So great news, B-side is ad-free. There's nothing worse than listening to an amazing something, and then it breaks for some ad. I think anytime you can get a bunch of great things in one place, you got to do it, like the B-side app. Exclusive content, that alone is probably worth getting this. I mean, it's special stuff that we're going to do just for the B-side community. So that's on the app. There is community moments in an app like B-side that you really can't replicate anywhere else. It's pretty cool. So if you're somebody who's searching for community, friendships, or people of like-minded, whatever, B-side is that. And we have a lot of great events at B-side, and you're the first to know if you have the app. So don't miss out on something because you didn't know about it. Get this app, and it's way worth it. We love you. We want you to have the best. Get the app. So glad you're here. Wherever you're listening to this, hope you're well. If you're watching this, glad you're here. This is episode 2. What we did on this episode, what you can expect us to hear our story.

We felt like it was important to be able to walk people through our journey up to here. How did we get here? How did we get to a place where we're alive, we're happy, we're talking, and we're healing? It's a story of God's grace. So we hope that it's a blessing to you. In here, we talk about why we left New York City, where we went, what job I got, why I ended up in rehab, what I learned there, and what our hopes for the future are. So that's the hope, is that this episode will continue to shine a light on what can happen if you don't give up. That's our story. You're going to get hit with stuff in life where you can either lay down or you can get up and break through. Our lives are evidence of what happens if you choose the breakthrough route. So hope it's a blessing. Enjoy. See you soon. We When we got to LA trying to recover somewhat, and there was a lot of media presence at that time still, and it was a confusing time. And we had a conversation where you basically said, I'm going to go I'm going to get help.

You went to On-Site, which we've referenced before. Do you want to talk a little bit about what that was like for you? Yeah. That's where the Skittles happened and me being the broken vase.

You are the broken vase. Go ahead. You are the broken vase.

Tell Can you tell me a little bit about it.

On-site is a place. It's incredible. It's been around for a really long time. We had some close friends that firstly put you… You went there first and It was quite an intensive when everything first went down when we were still in New York. Then I went when we got to LA. I was like, Okay, now everyone's settled. I'm going to go. I was able to go to which is an incredible place for therapy. They do group settings. They do family therapy. They have a rehab as well for addiction. They have all these different programs that they did. But I chose to do the intensive, which is a four-day, one-on-one intensive with one person.

Now, we'll say, babe, that it was also really hard for you to accept that. And then you did because your pattern is to put yourself last even in this. And I don't know who grabbed you. It wasn't me and spoke into you, but you just woke up one day and you were like, I'm going to get help from myself because your pattern for a long time had been keep the peace.

I think it was actually Dino Rizzo It could have been Dino. He was like, You need to go. But I felt like I couldn't go until we had a little bit of- A little bit of somewhat-Normalcy in the middle of COVID. But yeah, so I didn't want to do it. Again, I didn't want to leave the kids. I didn't want to leave you. It was really hard because this was the first time I had to really trust you for me to be by myself because I didn't have a phone. I didn't have anything. I was completely off the grid, and you were at home with the kids. It was just a scary time.

You said to me, I'm going. So you're going to do what you're going to do. I got to go.

I had to go. So Basically, I did an intensive. It was four days, which they say it's worth about five years of therapy. So it's a lot, and it's very intense. It is exactly what it is. But I went there with literally, I think what I learned is I had no voice. I lost everything. When I got to on site, the process is you fill out a form. It's a little questionnaire that they give you online, you send it in and then you get to on-site and it's like your phones are taken, everything's gone. Then I met my therapist and we go to this room. It's Our Room. As soon as I got there, I knew. Well, I didn't really, but I knew that it was on. From the moment I stepped into the room, he was so sweet. I can't even remember his name. It doesn't matter. But we got in there, and from the moment we got in there, he was like, Okay, this is going to be our room for the next four days. Where would you like to sit? Or what would you like to sit on? And he said, There's a couch, there's a seat.

You can sit on a cushion on the floor. You can just sit crisscross on the floor wherever you want. And I was like, I don't care. Whatever. And he was like, No, you need to pick. Just choose a seat. And I was like, I honestly don't care. Where do you want me to sit? I don't care. And from that moment, I knew that this was going to be a long journey because then for the next 30 minutes, he asked me a bunch of questions. Where do you want to sit? And I had to pick where I wanted to sit. Where do you want to sit in the room? Where do you want me to sit in the room? And he was asking me, and I'm like, I don't freaking care. Just sit anywhere. But I was learning that I didn't know how to make decisions. I didn't know how to say what I wanted. I didn't know how to say what I really felt. For four days, I had to get in touch with myself. It was probably the hardest. It was so hard. I'm sure people can relate. Maybe they can't, but it was really exhausting.

But I learned so much. I got to the bottom of feeling how my body felt with trauma, how my body felt with just connecting to the and to anyone around me. We did all these... You do all these different exercises, and it's a lot of work. It's literally from 9:00 to 6:00, full day. You get a break for lunch and dinner, and then you go to bed. But it was a lot. It helped me so much, though. I came home with such clarity, and we went through every question. It was the first time I'd felt like I had help for myself. Someone me, someone knew me, and someone was pushing me to be a better person and to really use my voice. And so I came back and I did use my voice with you.

You did. It was hard to hear and beautiful to hear. I loved... One of the things that started to change was you having an opinion that you didn't apologize for and your laughter. That came a little bit later, but I know it started... That valve began to release because you're extremely funny. And that had left a lot in our marriage because there was no fun to be had. You were trying to survive, trying to make sense of it. And that was gone from our household. And when that started to return, I think even our kids, you make your kids laugh just by your accent, which makes no sense. It's Australian. Well, I'm constantly teased by my accent. But, yeah, it was cool to see you and to hear you realize. It's not fun to be the guy when the spouse comes back from on-site because so matter of fact, you have had a hand in me not having a voice anymore.

