Kolton Thomas: 0:00

Welcome to the Reclaimed and Unashamed podcast. We are helping men to rewire their brains and overcome the shame that often surrounds unwanted pornography use. I'm your host, Kolton Thomas, and you're listening to episode 17 with guest Allan Stanford. Now, Alan is a trained counselor. He has gotten his CSAP certification in the past, which stands for Certified Sex Addiction Therapist, and he brings a lot of experience and unique perspective to this interview, so I've been really excited to release this one. I will say he is a father of five kids, and so you parents will understand this, but he didn't have room in the house to record this episode, so he actually went outside. But I actually kind of like the nature sounds in the background of this episode. I hope you do too. You can just kind of close your eyes and imagine that you're right there having this conversation with us on Alan's back porch. So, anyways, let's get started and let's dive right in. Alan, welcome so much. I'm so glad you could be on the Reclaim podcast today.

Allan Stanford: 0:57

Hey, thanks for inviting me, man.

Kolton Thomas: 0:58

Yeah, man Alan is a mentor of mine. He's a therapist in the community here, where I'm from. We've had a lot of conversations about therapy. We're also from the same alma mater. Why don't you start by just like telling us a little bit about you, a little bit about your background and journey in therapy as a counselor?

Allan Stanford: 1:13

Yeah, sure I. So, as you said, I got my master's degree at John Brown University. I started that at UCA here in Conway, about an hour from here. But you know, life is complicated and we had kids and that derailed that part of my career for a while. So I actually worked in IT for 11 years as a database architect Sort of self-taught slash. People took me under their wing and taught me a lot of great things. So that's how I family for the first decade. And then I got around to going back to grad school and finish that up.

Allan Stanford: 1:49

So at the time when I finished at John Brown, there was I want to say that there were two certified sex addiction therapists in the Littlerock area and maybe four statewide. There's numbers not gonna be exactly right, but that's, it's close to that. So one of my professors, or two of my professors, actually really encouraged me to consider that, just because it's important. You know, a lot of times when you're finishing grad school and you're trying to establish yourself in a market to have some kind of focus, so that you're not just like a broad array but if you kind of specialize in something you get more attention. And so one of my professors was that other therapist in Littlerock who was CSA trained and the other professor was about to start that, and so actually I started it with that professor Started that, that certification process. It's a long process. That fastest you can do it is in about a year and a half, but for a lot of people it takes longer than that.

Kolton Thomas: 2:43

Yeah, so really quickly, that training is called CSAT and it stands for Certified Sex Addiction Therapist. And yeah, what you're saying is that I've heard that before that that's a very long training, that's very thorough, it's very detailed, and so you decided to specialize yourself by getting that training right out of school.

Allan Stanford: 3:03

I did, yeah, so I did that and that sort of opened up a lot of work I was doing with people in the community, you know, around certainly around pornography, but also around like serial affairs.

Kolton Thomas: 3:15

So you do. You see the work that you do to help men with pornography and sex addiction as more of a part of a larger system that we're trying to bring healing into their lives, because you're trying to help heal marriages and relationships. But now you're able to use that CSAT training and your experience in that area as a crucial part of that system to bring about the healing. Is that a good way of saying it?

Allan Stanford: 3:38

Yeah, I think everybody knows this intuitively if they thought very hard about the subject. Compulsive pornography use or other forms of sex addiction is a pathology or a woundedness related to allowing someone else in to my deepest self, like you know, in in the closest possible way. That is a desperately needed experience as human beings and especially depending on what our sort of attachment wounding is. You know from childhood, it's a powerful experience to have somebody come all the way in and want my good right and to move towards what is good and what feels good. For me. It feels like being loved and so, that being the case, it has implications for every other aspect of our lives, but especially our partnerships, our marriages, as we are learning how to genuinely let someone into that space. Instead of in a way that doesn't really require us to take the risk of vulnerability, it allows us to kind of short circuit the process and and let somebody in an artificial way because we don't believe we can have access to that in an authentic way. So starting to unlearn that and let somebody in in in the deepest possible ways is connected to pornography difficulties.

