65 | Crystal Renaud Day: Understanding the Drivers

Ever hear the same lie we have? The lie that says, "Only men watch porn." What do you do if you're a female who struggles with something you're told is just a "guy's problem?"

Growing up, Crystal Renaud Day hear that message. Although she was exposed to porn at age 10, and it eventually became an addiction, she could not find people talking about it, or offering help. Thankfully, she did something about it. 

For almost 20 years, Crystal has been helping other women find a place to speak about, understand, and find healing & recovery from unwanted sexual struggles. She created an online recovery community, SheRecovery, that offers groups for women every day of the week. She is an author of several books, including an new book called What Drives Women to Porn, which explores the multiple drivers that contribute to unwanted sexual behavior; the book releases in September 2026. She also offers an annual online FREE summit for women called the SheSummit. 

Crystal also founded an organization called Living on Purpose, which provides coaching and counseling to women and to parents who desire to raise their kids to be sexually healthy and aware.

Crystal lives with her husband Tim in Kansas City.

#crystalrenaudday #crystalday #sherecovery #livingonpurpse #sexualwholeness #pornaddiction #pornrecovery #therapy #gospel #sexualaddiction #sexaddiction #women #awaken #awakenrecovery #awakenpodcast #whatwereallywant #wwrw #grace #connection #conversation

SheRecovery website

SheSummit website - free virtual summit, with options to purchase lifetime access (use promo code AWAKEN for 10% off upgrades passes)

Transcript

Why Women Struggle In Silence

Crystal Renaud Day 0:00

For women, the struggle is rarely just about behavior. It's not a character flaw. It's connected to emotional regulation, relational wounds, identity questions, trauma experiences, and even how they understand God. And so instead of focusing on just stopping behavior or just focusing on sobriety alone, we help women walk through understanding what's underneath it.

Announcer 0:27

Welcome to What We Really Want Conversations about Connection. Settle in and get ready for a great conversation. Let's talk about what we really want.

Greg 0:40

Hey everybody, welcome back to What We Really Want. We're excited for this episode, not only because of our guest, Crystal Day, who is the founder of She Recovery and also uh Living on Purpose, which you'll hear more about, but because we've got a good friend with us, Stevi Wheeler. Glad to have you Stevi joining us here in the studio.

Stevi 0:59

I feel so official. I think I'm gonna get you all to take a picture of me with these headphones and this microphone. 100% just on Instagram.

Greg 1:06

We got the over the ears so that you got that Princess Leia thing going. So we have just finished talking with Crystal and man, what a great conversation.

Stevi 1:16

So good.

Greg 1:16

I've known about Crystal for a long time. She has a ministry. Actually, SheRecovery used to be named Dirty Girls Ministry. Did you know that?

Stevi 1:24

I did not.

Greg 1:27

So that was kind of like it was the name that would grab you, but she wrote a book in 2011 called Dirty Girls Come Clean. And I I, you know, it has a lot to do with just the stigma of being a woman who struggles with unwanted sexual behaviors. So we have known about her for a long time. She's doing such important work in the space. And we know just because of what we do with Awaken, how difficult it is to connect with women who need this kind of help.

Stevi 1:53

Yeah, absolutely.

Greg 1:55

You know, we've been going since twenty the summer of 2015, and the goal starting out was to offer communities for men and for women who struggle with compulsive or unwanted sexual behavior, and for women who are going through sexual betrayal trauma. Of the three communities that we've offered, the one that we have struggled with the most consistently over the years is our women who struggle with porn or other sexual behaviors. And it's just so hard. We have women that will reach out, we'll have women who will connect, but it's very, it's been very hard to form a cohesive, lasting community. And Stevi, we ask you to come because for quite a while you have been facilitating that community. We've we've for now we've taken a pause. And I would just love for you to kind of speak to that experience and what that's been like for you and kind of what you've noticed.

Stevi 2:43

It's funny because we were telling Crystal like three and a half years ago, if you had told me I'd be leading a group, I'd be like, You're insane. I'm not even going to this group. Like I refuse. I don't have a problem. I was that person. And I because in your mind how far you've come. I know in your mind, you're thinking, man, the worst thing before like pre-recovery, the worst thing that can happen to me is somebody finds out what I'm struggling with.

Greg 3:07

Yeah.

