as the one?

Yeah, what if that person sharing that with you said you said, listen, if I could ever meet somebody that can share this with me, I know that's my husband.

If I can ever share this with somebody, I know that's my wife.

And then now you stepping outside of your normal comfort zone and sharing that that person says, God, I hear you, that's him, that's her, and you're let me ask.

You this before we let go.

How long did it take you to realize that this is your wife?

First dates that night when it's literally a first suit a wife.

Sorry, yes, she said, she said, No I get it, while me today I get it.

Look at me, I am he.

You said.

The first day, yeah, first day.

I literally the next day went to church, like I literally fell in love with his family.

Your dad was preaching.

He's such an incredible pastor, and I was like, oh my god, I fell in love with you in one day, like but.

Not just fall in love.

You felt like that was your.

Husband one hundred.

So I tell you my version.

So I was doing youth ministry, you know, kind of help with my sisters.

My sister was a youth pastor, and I would go speak and I was at a conference in a youth conference in Florida, and a lady came to me and says she had a prophetic word for me, and she goes, don't stop looking for your wife.

God is gonna send her, and she's gonna love everything that's different about you.

Those exact words.

And then I was at another.

Thing preaching, another lady came up to me and said the same exact.

Words words, She's gonna love everything that's different about it.

So we on that first date, right took her to you know, you got some big stuff, shrimp, you know what I'm saying.

And I just love if you have everything.

She says to me, I just love everything that's different about you.

And I said, that's my wife.

Now, I had no idea that God had put that in motion.

So you said that internally, you didn't say that.

Verse I said it the next day when she said I let her go first, she says, I fell in love with you one day when we get married.

So let me tell you what just happened to me.

And she didn't know prophecy or I didn't know anything about I just.

Said it was a thing, and so I knew God had marked me for something.

I never knew why until like fifteen years into our marriage.

So people say, when did you fall in love with Irene.

I knew we were getting married day one.

We fell in love with each other ten years ago.

We be married twenty six years.

Gosh, I want to talk about that if you can touch on that real quickly.

Yep.

Why did it take ten Why did it take you said ten years ago?

So you're saying sixteen sixteen years later?

Yeah, gosh, I got to talk on that.

Why did it take sixteen years with y'all to faunt?

Let me ask you first, how long did it take y'all to get married?

Oh?

We go ahead nine months from the start to finished.

So for the first date, first we met at work at the beginning of October.

By the end of October on our first date December, engaged, married in June.

Don't recommend it, right, We don't recommend.

It unless you have like the tools.

Yeah, and you've.

Done the work and you're doing the work with it, like with somebody who's willing.

I just felt like we did not We had no business getting married, So it's no wonder we were unhappy.

Normalized our unhappiness.

I gotta ask you this, So why do you why do you say y'all shouldn't have got married in that in that time span.

Because we didn't didn't we didn't even know how to have a fight, how to have an argument, how to disagree.

I just was so codependent and like so in my own personal trauma, I was silent.

I wanted to have sex like.

That's why most most Christian have guilty deal free sex.

He just would win every argument.

I just submit, submit, submit, and resent and resent resent, So I couldn't stand it.

So in your mind was okay, watch this.

So then this were talking about your front of Lowe was white, wasn't even developed at that time, neither one of y'all's.

So when you look at this, when we y'all supposed to get married, then high sight being.

Twenty twenty bias, can I answer, yeah, go ahead.

I think what I would encourage couples to do.

Now I'm talk about y'all always talking about couples for us.

I would have waited.

No, I wouldn't have I wouldn't change, would have changed it.

And see, that's what I want to get back to.

Not one thing made us.

I was just getting there and make up all these lies.

That's not true.

So I wouldn't wish that on nobody.

We would that wouldn't be who you' all right?

True?

That made us today because.

Of it, And think that I started having babies because I think about I would have been drinking hmm, I would have been abusing alcohol.

And it's like at thirty two, the next layer of things that the Lord wanted me to work on came up.

I started having the flashbacks to the degree that I couldn't keep it silent anymore, and I had to begin to, like, you know, admit that, gosh, I'm having these flashbacks.

They're really happening.

That's not that happened to me.

I have to admit that that happened.

So this answer is the second part of your question.

Yes, this is when I felt with her.

I couldn't love what I didn't know, because love is at its best when people are at their worst.

And when I said, we were sitting on a panel and the guy was interviewing us, I think Marcus d waly was interviewing us my brother.

At Tasha and Kenny's marriage conference, she goes, when did y'all fall in love first time?

I answered, I said eight years ago and which was now ten years ago.

And they were like what And I said, when I found all of the things that needed to be reconciled when she was honest.

When the worst came out with alcohol, I realized God's love has an opportunity to be his best.

I didn't love her before I liked her.

I lusted her, Irene, How did you feel hearing that?

I at first it was like the pause when he was thinking of when did you fall in love?

Everybody was expecting him to ancer quickly right when he saw so first, my stomach was like kind of churning.

I was like, I'm comfortable, Like, oh my gosh.

But then I just sat in my process of recovery.

I've learned to become comfortable with discomfort.

Yes, So I just sat in it and trusted and waited, and sure enough that revelation came out, and uh, it sat with me so well.

And it's that's agreement for us both.

So so prior to that, what would you have said?

I would have said the day in rehab when you looked in my eyes and told me that you loved me then, which is when we met, and you still love me now with alcoholism, with knowing all the shame I was caring about sexual abuse that I had lied to you about my body count because of shame, like all the things that I had covered up.

You would choose me now.

I said, I chose you then, and I'll choose you, and I still choose you now.

That's when I heard that is love.

Yes, this man sees me and he still loves me.

And I didn't even know that I was hiding so like I didn't even rationally know that I was hiding so much from him, and we would argue all the time.