Well, it was to the point, I can talk about this, when I did one of the exercises, and it was three hula-hoops, and they represented me, you, and our life. And he wanted me to make them connect. How would you put this? How do these work with your life? I stood there for 20 minutes. I could not... Moving these stupid hula-hoops around, I couldn't figure out how to make it work? I kept asking him, I'm like, Does this look right? Do I do it like this? He's like, I don't know. It drove me insane. But it was that point where I realized I had nothing outside of you and outside of our kids and our church. I had to really find myself. I came back really focused on realizing that I was codependent, that I had become codependent in Our relationship, and everything I did was for everyone else. The only thing I knew that I loved was being at the ocean. When we were able to leave New York, someone asked, Where do you want to go? And I said, I just want to be near the beach. That's all I knew. That feeling of understanding what I wanted, I didn't know what I needed.

That was a full journey. That was probably a year of that, trying to figure out what I loved, what I wanted to do with my life, what I wanted to... So when we got to Florida, that was the best because I found someone that helped me with that site as well. But that's for later. But yeah, it It was definitely a journey finding my voice.

It was huge. Impacting. I went before. So two days after all of our stuff exploded, I was so suicidal that Dino and Bob Goff, a couple of men that have never left our corner just made... Somehow I got there. I don't know how I got there. And how I describe on-site, it's where they broke me in a bunch of pieces, then they just send you home.

But you came back so excited.

I did because But on-site was where I found out that there's hope for me. I don't know how I'm going to get it done, but the choices I've made, they're my responsibility. The decisions I've made, my responsibility. Where some of the origin of the stuff that came from and caused me to become a person that could do that, not my responsibility. And I'll get into that in a second. But that was huge for me because at that point, I was just so filled with my my own self-loathing. I had written myself off. I left on cycle, and I don't know what I'm going to do, but there might be hope for me. There might be hope for me, yeah. So we're in LA, and at that same time, I could feel myself spiraling. When I talk about a spiral, if you find out you're caught up in compulsive living, you can't control, or you feel like you can't control your compulsions and desires, it becomes a pattern, cycle. I basically told you we were sitting on the beach, and I said to you, I'm not going to make it. I feel like I'm going to do exactly what I've done.

That's pretty much always been my cycle. There'd be a cycle that would include things that I hate, and then all of a sudden, you go through the shame, and then the regret, and then the remorse, then the loathing, and do it again. So the cycle sometimes can be months in between some of that stuff happening. I just said, I'm on the doorstep. I know, and I feel like I can't control myself. I want to go somewhere to get real help. And you said to me, Yes, I agree with you. If you do this again, there is no second chance. There's nothing. We're done. And I might even leave now. But I want you to know, I hope it goes well, and I think it's going to be something that helps you, and I'm believing for the best. And that was a crazy day. And I went to a rehab in Wickenberg, Arizona, that specialized in all different types of addictions and mental breakdown. And I went there knowing that I had issues, and I I found out when I was there that I was dealing with multiple addictions.

Well, you found out first at Onsite, I think that you had- Anxiety disorder.

Disorder. And chronic depression. And that all happened at Onsite. So I came home from Onsite knowing that I'm chronically depressed, unmedicated, have an anxiety disorder, and I didn't think I had any anxiety. It turns out that I internalized it so deeply that it just became a part of who I was. I found out I had some childhood trauma that produced some things in me that I did not see I'm in. And then so when I got to this rehab, it was... I mean, the drive from the airport to the thing is about an hour and a half into the dead of night desert. And you get there and you have to give your phone away. And they search you and you go through a big medical examination, and they basically shut the door behind you. And I remember that day going, this is it for me.

I can't believe them. And I couldn't talk to you for two weeks, the first two weeks. And this was over Christmas time.

Yeah, and our kids are still wondering what's going on. And then I leave to go to a rehab. You're by yourself.

I was by myself at Christmas with the three kids.

With the kids.

On the other side of the country that we just To move to.

Right before that was Thanksgiving, where we were headed to a friend's house that called five minutes before we left and said, Hey, we don't want you to come anymore. So our kids were like, Why aren't we going to Thanksgiving at this person's house? I'm like, You know what? Our plans have changed, and everybody was reeling from that. That's still painful because that's more kids' stuff that isn't deserved.

I get it. Ava has talked about that. She said that during that time, she didn't know if you were coming back. Because she was how old? 15? 15. 16. And so the anxiety, she started to have some anxiety issues. Stomac issues. Stomac issues started from that, which we didn't realize until a couple of years ago. When she started talking about it. She's like, I think that's when I started to get anxious was I didn't know if dad was coming back from when he went away in LA because everything was so up and Just crazy. They just-Fast and crazy. Because Charlie had come back from her hospital stay.

We don't live in New York anymore.

After she was done with the hospital, we left from New York the next day and moved to LA. So everyone was just-Reeling. It was just...

Reeling. It was awful. I'm in that rehab, and that place to me, it's the word they use, they use a mental picture called Hugging the Cactus. That's what real recovery looks like. You can leave anytime you want. I definitely tried to leave twice, maybe three times even.

Well, I said if I told someone to tell you- If you leave early. If you leave early, don't come back here.

Yeah. No talking for two weeks, and then you start getting letters. I read some of them a couple of months ago. We were looking through it. I don't Even looking back on the letters, so you sit there, and I think the feeling of being an utter failure overwhelms you when you're at a rehab and you're just there like, What has my life become? I remember reading Ava's beautiful handwriting when she basically said, Dad, I love you. Yeah, she I love you. Rehab is going to be great because they're going to help you fix some of the broken pieces.

How does that feel as a dad? Oh, man.

Oh, it's bad. It's bad because I'm like, I don't need my baby girl. Girl encouraging me. This is not the design. It definitely set me up, though, to stick it out. I found out early on, I found out that I had developed a drug addiction, and that was hard to hear because it was a part of my life for so long, and it was prescribed, and I obviously started to abuse it. I was a full-fledged drug addict on top of everything else, and with some one of my compulsion issues that led to things that you never think of me doing when it comes to infidelity and just lying. I found out that I was molested as a young boy. And when that happens, your brain chemistry is altered. And once they broke it down for me, I realized, yeah, this is a significant part of who I am that I have left unaddressed, unattended- And that you downplayed. That I downplayed my whole life. And I was so mad most of the time at rehab. I was so mad because I'm like, this is such a clear reason why couldn't God save me a different way?