Stevi 3:08

And I think the enemy uses that and distorts that because, man, that is what sets you free. Group was so transformative for me. I remember there was another facilitator when I first started, and she struggled, you know, with the same unwanted behavior that I did. And it was just like that, wow, you too moment. Because so many times women in the church feel isolated because honestly, and I think I said this, people don't know what to do with women in recovery. It's just a hard conversation and we don't know what to do. And so you just it's just like you're kind of looking at each other like, huh? What do we what do we do now? And so I think it's so important for women to have that open, that supportive space. But I also have been on the other side where it feels shameful, where it feels like the worst thing in the world. So I sympathize with both sides, but I will tell you that's where you're gonna find some freedom and healing. Yeah. And that's what Jesus wants.

Greg 4:03

100%.

Stacey 4:04

It's so true. I think even like as a betrayed partner, this many years later, it's hard to talk about, you know, sinful things that I may struggle with, being so desperate for, I don't know, somebody to like what I said or or whatever. But when I tell somebody, and it's usually usually in this community, awakened community, just because I regularly see these people, just the response of, gosh, that had to be hard. I'm glad you told me. There's really nothing more that needs to be done in a lot of those times. It's just I needed to say it. So anyway, yeah, I think your point is absolutely true. No matter what you find yourself facing, tell somebody. You don't have to be on a podcast, but tell somebody that's safe.

Meeting Crystal Day And Her Mission

Greg 4:52

Well, we have for many years offered a community for women with this type of struggle. We're kind of revamping and having some shorter term options, always ready to jump back in with a weekly recovery community if we have people to sustain it. In the meantime, we're really excited for you to hear more about the She Recovery community because they have virtual meetings and chat groups every day of the week. And so for women who have been pursuing help for this struggle, there is help out there. We're always happy when we can provide it, but we're also happy when we can point to other people who are providing it. And Crystal's doing such a great job. So we just really want you to remember that there is help out there when you're ready to ask for it. And we hope that you will be. We also hope that you'll be encouraged and get a lot out of our conversation with our guest, Crystal Day. This is episode 65. It's called Understanding the Drivers. And the conversation starts right now. Crystal Day, really looking forward to a conversation with you. Thanks for being with us.

Crystal Renaud Day 5:52

Oh, you bet. Happy to be here.

Greg 5:53

I can see your KC cup there. Are you checking in from Kansas City?

Crystal Renaud Day 5:58

I am. I'm sitting in Missouri right now, actually in Kansas City, Missouri, but I live in on the Kansas side.

Greg 6:05

Have you lived there in that area all your life, or did you grow up somewhere else?

Crystal Renaud Day 6:09

Most of my life. I've lived here longer than anywhere else. Moved to the Kansas City area in 96, back in the 1900s. So I've been here for a while. And prior to that, it was just, you know, Minnesota and in Iowa. Yeah. So this is this has been home for a long time.

Greg 6:28

Well, Crystal, I've been wanting to have you on the show for a long time. And we're going to be in a few minutes talking about a subject that is thankfully getting more attention, but still not enough. And it's the first time we've ever talked about it specifically on what we really want. So I can't wait for that, but going to actually wait a few minutes because I want to start out by just asking you, what do you really want out of our conversation?

Crystal Renaud Day 6:52

You asked me this. So I cheated a little bit trying to figure out what I was going to say. But I think for me, I think what's most important is that if there are women who are listening to this episode, that they would feel seen through my story and through the conversations that we're having today.

Church Culture And Gendered Shame

Greg 7:09

Well, what we're going to talk a lot about today is women who are dealing with unwanted or addictive sexual struggles. And so that's not exactly a light topic, but it's so important because of women and men who struggle with addictive or unwanted behaviors. It's it's such a weight to carry. I want to acknowledge something as we kind of get ready to kick off into this. You know, Stacy and I work every day around men and women who've been affected by addiction, unwanted sexual behavior, betrayal trauma. And I know that you work in this space every day as well. As somebody who's around this all the time, I was just thinking a little bit before we started recording how easy it can be for me to forget this is not a common topic of conversation for most people, especially as this particular one relates to females. And so when you and I were emailing about today, one thing I ask you is if you would just sort of give our listeners a primer, you know, on what it's like to be a woman who struggles with something that I think, particularly in church culture, is still talked about as if it's mostly a men's issue. You've been working in this space since 2009 when you started your online community. I know you wrote a book, Dirty Girls Come Clean, in 2011. So you've been in this space 15, 20 years. And I want to know, among other things, I know I'm this is a really long windup, so and I'm gonna be quiet a minute. But what's your take on like culture and the church's progress and like understanding how to help women who experience sexual brokenness?

