An Army of Normal Folks - He Was a Pastor With a Sex Addiction. Now He's Helped 25,000 Men Heal (Pt 2)

Episode Date: June 16, 2026

Nate Larkin spent 20 years hiding a sex addiction. For 5 of those years, he was a pastor. When it was exposed and everything collapsed, it could have been the end of his story. It turned out to be the beginning. In this conversation, Nate shares what it took to rebuild and how that journey led him and a dozen guys to start the Samson Society, a community built on radical transparency, vulnerability, and confidentiality. What started as one small group has now grown to more than 600 local chapters, daily virtual meetings in 8 languages, and has helped over 25,000 men heal!  You might benefit from the Samson Society or the newer women's version called the Sarah Society. We all know family members and friends who could. And Nate can teach all of us how to be real and live authentically.  Check out Samson Society here: https://www.samsonsociety.com/about  Join Army of Normal Folks and receive our Soul Service newsletter: https://www.normalfolks.us/#joinSupport the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/#joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an Army and Normal folks, and we now continue with part two of our conversation with Nate Larkin right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. With four nights at residents in downtown Montreal, flights from Porter Airlines, two weekend gold tickets, and $1,000 of cash. Lord, Zara Larson, Dima Gray, Sombor, 21 pilots, and more. IHard Radio. Listen to IHeart New Music for 10 minutes and enter to win. Osiaga, 26. Every day you listen is another chance to win. All right, listen up. The Jonas Brothers here.

Our podcast is called, Hey Jonas. We're here, since everyone has a podcast, we wanted to as well. And we've had some incredible guests so far. And now our good friend, Nile Horn, is joining the show. How's it going, boys? Hey, Niall. It's the same thing with Slow Hands. Slow Hands is not about anything else, really, is it?

You know, or taste so good can't be about food. You do the same, Nick, with some of the stuff that you've done. You too, Joe. Drop what you're doing and listen to Hey Jonas on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. I love the sounds. The buzzing from the stadium, the chanting from the fans, the announcers calling the place soccer, football at home. Why do I watch the World Cup? That's like asking me, why do I breed?

I inherited that fandom from my mom. It's a connecting force. From Futuro Studios, I'm Fernanda Chavari, and this is American Football, a show about soccer culture in the U.S. and its underdog roots. We go beyond the game to the people and the stories that make it great. A soccer game is a festival. It's not just a game. It's your culture. I took an elbow to my head, which cracked my skull. It is an American game. The Brazilians don't like hearing that, though. Are they the only ones that don't like that?

Actually, nobody likes that. As we get ready for the Men's World Cup this summer, listen to American Football as part of the My Coutura Podcast Network, available on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Keith Gianmanca seemed like a mild-mannered suburban dad, but secretly, he became someone else, a master of disguise who went on a crime spree.

At the time, did it seem like a crazy idea? It seemed very crazy. But I felt so desperate that I felt it was the quickest, easiest way out. Did you allow yourself to think about how it could go wrong and what that might look like? No, I didn't want to manifest that. I was trying to manifest success. Every family has its secrets.

But what happens when you discover that your dad has been living a double life? That is not the look of an innocent. this is going to change my life and my family dynamic forever because everything that had existed prior in my reality is now untrue. Listen to Deep Cover the Family Man on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here's something that should not be as complicated as it is. Getting a racist statue removed. And here's something that should be a whole lot easier than it is. getting a new one put up in its place.

As long as there's a politics of race in America, there's going to be a politics of remembering the civil war. To get to school, I had to go down Robert Lee Boulevard. Get to the grocery store, I had to go down Jefferson Davis Parkway. If you're an historian and you leave out half of what the history is, you're not doing your job. I'm Akila Hughes, and Rebel Spirit Season 2 goes deep on both of those things. The fights, the politics, the people who won,

and my personal campaign to add something to the Kentucky State House that's actually worth the wall space. We are more than our bodies. We contain essence. We contain spirit. How do you represent that? They are just fueling a fire that is really catching. You'll see what I mean.

Listen to Rebel Spirit Season 2 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I have talked to a lot of people. Never have we done a sex addiction show. So this is the first one, and it may be why I'm leaning in so much. because I'm hearing so much of this stuff for the first time. And I find you really compelling. But I have heard, we've talked to drug addict, former drug addicts, alcoholics, everything you can imagine.

And the words grip and demon have been used repeatedly. There's a grip on you or a demon on you. And it always seems to talk about how you finally kick the demon. and shame is a demon that weights down your shoulders. How did you kick that demon? And don't let me put words in your mouth if you don't see it as a demon. Yeah, yeah. No, I don't think it's inaccurate to call it a demon, a demonic presence.

Certainly, it's what I think is. A demonic influence. There's no doubt about it. And strangely enough, a lot of us in the church have actually embraced shame. Now, there is healthy shame. You know, the shame that, you know, I get dressed before I leave the house in the morning. That's healthy shame. Yeah, because nobody has to see the alternative.

Trust me, in my own world, no one wants to see the alternative. That shame is a really good thing, not only for me, but for everybody that interrupts my path during the day. But there is this other kind of shame that says, you are so awful and so broken. you are so disgusting that if people ever see the real you, you will be abandoned completely and left alone. And, you know, shame is... What does that shame do? Well, it drives us into hiding and pretending.

I was so ashamed. I mean, when I went into that first... In fact, I didn't even make it into the meeting the first time. Really? No. You did the proverbial up to the door and leave thing? I sat in the parking lot. I got there 15 minutes early, sat in the parking lot,

and watched other people drive up and go inside. Were you sizing them up? Yeah, and, yeah, sure. I couldn't find... I couldn't be as bad as that guy. But the strange thing is they looked like ordinary people. Yeah, that was the joke I was making. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, I couldn't find the courage to get out of my car. I was so ashamed of myself. I was back a week later, ready to go, ready, almost ready to drive away again. And I saw a guy I recognized. Oh, wow. From church. No.

He was just a guy. Wasn't a pastor or anything, but I'd heard him speak up a few times. He must a shit when he saw you. Oh, no, no. He walked over with a smile. But he wasn't, like, shocked? No, I mean, I was fairly new to the church. Oh, oh, that's right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He walked you in. Yeah. Yeah. And I'll tell you what. I remember coming out of that meeting just furious that I had spent a lifetime in church. And I'd never been in a room that safe. That's safe?

Yeah. I'd never heard honesty in my life like I'd heard it in that room. do you think shame, as I heard you talk about shame, which makes so much sense. I also was thinking, I wonder if shame can actually also be a part of the problem in this regard. The shame that says, I'm so broken, I'm so awful, I'm so disgusting. I might as well engage in this anyway. because a rationalization from shame maybe is what I'm trying to ask. Yeah, right, yeah.