And I spent every other day mad because I'm like, This isn't fair. And they teach you, and it's good for me to re-highlight on our own podcast, When you give reasons for why you failed, it is not an excuse. If we don't give people reasons, nobody can grow from our story. There is no excuse for what I did. None. And there's still reasons. So the reasons are what they are. They don't change my consequence. They don't change the fact that it's my responsibility But when I found out that sexual abuse to a child in that way can alter you and begin a life pattern of secrecy and hiding and secrecy and hiding, and you don't even know why. You don't even know why I'm lying. I don't know why I'm lying. I don't know why I'm doing this. I don't And slowly but surely, I remember going in there feeling like a block of ice, and I felt like every day I would melt a little bit.

I was going to say the first letter I got from you that I burst into tears was when you said, I've realized I've got a drug addiction and I feel so different. And I bawled my eyes out because one of my things that I've been praying for for years was the fact that I knew I could see it, that it was like what was prescribed to you, but it was not good. It was not doing you good. Any time I'd try to bring it up, it was like, when you talk to an addict, they're going to give you the pushback. So it just was always an awful conversation. So when you sent me that letter, I bawled my eyes out and I felt such a relief. And So then it just gave me hope for whatever else was coming for the next six weeks of you being there. So, yeah, that was amazing.

What you learn in rehab is tools to stop manipulating everything around you. And I had learned ways to manipulate situations and people so I could function how I needed to function. And when you go to a place like that, there's just nowhere to go. There's nowhere to hide. And there were some really tough, hard moments. But sticking that out is one of my proudest victories as a man. Can you talk about...

Sorry, keep going. No, go ahead. Can you talk about one of the most significant moments that helped you in rehab?

Which one?

I was thinking about you talking to your little self.

Oh, man.

Because I think people think rehab is just maybe sitting in a room and trying to recover from whatever addiction you have. What was the work like? I just remember you talking about this one part that was very Yeah, let me get there.

I'm just going to take a breath, I think. And my tears still work. I understand that someone was asking me as my daughter, your dad always used to cry when you preach. Were those tears real? I'm proud to say they're real. I understand the question. I understand the criticism even. But crying was a healthy part of my life before. One of the few. One of the few. And it has carried over. Might even be worse. My tears are my tears. They come out, they come out. I wish I could do it on command. Not that good, not that special. So you go through a thing where they help you dig into the age you were when that abuse happened. And it's hard. You just don't want to go there. And when you first get to rehab, there's a bunch of grown men walking around with stuffed animals. And you're like, Man, what are these guys doing with stuffed animals? They're like, Oh, have you been to week three yet? I'm like, No, you'll see. You'll see. It's like fight club. And then we go through our own. I remember as I'm sitting there with the therapist, and you do it with three other guys that are in your learning pod.

After we start talking for a little But I remember grabbing my otter, like a stuffed otter. And I remember leaving that thing after a lot of stuff went down in that session and walking around with my stuffed animal. And I would see new guys. They were like, What's with the stuffed animal? I'll be like, You'll see. But they force you to go back to that age where you were damaged and begin to speak life into it and begin to understand yourself and begin to understand what happens to a brain at that age. I had a beautiful family, a beautiful upbringing. I love my mom and dad. They're amazing. It just was one horrible situation with a house guest. As a parent, it's your worst nightmare because we've all been there. You trust people. And I was violated. I was abused. It caused a lot of wreckage. I'm going to use it. I don't know if I'll ever not be emotional. I don't think you will. I don't think I will. It's hard to think about what it was like to be lost before knowing some of these answers. And so you get to this place where you start talking to this kid.

They make you write a letter with your left hand, which looks eerily like the age everybody was. It just began a journey for me of being kind to myself and being patient with myself.

Because what you didn't realize was you hated yourself. I mean, worse than that, you loathed.

Yeah. There are parts of me with loathing that I didn't understand because I dealt with the up and down of a compulsive issue, addiction my whole life. And you just start to hate yourself. You start to hate that part of you. And then you learn you got to bring that part out, and you have to talk to it, speak to it, look at it, Give it help. Repressing it doesn't work. Hating it doesn't work. Using bad Christian doctrine about praying more does not work. Praying in a way. That's where I found out I will not be a victim to this situation. Creation, and they start to give you language for that. And now I don't look at my abuse as something that destroyed my life. I look at it as something that has helped me be a catalyst for healing in my own life and hopefully for other people. So I sit here today with years of sobriety as a recovering addict, and I'm proud of that. It's awesome. But more than that, I sit here with a whole lot of compassion. Because I know so many people have been through similar things, and they haven't had the opportunity to go where I went.

And yes, my failures were in public, and that is bad. It's It's very hard. But I don't know if it's worse to fail in private where nobody knows and you just have to deal with it. So I look at it now, even that is a blessing. Because if you watched my life blow up in public, please keep watching. You owe it to yourself to see where the story goes. So I'm an example of somebody that made huge mistakes. And rather than just try to not get caught again, I wanted to change. And there's a part of you that's like, how quickly can I repair this so I can move on? You see it all the time in ministry. Dudes will go through stuff, and then a month later, they're doing it again, whether it's starting a new church. I cannot judge those people. All I know for me is it took me decades, decades to get where I was. It wasn't going to fix itself in a couple of months. You really, really got to excavate. You got to break it all down. Sometimes you have to completely allow life, God, to break it down for something better to be built.

