00:00:00 - Jerry Dugan
This particular episode, I'm going to warn you now is not suitable for young children and not suitable for work. So be warned. Do you feel like you're stuck in a rut in life or in a dead end job with no progression? I'm Jerry Dugan, and welcome to beyond the Rut, the podcast that offers you the motivation, inspiration, and practical tools to help you build a life worth living. My show is here to help you break free from your limitations and find a path to success. Join me as I share encouraging stories and actionable advice on how to get out of your rut in life and create a vision for your future. Life is just too short to live stuck in a rut. Here we go. Hey, rudder nation. This is Jerry and our special guest. This episode is Fred Stoeker. For some of us who are in the men's ministry in the Christian space, we may think that name sounds familiar. And if you've ever read the book Jerry Dugan's Battle, or you've been in a men's ministry, like Bible study or spiritual study, this book is one that's probably come across your table at some point. I know for me, it helped a lot get away from the funk that comes from being exposed to pornography. So that book, Jerry Dugan's Battle talked about the first vulnerability that Fred Stoeker talks about. Now, he and his wife have come together and they've written a second book that talks about another vulnerability that impacts women as well. And that book is called Battle On. Battle over. And we're going to be talking about both of those books and those concepts. So if you're looking to overcome that struggle with pornography, strengthen your relationships and just be free of it, then this is the episode for you. And again, you already heard the warning before, but just in case you still hadn't gotten the idea, I guess now it's too late if you're listening to this on speakers. So here we go. Hey, Fred, how's it going over there in Des Moines, Iowa, which, if we're looking at this on video, looks a lot like the Thames River and the London Bridge. But it isn't.

00:02:00 - Fred Stoeker
No, it isn't. As I said before, to many, just my heart's always there. I studied there. My daughter studied there, and we just love the so.

00:02:11 - Jerry Dugan
Oh, wow. A good high school friend of mine did study over there for her graduate work, I think. Lives and works over there, even though her job is in the US. Lives, I think, more closer to well.

00:02:23 - Fred Stoeker
Yeah, I have actually ancestors from Scotland, so I've been up there a lot. Yeah?

00:02:28 - Jerry Dugan
Yeah. Dugan's an Irish name. I've always wanted to get over there.

00:02:32 - Fred Stoeker
Oh, really? I didn't know.

00:02:34 - Jerry Dugan
I mean, living in Texas, everybody assumes it's a Latino name, and so it gets that pronunciation I'm like. Well, it's dugan. It's actually an Irish name.

00:02:43 - Fred Stoeker
No way.

00:02:44 - Jerry Dugan
Yes way.

00:02:48 - Fred Stoeker
That's funny.

00:02:49 - Jerry Dugan
Yeah. And so there's a pub over there, and I think it may have closed down by now, but yeah, there's a whole dugan family crest and everything. I want to kind of get over there someday, so that's on my bucket list.

00:03:01 - Fred Stoeker
Yeah, well, I recommend it. It's all three know, ireland, Scotland, England. They're just all fun to see.

00:03:08 - Jerry Dugan
Yeah. And poor little yeah.

00:03:11 - Fred Stoeker
Yeah. Well, I was actually there for the first time a year. Oh, that's beautiful.

00:03:16 - Jerry Dugan
Oh, nice. Nice. It's just so funny. Like, they hardly ever get mentioned, even though right.

00:03:21 - Fred Stoeker
And they're probably irritated about that, right.

00:03:24 - Jerry Dugan
So, Wales, that one was for you. You're welcome. Oh, boy. But we didn't get you on here to help beef up the self esteem of the little area known as Wales. You wrote a book many moons ago with a guy named Steven Augerbaum called Jerry Dugan's Battle. And for me, that was a big eye opener. And we'll talk more about that book in a you know, it just talks about sexual purity and masturbation and addiction to pornography and how to break that from a spiritual perspective and giving practical techniques on how to break that habit and break those things that are ingrained in us from a young age and what was at stake. Marriages, healthy relationships, healthy expectations around sex, all those things. But you've recently come out with a book called Battle on Battle Over, and you and your wife have written that one together. And so I wanted to get to know a little bit more about you and Fred and the family background because you guys aren't newlyweds. So how did you and Fred meet? How long ago? And how many kids do you guys have?