Did you have... Oh, yeah. I'd gotten to that point where it's like, this is as good as it's going to get. I might as well do it because I'm disgusting anyway. Right, right, right. I mean, it just, it spirals. It does.

There's no bottom to the shame spiral. You cannot shame your way out of shame-based behavior. No, that's interesting. I didn't know that. But the best shame reduction therapy, I ever got was sitting in a room with other guys and telling the truth and and and experiencing what I did not expect. My expectation was that when I started to say true and dark and dangerous things, when I began to say out loud things I'd never said before, admit things that I'd never in

my life admitted, I expected that people would turn away. They leaned in. And now the relationships that I started to form in that room were, those were real relationships because they weren't relating to St. Nate. They were relating to me. Broken you. Yeah. The real me. All us broken

people. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just you broken, but just the brokenness that is human. Yeah, yeah. And so what I began to experience in that room was deep connection, intimacy, non-sexual,

intimacy, which is what we were built for, it's what we're made for. We're made in the image of God. Our God is a relational being himself. He made a... He's love is what Jesus tells us. And love has an object. It's relational. So, and I had never had that. I had confused intimacy with sex and was always swinging for the fences whenever Allie gave me any kind of hint that she was open for sex. But you can have sex without being intimate. I did for 20 years. Allie could be alone while we were there.

She definitely felt used. She didn't feel loved. Lust is the opposite of love. And you can be intimate without having sex. But when you learn to be intimate, and now you can bring intimacy into your marriage and the fullness of your marriage, that is orders of magnitude better than anything I ever paid for

because it's satisfying this deep need. It's the need that, you know, modern technology has found a way to mimic intimacy. Porn certainly will do it. But even

social media can do it with likes and follows and things like that. This sense that I'm connected, right? Well, the very emoji of a heart. Yeah, right. I mean, a heart. It's supposed to mean love, I eat intimacy.

Right, yeah. But it's interesting you say that and it just dawned on me, but it's true. Yeah, right, yeah. I love that. Mm-hmm. That's what that heart says. Yeah, yeah. And what we all long for, what we're built for is connection.

Do you think you lacked that? I'm not trying to put this on parents or family or anything, but I am curious, do you think because sex and the conversation around sex was so taboo that it was, especially when you're going through puberty and all at that age, do you think not understanding the relationship between sex, love, and interest, intimacy because it was just not to be talked about, helped lead towards some of this? Yes, certainly. And I didn't see emotional intimacy modeled in my home.

The focus of my parents loved me, and they were very focused on being good parents, but the focus was upon performance and upon behavior. So there was really, it sounds harsh to say it, but it was childhood emotion. neglect. I get it. Right? I'm seeing what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah. So I really didn't know how to connect and I kind of had this sense and going through elementary school and certainly in high school where I'm always the youngest kid. I'm always the smallest kid. Plus I'm the religious kid. I'm the Christian kid. I'm the kid that the teachers point to as an example to all the other kids. So I'm not dating material certainly. very, very lonely in high school. Loneliness. And burdened. Yeah.

But under the obligation, always to be the representative of Christ and never do anything or be caught doing anything that might bring shame upon the name of Jesus. So, yeah, so that performance was there early. A longing for connection, but I didn't know how to do it. I only knew how to perform. And sometimes the teaching I would get at church was always teaching me how to be the good husband. And I was conscientious.

I really, and outwardly it looked like I was doing it. Here's the thing. In church, I got great sermons. The church was like a lecture hall. And I was a good student and I became a good teacher. But what I didn't have was a locker room. And I didn't have a team. I didn't have a place where I could come in,

even after losing and get naked metaphorically. And that guy that met you in the parking lot that walked you in, he carried you into the locker room. He did, absolutely. It was the locker room, baby. Wow. Yeah. And I'd got a lot of teaching, but I'd never had coaching.

And that's what I needed. I'm interested you're in Franklin. you're running out of money. Yeah. Now your wife tells you I'm done. Yeah. You're in the basement. Yeah.

Trying to get right. Yeah. But you really don't have a career anymore. No. I mean, what's happening then? You see what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was being deconstructed and it was good.

It was good that I didn't have a job, a successful business that could prop me up for a while. I needed to be where I was. So this was, Bob. It was. Finally. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. How did it work? The guy when the meeting was over, he said, if you want, I'll walk with you a while. He became my first male friend since childhood. Wow. And so he had this routine. He wanted me to meet him at 6 in the morning at Pinkerton Park and walk and talk. and I hadn't seen sick clock in the morning in a very long time. I was at a point where I would roll out of bed, you know,

just in time to get dressed and get to the office by nine because most of what I was doing was late night stuff, right? And nothing good happens after midnight. So it was amazing. This was the relationship that I had with this guy, which I have since done my best to emulate and replicate with the men I walk with. and the men teach them to do the same with the men they walk with. He wasn't a guru necessarily because he didn't pretend to have all the answers.

He wasn't an authority in my life. He wasn't going to tell me what to do. He led with weakness. He was, the thing that was most striking about this guy was he talked about his sin in the present tense without shame. and he walked me through the 12 steps and he helped me process my life and he gave me lots of hints and directions

for how I could start to structure my own life. And that involved basic things like going to bed at a decent hour, eating right, going to the gym, stuff I hadn't done forever. Taking care of my physical needs, going to the dentist. He said, look, you have been,

you've been caring for your wife, you've been caring for your business, you've been caring for your addiction, you have not been caring for yourself. My wife, Lisa, says, she's always said to be the best version of yourself, you have to love yourself first. Yeah, yeah. She's always said that. That's kind of what I'm hearing you say. Yeah, oh, absolutely. You've got to care for yourself and love yourself to be any good for anybody else.

Absolutely, yeah. And I was so steeped in self-hate for all those. years. I wasn't worth taking care of. So, are you living in the same house with your wife at this time? Yeah, so. Like separate rooms, you got this half, I got this,

I'll stay out of my wife. Yeah. Yeah. But I am fortunate. My wife was firm, but she wasn't cruel. You're lucky. She didn't say harsh and hateful things to her. She kept her distance. She was civil. And she allowed you to heal.

Yeah, and she watched. And, you know, I tell guys, you know, especially if you're coming off, you know, you first hit the wall and things come out. And your wife finally discovers that you're not the man she thought she married. Strap in for a couple of years. What was it like coming clean to her? Hard. Well, first of all, I didn't do it well. You didn't, huh?

No, I didn't do it well. I don't know how you do that well. I don't know how that could be possibly described as doing well at all under any circumstances. This was 28 years ago. Now they're actually therapists trained in helping with disclosure. There are rules to follow. There are procedures that are safe for everybody. None of that existed back then.

The first word of advice I got was my friend after I confessed to him. He said, look, how much does your wife know? I said, well, she knows about the porn. I managed to talk my way out of the condom that somehow didn't involve another person. And he said, well, does she suspect that there might be other women?