And that's my story for sure. I lost a lot in that fire. I lost a lot. But what came out of it was a different human being. I'm here today very, very, very involved in our recovery community. I did have a relapse, and that was a couple of months after I got back from rehab. Pride is a thing that dies slowly. But I remember talking to the nurses before I left. They give you an outpatient plan, and they're like, A lot of guys struggle. There is relapse potential. And I'm like, I am not going to relapse.

Which I think every single time- Yeah, I'm like, I'm going to be the only guy who never relapses.

And they teach you how to live a life where you draw circles. There's an outer circle, which is super healthy behavior. There's a middle circle, which is danger ground. It's stuff you can't avoid as a recovering addict, but it's stuff that you really need to be mindful of. Then there's an inner circle, which is a complete relapse, got to go back. And when I had my relapse, only a couple of months, maybe three, four months after getting back, I remember looking at you and explaining the situation as if it was already over. Hey, this is what happened. And I'm sorry. I understand. If you go, I understand I've got no more chances here. I don't see this like that. I didn't know that this particular thing was going to trip me up like that. And I know that I can fix it. Here's what I'm going to do to fix it. If If you'll allow me. And you were really gracious with me. I don't know where you dug to find that grace, but it's a real part of our story. And it's important that people know that because I know a lot of people try to get sober and they fail.

It's a terrible feeling. I'm not sitting up here as a guy who I've been there. I'm there today. I've got to stay sober today. I've got to stay recovered today, and I've got to do it again tomorrow. But I like being able to look at guys and say, Man, I'm sure you've been humiliated. I have been, too. I'm sure you're The situation was bad. Mine was real bad. I'm sure you feel discouraged because you might have relapsed. I've been there, but there's hope. That's what the rehab part of this story for me was powerful. I don't know. I've already been able to help a couple of other people get there, and that's a joy. It's beautiful. Between the two of us doing the work that we've done, we're sitting here, very different people, but really grateful for it.

You are a very different person. I think that's been hard for me. It's been sad because the people that have left our life, I feel like, Oh, if you were a great friend, a great person before this, but you're an even better person now. You're such a different person. I saw someone put up the other day on Instagram, something along the lines of that. People remember where you were, but it's a shame that they don't stick around to see what you become. I think that we've got a lot of friends that have stuck around. It's been amazing. But I just want to say publicly, I'm proud of who you are. Thank you, love.And the man that you've become and the work that you put in every day to be that person. I know it's not easy. I know any addiction isn't easy to overcome, but you do it really well day by day, and you're very conscious of it, and I see it, and I acknowledge it.

Thank you. I was heavily addicted to my own opinion, which is a very sinister but just as deadly addiction. I'm grateful for where we sit. Some people that left, we'll talk about friendships in-depth, but I think it's hard when you go through a valley and people leave and you get out of the valley and they might come back and you're so different that it's like, God, we don't- If we got nothing to- Yeah, we're not the same people. So it's like you had to leave for your reasons. But when you're not with somebody in the fire, you can't understand what the fire smells like, what it feels like, because you chose to leave. The reasons don't need to get judged. You just weren't there. And so you miss that, that part of someone's life. And that's not on them. That's on me. That's on the person that made the mistake because you don't have to go through valleys with people. You don't. And so, yeah, that is something we found, though, is that when we do catch up with some people, In our heart, we're like, Don't feel sorry for us.

Yeah, we're good.

I know you say you're praying for me, but I'm praying for you as well. Praying for you. You're still in it. So that's been new to be like, I know you might leave and feel sorry for me. Don't.

The feeling of freedom that you have when you are honest and living with no secrets. What is it? No secrets, no lies.

No secrets, no lies. No untalked about triggers.

It It's super freeing and very powerful. Sometimes when I see people, I'm like, Oh, you still have to live like that.

It's hard. It's hard. Been there.

Yeah.

Been there. With relationships, Brian and Bobby and our relationship to Hillsong. For those of you who don't know, the church we were part of was a part of a bigger picture When I let people down, it began like a cascade of things that were discovered and happening. What my relationship like? What do I think about Brian?

People ask- How do you feel about that now? Because I know people ask that. They do. They do. They do. They want you to be a certain way.

I will always love Brian and Bobby, no question. Love is a choice. I choose that. I choose to love them. My experience with Brian, up until my epic failure, was he was a hero to me, really pulled me out of a crowd and just said, I believe in you, and gave me opportunity, gave me trust. I never once felt like I went through any battles that he didn't have my back. We got along really well most of the time. Then as I got older, towards the end of my time at Hillsong, NYC, we had difference of opinions a lot, which he was always relatively cool with. He always left room for that. We definitely butted heads, and we definitely had some issues. And had it not gone down like it did, I probably would have still left, but it wouldn't have been bad. So my overriding sentiment about Brian is that I'm grateful. I'm really grateful for him because I've been taught too good to stop it where the tragedy is. So how I feel about Brian now, very different. I was crushed by what happened. But before that, if you had to ask me what that man means to me, I'm grateful for him.

He gave me a lot of trust and let me do something that will always be a really, really special part of my life. To be able to plant that church in the middle of the greatest city on Earth Earth, and to see it explode was far beyond what we ever thought could happen. I'm grateful for Brian.

I think he was extremely proud of us for that. For some reason at the end, it was twisted But for the most part, we- I think the hardest part of that was that the narrative was shifted so quickly from him being a second dad to me, proud of me, tight as a drum, to this guy is a renegade vagabond, always been doing...

All this stuff started coming out. I was so like, Man, that's not the way this was. And then to find out that I wasn't the only one that had some things that weren't talked about. That's what shocked us the whole time anyway, is that we saw this stuff going down and we would see interviews in media, and I kept thinking, I know so much. They must not think I'm going to say anything because this is outrageous. I could do one interview and put all this to bed and out a lot of people about a lot of things.

And I think that might have been the motivation, probably for why they kept doing things because your reaction naturally would be to do that. Yeah, I think they were preparing for that. And I think they were preparing for that. So they did all this, and it's like, Oh, you didn't- I wonder if the conversation was, We got to hit him before he hits us because he's definitely going to say something.