Crystal Renaud Day 8:38

Oh, you're starting with the with the big fastball there or curve, really. But you know, that's that my answer has changed. You know, you said 15, 20 years of doing this. Yeah, it has my answer, has changed because you know, early on in these conversations, there was a lot of rebuking, you know, just a lot of like, come on, people, women, women struggle too. Like you can't just make it about men. Like you're alienating a whole half or more of your congregation. And so I do see improvement there. Thankfully, with the development of different organizations, different conversations, resources, books that have come out since I started, you know, that conversation's gotten easier. I still find that while churches are open to talking about women and their struggles, they're not so quick to provide a resource or an avenue towards community healing. And so for us, you know, we we're we're an online entity at She Recovery, and so we meet the need of women from across the country and around the world filling that kind of para-church gap, right? Of creating that space for them to find healing. But I think that that healing should be taking place in the church within communities within the church, and that we should my organization shouldn't have to exist. Like I feel like, you know, if the church was doing their job and and had the resources and training to do so, I I wouldn't have to be here.

Greg 10:07

Stevi, I'm just interested in your way in as far as your experience, someone who growing up in the church while struggling, you know, how does what Crystal just said hitting you?

Stevi 10:17

Man, I was just like, she hit the nail on the head. Like, I remember growing up in youth group, and we for one summer decided to split up, split up boys and girls. So the boys went into one room and did a Bible study about how to deal with lust, which you know is a men's problem. And then the girls did a Bible study about how to be a good wife one day. And I'm just sitting here even more already enveloped in shame and thinking even more like, oh wow, this just reinforces the narrative that what I'm dealing with is not normal. And I'm sitting there thinking that at, you know, 15, 16. And as I think more through that story of mine particular, I'm like, well, no wonder I was almost 30 before I said anything. Because it just like you said, I think I do have hope that it's changing in a lot of situations, but it just wasn't the norm back in like 2010, 2011. Still isn't in some ways.

Crystal Renaud Day 11:14

Stevi, you and I were at the same youth group, I think. Or same same same curriculum, same something. Because yeah, I had a very similar experience. And when I first started going to church, I was 15 and I was in the throes of my addiction already. I was 10 years old when I was exposed to porn. And so I was already searching for hope, searching for answers, searching for some understanding of what the heck am I doing and why. And I get put in a youth group or a church environment, just period, where you know, men don't touch porn, don't cheat on your wives, blah, blah, blah. But women just be good wives and service your husbands, and you know, and it's very like, hello, like there's a huge disconnect there because I'm sorry, I thought God made man and women in his image and made us both sexual, made us both have desire, made us both want oneness with each other, wives as a helpmate, not as a slave, not as a sexual tool, but as a partner, as somebody to cherish and care for and care about her sexual needs.

Greg 12:25

You know, before we started recording, I we were just talking briefly about an event that happened 10 years ago that Covenant Eyes and Josh McDowell Ministries put on called the Set Free Summit. And uh Jessica Harris, who is someone else who has worked in a similar space as you, Crystal, was telling her story about the first time that she summoned the courage to go and talk to her pastor. And I'm, I know you've heard the story, but our listeners, many of them probably haven't. I mean, she sat there terrified, I mean, her heart beating out of her chest. She confessed to her pastor, I'm I'm addicted to pornography. And basically, he looked at her and just kind of smiled and said, No, you're not, honey. And he he just said, You're not. Because his world was women don't get addicted to pornography. That's staggering when you think of what needs to happen when someone is walking and stepping into vulnerability and how to steward that well, and that just being the exact opposite of that. Uh, I'm sure you've heard stories like that, maybe some even worse.

Crystal Renaud Day 13:31

Yeah, I have. But honestly, it's the rarity that Jessica would do that.

Greg 13:38

Yeah.