Allan Stanford: 4:53

Or, 130 years ago, gk Chesterton said every man that knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God. Yeah, I mean, that's what it finally boils down to. It's. It's finally this the man who wrestles with pornography or with compulsive sex is different than anybody else that has ever lived. It is the fundamental core human dilemma am I good enough, is love for me, and do I qualify for connection and attachment?

Kolton Thomas: 5:22

Right, I think we're getting really quickly to some of the really good truths here and I'm excited about where this can go from here. So we're kind of laying a foundation of you know the level of depth that we should be thinking about this issue. Earlier you mentioned something. You mentioned attachment styles. You said depending on your attachment style, and then you kind of went on. Could you explain how that is a crucial part to understand when it comes to men? Trying to understand like, what is this is driving my sexual behaviors?

Allan Stanford: 5:51

Yeah, I think what I said was attachment wounding and the phrase attachment style is a sort of quasi clinical pop culture word that really it refers to how your attachment wounding has left you. It's like the state that your attachment trauma has left you in is what's popularly called your attachment style. It's not my favorite language, because calling it stylistic makes it seem like it's just the way I do things or something, or like it's a benign in that regard that you could put it down and take up another style if you liked, and it's just simply isn't that way. It really should be called something like attachment scarring. But yeah, it's what you believe is required of you to do or not. Do or be or not be in order to qualify for Connection with another person. It's the playbook or the rules by which you believe In order to survive being connected to another person. This, these are the things that have to be true and the things that have to be untrue in order for that to work.

Kolton Thomas: 6:55

Mm-hmm, and different people have different playbooks for what needs to be true. Yeah, so what we're saying is that it shouldn't be that way.

Allan Stanford: 7:03

That's right. Yeah, I mean like the healed way to be is To be securely attached to yourself, so like if you, you know, if you were to save somebody. You know Johnny's a nice guy. I was a little insecure. What you're communicating is he needs a lot of like reassurance, and it seems like he's playing to the crowd a lot, or that he's Like constantly checking in with you to find out if he's okay. He doesn't know he's okay, right, and so that's the longer script is to not be that way, is to be securely attached to yourself, to know that it's okay. Be Allen, and that that's true. Because it's true, Not because I'm good enough or because I'm competent or but because I'm me. That's the truth. I'm comfortable in my own skin, right? Yeah, that's really helpful explanation.

Kolton Thomas: 7:49

So what are some examples of these unhealthy attachments? These play, these unhealthy playbooks that we develop, that are basically set up for us?

Allan Stanford: 7:58

to fail. Yeah, so well, I was gonna say, was the final part of that is is that, if that were true about me, I was perfectly securely attached to myself. I Now feel nothing or little in terms of anxiety or Self-filtering or or self censorship when it comes to meeting another person and beginning a relationship with them. I'm perfectly okay for them to see my whole self because I'm not preoccupied with how I'm coming off in that moment. I'm now perfectly open to this other person and so I can see them better than I could if I were less secure. So, becoming the or okay you are with yourself, the closer you can get to another person. So if the other person is doing the same, that's a secure relationship. Does that make sense?

Kolton Thomas: 8:42

Yes, it does.

Allan Stanford: 8:43

But then to take it to where you were going next. You know it's like so what? If it's not that way, how does it inform the way we interact? And it's this stupid dance that we do that we think we have to do because it's not okay to be me. This other person needs me to fulfill some expectation. The only way I get to be here, get to dance, is if I meet that expectation. Well, and I think maybe you're gonna Next about what? There's some of those dance.

Kolton Thomas: 9:07

Yeah. Some of the stupid dances that we do that get us into trouble with pornography and how does it link like specific examples like how does this link to Sexual behaviors?