And I do know a lot about a lot of stuff, but I haven't found it constructive on this side of the situation to talk about other people's business. That stuff comes out on its own. We have never, and I don't know if we will. I mean, it's a point now where it's like, Cool, I do have a microphone again. And I don't expect people to talk as recklessly now that they know that I'm not just going to fade off into oblivian. Well, I was going to say everybody sounds right until they're cross-examined. One of the hardest parts of this was watching things be said with no defense at all. It was like whatever you wanted to say about us, about the church, nobody was saying anything. I found out a lot during that time. I feel like there's an old adage, you find out what you're worth to somebody when you can offer them nothing. If that's true, and there are times in my life I've It felt like it's true, it seemed like the moment I couldn't offer Hillsong Church, the church that we were a part of our whole lives, anything, well, the reaction and response was like, Man, I don't know if I really mattered because I can't offer anything.

In fact, I'm taking. It was such a swift, hard core cut that it shocked me. It shouldn't have because that has been our culture. When we were a part of Hillsong Church, that's just what we did. We'd be at global retreats, and there'd be a guy who was a pastor there for two decades up until then, and then he'd show up and he's gone, and we'd be like, Hey, where's that guy? Oh, he's gone. He left. He got fired, whatever. We'd be like, Oh, good written. We'd laugh and make a joke about it. I just never thought it was going to be me.

That's who it was.

It stopped surprising me because I was like, of course, that's what we do. But my thing was the culture of cover up. That's the culture that we had. If anybody says anything different, they don't know the situation. What I mean by cover up is there was a There was a time in my life where I felt like cover up could be switched out for the word protection. Protect. I now look at it when I was involved in things that were covering things up for other people. My whole life as a pastor in different ways, there were sometimes where it was protection, where We don't need to know. But there was other times where it should have been brought to light. The way we operated at Hillsong Church was if it benefits us to be honest, we're going to be real honest. If it doesn't, we're going to be really private. The motivation It wasn't what's best or what's right, per se. It was what works best for us and our brand and our church name. And that's cool. You got to make your decisions. But that's what happened. So if there's any other narrative about...

I'm sorry. We lived it. We're there. And for us, it turned out it was better for the church to make me look even worse than I made myself look because evidently, I think their logic, they handled it so bad. And I think the logic was the more we put on him, the less it's going to come our way. And having said all that, babe, again, to go back to the truth of it, it's my fault that they were in the situation. How they handled it, great. People can pick it apart for days, and it does deserve some commentary and some criticism. But to go back to the original impetus of it, it was me. So I have lost so much bitterness and frustration about what people's response was to my actions because of the ability to own my own failures. And that's consuming. I don't even I don't have time to be mad anymore about what this guy said or what this guy meant. That's freeing. So when you're in a situation like this, I never want to forget, let me just work on my side of the tracks. But yeah, for you to get cut off by our church was extra hard because it was even more your life than it was mine.

Can you talk about that? Yeah, it was hard because my whole life has been church. And so when I was cut out of that, which, of course, I would be because I'm married to you, so it had to be that way. I mean, it wasn't like I wanted to stay around, you know what I mean? But I think it was just the fact that you just left. And I never heard from anyone. Bobby did reach out a bunch for months and months, and it was very sweet. But I just, because of what was happening in the media, I found it really hard It was hard to try and text back because I was like, this is so... It felt fake to me because of all the shit that they were saying and my kids having to every time. And every time something came up, it was another wave for me of just getting hit by betrayal, hit by this anxiety that I just wanted it to go away. We weren't saying anything. Why is anyone else saying anything? It was just so hard for me to understand because I felt like just thrown out in that setting.

And so she did reach out a lot, which I appreciated, but then I finally just had to say and be really honest as I found my voice. I had to text her and I texted her what I did and just said all the things I had to say. I don't understand this. I don't know why you didn't protect us here. I don't know why- Are people lying there? You had these people, you let them, whilst on staff, say things about me and my husband that aren't true and you know aren't true, and they didn't protect us. And so I said all of that, and that was it. I never heard from her again.

She never wrote you back on that one, which is another part of culture. When you stand up for yourself like that, all the nice text stop.

But I needed to say it and move on. And it's been hard because I miss them. They were like my second parents. And I miss a lot of things about the church.

We would say we still love the church. It is being scrutinized, and it really should be. As much as we love it, we're also really aware of things that we would have done different, that were done that are wrong. And so that's hindsight. I feel like anybody who's about growth should be able to do that. You should be able to look back on anything you were a part of and say, I'd do something this different and that different.

We were wrong there. We were wrong there.

And I think the response of Hillsong Church, from our view, is just, I've just been... We just stopped caring a long time ago and just walked away. And I think people I said, Well, if you're not guilty of things, why didn't you say something? I said, Well, number one, it wouldn't have mattered. But two, we also signed an NDA, which is a practice of most corporations and some churches. I'm not saying it's right, not saying it's wrong, but the way it works We didn't know any of this because I've never gotten fired before. We were told we had to sign this NDA in order to get half of a severance payment for a year's salary. And you have no money. We We were scrambling, didn't know what was going on. And it was not a lot of money, but if I didn't sign it, I couldn't got anything, which I now look back and I go, I didn't know that it was going to go the way it went. So I was like, Yeah, I'm going to I'm not going to need to sign it because I'm not going to need to say anything.

Well, you're not thinking either. No. You're just like, they were pretty forceful on it as well. You need to sign this today. Today.

I didn't have to sign it. You didn't. I should have had a lawyer present. I didn't know what I was doing, but did it. I signed it. I think that's why they went so hard because they knew I couldn't say anything. It wasn't just because the NDA. I would have probably said something maybe, but I don't know about that practice. I feel like that practice is one that can be scrutinized, but that's what happened. So people were like, Why didn't you say something early? I was like, Well, I was petrified because I didn't want to lose the little bit of support that we had for my family. I signed a freaking legal document that was so extensive. Back on it now, I'm like, what in the world?