Crystal Renaud Day 13:38

Would actually go to a male pastor and and then can give that confession. And so going back to the conversation of like, is it getting better? I hope so. Because if a young woman or even a woman in her 40s who decides I'm done with this and I need help wants to go to her pastor or her church leadership and confess this thing, it should be met with understanding. It should be met with grace, it should be met with options, things that she can go do and resources that she can cling to. But ultimately, it should be met with grace and understanding, knowing that, like, yeah, of course you could be addicted to porn. Like you're a sexual being. This is not something that is solely a man issue. It's not, it does not discriminate against gender. Yeah. And so for us, we we've heard a lot of stories like that, like Jessica's. They have gone to their church leadership and they'll pray with them and kind of give them like some encouragement, but there's like no like next step for them. There's no like, where do I go from here outside of read the Bible more or pray more or study more, talk to other women, maybe, but there's no like real tangible next step towards healing that is not just sobriety, but what is happening inside and what's making you go to this and dealing with the root issues there.

Greg 15:01

Well, speaking of the root issues, I'd love if you would spend some time just kind of talking about the things that you experience, the things that you've learned about how this type of compulsion addiction develops. Because I think if we're talking about the onset of what becomes addictive behavior, there are a lot of things that are common between men and women who experience various kinds of addiction. I know that sometimes I hear stories where there can be some distinctions in like how the behaviors manifest between men and women. But as far as like what contributes, shame is a word that we use a lot. Obviously, some adverse childhood experiences, trauma. There's a lot of things that are behind it that I think are really helpful for people who are struggling to hear about because a lot of times strugglers who don't have that understanding just take it to be a character flaw or character defect issue. So could you talk a little bit about some of the common things that kind of feed into those strategies that turn into addictions?

Crystal Renaud Day 16:07

Yeah, you know, um, if you'll allow me, I want to I can plug my new book that's coming out in September. Oh, it's called it's it's called What Drives Women to Porn. And it's really the heart behind it is the last 15, 20 years of my experience. It's looking at the all of the different women that I've worked with, their stories, whys, all of that. Because for a long time, and Stevi, you probably agree, we've been asking, you know, how do I stop? Or how do we stop? But what we haven't spent enough time doing is asking, why is this happening in the first place? And so what I've seen over the years, and what this book will explore, is that for women, the struggle is rarely just about behavior, which we know that um it's not a character flaw, like it's connected to emotional regulation, relational wounds, identity questions, trauma experiences, and even how they understand God. And so instead of focusing on just stopping behavior or just focusing on sobriety alone, what this book and what we do at She Recovery does is we help women walk through understanding what's underneath it and how their healing actually begins there. Because this book and what we do is isn't about behavior management, it's about understanding the drivers and kind of creating a path towards real healing. And for us, healing isn't sobriety, healing is wholeness, body, mind, and spirit. And so talking about those drivers through the book, I talk about five different drivers. It's emotional drivers, relational drivers, identity drivers, trauma drivers, and spiritual drivers. Porn isn't the problem, it's the place they go when something deeper is unmet.

Greg 18:04

Yeah.

Crystal Renaud Day 18:04

And so, you know, for emotional driver, it would be like it's for regulation, it's for relief, it's for escape. You know, we hear a lot, especially amongst people who don't think women struggle with porn. If they, if they, if they, if they believe it at all, they see it as, oh, that's something that a man has coerced her into doing, or it's something that her husband pressure her to do, or a boyfriend, or because of some sexual trauma experience, which all of that can be true, but we did a survey at She Recovery in 2023 of 1,300 women, 1300 plus women, only 2% of them used porn primarily because of a partner. And the and the primary reason was for emotional regulation.

Greg 18:52

I saw that I'm holding a copy of that survey infographic right now. And I yeah, I'm glad you brought it up because there's so much in there that I think can be illuminating on people's experiences.

Crystal Renaud Day 19:04

Yeah. To say that, to compare men and women, like you were asking me to do, what I think is the same, and you probably would you may agree, Greg and and Stevi and Stacy, you know, what's the what's the same as the shame cycle, the secrecy of it, some of the escalation patterns, the the the bigger, better, more escalation of porn use, and then the use of for relief and escape. But what I think is often different about women is our relational and emotional drivers are different. We have less, what I would say, external consequences because we hide it better. And so, like for men, we see a lot of just like the moral failing of the pastor who gets caught and he get he gets sent off to some kind of camp. I don't know what happens actually, but he uh, you know, tries to be restored to the pulpit, but they're found out or it's messed up their marriage in some way. And like Scrag, you and Stacey, you're familiar with this, the betrayal trauma part of it is very, very real. Um, and it's not that men can't be betrayed by a sexual addicted spouse, but it's just looks different. Usually it's much harder to see the problem because for men, it's like, oh, my wife loves sex, this is great. Like she's always wanting to go for it. It's very different. And then I think there's some language mismatching in recovery spaces as well. Women are more likely to feel like I don't fit here in this recovery space, or they may even downplay their struggle because maybe it's just erotica and things like that. And so they may think their struggle isn't that serious and they don't actually need to get any help. So the sim the cycle is similar, but what drives it is often different.