Allan Stanford: 9:17

I think I would say in one sense it has very little to do with our compulsive sexual behavior, especially as it relates to pornography. With some exceptions, I think most people go to pornography Because they naturally into it. How dysfunctional their attachment wounding is, and how painful and stupid the role that they're forced to play in order to qualify for attachment Is for them. How painful that is. And so we fantasize about what if that weren't true. What if I could just have sex with a woman and just be accepted the way that I am, and that I could just like be caught up in this Rapturous experience with her with, and not be encumbered by all my wounding? That leaves me awkward. And still, you know, severe wounding in terms of attachment still shows up sometimes, and it's in more extreme stuff I like I don't want to use the word extreme just because it makes it sound like unusual. It's not unusual at all, but like if you think of a porn genre where the fantasy being set up is that one person is being humiliated.

Allan Stanford: 10:23

This is like another man having sex with another man's wife in front of him, or something like that the viewer is then free to Move from person to person with whoever they want to identify with in the moment, you know. But there's pretty intense attachment wounding at play in that that says, if I'm fantasizing about being the man who's being humiliated, that I. There's this like deep lesson for me that informs me that the way I qualify for attachment is by going belly up and letting other people humiliate me and that's like that is how they can gain access to a really intimate side of me. And this is like this is how I qualify for this arrangement is that I'm the one being humiliated. It's really sad if you think about it in terms and it's really painful, but it's the only way they know how to Gain access to that really vulnerable place is to be overpowered in that way. So then you start to get into like domination, mission stuff that that stuff is playing out. The same thing there's.

Allan Stanford: 11:24

There's a fantasy being played out that is especially for the Dom person is fantasizing about what it's like to win and to get to that very vulnerable and sexual part of themselves without being beaten or without being threatened in any way by so. So much to the extreme, in fact, that that they are dominating the other person and it started to get into like really kind of pathological Sexual behaviors. Especially if you rest in that in real life you know where you're like raping and hurting people is a. I mean the people who are doing that you don't have your like neurological problems are working something out. I mean they're they're working out their own feeling dominated and oppressed and they're like, in some cases, living out what it's like to To get finally to what's good for them without having to be broken by somebody else, even if that requires breaking somebody else. Does that make sense?

Kolton Thomas: 12:16

Yeah, it's a kind of yeah, so you know, someone has developed a story about themselves, this narrative, that is very insecure, meaning that they cannot exist and they cannot develop meaningful relationships with people because of XYZ. That they've kind of put in their own way, this playbook they've made, that they're trying to play by, but that is ultimately really hurting them. You know, we look at all the different genres of pornography and different kinds of fantasies and they seem endless. You know people say there's a fantasy for literally everything. But what you're saying is that's definitely not accidental. People in the types of fantasies that they gravitate to you are actually working something out in their story in order to try to feel secure. Right, it's an attempt. It's an attempt to feel accepted, authentic and secure in who they are.

Allan Stanford: 13:08

It's also an attempt at what we call trauma renegotiation. What's that? Where you go back to a painful situation where you were disempowered or hurt or that you in one way or another and you try and experience it differently, or like you try to win instead of losing, or you're going back to a painful event to experience again because you think it's the only way you know how to get there. Like this ties into some of like battered wife syndrome, you know stuff where people keep, keep going back to this really hurtful experience. It's over and over and over again and part of it is, for a lot of people, a really natural core desire to go back in hopes that they're going to experience it differently this time. Maybe if I could do it better this time, maybe he wouldn't hit me or you know yeah.

Kolton Thomas: 13:55

So how does pornography, for example? Why is that so tempting for people? Why does it give them an opportunity to try to experience things differently?

Allan Stanford: 14:05

Yeah, it's fantasy, so it's safe. You can turn it off whenever you want to. You're not exposed in any way, nobody can see you and you're sort of fly on the wall. You know, or depending on the type of porn and how it's set up, you're intended to imagine yourself as one of the partners, right? Yeah, so it's like behind curtains and closed doors, going back to these really tender places and processing that your sort of zip and out.