00:04:31 - Fred Stoeker
Yeah, we've been married now 40 years, so it's pretty exciting. Marriage is still my favorite thing on Earth. I just think it's the greatest thing God gave us on this side of heaven. And I guess what I would say is that my dad set up a blind date. She was going to his church. I was living in another town, and so he said he'd get me free lunch if I would come. And of course, I was pretty poor at the time, just out of college, so I'm thinking free lunch is pretty good. And I don't care what she looks like, I'm fine. But we went to church first, and then we were going to go out to lunch. And I remember when I first laid eyes on her, I heard the Lord speak into my spirit, this is a girl you're going to marry. So I just felt like that marriage was arranged by the Lord, so to say.

00:05:23 - Jerry Dugan
Yeah.

00:05:23 - Fred Stoeker
And I've had a wonderful time with her the last 38 years, the first two years of marriage were kind of a disaster. I was actually a poor leader, and I actually wrote a book called Jerry Dugan's Marriage. It tells that story. Almost lost my marriage but God turned it around in me so that then I could turn around everything in my home. And from that time on, things have gone nothing but up. We have four children, they're all older, they're all in their 30s right now, so all very successful. But the biggest thing is they're all chasing after God and walking a very pure life. So we're excited about that, excited about the new book. And marrying Fred, I think, is the biggest reason why I even have a ministry, because she came from a background of four generations of Christians. She understood family, she understood purity, and I learned a lot from her.

00:06:25 - Jerry Dugan
Wow. And I'm sure you've seen a lot of forgiveness from her over the last four decades. I know I've seen a lot of forgiveness from my wife over the last two.

00:06:33 - Fred Stoeker
I think any guy can say that pretty safely. Yes, they're getting a lot of forgiveness from their wives. But I will say that I've had the opportunity to grow so much in the Lord that I don't have to ask for forgiveness too much these days.

00:06:51 - Jerry Dugan
Yeah, that's a sign of growing and maturity as you go. That's awesome, because I know people who are in our age bracket I'll put it that way, that they still haven't figured it out. They're on marriage four, marriage five, and they're still making the same mistakes, thinking they're right. And it's like, gosh, when are you going to step back and just see where the common denominator is? And that is the truth. What I love about Jerry Dugan's battle, you talk about this mindset and this approach to life that's really ingrained in all of us, in the US. Especially at a young age, and our brains are kind of wired for it, and that's on a sexual level that we're kind of visually stimulated. And Jerry Dugan's battle really helps dive into that. That first vulnerability is what we take in with our eyes as men, and then from there, what we let our minds process. And it was just eye opening for me and just realizing, just watching somebody run on the side of the road or watching a commercial closely, or I was like, taking this in and just letting it sear into my brain. And me personally, and I've shared this on this show, so it's not like shocker, unless you're listening to this for the first time. I saw my first porn movie when I was thinking I was probably about eight, nine years old. Wow.

00:08:07 - Fred Stoeker
Yeah.

00:08:08 - Jerry Dugan
Well, I was a military brat and somebody's dad didn't hide his stash. And so there we are, a bunch of kids watching pornography and on, I think, a Saturday, while the guy's dad had 24 hours duty. And I was like, wow, what is this? And one kid, the know it all is just like, this is what boys and girls do when they love each other. And the girl in the room was like, that's how it happens. I don't know what's going on, but still in my brain to this day, and I'm 47 at the time, we're recording this, right? And just seeing how staying on things like that, letting it fester in our minds, pornography has a way of just perverting how we expect interactions to go.