Greg 20:50

I think it's important what you just said because the subject matter of the porn or the erotic materials that are sometimes used is different, that there that can kind of feed into a minimization or a normalization, or just, hey, this isn't that big of a problem. But you know, that's something that everyone who ends up with an addictive struggle does in some form at some point. You know, guys will say about hardcore porn, well, you know, at least it's not this kind of porn, or, you know, I don't watch it that much, or I don't watch it as much as my friends do. And so it it makes a lot of sense. Maybe it makes more sense on the surface in certain contexts, but even that is uh, I think a pretty universal experience. And I think it's important to point that out because I have just been aware of so many women who just create a narrative around their struggle that this is just me. You know, no one else does this. No one else is this bad.

Stacey 21:50

You know, I was thinking about Stevi, we are aware of a situation where there was a book being passed around. And I don't would you call it a...

Stevi 22:00

I mean, I would call it erotica.

Stacey 22:01

Okay.

Stevi 22:01

It it looks like a cute little fancy cover, but I mean, when 90% of it is sexual content, that's erotica.

Stacey 22:09

So obviously that wasn't porn there because they would know not to do that, but then that's just as harmful.

Stevi 22:15

It is.

Crystal Renaud Day 22:17

Or it's not porn because it's not Netflix and it might. Yeah.

Stevi 22:21

Or I can skip it. Well, and you know, I obviously don't know anybody's heart, don't know, not trying to speak for anybody, but I just know that I I wouldn't be able to skip that stuff. So if it's in there, like why? And I think, and Stacy and I have talked about this. It's so hard when you have been in the throats of addiction, especially if it started small with something like that. You just have that, I think of that uh verse from Jude of like, I just want to snatch you from the fire. Like, I don't, I don't want you to go anywhere near this. But I think I'm just constantly and continually reminded one, we are up against spiritual forces. And yes, we have the hope of Christ that He is stronger than those forces. But like it's not my job to convince you that you have a problem. And even more of how I see even women that come to us for groups is more so like I'm here to meet you where you are, but also to remind you that there is better. Like healing is possible. And I think so many times we like you were saying earlier, we just focus on what do I do to stop this? What do I do to not feel this way anymore? We don't go past that of like, what would it look like to live an abundant life in Jesus?

Survey Findings That Challenge Myths

Greg 23:36

Right. Well, I want to get back to the survey for a second because I was just I told you ahead of time we don't prepare a whole lot of questions because I just like to really be present in the conversation and and listen to what you have to say. But you you brought this up, and I saw this when I was kind of looking at your website to make sure that I I was prepared enough, you know? And and I was looking through this and I just circled several things that were of note to me. I would love to just get you to talk about maybe some of the things that confirmed some theories or experiences, and then maybe some things in it, if anything, surprised you. But I know that you at the very top, the the statistic that you quoted was if the narrative is that it's always because my husband or my boyfriend is bringing this. That's that's extremely rare that that's the primary reason that women are looking at it. But but even above that, you you talked about the 1,300 plus responses in your survey, almost 77% said that they frequently visited porn sites like Pornhub. And Pornhub in their own research says it's more like 36%. But you pointed out something really important, and that is because they're basing their research over people who have created an account. And I mean, anybody who's ever talked to a porn struggler or a porn addict knows that like we don't want to leave a footprint out there. And so there's a whole lot slipping through the cracks. So that's one thing. Did it surprise you that almost 77% of your respondents said that they have frequently visited porn sites, or did you expect that?

Crystal Renaud Day 25:09

I expected it. You know, part of why I did the survey, a part of why I wanted this information is because of the years of watching this unfold in front of me with these women and continuing to hear a narrative that women don't watch porn, you know, that and that the stats don't even support that women in droves are watching porn. But I think about this and like that's just what the survey talks about, is I wanted I asked those specific questions, like, what do you visit? How often? But also have you ever created an account? I think it was I don't remember how to do it. 86.6% have never created an account. And that's because, and I'm not saying that men aren't secretive, but I think for women in particular, it's a it's such a shame-filled thing that they don't want to be found out in any way. But also think about this in terms of married women. Often, if you're creating an account, you're also paying for it. Yes. And if you share a bank account with your husband, he's gonna see that. A lot of men still control the bank accounts and all of those things anyway. And so that there's just an added element of like not leaving breadcrumbs, not leaving evidence. Women also are far less likely to watch porn at work. There's a much more at-home, secretive, on your phone, like hiding behavior that is different. And so I knew that if I asked those questions of these women, I had a good feeling that I was right. Yeah, that the stats don't match up with reality because we just don't have the data because women aren't providing it.