Allan Stanford: 14:38

It's just that it's a trap that doesn't ever. It never bears fruit. It isn't actually helping you process anything because it isn't real relationship. More often than not, depending on how you're approaching it, you're just it's just trauma repetition. You're not renegotiating anything, you're just experiencing it the same way over and over again. Yeah, A traversal thing that I would say is that I think that sometimes people in their healing journey and the 12 step guys are going to hate this At some point in your journey. I think it does make sense sometimes to revisit that stuff and if you're doing it through a lens of curiosity about yourself and you're trying to understand what's happening in me as I'm watching this, doing a deep dive, I have seen that be very different times. I know that's interesting.

Kolton Thomas: 15:25

Yeah, I think one reason why I think one argument for why men would not want to revisit it in order to heal is because we kind of believe that by watching it you're not just a fly in the wall, You're sort of actively participating or kind of shaping. It's shaping your heart, like Jesus talks about. The things that you see ultimately get into the body and into the heart and affect you that way. But I wonder if, in a way, kind of what you're talking about is like exposure therapy, like well, there's something that you really really fear. If you go into that thing with bravery and courage, you might be able to come out with better outcomes.

Kolton Thomas: 16:05

I do remember reading a book. It's called how to Kill a Lion. There's many, many books on overcoming pornography, but I remember the author was a counselor and he talked about watching some old video. I don't think it wasn't like hardcore pornography, but it was something that when he was younger really sort of triggered him and set him off on his journey of unwanted sexual behavior. And I think he sat down and rewatched it with his wife and processed it with her, or maybe that is kind of an example of what you're talking about.

Allan Stanford: 16:37

It is. Yeah, it's touching on what I'm talking about for sure. Yeah, I would say Letting things into your heart. No, if you get to get a faith Approach to that, I mean you'd have to say about Christ that he's fearless. It's simply is untrue that Christ would ever turn away and blush at something that he saw. He has command over his own heart and he's not indulging anything like you know. Be with sinners and look right at them and love them.

Allan Stanford: 16:59

Surely the ultimate answer is isn't fear, real healing and really overcoming it. Even if you don't do it must include a capacity to look right at it and love the people involved. And the most important person involved for men watching is the little boy Standing beside them who is sorting something out. And if you for the you know, for the guy you're talking about his wife being present, if she's strong enough to do that, that's wonderful. But it's an individual journey, and to be able to hold that little boy's hand and go and look at that thing that he's desperate for, slash, terrified of, love him in the in the context of that, and walk away with him is is critical. I'm not everybody, I'm not saying like hey, so what you really should do is go fearlessly and look at porn.

Kolton Thomas: 17:48

Yeah. So I think there's different ways to do that, you know, and I think that, like you said, it's probably not for everybody, but, for example, the environment in the context in which they do that is gonna be super, super important. So like not telling anyone that you're doing that while you're still in the middle of an intense porn addiction and then trying to go into porn to heal Sounds like for most men that would be a bad idea, I would say. But, for example, in the ten week program that we have it reclaimed, one of the required actions, one of the assignments, is that men right down some of the specific things they have put in their search bars and they kind of confront those things. But they're doing it in the context of a program where they're also going to meet one-on-one with me and we're gonna talk through those things and they also are going to pray about it, pray before doing it, pray afterwards. So you're surrounding it in a spiritual context. You have accountability For when you do it. That's different than rewatching anything, but it still gets it kind of what we're talking about. It's like being willing to write those fantasies down and really face them, and I think what you said is really important. It's driving out the fear that's there because love casts out fear.

Kolton Thomas: 19:09

And Jesus was not, like you say what he's, not a fearful person. He would not. I don't think he'd be afraid of porn and, like I said, I don't think you'd look at porn and kind of like blush and turn away and like not talk about it. I think he would speak truth very directly into it and see it for exactly what it is. And you know personally I share with men that you know it can be a long journey but eventually I, just speaking for myself, I can. I can see, you know, former porn actresses or even current ones in front of a camera talking about their experience in the industry and things like that and genuinely have feelings of of empathy and sadness. But for a lot of men, just hearing the name of a porn actress or looking at them Could be a very, very triggering action.