00:08:50 - Fred Stoeker
Yeah, it's kind of a weird, warping thing that happens. And in male sexuality, we've got two vulnerabilities that really set us up to fall. And you talk about your early days with that porn video because of the way that first vulnerability works with our eyes, we can draw sexual gratification from our environment. It doesn't have to be a porn movie like in your case. It can be the girl in the string bikini at the beach, it can be a mother leaning over in the parking lot at the grocery store to put her kid into the car seat and her shorts are too short. Any of those sorts of things we can literally draw sexual gratification from. And according to Marianne Laden, who is the leading really, porn expert in America, she's at Penn University. And what she says is that what happens when we look at something sensual is that it locks that image in our brain permanently. And that's why you can say, well, I looked at that porn film, I can still see it in my mind 47 years later. That's the absolute truth. That's the way our mind is constructed. So we need to ask ourselves a hard question then. If we're created this way and if we have this vulnerability in us, what's going to happen as we move through life? Well, if we don't put up defenses, what's going to happen is we're going to fall into that trap and we're going to look more and more. As a matter of fact, there's study after study that shows as we look at those sensual things over and over and over again, what happens is we get reward chemicals that are released in our brain called dopamine. And what happens there is that we actually desire that more and more over time. And so instead of it getting a lot of times we think, well, as we get older we will grow out of this. Well, actually it's just the opposite. As we get older, it gets stronger and the desire to see those things gets stronger. So essentially when it comes to that first vulnerability, we either set up defenses or we keep losing permanently. And so what I did in Jerry Dugan's battle is I wrote that book in order to help guys have the practical steps they need to defend themselves and they can break that pattern. And before I wrote the book, I had read other sexual purity books and I was always struck by the fact that essentially by the time you're at the end of the book, essentially all they've said is pray and remember that God has lots of grace and he forgives. Well, that's not what I want. I want to be free. Right. And back then, obviously, just like you, through the teen years into my twenty s, I was hooked. And I was looking actually, at a lot of porn, and it was very devastating, really, to my sexuality. But then I got married to Fred, and here this pure virgin comes into my life, and I'm not pure. And I had to make a decision. Am I going to learn to control my eyes, learn to control my mind and the lusting, or am I going to continue like this and let this affect my relationship with Fred? So I engaged the battle against all odds. I really thought I would lose, but I actually won. And literally, it's been 30 years, more than 30 years since I've masturbated. So, I mean, it's just an exciting thing to know that victory can be permanent. It's actually been over 30 years since I've gone onto a computer, for instance, or onto the television and looked for something sexual to lust over. So, I mean, we're not just talking about masturbation, we're talking about even just going to a computer to look at something. You can be free from that. And so that was the point of Jerry Dugan's battle. And then after that, I've been living purely for a number of years. But there was a period of time right after I won the victory with my eyes, where I was still having some trouble putting the final nail in the coffin when it comes to sexual sin. And what I found out during that period is that there's actually a second vulnerability. I thought there was only one, because when I engaged the battle, I felt like the Holy Spirit was guiding me to guard my eyes and to say, hey, once you get this controlled, everything will be fine. But what it turned out is that was just the first of two steps that needed to happen. And I never wrote about the second vulnerability in Jerry Dugan's battle because actually, publishers kind of limit your space and there was no way to really talk about it. So I've written this second book. Now, the reason why I wrote the book is that I've been teaching on this second vulnerability for a couple of decades. Even though it didn't fit into the first book, I've been teaching on it. And men flat out go nuts, finally recognizing why they can't get free. They'll get their eyes under control, but not quite everything else. And one of the reasons why they don't get it under control is they don't even know what that vulnerability is. And in my book, Battle On, Battle Over, I call that the stealth trap or the stealth vulnerability because it kind of comes in and bombs us, but we don't even know that it's there, and we never really connect the dots.