If you went over it now, it's pretty wild.

But that's in our past, but people need to know that's the truth about it. It was a hard lesson to learn. Really, really, really, really sorry for the position that I put a lot of people in Hillsong Church. In. So what people need to understand is when you talk about churches that are failing, it's typically the leadership that's failing and the amazing people that are part of it have nothing to do with that. That's how I feel about a lot of things that have to do with Hillsong, is that there's some people that made it difficult and it got cloudy somewhere along the way. Started beautiful, was powerful, was going forward. Somewhere in there, there were some cracks, and it was hard to deal with the fallout and to watch everything in that regard crumble. But those are the consequences of my actions, and it was what it was.

How do you feel the media affected you or us, you especially, because there was a lot of stuff said.

Really tough, really hard. If I'm being as honest as I can, it was brutal. I think we got very fortunate early to get the advice to stop pain shopping. And for those not familiar with that term, it means looking for things that are going to literally cause you pain. What can I find today that's going to make me sad? And it's actually a symptom of an unhealthy life. But I I was a pain shopper early. I used to do that every day, too. It was also unavoidable. You go to stores, and it was just heavily, heavily, heavily covered. And it made me stronger because it went at my number one, my One of my deepest needs is to be understood.

Yes.

That has driven a lot of my life, to be understood and to be, in my estimation, so misunderstood and to be able to do nothing about it was just really hard. And again, it felt like nobody was standing up for anything. And here's what I learned in some of those hard moments, how stupid would it be for me to haggle about the details of my actions? Who's really struggling in that case? So for me to call and clarify, accounts that were very untrue, almost everything reported was spun to the way of whoever was saying it. I thought that's my old pride again. Because the fact is, I have to go heal. I got to walk away. And it's like, no, it was this, not that. What are you talking about? I failed. I failed my wife. I failed my church. I fail myself. And that's what I'm going to focus on. And there will come a day where I'm going to sit on a podcast with a blue jacket and have my own microphone, and I will be able to speak to my own situation. I trusted that that day would come. That day is here.

It does feel really liberating to be able to say, No, I'm definitely going to speak to that now. It's not from a bitter place. We're at a place just to give people information That's the information that will help them heal. The media stuff, I would just say to people, please, especially the Christian media, pretty disappointed. What I found was the Christian media was just cutting and pasting tabloid stuff. How far have we gotten? Where it's like, Yeah. That was tough. That was tough to see. But guess who put us in the position to have false things said? Me. So I'm looking forward to never being in that position again.

We went through a hard time as a family, and it was in the media, but we also went through a really hard time with a lot of our relationships. Friends that we thought were family ended up leaving or not being there for you, especially as a friend who has always been there for everyone else, who is a guy that will get on a plane for anyone at any time when they're in trouble, how did that make you feel with some of your close relationships that you lost?

Yeah, it's extremely hard, extremely painful, and sad, and then obvious of why this is happening. I put a lot of people in a very, very difficult spot. It took me a while. There's two sides of you. There's the right healing, healthy answer. And there's the broken side of you that has to have a voice. You don't have to express it, but you have to be honest about... Because there was a time there I was trying to not even be honest with myself. Like, No, it's cool. I understand. I I don't understand. And even be able to say that was a breakthrough for me because I was so good at saying the right thing, and I had to have people dig out sometimes the wrong thing to start a new pattern in my life of not faking that stuff. So, Oh, yeah. My friends, they did what they did. It did hurt you. No, I get it. I didn't get it.

You would still protect them.

Yeah, I would. You felt like you would want to protect them. The truth is this. The easy answer is when you break the trust of your friends, you don't have the right to criticize their reaction. Other people can, but As far as I'm concerned, the friends that I had, the crew that I used to run with that people would recognize, I don't talk to any of those guys substantially. I don't talk to any of them, except for one, very lightly. I did have one conversation with a friend That was preempted because we were going to see each other at a mutual friend's party, and I think he was worried about running into me. Yeah, it was what it was. We were on the phone. I'm like, Hey, it's good to hear from you. I know that you're calling me because you know we're about to run into each I wasn't as healed then or as honest, so it might have been bad. When you're the one that broke the trust, you have to respect people's process and their dignity and whatever they have to do. In addition to that, there hadn't been a scandal like we were a part of in a long time, and everybody was really scared.

Nobody knew what was happening. Nobody knew it was true. I think people pull back from me because even if they were to ask me, how do they know what I'm saying is true? It's not necessarily my friendship I am. I do have my own version of friendship, what it means to me, and I had to learn I can't put that off on other people. It doesn't have to be yours. Who's to say mine's even healthy? When you talk about the getting on a plane to fly everywhere, that is what I used to do. I don't know if it was healthy. I had no boundaries. And so my biggest strength, yes, I do believe in loyalty. I do believe I could be there for friends. And there's not much you can do to get me out of your life. I actually prefer it when people are in trouble because I'm coming. And that's just how I'm wired. Not everybody's like that. We had one of my friends actually say, I'm just not good at it. Adversity.

I'm not a friend that's built for adversity.

We're like, What? That's an interesting, convenient way to say that. Cool. But at least you're self-aware enough to go, I'm not the adversity guy. If you're going through a tough time, you got to find somebody else, I'm not wired like that. You know what else it did, though? It made me really question my motives because when you do stuff for people, do you do it so they will return? You take something like someone living in our house or us giving somebody a car or us doing what we can do for somebody. And then you look back at those same people who turn their back on you and you immediately have to check, why did I do what I did in the first place. I did it because it was right. So I don't feel like... I don't have that bitter thing of like, I was there for you, but you weren't there for me. I didn't do it so you'd be there for me. I did it because I felt like it was right. And that's a really big temptation to to feel wounded about that. And I got over it. And I got over...