And I said, I don't think she does. He said, well, how would you feel if you told her? I'd feel a lot better. He said, well, it isn't fair to get your piece of money expense of hers. If she doesn't expect it, don't tee-bone her, just don't dump the truck on her. So I made a deal with her at that point. I don't necessarily recommend this as what everybody should do. This is what I did.

Again, 28 years ago. Yeah. And by your own admission, not well done. Right. So everybody listening. I said, I'm going to make a promise to you from now on I'm going to tell you the truth. I will always give you an honest answer to a direct question. And I waited for her to ask the question.

Oh, boy. Now, I was so good at performing and so good at outward doing all the things that a good husband does. And it's so good at disguising my interest in anybody other than my wife. That she did not suspect. Now, I told the guys in my meetings. I told my kids, my adult kids. And I said, look, your mother doesn't know this part of the story, but this is the story. I didn't tell her.

And then as time passed and she didn't ask, I start to get this feeling of dread. Eventually she's going to find out. And, you know. Somehow, I got to let her know. Yeah, yeah. It was two years in. and Allie was I was doing well

she was starting to deal with her own stuff she went to see a therapist therapist said yeah I know I know Nate I understand born addiction she says yeah yeah yeah he's dealing with a porn addiction and I think he's doing well

now but one thing I'm sure of has never been another woman and the therapist looked at her and went really And that was enough to just to plant a seed of doubt in Ali's mind. So it was late that night, about 11 o'clock, I'm about to fall asleep. Why they wait until 11 o'clock, I don't know.

But that's when she wants to have a conversation, right? And she says, so, have you had sex with anybody else since we've been married? I haven't stopped. Because I've been dying to tell her, and I was terrified to tell her at that point. And just the fact that I didn't say anything answered the question. She had three questions. How long has it been? Were they young?

Were they pretty? And then she said, go away. We'll be right back. Pride is like love. You feel it in your heart. IR. Radio. Canada's number one streaming app for radio and podcasts, including IHart Pride Canada,

your favorite hits and must-have party bangers, plus personalized and... curated playlists like back in the day pride come together celebrate love take pride with you anytime anywhere just ask your smart speaker to play iHeart pride canada stream us on your phone or listen now at ihartradio dot ca all right listen up the jonas brothers here our podcast is called hey jonas we're here since everyone has a podcast we want it to as well and we've had some incredible guests so far and now our good friend nile horn is joining the show how's it going boys hey nile it's the same thing with slow hands slow hands is not about anything else really is it. You know, or taste so good can't be about food. You do the same, Nick, with some of the

stuff that you've done. You too, Joe. Drop what you're doing and listen to Hey Jonas on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. I love the sounds, the buzzing from the stadium, the chanting from the fans, the announcers calling the place soccer, football, it's home. Why do I watch the World Cup? That's like asking me, why do I breed. I inherited that fandom from my mom. It's a connecting force. From Futuro Studios, I'm Fernanda Chavari, and this is American Football, a show about soccer culture in the U.S. and its underdog roots. We go beyond the game to the people and the stories that make it great. A soccer game is a festival. It's not just a game. It's your culture.

I took an elbow to my head, which cracked my skull. It is an American game. The Brazilians don't like hearing that, though. Are they the only ones that don't like that? Nobody likes that. As we get ready for the Men's World Cup this summer, listen to American Football as part of the My Coutura podcast network, available on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Mainstream media is full of cruel depictions of the unhoused, stories that shame and blame and paint the unhoused as a monolith. We The Un-House is the part. podcast that's changing that. I'm Theo Henderson, creator, and host, and for years I've created a space where the unhoused and their advocates can tell their own stories. In the last few months alone, I've interviewed unhoused parents, immigrants, mutual aid organizers, veterans, the LGBTQTIA plus community, and the policymakers who make the laws that impact the unhoused existence. Wey N'Hawes is a two-time webby and Signal Award-winning show with many exciting guests on the horizon.

Tune in this week for my interview with Dr. Gio Wichler, a street doctor turned influencer whose work with the unhoused community has made a huge impact online and in her community. Listen to Weythian House on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Here's something that should not be as complicated as it is. getting a racist statue removed. And here's something that should be a whole lot easier than it is, getting a new one put up in its place. As long as there's a politics of race in America, there's going to be a politics of remembering the Civil War.

To get to school, I had to go down Robert Lee Boulevard. Get to the grocery store, I had to go down Jefferson Davis Parkway. If you're an historian and you leave out half of what the history is, you're not doing your job. I'm Akila Hughes. In Rebel Spirit, Season 2 goes deep on both of those things. The fights, the politics, the people who won, and my personal campaign to add something to the Kentucky State House

that's actually worth the wall space. We are more than our bodies. We contain essence. We contain spirit. How do you represent that? They are just fueling a fire that is really catching. You'll see what I mean. Listen to Rebel Spirit Season 2 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

How long has it been? Were they young and were they pretty? Yeah. she's 10 years older than you. Yeah. It was feeding right into her own. Absolutely. Yeah.

Bless her heart. Yeah. But that was the tough one to get over. I wish that I'd been able to disclose far earlier and that she would have had support. But frankly, she has said, if I had known everything up front, I don't know that our marriage would have survived. Here's what happened. She didn't talk to me for the next couple of days. days. And then she called me at work. And she said, okay, I'm pissed. I'm angry. I'm mostly angry at

myself. I can't believe I was that stupid. How could I have not seen it? All the signs were there. Why didn't I see it? I'm angry at you. She said, but I've been watching you and I know you're not that same person. And I still do love you. And I think we, it's worth starting over. I think you should move out for a while. We should start dating and start over. I said, done. I started looking for an apartment. Well, she had an appointment the next day with that same therapist. And she invited me to come along. So we sat in a therapist's office and told her what our great plan was. And the therapist burst out laughing. That's a terrible plan.

But really, that's the best. You're Christians. You care about each other. You think that's a good solution? And she instead helped us work out the terms of an in-house separation. And Allie got into therapy intensely, and I went back to work, and things rapidly got better from there. Six years after you went for help, you walked into your pastor's office and you told them you're a sex addict. gave him your phone number and said, pass it along to anybody you think can help.

What was his reaction? And did you ever get a phone call? Yeah, it was, he was one of those exceptional pastors. He must, he would have to be. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's all remember that we put pastors in this category. They're human. Yeah. They have reactions and feelings just like anybody else, despite their vocation.

any human being to have a guy walk in and say, here's my card, I'm a sex addict, give you a blah. I mean. Not only did he start sending guys my way, he invited me to preach. Wow. And what was at the time the biggest church in Franklin? Wow.