00:14:26 - Jerry Dugan
And I love that just early on in the book, you even point out that a big realization you had with that stealth trap was that it isn't even necessarily sexual in nature. That for you it was something that was non sexual at all and it was still happening. And you're like, Wait, what? How's this non sexual thing being expressed in a sexual way? And that was amazing to me. Like, wow, that is a big AHA. Because we always think that sexual stuff has a sexual stimuli of some kind.

00:14:58 - Fred Stoeker
And it does when you're talking about the first vulnerability, right? Because you're lusting, you're looking and it's gunning your engines, so to say you just can hardly stand it. That's one thing. We all recognize that as men. But the interesting thing is that second vulnerability actually occurs in both men and women. And it is a vulnerability that's tied to non sexual themes. And let me give you a little bit of my own story. So I got my eyes under control. It took me about six weeks. If you read my book, you kind of know how that story went. And I thought I would be free at that point. In Jerry Dugan's battle, I just make one passing comment that from there it was just a matter of mopping up because I got 85% free, I would say, but there's about 15% that I still had to mop up. So what was that? Well, I found that I was masturbating regularly, but only at one particular time at night, would always be in my office. And here's how my life was going at the time. I was a full commission sales guy, so a lot of know during the day I had to be out in the field selling. Then of course, I had to come home and eat, be with my kids. And the only time I had to do paperwork was late at night. So I would tuck the kids in, tuck Fred in, and then I would head to the office to work. And it was really mystifying to me that I would often get there and at some point in the night masturbate. And I really didn't have anything around in my office to kind know. Nothing like Playboys or videos or anything like that. I had my eyes under control and I couldn't figure out why that was happening because all I had to do is jump in the car and drive five blocks and climb into bed with Fred if I wanted sex. But for some reason, sex wasn't really the thing the masturbation was. And I couldn't understand what was going on. So I started to kind of do a study of my life. And I realized over time that as I started to really study what was going on at night was that on the nights where I was feeling the most financial pressure was the nights that I would give in. And then there were also the nights that I would feel what I call manhood pressure, where I'm just doubting my manhood, doubting if I can make it in the world of men. My dad never gave me the blessing, so to say. I mean, he divorced my mom when I was in fifth grade, and he and I never had much of a relationship. He was pretty harsh guy. And so nobody ever told me I was a man. Nobody told me I was going to make it. I was kind of raised with my mom and two sisters, and so I kind of wasn't really in the world of men. Now I was a football player, I was a baseball player and all that. But I don't know, even though I was very successful at those things, succeeding in the world of life, bringing home a paycheck every week, all those things, and you're in full commission sales just wonder if you're going to make it. And so what I found was that I had been taking those pressures, those stresses, kind of into my own hands with masturbation and medicating, that pain medicating, the pain of that stress medicating, the pain of that sense of lack of manhood. And it stunned me when it finally came to my senses is that that's what was happening. Because obviously those things are not sensual at all. I mean, financial pressure is awful, but has nothing to do with sexuality. And here I was dealing with those things, with my sexual apparatus instead of dealing with them the way I thought Christian men should, which would be to take it to God and to pray. So it was then, once I realized that sometimes sexual sin is not sexual at its roots, I could then deal with it for the first time for what it was. And what I did is I began to when I felt that high pressure, I would take it to the Lord in prayer right then. Same thing with the manhood issues. And literally within weeks, that sexual sin was gone, too. And I went from being 85% pure to being 100% pure. And since then, there's been no masturbation. There's been none of that desire to lust or to look. So that's what we mean by the stealth trap. And the interesting thing is that women also have this vulnerability because I remember going into a Canadian Bible school back in the 2000s sometime. They did a survey before we got there just to see the state of the student body. And before I came, when it came to their purity. And 100% of the guys were looking at porn at least once a week. That didn't surprise me. I mean, that probably doesn't surprise you either, Jerry. But the women, the female students, 87% of them were looking at porn at least once a week. And that absolutely stunned me. And when I talked to some of the girls there, what they were saying is a lot of times what they'll do is they'll hear all the guys talking about the porn. They'll get onto the video streams and they'll look at it because they just want to see what it's all about. What's this they're all talking about? Well, here's where they get trapped. What the porn pornographers have started to do is they've started to tie romantic themes in with the pornography. They could never hook women with just static pictures of naked men. But when you stream it and you put romance to it, male sexuality is visual. Female sexuality is very relational. And what began to happen is that as they would look at that and with the romance tied in, they would get turned on, they would masturbate. That would bring that medicating flood of chemicals into their brain. And so what we have today is the fastest growing porn addiction in women that we've ever seen in history. And I never thought I'd see this day, but it's here. And so Fred has written to that topic in the book Battle on Battle Over. She's written to the women about sexual sin and how these non sexual roots can drive their addictions. And what we're finding is that women, they too they don't connect the dots, Jerry. They don't understand why once they start looking, they can't stop. Well, it's because they don't know where the roots are. But if they find the roots, they would win, too.