It's taken me a long time. I'm not going to act like that was easy for me. Was not because I love my friends. But I found out what relationships I developed. And because of what I didn't know, some of the things I didn't know, I had areas of my life that were shut off to everybody. Nobody knew. And I was as intimate as I knew how to be, but didn't know that there was so much stuff that I wasn't honest about. So I have Talked to some of my friends. Some have called and apologized. One guy said, I do it so differently, to which I said, Here's the truth. If it hadn't happened like that, I don't think I would have healed at the rate that we did. Because if two of my best friends would have stuck around, I would have leaned on them, talked to them. I would have hid in there. But because they all scattered, it was like me, a mirror, and you. And that's all we had. We had to get to know each other. We We had to become best friends. We had to hang out with our children.

There was nobody else to lean on. And I looked back on it and we had just enough of the right people. Which we were told, which was great. We didn't have extra, didn't have less. One of our friends said, You're going to have exactly who you need in this season. At the right time. And he was right. And as I look back, like everything, I look back on some of the lonely seasons. I'm like, had those people not left, it wouldn't have been the same for me. It's still painful, and it still was a bummer. But I love those guys. I wish them the best. Like I said, we're super different now. There are some relationships I'm still believing that will come back around. It is a joy in this season when relationships drop back in your life and they do get healed and they get better. And there's some, like I said before, where you just shake the hand, you're like, We're never going to be. We're never going to be like that again. Yeah, I get it. I get why you ran, but the reality is you definitely ran. And so I know it exposed me.

It exposed us. Let's all grow. And I think that's a good discussion for people to have. What is the response when somebody goes through that? Let's look at it. We found it to be very, very, very- It's a grieving.

It's literally like you're losing things. For me, it was. I literally, probably two and a half at least, maybe even some of them still I grieve. Grieve the relationships we had.

Yeah, but babe, this is the The part that I do get upset about, and I'm still working through, is the fact that we had friends that they were couples. You had your own relationships with them, and those people also abandoned you. That's on me, not them, firstly, as I've told you before. But that was tough for us to understand because it didn't make sense to us. And I'm going, Yeah, leave me. I get that. But why would you do that to my wife? And again, it becomes a mirror moment where you got to look in the mirror. I did this. I started this. But it wasn't fair. And we were able to say that. We were able to land on your side of things going, No, your offense is legit. That exposed a lot. Some people just never... People we were friends with for decades didn't even text him.

Never even heard from them.

Not even a text. I'm like, I would text my worst enemy. And in the middle of a crisis, there were people who they just left you. And some people spiritualized it. Some people rationalized it. And you got to do what you got to do. It's like, I don't think everybody's proud of that, but I think there is a side of it that someone said to me, My mental health had to come first. If I stayed in your life during that hard time, it wouldn't have been good for me. I said, I get that. That's okay. You've got to do that. That's probably a healthy thing to do. Again, it's hard for me because it's like, but you're the priority there. I think with relationships, we've just found there's honest as you make them, there's deep as you make them. Now, we don't really play around. It's like, you're not going to catch me. I guess I'm more careful with my words because we did have some heavy things said. But family, you're my brother. I love you for life. I've got you, yeah. I got Our kids, too. That was hard. Yeah, we used to have a joke with each other's kids.

If your daddy ever goes to heaven early, I'm going to take care of you. And that stuff actually sticks with kids. So our kids were sitting there going like, Those people were liars, too, dad? How come they get away with lying? I'm going, No, no, no. They're not lying. And then a therapist told me to stop defending people who have left my life so my kids can have their process, and they have their own opinion about it.

But again- They've had their process, which has been really great to watch as well. And the fact that they can be honest about it, and we let them be honest about it, not in a degrading or anything way. They're just honest with their feelings. And a couple of your friends have reached out and talked to, especially Ava and to Charlie. One friend is that. One Sorry. At one point, Ava was like, Thanks for reaching out, but I'm not ready. I'm not ready to talk to you. They respected that, which was great. Then she has since then talked.

I have been explicitly clear with them that my issues caused this relational breach, not them. They're doing the best they can, but you got to process it the way you can. I think the only thing that I took from that, that's to me something, it's not a concern It's just something to talk about. We're all leaders. Me and my friends are all church leaders. And if that's how we act, it's not right or wrong. It's just let's be honest about it. So when someone falls- Just say it. We're leaving them. And that's okay. But we need to People need to know that because if that's how the leadership is, how does that flow down? Flow down to the rest of your- Christian communities. Unfortunately, I think it's pretty common. I think that's what we build our stuff on. There is nothing you can do that's going to break. Don't be ashamed of this. We built our messages.

Oh, yeah. Come as you are. Come as you are. Everything is you're accepted here.

It's a human moment, but we did unfollow a lot of people because I can't watch certain people preach about some subject. It's like, dude, don't preach about deep friendship.

Don't talk about grace.

Don't talk about you have a heart for restoring fallen ministers because if you did, you would have called me.

I did have to unfollow a few people.

That's a tough one. That's just being human. I'm not I'm right or wrong. I'm just saying there are moments I got to check myself. But I always land on the same freaking thing. If you want to have great friendships, don't be dishonest in them. I wasn't honest with my friends. I was honest as I knew how to be, and I wasn't so much a liar to your face to my friends. I was a avoid, allow you to think things are true, even though I know they're not, which is just as much as a lie as me verbalizing something.

I had to come to the grips with that. But don't you think everyone does that? They do. In relationships and friendships? They do. And in life in general? They do. Yeah. So that's a hard one as well. It is.

It's hard to- I didn't know. And I think there was some stuff that spilled out into other areas that I love the theory we've always stood on. Don't judge somebody on their failure. Judge them on their reaction to the correction of their failure. So I hope my reaction shows who I am, who I'm trying to be.

I think that's what I was going to say. You took responsibility from the get-go, and you did the process all the way through. I think you did it very well, as well as you could. And so for people to come at you in some of those ways, that was hard for me as a wife to watch as well.