Yeah. He offered you the opportunity to give the sermon. You couldn't give your own church. Right. And I didn't ask that question earlier to set up that. I didn't know. Yeah, yeah. But to me, the irony of irony says, the very sermon you couldn't give the congregation you started in Florida, he invited to give you in one of the largest churches in Franklin.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Franklin, I hope I don't misstate this. Feel free to correct this, but it's a unique place for, obviously, you know it better, but there's a lot of Christian artists there. There's a lot of big country artists. Like, it is a unique place to be the largest church. Yeah. So. And come to find out.

Here's what, by then, here's what I had learned. Yes, my story is unique. And, you know, I went far off the rails. But I'm not that different from everybody else. Everybody has something in their life that's bigger than they are. Everybody resonates to some degree with the feelings around addiction. My response in the church was wonderful. Now, I did not, in that first sermon,

say that I was a sex addict. I promised Ali I wouldn't. She was terrified. She made me promise that I wouldn't. It's a burden for her. Right. Well, I could say addiction. I couldn't say sex addiction.

Got it. So I just talked about addiction. I referenced it. I mean, it was a biblical sermon. It was a good sermon. But I made no secret to the fact that I'm an addict. And I'll tell you what. That whole experience in recovery by then,

and had opened doors and windows on the gospel I'd never seen. It changed the Bible for me once I dropped this lens that I've been trained to read it through. It was a whole new book. I saw grace on every page. And my relationship with God was, for the first time, really real. See, up until recovery, I thought that God loves St. Nate. So whenever I wanted to get close to him, I'd send St. Nate. Now I understand that God never loved St. Nate because he didn't make him.

I did, right? God loves me. He wants a relationship with me. And once you've got that, then when you start to preach, it comes from a whole different place. How many calls did you get after the sermon and the pastor's got your card? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it still takes courage for a man to call. So typically a man doesn't call until he hits the wall.

Our capacity for denial. Until he gets caught with a condom on the bathroom floor. Something happened. Something like that. Yeah. Or he loses his job. Or he gets arrested. Or his wife walks out the door or something.

But typically we don't go for this kind of help out of idle curiosity. Because we really want to, the shame has. a big hold on us. Pride has a big hold on us. We want to believe we can fix it on our own. We're almost there. And I think our ancient enemy is very, very good at that game. He wants to keep us in an endless game of one-on-one. Because that's his game. And he can win. He's only lost once, right? So, but the one thing he does not want is for us to play team ball. Gates of Hell cannot prevail against the church. Once at any rate, I don't know how I got onto that.

But so guys did start to go. So before I know it, I'm walking with a dozen guys. We're all Christians. Now, not everybody fits in my 12-step group, because for some guys, their biggest problem isn't sex. For other guys, the fact that it isn't Christian makes it suspect. That's when, at Allie's suggestion, we started the Samson Society as an explicitly Christian,

Christian group for men dealing with any kind of unwanted behavior. That's interesting. Yeah. Why Samson? I think Samson is kind of this prototypical hero. You know, this biblical hero who was a loner, a wanderer, a high performer, who really had no spiritual life forever, and died alone and a failure. we contrast him with David,

who also had a great moral collapse about the same time. Samson did, but David actually recovered. But David had this, well, he had friends, started with Jonathan and then came with a massive, you know, by the time he was done, all kinds of friends. And a guy who learned how to stay at home, and a guy who learned how to live out loud, and a guy had a real relationship with God.

So we all want to be David, but we can't get there until we acknowledge that we're Samson. I'm a Samson, I got to learn to live like David. So at Alley's suggestion, you start a society. Yeah, yeah. I wasn't going to call it, you know, I didn't want to, you know, the Christian sex addicts group. I mean, that's a tough sell.

Samson is different. So it started in Franklin with 12 guys. Yeah. And it grew quickly. When did it start? What year? 2004. Okay, so 2004.

It started. First meeting was on Valentine's Day. Of course. Why wouldn't it be? The 12 guys were available on Valentine's Day. We'll let you know what kind of shape we were in. Yeah, that's not good. So Samson's Society at Alley's suggestion is for,

a group of guys, any guys. Christian men who have unwanted behavior they want to shed. Oftentimes addiction. But it could be alcoholism, drugs, it could be greed, it could be sex addiction, it could be any of it. Right, right, right, right. And we're seeing

like gambling and gaming are coming on strong these days. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. All right, and so back then, and it was just, and the idea is to have a safe place Right. To talk through this to begin restorative healing and ultimately dropping that behavior. Right.

Am I there? Right. Yeah. And to make friends, to learn how to connect, the opposite of addiction is connection. To have intimacy. That's right. We're stepping out of isolation into relationship. Okay.

And so after year one or two, kind of give me a benchmark, early benchmark of how it started going. Yeah, well, I mean, it, the first year actually was not a banner year. If you're in 12-step recovery, you're sure you know this. They tell you, to recover, you've got to get a sponsor. Okay. So in Samson, we have some different language. We're not as well.

My great aunt started the AA chapter here in Memphis. Wow. She passed only a couple years ago, but she and her husband, she was divorced. in back in the 50s. And she and her husband said Farnsworth were instrumental and really doing. And so my whole understanding, which is very small of this world, is what she's taught. But the 12 steps and the sponsor thing is almost critical to all of it. It feels like.

So we operate with the conviction that Christianity properly understood is actually a team-spons. not an individual event. Okay? We're all colossal failures as solo disciples for a simple reason. Jesus doesn't have any solo disciples. Never wanted any. He first said, follow me to two guys,

not just one and quickly added 10 more to them, right? Had them follow them around for a couple of years as he taught them the most important thing is that you love each other. It's interesting. Yeah. So the one thing we have in common in Samson, everybody who comes in,

no matter what their favorite medication is, one thing we have in common we've all been isolated. So you join a team and there needs to be a lead guy in your team. We call that guy a silas. That's the guy you are in regular contact with, ideally daily contact in some form, and just the act of reaching out to that man, not just to report on your behavior, your sexual behavior, for example, if that's your deal. Maybe just to say hi.

That's right. There is an element of accountability, but we don't talk much about accountability in Samson. We prefer to talk about accessibility. So the question is this, are you willing to give at least one other man real-time access to your life? All of your life. Because if you ever go off the rails again,

that had a context. It came from somewhere. So the Silas is the guy who gets to know you. Gets to know your story. Gets to know how you grew up, what life was like for you as a kid, where you've succeeded, where you've failed,

where you've gotten your heartbroken. He gets to know what life is like for you day to day, what your rituals and routine. scenes are. He's the guy who remembers the things you tend to forget, ask the questions you tend to avoid, maybe picks up on a pattern you haven't noticed, and mostly what he's going to do is he's going to remind you who you really are. And here's the thing, he benefits at least as much from the relationship as you do. And so you build a society of guys with Silas partners. That's it.