00:21:51 - Jerry Dugan
One thing that's popping up in my head is years ago, I worked for a battered women's shelter and sexual Assault cris center. Taking that sexualization to an extreme. When you're looking at sexual assault, for example, I think a big shock that a lot of my friends had was when I would share with them that it turns out we think that rape and sexual assault are all about sexual gratification, but it's really about exerting control. And they're like, what? No, we just need women to not dress scantily. I'm like yes. No, it's more about dominating. And it's an extreme, very dark way to dominate, and it shouldn't be done to another person. And here we're kind of running into that, but in a much less violent way. It's like I have fear of financial failure. Well, here's something I can control. I don't feel like a man. Well, this will make me feel like one. I don't feel valued or loved. Well, this will I don't feel in control of my life, and this will help me feel that. It'll give me that satisfaction. It'll reinforce this feeling that dopamine fix is there. And I love the thing that you pointed out, though, is that when you realized the stealth trap was there, you built the habit of going into prayer and surrendering. And that was the key thing that really popped out of my mind is that really what we're seeing is that masturbation is this exertion or expression of control? It's like these areas of my life are out of control. I'm going to exert and express control in this way. And you recognize to, wait a SEC, why don't I just surrender that need to be in control, give that to God, let him be in control, and I just be content with what I've got. And now that need to exert that control and that dominance, I think, goes away.

00:23:47 - Fred Stoeker
It does. And Jerry, I'm very excited with what you just said because that means that my book is conveying what I wanted it to convey because you've basically just very accurately spoke back what my book says. And so, first of all, thank you for reading it. Thank you for caring enough to express it like this. And I'll take it one step further. What masturbation is, is what I call false intimacy. So we get into these situations where we're feeling financial pressure, feeling disconnected, feeling lonely. Same thing with the manhood issue. Same thing being at a college, being far from home, the girls are lonely, they look at porn and get hooked. The same kind of a thing. And so what they're really looking for, what I was looking for is kind of a connection and intimacy. But there's only a connection for just a moment when you are looking at porn and then you masturbate, and then it's over. For those few moments, you're feeling connected with another human being even though it's pixelated on the screen. I mean, you're still feeling that because orgasm brings that feeling. But I guess the thing is that what I was doing when I began to pray was I was giving up false intimacy and moving towards genuine intimacy with God. And really what our hearts need is genuine intimacy. We don't need false intimacy. We need the genuine stuff. But a lot of times, because of how we're raised or what we run into as we grow up, like you did with some porn video, we get to the point where without knowing it, we are using our sexual apparatus to kind of get through our day. If finals week is here, okay, it's stressful. I'm going to masturbate. We think we're going to lose our position on a basketball team, okay, we're going to masturbate. We get into that habit and we never put two and two together. And so then we get into marriage and we're still even though we're getting all the sex we want, we are still using masturbation and false intimacy to deal with our problems. And of course, women don't generally see it that way. So if they were to find out that you're looking at porn and masturbating, they're going, oh, gosh, betrayal. And in many ways they're right, okay? But the thing is, from a male mean, it's more of a stealth thing. We don't even know why we're doing it. And so one of the reasons I wrote the book and that Fred joined me was we want both men and women to understand that this is there. And if you want to be free, you don't get free by somehow doing more of it. You get free by changing the way you handle those painful things in your life. Whether it be father wounds from the past, whether it be financial wounds today, whatever it might be. I'll just say it clearly this way. Genuine men don't fight their battles with masturbation. Genuine Christian men fight at the Lord's side by the Lord's purposes, through prayer, through worship, through fasting, whatever it might be. Studying the word. So we're excited at the prospect of people hearing about the book, picking up, reading it, and getting the kind of insight that you, Jerry, clearly have because you can speak to it like I speak to it. I'm impressed.