Allan Stanford: 19:55

That's where therapy and doing your work comes into play, and this is why Important year me say it that I'm not recommending this for just anybody you have to develop a certain window of tolerance for your own triggers and your own Culsion to be able to walk into that fire and experience it differently.

Allan Stanford: 20:15

And that's part of the problem. I think that's part of what creates addiction is that when we is a kind of desperate attempt at moving back into it, but without the equipment that we need and without the understanding and the relationship with self that we need in order to do it Safely, and so you end up just in this feedback loop where you just get so triggered and spiraled out in your trauma that you are Then desperate to return to it and get one more taste, you know, and like you never find freedom that way. So you definitely there's a time and place for that kind of exposure and it's like it's part of a journey, but not it's not for every part of the journey.

Allan Stanford: 20:48

Yeah, you want to think that I want to be the kind of older men. A naked woman could walk into their office and his first thought would be are you okay? What's happening and like to you know?

Kolton Thomas: 20:59

yeah to blanket or something.

Allan Stanford: 21:01

Yes, what's going on, not like being overpowered by the fact that there's a naked one, like we're perpetually 14 year old boys, you know like at some point healing mean looks like growing up and not being so Overpowered by the sex or nakedness.

Kolton Thomas: 21:18

Yeah, when I hear that story, like when I hear you share that example, I just picture, like you said, perpetually 14 year old boys. But also it's like we have this Constantly craving flesh. Why do we walk around with this intense craving so much of the time? And I think it goes back to our hearts feeling empty and us living From this woundedness, like you're talking about this, these insecure attachments, this insecurity to be authentic Selfs. So let's talk about that. Like, how does one move away from these wounded, insecure Attachment styles and stories that they're trying to live by, they're hurting them? Like, how does one start that healing journey?

Allan Stanford: 22:01

Well, it's super practical level. I mean therapy, you know, is. Yeah really helpful, yeah, gotta plug through therapists?

Kolton Thomas: 22:10

Yeah, for sure. I.

Allan Stanford: 22:11

Yeah, I mean I'm gonna say it can't be done without therapy, but I certainly don't be done so much faster with therapy If you're walking with somebody who has done their work as well and and you can walk with. But I think, like on a philosophical level, when you know 30 000 foot view, it looks like repairing those attachment wounds from childhood, learning these messages that you unfortunately learned from mom and dad or other caregivers or at school as a youngster and you know, like going back and loving yourself better than that, like growing up is, I've said I think I've said this before but Growing up is not a process of replacing a child with an adult. That's not what growing up is. Growing up is the process of taking the reins of responsibility for that child away from your parents and away from away from others, where you are Ending securely attached to you, to that little boy or little girl. Does that make sense?

Kolton Thomas: 23:04

Yeah, it's where you learn how to soothe and comfort the little boy or little girl inside you that tends to take control, that has you thinking those negative thoughts and doing those negative behaviors. It's your ability to Be a mature enough person to recognize when that inner child, that little boy, that little girl, is screaming out, trying to take control, uncomfortable, sad, wounded. It's your ability as an adult, I think, to comfort that part of yourself and recognize. You know those things in your story right.

Allan Stanford: 23:36

Absolutely and maybe most importantly, to speak with authority, do that job that you are owning responsibility for, speaking authoritatively and not somebody else, not not saying I love you and then turning and looking for Some surrogate mom or dad and saying right, or like, is that okay? Or like it as this little boy qualifies. He done what he's supposed to do to be good enough.