So you're two, you're three? Yeah, yeah. It keeps growing. It keeps growing. And we got excited. We wanted to share it. We wanted to see if we couldn't inspire other guys to do something like what we were doing. We got the idea for a book.

That's what AA had done, right? So Thomas Nelson picked it up. The book is Samson and the Pirate Monks. And the book came out in February of 2007. 30 days later, Pornhub went online. Are you kidding me? Three months after that,

the iPhone was introduced, and all broke loose in the culture. Huh. Well, since that book came out, more than 600 local groups of the Samson Society have started. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Yeah.

Samson Society now has 600 chapters across the United States. And even eventually, women said, hey, what about us? Wives started the Sarah Society. The what? The Sarah Society. You're kidding me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they have their meetings, too. And in fact, this weekend, they're having their fourth national retreat, I think. And in 2018, we took the step of starting online meetings. So by that point, about 10,000 guys had registered on our homemade website. we knew a lot of those guys were in meetings. Still, I was reluctant to do it online because if there's one thing I know for sure,

its recovery requires relationship, right? And I'd made real friends in rooms where I could see touch people. And as an old guy, I thought that's the only way it can happen, right? And then some of the young guys introduced me to this crazy thing called Zoom. Sat my first meeting. I thought, holy, maybe this is it.

Maybe this does work. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. We didn't even have a bank account back then. Samson will never have a bank account. It's structured so it can never have a bank account. But we started a non-profit organization called Samson House. And the guys pitched in, hired a real web development company, partnered with Zoom, launched the meetings with a goal of having at least one meeting every hour of every day.

Wow. So no matter where a guy is in his life or where he is in the world, rather than that. will always be a click away. Now, we're still a good distance from the goal, but we've made tremendous progress. So today, there are multiple meetings every day, all of them hosted by volunteers. Already meetings in seven languages,

Samson's starting to go global. We'll be right back. First of all, that is phenomenal. Yeah. I can't imagine the numbers of men and now women that are held from really this pastor, taking your card and giving you a pulpit, and a few guys calling you, I think it's ironic that it was the number 12.

And you've got this movement built entirely on honesty, and then you relapsed. Yeah. How does that happen? It's a dangerous thing to get into leadership if you start to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think. You were back to St. Nick. St. Nick. St. Nate. St. Nick, sorry, Christmas, but St. Nate.

Yeah, yeah. I started to get the impression that everybody's stability depended on my sobriety and that I was the guy who had kind of built this thing and I had an obligation to stay strong and always set a good example. What's wrong with that? I agree with that. Yeah. On the fate, maybe I'm obviously missing something.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I get that. I mean, you're the guy. I'm the guy. an obligation. I know. Absolutely. I had an obligation actually to stay connected and to stay humble. I see. You did become Saint Nate again kind of, but in a different version of it. Life, we got to the point we really needed to sell the house in Franklin. We moved an hour out into a little town out in the country, far away from the guys I'd been walking with. You know, I let my connections with other guys with her.

I was now kind of like the... The buttress you built was crumbling. Yeah, yeah. I don't know about your... Yeah. But when I have friends that are recovered or recovering... Yeah, yeah. Alcoholics.

And I am really fortunate that my DNA or my brain waves or whatever, I like to have a drink every once a while. And I've certainly been drunk in my life. But I can drink and not have a drink for three weeks. Right, right, right. So I've never felt the grip of drinks or drugs or sex addiction. I'm just, if anything, I may be addicted to work. Yeah.

You know? Yeah. But I think we're all addicted to something, just to be clear. Some are more destructive than others, probably, or at least culturally less accepted than others. But my friends that are alcoholics always said, the ones who are really engaged, they describe themselves as alcoholics.

Even if they hadn't had to drink 20 years, they still say their addicts. And they explain it to me that if you don't acknowledge that you are just as addicted today as you were 20 years ago, you're going to relapse. That's kind of how I've heard people say it. So my question is, even today, do you feel like you never really get over the addiction?

You more manage it. I'm trying to understand how 20 years later you relapse. Is it always got a grip on you no matter what? You have to be guarded all the time? If the perfect storm hits and it hit me. Now, I had stopped for the first 15 years, I never traveled anywhere alone. because I'd done so many stupid things when I was out of town. I get it.

Okay? It just didn't make any sense. It makes sense. Right? But then, after a while, I got to think, you know, this is silly. I mean, I've been sober this long, and I understand this thing, and I've got it cooked. Plus. But you thought yourself sober from a sex addiction.

Yeah. You called that sober. That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You always attribute that to alcohol or drugs, but I get it. So I started traveling alone and didn't pay a price.

It was fine. doing okay. But it was shortly after the big move, and it's on a day when I'm exhausted, and I'm alone, and I'm in Atlanta, and my back is killing me, and I had three beers with dinner. Alcohol makes me stupid. You're hilarious. And then I came out of the Mexican restaurant, and across the parking lot is a massage parlor, I hadn't been in one of those places in a couple of decades. And I thought my back is killing me.

I deserve a massage. Probably those places have changed. Rationalization like crazy. And then once I did it and came out, I panicked. And I thought, I can't let anybody know. Samson's Society will crumble on thousands, hundreds of thousands of. The very thing, the openness that helped you. Right.

Right. you're turning your back on. Right. Hundreds of thousands of people. That you're building for 600 chapters across the country. I'm the bridge to recovery for all these people. I have a responsibility to fix this myself and cover it up, which I did for a while. And predictably, eventually, you know, did it again.

I did that seven times before finally admitting it. And after the relapse, you went to treatment for the first time in your life. And I think in your book or another interview, somewhere you said you hadn't cried since your mother's funeral. Yeah. More than 50 years earlier. Now, I find that incredible. Yeah. That even with the admission of Allie and even through the conversations that you still had not yet wept.

No. I sometimes get tears to my eyes. I could feel sadness, but I didn't know how to do grief. Grief had not been allowed in our house. grief was regarded as, you know, after my mother died, my mother died, I was nine, not quite 10 years old. The next Sunday we were in church singing, I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down on my heart.

She's in heaven. We rejoice in the Lord always. So I didn't grieve. I didn't see my dad cry. We didn't do it. And I just did not know how to grieve. And for some of us, the major work of recovery is grief work. There are necessary losses in this life that we are all going to have to process at some point.

And our ability, you know, Jesus did say, blessed are those who we grieve. Those are the ones who get comforted. It's just phenomenal to me that for 50 years, even through all of this, with how self-reflective you are that you can see as obvious as a doubt. is bright in this conversation, that even when Allie told you to get lost, and even when that man walked you into the proverbial locker room, you still had not cried yet. Couldn't get there. After this seven times, and you finally go to treatment for the first time of life, that

week. Yeah. I cried all week. I cried all week. What broke? They got to my inner child. They got to that nine-year-old. they got me there.