He's like he wanted something from me that I didn't understand how to give him.

I'm like, I'm trying, I'm trying.

I don't know what he wants.

It wasn't until I began to get honest and vulnerable that I began to realize the freedom in it and experience that for myself and see love, see unconditional love, and like, he didn't cast me away, he didn't reject me.

That was my biggest fear for keeping my mouth shut because I didn't want him to look at me different and he still loved me.

Okay, that's real love.

Listen, I can talk to y'all all day.

Good Lord.

I just want to thank y'all.

I want to thank you y'all for giving me reference to what to look forward to in marriage.

Come.

Not that it's going to always be pretty, not that it's going to.

Be butterflies and daffodils and roses, but it's going to be truth and honesty, transparency, vulnerability, and literally say, hey, love covers a multitude of sins and I got you, you got me.

We're going to have each other until we take our last breath.

And so I thank y'all so much for just being who y'all are.

Make sure y'all go support these books, Go support the marriage with a whole marriage movement that they're doing.

Support it sign up, go to their website, sign up for their melon list, Go to Amazon, blow their book up.

Let them see the rankings just changed.

What happened the last twenty four hours.

I need to see that.

I need to see that energy.

So I just thank y'all.

I thank y'all for just being who y'all are.

Y'all gived up for.

The robins, y'all.

Appreciate, give it up for us.

Stay tuned to the end for a letter to my future wife.

Writing these love letters, you.

Ladarian thrust it suddenly into child protective services.

In twenty fifteen, my nephew, black a boy.

The likelihood have been adopted outside of kinship slim to none?

Rmione, sixteen years old, black a boy with five years in the Falster care system before I even knew his name.

The likelihood have ever been adopted?

Yep, you guessed it.

Slim to none.

While Ladarian and OURMIONI were trying to survive and barely thrive in an overpopulated and underfunded Falseter care system, I was living my own life, doing well professionally, having been a single father with a daughter who at that point was doing well in college.

It was my time to live my life right wrong.

I felt unsettled, tireless, agitated.

There are just two many of our black children stuck in ambiguity and in the limbo of the Falter care system.

In twenty seventeen, I legally adopted my nephew Ladarian.

Fast forward to twenty nineteen.

I had no ties to this other young king, but I felt God instructed me to adopt them.

Also in I obb starting over with parenting should have been enough.

Right.

Working with various foster care and adoption agencies to help bring awareness to the countless young Black Kings and the Falster care system should have decreased my agitation.

Right, Joining the board of directors of Advantage of Adoption and organization that helps find permanent adoptive homes for children in false care should have led to some type of resolve.

Right, No, not at all.

None of it felt like I had done enough.

I now realized that every one of those experiences was land the fundamental foundation for my life's miss Kingdom Royale.

Kingdom Royal would be a luxury, state of the art home for foster boys.

Our first location will be in the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex.

We will utilize the whole person approach that instills identity, empowers them to advocate for themselves, and enlightens them regarding new perspectives and limitless options that they thought were impossible.

Though the young Kings will attend the local public schools that are in proximity to Kingdom Royal.

Our at home curriculum will broaden their worldview through participating in the arts, attending various cultural events, learning about and engaging in multifaceted discussions about current events and even relevant historical contexts.

Introducing them to gardening and landscaping, and even caring for our animals on our form and on site stables.

We just launched our startup capital campaign with the goal of raising two point eight million dollars.

Now why two point eight million dollars.

Well, In twenty seventeen, I created a web series of which I performed random acts of kindness for targeting the homeless community.

One of the most notable successes.

Was that one of the videos went viral, garnering twenty eight million views.

However, one of my biggest regrets is that I didn't raise a single dollar to help in implementing a more sustainable plan for the homeless community.

So, throughout the years, with much remorse, I reflect and I'm not maximizing that moment.

I knew if at that time.

Just ten percent of the viewers donated one dollar, we would have raised at least two point eight million dollars that could have really established long term support for the homeless community, or at least started a long term initiative to do so.

This is my do over, this is our new beginning.

Together, we can attack this at the route by specifically helping our homeless Black boys who are already disproportionately represented in the American fossil care system.

I'm a tarisaar Wickfield.

I've been nominated for three regional Emmys documenting my work with the homeless as well as my personal adoption journey.

Despite those accolades, the greatest award for me is truly providing the infrastructure for a transformed life.

Visit Kingdomwroyal dot com for more details Crown of King and make a donation today.

Now I know y'all enjoyed that episode.

That episode was absolutely powerful.

Well, here's my favorite part of the podcast where I speak to my future wife.

He dear future wifey, there comes a time in every man's life when we realize that love isn't meant to be cautious.

Love was never designed to play it safe.

With you, I refuse a tiptoe around destiny.

I am becoming unstoppable, not because of my strength, but because of the God who fuels me and the love that will bind us together.

My heart has been tested by storms, yet it's still beats with hope.

My faith has been pressed, but it still rises with conviction.

No matter your scars, no matter your seasons, no matter the complexities of your journey, my commitment will remain immovable.

I promise you this.

I will not weaponize your flaws, nor retreat when challenges arise.

I will love you without expiration.

I will pursue you without pause.

I will cover you without conditions.

The world may try to convince us that love has limits, but my vow is to live beyond those limits.

Because when love is rooted in Christ, it becomes unstoppable.

So prepare yourself, my love.

You're about to be cherished by a man who refuses to quit, who refuses to let fear dictate the story, who refuses to love halfway.

With every breath, I will honor you with every step, I will walk with you, and with every heartbeat, I will remind you you are home your future hobby.

I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dear Future Wife podcast.

Remember beltch live intentionally and transparently, and don't stop love.

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