I'm sure it was. But it's such a beautiful place to be. Who am I to I don't hold any bitterness towards these guys for not acting however I think they should act? Hello, news flash. So there are parts of me, I'm like, Yeah, I do friendship different now. That's great. I'm sad. Sometimes I look back on that chapter of my life, and I love those guys. I'm sad. But I'm good. Life goes on. Life is long. Not everybody that's in your life is in your life for life. Summer for Seasons. And evidently, sometimes that chooses us. We don't choose it because I wouldn't chosen to break a relationship with any of the guys that I love like that. But that's where we stand with friendships now. We love everybody. We're not holding any bitterness or any animosity. I think we're just trying to heal, and we're moving forward. One thing we've definitely learned with friendships is when they break down, when there's dysfunction, focus more on your role. Focus, where are you in the story? Because it's so easy to point that. So, for This is what that means for me. If I was mad at one of my friends that left, my criticism would be, You're a hypocrite.

That'd be my criticism for them because you don't carry the same logic. There's other people you're not consistent with, and you're saying one thing, and then if I look in the mirror, I don't think I'm the guy to hold somebody else accountable for something that may or may not be hypocritical. So rather than point the finger, I'm just in this habit of going, I'm not I'm not going to go over to that side of the track. I'm just going to work on here. I'm working on my own hypocrisy. I'm working on my own ability to be a friend. I don't choose to look at my situations like, did I have bad friends? No. It's probably more accurate to say, maybe I wasn't a great friend at times because I wasn't honest with my life. That's fair. And it helps you stay free. So that's my encouragement to anybody with friendship, heartache. It's real. It's hard. It takes a while. Time doesn't heal anything. It You love that saying. Intentional work heals. Time makes it worse. So when people are like, time heals, I have not found that to be true. I think time makes you a time bomb.

That's what it does. So just time alone? No. Intentional work, intentional forgiveness, intentional acceptance. That's what changes somebody's life. And the ability to accept things was not in my vocabulary before all this went down. If I didn't like it, I'm not accepting it. Well, guess what? I don't control everything, and I can't control what somebody else is doing. So I've learned how to accept that. That doesn't mean I like it, approve of it. It doesn't mean that I endorse it. But when someone left my life, it's like, okay, I accept it. It's hurtful, and I'm sad, and I'm sorry that I put you in a position to leave, and I accept it. There's something really peaceful about it. That's why it's like a bedrock of recovery is praying prayers centered around accepting things because it's a superpower. If you get it right, I accept it.

I was going to say that's so hard for me to do. It's got to be so hard for you. So that's how I know that you're doing the work because that is not what you would do.

And the flip side of it is that I got to really protect myself around people that love us that haven't gotten over it. And it's not even their relationships. It's like, Man, I can't stand this guy, that guy, that guy. And I'm like, No, that's not... First of all, don't reopen all this stuff in me. It was my relationship. I have settled it. I have peace. Please don't bring it back up with your offense. You've now taken on my offense. My offense, yeah. And you live in it, and that's not even fair for them. But yeah, so we're at a good place with friendships and relationships, and we're just going to cultivate the relationships moving forward. Yeah, they're going to be easier. They're going to be honest, and it is what it is. So yeah, that's my summation of how I feel about friendships. It's good conversation to have. We'll have more down the road.

Yeah, for sure. It's been said a few times, the come back. When are you coming back? Or when are you Come back, Carl. I want to be there with you when you come back. What do you feel about that? How do you feel about that? I appreciate it.

I totally understand it because it's a word used, and it's a thing. What we think is there's no come back because the person that I was is no longer here, just not here. That version of me died, and what has developed is a new person, a new life, a new lease on life, a new mentality, a new way to think. So I wouldn't say I'm coming back because there's nothing to come back to. The chapter closed. To go back to that would mean I'm going backwards. Literally, I don't want to come back to that life. I don't want to go back to that church circle. I don't want to go back to that way of thinking. I don't want to go back to any of it. I feel like for us, it's a new chapter. If anything, it's a rebirth. We started our second marriage. There are other things that we've decided to look at like that. We're in the second half of life. No, people are like, Are you coming back? No, I'm not coming back. Because it's a preaching church. We're doing a podcast to talk about things that painful for us in the hopes that other people won't have to go through the same thing.

It's a rebirth into that. That's it. Relax. No come back. There's nothing to come back to. It's a new start. Do you miss preaching? Yeah, I miss parts of it. Yes, easy answer is yeah. I miss preaching because I like what we're able to do. I know also what I'm created to do. I know what I'm good at. I'm a good preacher. God gifted me to be able to communicate things in a way that a lot of people resonate with. So that's a part of it that I miss, but I'm really content in the season.

And do you like what you're doing now?

Yeah, I love it. I love it. It feels really free to not be leaving needing something so heavy, and I'm still enjoying it. And there's a price to pay both ways. So I love what we do. You started multiple businesses to tell people, this journey for you has been beautiful and selfless. You've done multiple jobs in Florida. You came home one day and I said, What are you doing? You said, I'm an Uber Eats driver. I think I went outside and lit myself on fire. I just couldn't believe your resilience. You had three jobs, and I had to get a new job as well. It was just a crazy chapter. But you're the bravest person I know to be able to do that. It was incredible.

It was hard, but it was like trying to figure out what we were going to do because all we knew was church. Which, again, I think is why a lot of people just rush over it and keep doing it because they're like, I don't know what else. I can't do anything else with my life. This is all I know, which is sad because there's so much more to life as well.

I'll say this. I think how I would sum it up is people talk about the word restoration. Here's what I wanted to be restored to, your husband and their dad. So I'm good. People always put the words to ministry on the back of restoration, to ministry. I believe it does the whole word a disservice. We've never been about that. We've never had a single conversation about that. It's simply been about, let's try to restore our lives, and from there we'll move forward. Someone told me, he said, Hey, you only got to convince four people that you're changing, and that's Laura and your children. After that, everything else is gravy. I'm in the gravy stage. I'm good. We are content now in the present, really excited about the future, and healed enough to talk about the past. So all in all, we got a whole lot to be grateful for, and I'm grateful for you. Grateful for you.