How important is that? Yeah, crucially important. Absolutely. Does Samson recognize the importance of it? Oh, yeah, absolutely, yeah. Through that experience. Yeah, yeah. And I found, you know, the first thing I did was to tell my Silas and the guys that I was walking closely with.

And then I told the board members of Samson House and I stepped back from Samson for a while. And eventually I told everybody on our podcast. How did Ali take it? She was magnificent. What? She was magnificent. Oh, I heard the words. I don't understand the concept.

I called her from the place. What place? Where I'd gone for... So, before I went to treatment, I went to a retreat, and it wasn't a Samson retreat, and I wasn't in charge, and it was all the way in Seattle. Good.

So hopefully nobody's... knew me. I got there and three people knew who I was. Of course. Right. But it was there that I got honest for the first time. And they said, you've got to tell your wife. And I said, I can't. She, she trusts me. I'm her rock. She's in a vulnerable place. It'll destroy her. I just, I can't do that to her. I'll tell everybody else. I can't tell her. Give her more credit than that. They pushed. You got to tell her. So that night, I gave her a call. I said, honey, when I get home, I'm going to have a I need to tell you about something. Yeah.

And she goes, well, the last time we started a conversation like this, there was hookers involved. I said, hookers? I said, well, not exactly. She said, come on home, we'll talk. And I knew from the tone of her voice that she was going to be compassionate. When I got home, I just, she was as close to crying as I'd come.

I guess I did cry then. She had compassion on me. I guess it helps that my wife, she doesn't have a sex addiction, but she's not a stranger to compulsive behavior, and she has this belief that she and I are sinners in equal need of grace. What an amazing woman.

Yeah. She never made me pay a price. It angered some of the women in the Sarah society, but they had raw wounds, you know. They were fresh. But she'd been on this ride for me with me for a long time. And she was able to put it in context, and she knew it wasn't about her. And that's when you went to therapy?

And then I went to, well, first I did an intensive with the two of us, with a top therapist, and then I went away to treatment. I couldn't afford it. But Samson guys, the very guys, I had to come back and apologize. I apologize to my guys to lying. I've dishonored our friendship. I haven't told you this. I've been lying to you.

One guy did hit me pretty hard. Basically? No. But he just said, I'm hurt. I just can't believe you did that to me. I've always told you the truth. I assumed you were telling me the truth. Don't ever lie to me again.

And then he wrote a big check to help pay for treatment. He's such a good friend. Nobody, here's the amazing thing. among my good friends, nobody pulled away, they all lead in. And those relationships got deeper. And that is what Samson Society is doing in these 600 chapters across the country. That's it. It's a safe place. That's AA. God bless AA.

AA is always a safe place for a guy to admit he's slipped. If he hasn't had a drink in 30 years and he walks in and says, I slipped, he's welcome. no recrimination, never endorsed the behavior, always embrace the man. That's what Samson should do. That's what the church should do. And what I found was that's what Samson does. When it was my turn to admit, I was embraced. You've said that we live in an upside down gospel world where the only things that live are the things that die first.

Yeah. I'm going to say that one more time. That's a complex concept. We live in an upside-down gospel world, upside-down gospel world, where the only things that live are the things that die first. What does that mean for a man who spent his whole life trying to protect his reputation? Yeah. When I look back at my life,

the things that I accomplished that I work so hard to do, the things that I accomplished when I was bright and shiny and had that reputation. None of that has lasted. At church, I started, no longer exists. Really? No. It's gone. Gone.

I thought my ministry was over the day. My story came out. But that was the day it started. And now, the fruit of just walking with men one time. it's created something that'll outlive me. It's alive. It's growing. It's far bigger than anything.

My ambition was to be the next Billy Graham. I wanted to speak to stadiums. What I didn't understand is the kingdom. You know, the city of God has built one brick at a time. You know, as I think about your story and I think about the unbelievable work that Samson's doing for so many people. Also, I'm a guy. And, I mean, I am that guy, sports, and I love to have a beer as my buddies and yuck it up. And I am absolutely a faithful Christian, but I'm not a Christian because I'm better than you.

I'm a Christian because I desperately need it for the 84 sins that I will commit between now when I go to sleep tonight. Yeah, yeah. All right? I'm broke. Yeah. And I know it. But I'm also, like I think most adult men, And if they're honest, they don't really have friends that they tell the real truth to.

Absolutely. I think that is about us. Yeah. Yeah, it's a shame-based culture, and it's a highly competitive culture. We all desperately want to be admired and accepted. We want to be significant. And there's this deep-seated fear that if I don't measure up, I won't be included. I won't be respected.

I have found that's not true. Say, yeah. Because if you are honest and around people want to be honest, you'll all go, oh, that's the same way I feel. I have found I am now freaking magnetic. That's funny. It's amazing. Because when I tell a guy in my story now, I become the safest guy he knows. That's right.

If he's going to bear it, well, if he told me that, I can tell him this. That's right. I'm not that way with another man. That's the absolute truth. I will tell you, I tell Lisa everything. That's good. But I would love to be able to have that with a man. And I'll bet.

Because there's certain perspectives that because she's a woman, she may listen and she may love despite and all that, but she still really didn't get it from a man perspective, of no more than I would get things from a woman. Right. So, I mean, I get why Samson would be infectious because it's where a man can go be a man, but be trusted by the men.

And women find some safety in it, too. A woman, Allie is happy that she doesn't have to be the only guy to kick my butt. She doesn't, the only guy has to, she's not the only person. There are other, she feels like at this point, she's got dozens of brothers-in-law. Makes sense.

And she trusts me to them. Yeah. It makes it easier for her. And she doesn't have to bear the burden to listen to your crime. All right, exactly. Yeah. I mean, if we're being candid. Absolutely, yeah.

It's good for her, too. And I think it's one of the reasons that a lot of women push their husbands out the door to go to Samson. Because they like what comes back. That guy goes out. He practices non-sexual intimacy. And when he comes home, he's a little bit more. more emotionally aware and emotionally available. Do you think men feel like better husbands?

Oh, yeah. Do they express that? Oh, yeah, absolutely. And here's the thing. It's made, now, if a married guy comes to Samson, odds are his marriage is in trouble. That's why they show up. That's right, right?

Because like you said earlier, they usually don't show up until they've lost a job, they've been kicked out of the house or whatever. Right, right, exactly, yeah, yeah. And none of those things are good for a marriage. Right, yeah, yeah. And it's amazing how marriage, now, not every marriage survives, but every man does. And those marriages that do survive don't just survive, they thrive.

They get so much better. There's a wide cross-section of people listen to this thing. My 29-year-old goofy children's friends listen, which is weird. and I've talked to people that are well into their 70s and 80s and listen. I also talk to all kinds of men and women to listen. The odds are there is someone listening to this right now and recognizes their own story in yours. What's the first thing they should do?

