In this episode, we talk with Nate Larkin about his story of recovery and how his porn use impacted his family and his calling as a Pastor. We dive into the blast radius of porn use, the consequences of porn use, and much more. Nate addresses the pressing questions of:

• What were some of the consequences experienced by you and your family during your years of active addiction?
• Is there a difference between abstinence and victory?  
• What benefits have you gained from engaging openly with the issue of porn?

Bio

Nate Larkin is the founder of the Samson Society and the author of Samson and the Pirate Monks: Calling Men to Authentic Brotherhood, [Thomas Nelson 2007].  He is also the author, with Darrell Waltrip, of Sundays Will Never Be the Same, published by Simon & Schuster in 2012. The oldest son of a Pentecostal preacher, Nate Larkin graduated from St. Lawrence University, where he served as president of the Campus Christian Fellowship, and Princeton Theological Seminary, where he majored in Preaching and was awarded the Preaching Prize.  Within two years of graduating from Princeton, Nate and his wife Allie had planted a non-denominational church in South Florida.              By this time, however, Nate had developed a secret addiction to pornography and commercial sex.  Five years later, Nate quit the ministry, driven by private despair about his moral failures and a fear of public exposure.  He switched careers, building a successful engineering business and remaining active in church life, while his addictive behavior continued.             In 1998 Nate and Allie moved to Franklin, Tennessee, where Nate finally found help for his sex addiction in the safety of a 12-step recovery group.   His circle of friends steadily expanded, eventually including a large group of men with diverse weaknesses—addicts and potential addicts of every description, united by a common faith and a need for true companionship.  In 2004, Nate and several of these friends formed a mutual aid society for Christian men called the Samson Society. As of 2020, more than 500 local Samson Society groups have started, and men from around the world are attending daily online video meetings at samsonsociety,org.  Nate is a popular speaker at conferences, colleges and retreats, and is the co-host of two podcasts, the Pirate Monk Podcast and the Positive Sobriety Podcast.  He and his wife Allie live in Franklin, TN.   # # #   February 2020

Resources to Share:

Links: https://samsonsociety.com/