00:27:22 - Jerry Dugan
Thank you. Yeah, I love to do my homework before my guests show up.

00:27:25 - Fred Stoeker
Yes. And I have to tell you, as a guy that speaks on podcasts and radio shows, different things, not everybody does. And so I appreciate awesome.

00:27:35 - Jerry Dugan
Thank you. And so the practical tips we've picked up here, knowing that there's this underlying inside lack, in a sense, practical tip number one seems to be identify what that is. What is that root cause that is driving you towards sexual impurity, masturbation, looking up porn, dwelling on thoughts that are not of your spouse. And then the second tip was release that. Pray and worship and just release that to God. Let him have control over it and you don't have to worry about that. Are there any other additional practical tips you'd like to convey to folks?

00:28:12 - Fred Stoeker
Well, in the middle of the book I talk about rebuilding your soul so that it can hold up or be the foundation of sexual purity. And there were three chapters. The first one is on one on one worship. I know when I first became a Christian and I heard a radio pastor talk about one on one worship where I'm worshipping singing out loud to the Lord just by myself in my home. I'd never heard of such a thing. And I thought worship always just happened in church. I spend an entire chapter teaching the details on how to do that so that it's effective and that you can make that connection. Because again, genuine intimacy is what we need. And I would say that that one thing. Learning how to worship one on one with the Lord, that's the most important thing I've ever learned in the battle for purity. Then I have a chapter on fasting. I didn't do any fasting myself in the battle, but I've got a great testimony from a guy who did. And I've done quite a bit of fasting since. And it has a great ability to again connect us with God. And again, we're looking for genuine intimacy. Right? And then the third thing about building up our soul is reading the Bible through every year. Now that sounds really simple and everybody would go, Oh. Gosh, Fred, I've heard of that a billion times. You act like that's new. Well, it's new if you haven't done it yet. Right? And reading through the Bible in a year. Absolutely. I did five years straight. It was my second year of marriage. Through my 6th year of marriage transform my personal connection with God. And one of the things that we like to say is that it is impossible to read the Word without having a connection with the Lord, because Jesus Christ is the word of God incarnate. And when you are connecting with the Word, you're connecting with Him. Those three things are ways, are practical ways that we can not only build our souls so that it can hold us up in purity, but also to give us the genuine intimacy we need to win this battle. And then the final point I would say, is that after those three chapters, the rest of the book is essentially Fred teaching wives how to effectively stand with their husbands sexually so that they can win the battle together. What I found, Jerry, is if I have a wife join in counseling with a husband who's struggling with purity, I have 100% success rate in getting the husband free. But if the wife doesn't join, that's his problem. He's a pervert. Less than 50% of the guys will get free because they don't have the support from their wives. We like to say that Jerry Dugan's battle is actually best fought as every couple's battle. And Fred has brilliant teaching. We also have some teaching from a couple of pastors that I know that I've kind of included, and giving them credit, of course. But what we find is that if a wife would join with her husband in this battle, they're almost certain to win if they both commit to it.