They can go to samson society.com or download the Samson app if they're a guy. That Samson is just for men. Sarah Society is for women. Spell that. Sarah, S-A-H. Okay, I didn't know of S-A-H. Yep.

And Sampson, there's no P in Sampson, S-A-M-S-O-N, Sampsonsociety.com. Good. If you want to attend online meetings, you first have to attend a newcomer meeting. But there's at least one newcomer meeting every day. We'll give you a full orientation, get to know a little about you, make certain you're real, make sure it's certain you're serious, and then we'll give you the keys to get you in the door and in the brotherhood. There's a location in Germantown.

There's a Samson Society in Germantown, Tennessee. Well, if anybody here's listing in Memphis and identifies this story, there's only 15 to 20 minutes from here. Well, with 600 chapters, there's got to be one in almost every major metropolitan area in the country. Yeah, we don't have them all listed. Here's the thing. Why not? Because we're radically disorganized.

I don't know. I'm forever bumping into guys who are in meetings that. I've never heard of. You're kidding. Yeah, because anybody can start a meeting. I get it, but that's fantastic. Yeah, yeah. We're trying to get more organized just to make ourselves more accessible.

We'll be right back. If anybody listening to an Army and old folks right now, we're listening to you right now, what would you tell them about service that they need to hear? Yeah. Service is absolutely essential to long-term recovery. stability. It's what we're made for. Interestingly, I think service and intimacy are kind of connected.

I agree, yeah. We don't have 12 steps in Samson. We have what we call the path. It's seven stages to the path. It's the same basic path, just described in a different way. But the seventh stage of the path, the gist of it is serving the people that God puts in my path rather than serving myself. I love the thing that it starts with

I offer myself as a solace to others. But the whole point is it all starts with service. Yeah, each day I ask God for the grace. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, and it's all about serving others. And I serve others now, not just for them, but for me. You tried every private discipline for your sex addiction in the book,

willpower, journaling, white knuckling, None of it held. What finally worked was something you'd spent your whole life avoiding, will relationships, intimacy. As we think about Samson's society in its success, and we think about service, what do you want to say about what finally worked in terms of being the last prescription that most men want to fill?

Yeah. I think we're all torn. I think we're ambivalent. about it. We all want friends. We long for intimacy and we're afraid of it. That's so interesting, but such what a paradox. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think once there is something that is so irresistible when you finally find yourself in a place that is so safe, when you hear guys telling the truth about their life that mirrors your life. And it becomes apparent that you can actually step from behind the screen and show yourself.

There is something so irresistible about that. So, you know, my hope and goal is just to see more and more Samson societies start just to create those opportunities, that place, where a man can find the help that he's afraid of, but that he wants. Tell me what Ali's doing right now. Well, actually, Allie is in another fight for her life. She's in cancer treatment right now.

Oh, I'm so sorry. Yeah. But she's talked to her just before coming in. She's praying for me. She's preparing what my son and is coming with our youngest grandkids. I'll be here in a few days, staying for a couple of weeks. she's a remarkable remarkable woman, man.

I think what you've started through Samson is phenomenal. I am going to read Samson and the Pirate Monks. I think I just really want to read that. He mailed me a copy, so I'll bring it to you and I see you next. I'm going to read that. I think you're courageous being so, open and willing to say some things that are regretful and have to be embarrassing. And even though you've worked through them, it's tough.

But I'm going to tell you this. I think Allie's the hero of the story. I'm actually working on a memoir now about our marriage. I want to— She is a hero of the story. She is a tough brawl. She is. She is.

Absolutely. Yeah. And I cannot imagine. I wish you was here so much because I want to ask her, do you regret sticking that quarter in the machine back in 1977? Yeah. I wonder how she recollects this concept. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because she's an amazing woman. Yeah. So, Allie, I hope you're listening to this. I have an enormous amount of respect and appreciation for you. And wow, Nate, what a story. what a what an amazing story of redemption that through all of your scars

and your pain and your hurt and your childhood that 50 years later you've learned to grieve and now this Samson thing is in 600 chapters across the world all born from your learning

about the importance of intimacy friendships and a safe place to share and just building a locker room for guys. Yeah. What a cool story. What else, Alex? You get anything for Nate besides what this is? Because I got a bunch.

We could keep it short. And obviously you guys have talked about rationalizations. Yeah. I think there's an interesting point of like you were almost too smart for your own good. And it could be dangerous to be smart and have an intellect. Yeah, my first friend, he said, Nate, you can't be too. dumb to get this, but you can be too smart. Yeah.

I've heard that before, and it is so true. He said, you've been trying to think your way to write living. I want to teach you how to live your way to write thinking. You've tried to think your way to write living. I want to teach your way to live your way to write thinking. Yeah. Love that. Yeah.

That needs to be in one of those bathroom books. That's one of those quotes that need to be in a bathroom. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's so good. to maybe double-click on the benefits to your life with that non-Christian environment with the recovery program. Like, how did that particular environment actually help you bring you closer to God? Yeah, I mean, I had such a sectarian view. I was kind of indoctrinated.

I mean, we were not just Christians. We were the only Christians. You were what they call a professional Christian. Exactly. You were pro at it. You were damn good. And our church was more Christian than any other church in town. You know what I mean?

Yeah. So, you know, they were in the arm. Which in a way is performative. Sure, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Man, just to sit in the room with other people who had a whole different take on the faith, whose experience of God was very, very real. But they didn't have the same vocabulary I did.

Mm-hmm. And, you know, it bothers. me, you know, in 12-step rooms, you have to refer to God as a higher power. I mean, it's very generic. And that really bothers, because I have this feeling, you know, like, well, I have a master's degree in God. My higher power can beat up their higher power. I have a master's degree in God. Oh, yes, right. That reminds me a blues, but we're on a mission from God. I have a master's degree in God. There is a certain level of, uh, aristocracy and that.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. It was my own religious and intellectual arrogance that delayed my experience of true sexual sobriety. I didn't get truly sexual sobriety. I didn't experience that real freedom, you know, when the compulsion is gone. We're always subject to the urge, right? occasionally, these flashes of euphoric recall when we're in a state of, you know, it's true that no matter how far down the road of recovery we go, we're always the same distance from the ditch, right? But I started, I started down a road and then I got lost where I was going.

Well, it was basically that until you become a child, yeah, yeah, you're not, you can't really engage is what I think you're saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's funny, because we're called to be children of God. Yeah. And how can you be a child if you think you're the master of God? Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, until I had to decide to become, well, what the alcoholics called right-sized. I had to join the human race. All right? I had to become just another bozo on the bus. become as willing to ask for help as I was to give help, willing to take advice as I was to give advice.