Kolton Thomas: 24:02

It's pushing back at that and owning the connection to love and I think that in your relationship with yourself, with authority, yeah, that's really good and well said and this is kind of where, you know, our listeners on the show have also We've heard from dr Eddie caperucci talked a lot about inner child and he's written the book going deeper about healing your inner child, and so this is where I kind of see our podcast kind of those concepts coming into play when we're talking about the insecure attachments or the, you know, the woundedness. What we're talking, starting to talk about now, is that inner child awareness and work. Uh, that's so important. Is that right? And saying that is the inner child, what we're talking about here.

Allan Stanford: 24:41

Yeah, really important language. It's super useful and it's it's ancient language, I would say so. I mean, if you look at the example of st Peter, who's you know, he's an easy character to love Because he's so stupid and he my wife tells me I reminder of Peter.

Kolton Thomas: 24:59

Man Don't say that. I know Peter's like.

Allan Stanford: 25:04

My patronus, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, he, he's such a a child, he's such a child in the gospels and, uh, he, like his relationship with, with Jesus is, it's so juvenile. It's very hard to reconcile that man, um, who said the things that he said and did the bullheaded things that he did, with the man who wrote first and second Peter. I mean he they sound like different people and even we're gonna get to hear from him directly in acts, but he's talked about a lot. It's like the things that he's doing in acts. It's like where did that immature little boy go?

Allan Stanford: 25:46

And this is the great lesson of the, of the ascension, and why Jesus didn't just stick around and stay and say Be here to be the adult for everybody to tell them what is good, that's good and what's not good and what you know in every little situation. Because he wants us to grow up and that that's seen brilliantly in Peter who, if Jesus had stayed, he would have just forever tugged at his garments and and just said what would I do now? What would I do now? Peter has to grow up in own responsibility for stepping into that role and he does so, you know, inadequately and and, uh, flailingly at times, but he finds his feet though and he gets there. And that's to do that. You have to take what Jesus taught him and turn that inward and love that little boy and stand up for him as a man and and grow up. That's yeah.

Kolton Thomas: 26:35

Yeah, I mean Peter had to grow up in light of a couple big Mistakes that he made. I'm thinking about when he started walking on the water but sank, you know, if you don't think that that stuck with him, let alone the denying Jesus three times, I mean the Peter that you see at Pentecost boldly speaking out for the gospel and, like you said, the one that penned first and second. Peter is someone who we see has matured greatly and overcome a great deal of fear. But if you think that those memories, those big ways that he failed, have left him, I think you'd really be wrong. I think he probably thought about that, if not almost every day, maybe, who knows?

Allan Stanford: 27:13

absolutely, yeah, absolutely. And paul talks about the same journey you know, growing up and it all for me. It all is Illustrated and modeled out for us in the trinitarian reality that at the heart of reality itself is a father loving his son and that as people who are made like him that we have to live out that own reality in ourselves, the holy spirit of love that passes between the father and son. That has to be true for us individually if we're going to have relationships with others, the way that got his relations with others as well, which is that it starts and I am in being a self conscious being on, both observer and observed simultaneously, and that there a look of love between my adult self and my little boy self Be integrated in the whole.

Kolton Thomas: 28:00

Alright, so that's actually the end of our episode for today. Shortly after that last rumble of thunder is heard raining on allen and so we called it. But we actually recorded another interview which I'm going to release in another episode, so stay tuned for that, you know. I do want to say that I love the way that episode ended, just talking about the father's love for his son and how we can model after that, not just for our relationship with others but with ourselves, to be secure in ourselves and in our identities and to commit to working out our stories and any areas where we're not secure In a healthy way. There are healthy ways to do that not turning to born, but turning instead to god and to help from others who we can look to him, we can trust. Now I have to laugh because right around the time we started dissing on peter is when the first rumble of thunder came and I thought, okay, hopefully god's not upset at this, maybe he's affirming this, but regardless, allen was a champ for sticking it through the weather and again, so many odds getting this podcast episode recorded. So wherever you are listening to this, stay safe, stay dry and, as always, thanks for listening to the reclaimed and unashamed podcast.

Kolton Thomas: 29:17

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