00:31:40 - Jerry Dugan
Oh, yeah, I've seen that in my own life. We talked before we hit record that struggling with porn was a thing that I had and implemented a platform called Covenant Eyes. And it's both a filter and a monitoring program. And so not only does it filter out websites that we say, and it has an AI that screens out pornography sites, it also sends a report to an accountability partner. And I've got two male accountability partners who get a report every Thursday, and on every device that I have, they get an update. This is what Jerry searched that is a little bit iffy or he went to Yahoo and these ads came up, but they were blocked. And so they get that activity report. And I went as far as to make my wife also an accountability partner. So she works, let me tell you, those first few years were so awkward because that report would come in and she would confront me and I would try to gaslight her and she's like, well, what does Brandon say about this? And I'm like, all right, we'll get Brandon on the phone, and Brandon, he's already calling. I'm like, I love your wife and.

00:32:48 - Fred Stoeker
I've never met her. That's for mean.

00:32:50 - Jerry Dugan
She just knew Jerry's got some men that he respects and probably fears enough or respects them enough that he fears them calling him out. And here I'm like, oh, we'll call Brandon and that phone is ringing. I'm like, okay, we're going to answer this on speakerphone. And then he's like, calling me out. He's like, hey, what about this? Like, okay. And you have no choice but to face it and own it. And then Brandon would pray over us and just to see the trust rebuild. And that was the reason why was we try to downplay pornography, we try to downplay sexuality. That it's no big deal. It's natural. But to see the impact it had on my wife, to send that message to her that she was receiving, was that she was not enough for me. And already right. Unconscious, yeah, already self conscious about her body and her looks. And here I am looking at other women who've been made up and are posing and acting, and it did a number on her and it took years to recover. And you got most of your battle won in six weeks. It took me probably five, six years.

00:33:59 - Fred Stoeker
To yeah, and you don't have to feel bad about that. I mean, that happens, right? And the big thing is that you're always advancing and you're never quitting. And that's the big thing. I mean, I've had people say, well, gosh, it was easy for you. No, I was just in such a situation that I had to nuke everything or die. I mean, I was just at a bad place. But a lot of times it takes longer than that. And what I say, one of the reasons why we think it's every couple's battle is because wives can really help, just like yours did. And of course, they've got to be understanding. They've got to be humble themselves. They're not perfect. But you're right about this particular sin. I mean, it really does a number on your wife because she is feeling inadequate. She does feel like she doesn't fill in all the blanks for you. And that's disastrous for your sexual relationship because, remember, their sexuality is relational. And if they're thinking you're looking at other women, your relationship with them isn't all that strong. Oh, man. It's hard for them to follow through in bed. So Fred talks a lot about that also in Battle on Battle Over.

00:35:12 - Jerry Dugan
Awesome. Now, I know the book is available on Amazon.com. That's where I got my copy, the Kindle ebook. You've got your website, Fredstoker.com and that's Fred F-R-E-D-S-T-O-E-K-E-R. Are there other formats of the book coming out? Because at the time, I only saw the Kindle version, but I'm sure you got more coming.

00:35:31 - Fred Stoeker
Yes, actually, the paperback is out, but right today it's only available on this website, Battleonbattleover.com. It's going to shortly be on Amazon, but right now so if you want an actual book, you can get it at the audio version. Fred wasn't real comfortable taping the female part, so I've got another female that's reading her part next week. So the audio version should be up within, I'd say within the month. Your normal places where you get audiobooks. So yeah, all three of those versions you can get today.

00:36:16 - Jerry Dugan
Awesome.

00:36:16 - Fred Stoeker
Well, not the audio, but you will be able to soon and by the.

00:36:19 - Jerry Dugan
Time people are one of the reasons.