There is a humbling process. My first sponsor, he identified my primary character defect as pride, which, and I was so good at camouflaging pride, I was so good at false modesty, that I fought him on that. He was dead on. like you said, the things that you don't really even want to talk with yourself about.

Right. Yeah. Can non-Christians come to Samson Society meetings? As long as they understand, we are a company of Christian men. One thing that, so I went to... I can't imagine a better way to witness. Yeah. Right.

I was just curious for those wondering, listening to us today. And even those who aren't Christian, too, there's a lot of lessons from this story, too. I mean, maybe you want to speak about that for a second, Nate. I mean, the importance of, you know, relationships. and connection and intimacy. Oh, sure. There's a lot of lessons that could be brought into other domains of life from this.

Absolutely, yeah, yeah. It's all about being human. And some of us have to stop trying to be demigods and learn to be human. And addiction has a wonderful way of humbling us, bringing us down to street level. So, Bill, I attended a very similar group in Oxford this morning for the very first time.

Really? I actually happened to run into a guy last night at the kid's sports. Yeah. And he's told me about this group that's like almost exactly this. And they knew who they knew who Sam Society was when I mentioned it to them, you know, this morning. But it kind of had me reflect.

Like I've been a part of a Bible study at my Catholic church for, you know, years. And yet there's never been this level of vulnerability in the group is what I found this morning. And I wonder if it's just setting up the right environment and context where, you know, the purpose of this group is we're just going to share and be vulnerable with each other and talk about it all. in it like your church one, that's not how it's set up. It's like we're studying the Bible or we're studying this. It's just not set up on that foundation for people to be vulnerable. Can you speak to that at all or what churches could do better to create those kind of environments?

Yeah, there certainly is a place for instruction and discussion and Bible study. And I still do, we still do Bible studies. And some Samson meetings are book studies. But we also have a need to connect. And if there is not an option, if the church does not provide an option, a place where we can bring our real selves and say the real truth, then we run a grave risk of just creating a lot of religious performers. And otherwise being a Samson. Yeah. And being a – without it, you can't go from Samson to David.

That's right. Yeah. And you know what? It's long term it gets discouraging. because, you know, you study and you learn the right things and you learn what to do. I learned what to do. I knew what to do. You were a pro at that.

I just couldn't do it. I had the answers. Here's the thing. I was doing irrational things for non-rational reasons. And I was trying to solve the problem by rational means. But I don't think that's a unique story. No. In fact, I think that's a pretty common story.

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe not with sex addiction, but with any number of things that are that are keeping you from being your childlike whole human self. Yeah, yeah. So interesting. All right, two other quick things. How many, you may not fully know, given the organic nature of this, but how many total participants do you guys estimate that you've had the date? our best guess right now is about between 20,000 and 25,000, we don't know.

That's insane. That's a huge number. And the final thing for our benefit, but I think other listeners, too, we just launched six local service clubs around the country, Army and Normal Folks. And I'm curious, and other listeners with their work, maybe curious, too, how did you guys grow? Like, what lessons should people take away from it? And I'm sure part of it is the Holy Spirit and the real nature and what you guys are doing.

Yeah. But I'm curious what you would have to say to that, that people can learn from. You know, I think we're still in the process. We're trying to figure out how best can we scale this thing up? Not to, we don't want to. You already got 600 clubs. How'd you do that? It's by inspiration and information and telling the story.

Yeah. It's fine. She said tell the story because Alex and I and the people that stand together, many of us believe the storytelling is integral and the growth of things like this because people need to understand the story. And people are much more motivated and they feel much more connected to storytelling than they do a slot show. Absolutely.

Yeah. Tell the story. Yeah. Yeah. And connect. Nate, I can't tell you how much I appreciate you coming down from Franklin, especially now that I know that Ali's in treatment. and I know you want to be with her.

I'm down Franklin, most importantly. And I know that there is somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 guys around the country that are really happy. You're the founder of the Samson Society. And I can't wait to read Samson and the Pirate Monks. Can I get that like on Amazon or whatever? You sure can, yeah.

All right. An absolute pleasure to meet you, and thanks for your time today. I have enjoyed this so much, and I'm just so honored by the, by the invitation and so inspired by the vision of Stand Together. You guys are doing amazing work. Nate, I appreciate it.

Thank you very much. And thank you for joining us this week. If Nate Larkin has inspired you in general, or better yet to take action by joining a Samson or Sarah Society group in your community, maybe even exploring starting one, being vulnerable with your story, or something else entire life, let me know. I really do want to hear about it. You can write me anytime at Bill

at normalfolks. Us. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with friends on on social, subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it, join the army at normalfolks.us, join or start one of our local service clubs or buy our merch, wear it around and have people ask you what in the world that is and tell them about us. Any and all of these things that will help us grow, an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. Until next time, do what you can. All right, listen up. The Jonas

Brothers here. Our podcast is called, Hey Jonas. We've here, since everyone has a podcast, we want it to as well. And we've had some incredible guests so far. And now our good friend, Nile Horn, is joining the show. How's it going, boys? Hey, Nile. It's the same thing with Slow Hands. Slow Hands is not about anything else, really, is it? You know, or taste so good can't be

about food. You do the same, Nick, with some of the stuff that you've done. You too, Joe. Drop what you're doing and listen to Hey Jonas on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. It's that time to put on your jersey and wave your flag, whoever you root for. Why do I watch the walk up? That's like asking me, why do I breed?

And it's beautiful. The guys are young and cute and fit. It's not just a game. It's your culture. I like watching it with my dad. It's a connecting force. From Futuro Studios, I'm Fernanda Chavari, and this is American Football,

a show about soccer culture in the U.S. and its underdog roots. Listen to American football on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This Black Music Month, The Questlove show celebrates the visionaries, shaping culture, through sound, from country trailblazer Mickey Gaiden to hip-hop icon Fav-5 Freddie, the sonic genius of Thundercat, and the revolutionary voice of Chuck D. I want it loud. So the timing might be off, the sound might be muffled, but what's going to come out of there is something that you can feel.

Celebrate Black Music Month with special episodes of The Questlove Show. Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Real talent is defined by what people can do, not where they learn to do it. So by stopping at the education section of a resume, you might throw away the perfect tire. Skills first hiring helps you see talent others miss, like more than 70 million stars, skilled through alternative routes. Let their story unfold and gain a competitive advantage because hiring managers who start with skills

are 60% more likely to find a successful hire. Higher skills first. Learn why at tear the paper ceiling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. Here's something that should not be as complicated as it is, getting a racist statue removed. And here's something that should be a whole lot easier than it is, getting a new one put up in its place.

I'm Akela Hughes, And Rebel Spirit Season 2 is about both of those things. As I was watching these statues come down, I was thinking about what it meant that I grew up in a majority of black city in which there were more homages to enslavers than there were to enslave people. Listen to Rebel Spirit Season 2 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.