00:36:21 - Fred Stoeker
Why I wanted to bring up Battle on Battle Over is that you were mentioning to me before we started that you had led a group of men at your church in Jerry Dugan's Battle. Well, with Battle on Battle Over, I've actually created a free workbook that you can download to use in men's group. So you get ten books, get ten guys together, you get a free workbook, and then I'm in the process of also taping intros to Each Week's Lessons, the twelve week workbook, so that you actually get to see my face and get to know me a little bit in those intros on YouTube each week. So we're trying to kind of fill it out to make it even easier than I mean, Jerry Dugan's Battle was pretty easy to use in groups because it's such a felt need and people care. But we're trying to make it easier this time with the downloadable workbook and the videos so that group leaders like you, Jerry, will find it even easier to work with.

00:37:20 - Jerry Dugan
Yeah, and that is huge because men don't realize they need to have that discussion until they're having that discussion. And I'll recommend to all of you the Scott Walker technique. It's not an official technique. This is what I picked up from a friend of mine named Scott Walker. So how do you tackle those tough, awkward moments? The knee jerk reaction is we'll throw a question out there and then we feel uncomfortable and we got to fill the space with our own talking. Scott had this and maybe it's because he's a chiropractor and he works in healthcare, but he had this really well skill developed skill where he just threw the question out there and he looked at somebody in the group. And he waited. And he waited and he waited until the person pulled their thoughts together, realized they weren't getting off the hook, and they opened up.

00:38:06 - Fred Stoeker
I like that.

00:38:08 - Jerry Dugan
And just that one person opening up opens up the whole group and it does. All it takes is somebody like Scott Walker or yourself to say, hey, here's my question. What's your struggle with pornography? Dead silence. And then just wait till somebody else opens up and it feels like forever. It's probably only been three or 4.

00:38:26 - Fred Stoeker
Seconds, the longest 4 seconds on what?

00:38:31 - Jerry Dugan
For everybody in the room. So it's not just you going through it. Fred, it was so great to have you on here. I'm glad. Mean, one, this was a bucket list item for my show, and two, I think this is going to be a great value for not just the men listening, but for the families they are leading and trying to build a legacy within. And so I'm so grateful that Bob connected us. I'm grateful that Jay connected me to Bob and Aaron connected me to Jay. It's so weird how the world is connected.

00:38:56 - Fred Stoeker
If we just look up it really is these days. And I think about it and I'm in Des Moines, you're in Dallas. How in the world would we ever meet without this sort of thing? So thank you for opening up your studio to me, even though it's virtually and I've had a great time. Thank you.

00:39:13 - Jerry Dugan
Same here, Fred. Thank you. Now, chances are that was a tough conversation to listen to. Hopefully it opened up some eyes for you and just opened up a door to freedom for you. I know it had for me, not particularly this conversation, but again, that Jerry Dugan's battle. And I was just glad to be able to tackle this. Talk about control, the need for control and how we can slip down those for lack of better phrases. Slippery slope. Come on, Jerry. I apologize, guys. I don't know what happened, but I want you to get more resources from Fred. So check out the show notes@beyondthirut.com 383. You'll find episodes that relate to healthy marriage. If I've touched on this topic before, we'll bring that back up. But more importantly, you'll find out more about where you can reach Fred Stoeker and his ministry through the show notes beyond the Rut.com. 383. Now, here's the awkward thing. If you feel like somebody else would also benefit from this episode, I dare you, I triple dog dare you to hit the share button and send this episode their way. Good luck. Anyway, I'm glad I was able to tackle this conversation. Is it awkward to talk about? It could be, but it's an adult thing and we're all not all struggling with it. But there are a number of people who are struggling with it and if they can tackle this before it does any further harm to their relationships, then I am all for it. So there you have it. I'm glad you joined me for this episode of beyond the Rut and I look forward to joining you again on the next episode note. But until next time, go live life beyond the Rut. Take care.