Greg 26:52

You know, that makes so much sense what you're saying right now. I don't have stats on the male side of things in front of me, but just from an experiential and anecdotal and common sense framework, when young men start using porn in heavy volume at that time in their lives before their neurological development is complete, before their prefrontal cortexes are fully formed and they still have kind of that invincibility complex. Same reason they drive 100 miles an hour and they don't think anything bad's gonna happen to them. You know, they can create accounts, they can pay for it, they've got some money. We're hearing more stories about young men getting sex torted because they'll, you know, they'll get drawn into some of these vulnerable places. But if they don't have these massive consequences, then not only is the, I guess, the foundation being laid while they're still not fully neurologically developed, but we also know because of hypofrontality and the damage that you can do to your rational brain through heavy porn use, that by the time they are married and are adults and do have, you know, significant income, they're gonna be less inhibited. You know, they're gonna go ahead and take some of those risks. They're gonna open that secret credit card or do some of those things. And and the story that I'm telling myself is that women just do that that type of thing far less frequently. And so they're gonna dip, you know, dip in and out in in ways that it's gonna be more private, it's not gonna leave a trail. And and I would imagine that shame is a huge part of that.

Crystal Renaud Day 28:24

It is. I think though, maybe Stevi, you can speak to this too. Just like men do risky behavior too, in terms of like prostitution or you know, Tinder, like doing hook hooking up behaviors and just kind of being sexually free, uh, so to speak. But women, their risky behavior is the sex torsion, their risky behavior is sending pictures of themselves. Their risky behavior is the dating apps and hooking up and those types of things. That's their risky behavior that would that could be found out. But it's that's again very isolated to their phone, to their own personal thing and in their minds. Obviously, anything online is there forever. But I think that there is more of that risky behavior looks more like a a secret footprint as opposed to an open footprint that I think I can't speak to all men or men's experiences or from what I've heard and seen. It's still it's different.

Stevi 29:24

And I think what pushes women specifically into just this cycle of shame that I'm sure men experience too, but just specifically for women, is because of how the people around us respond to us. I think of Jessica explaining this to her pastor and being told, Oh, you don't have an addiction. I think of myself at eight years old asking my grandmother, is it normal that I think about sex constantly and being told, yeah, just don't tell anybody about it. You know? And in my heart of hearts, I know that she was just she was trying not to shame me. I think, but what it taught me was, oh no, this is not normal. Do not share this with anyone. And that was what was so confusing for me for a long time was okay, I'm hearing all these stories of other people that have been set free. And all they had to do was confess that's what they were struggling with. And in that moment, they never struggled with it again. And I'm like, I had gone to, you know, not a ton of people, like, but a couple of people just explaining, like, hey, I'm struggling with this, I don't really know what to do with this. And they would either just get like really awkward and not ever talk to about it again, and we would just move on, or it would just be the downplaying of it. And again, I think they felt like they were helping, but people don't know what to do with women in recovery a lot of times. And that's what keeps us silent. And I think that's why it's more and more important for the church to step up in a lot of ways and offer things like recovery groups. I mean, I it's so funny to be sitting here because not even three and a half years ago, I remember Stacy was the one that told me about an awaken group. And I was like, nope, won't be doing that. You know, it's one thing that Stacy knows. I'm struggling. I'm I'm happy to tell a HIPAA protected counselor that I'm struggling. But to get on a Zoom and be like, hi, my name is Stevi. And nope, not gonna happen.

Stacey 31:21

And I use the addiction word too. Oh, yeah.

Stevi 31:24

Yeah, we could do a separate podcast about Stacey telling me I was an addict. I'm like, what are you talking about? Sorry for another day, but hopefully I didn't go in with that. Like that wasn't like the first one. You're an addict, no, just um, but yeah, I mean, still like in the wrestling of that, like that this was, you know, not just like, oh, this this little thing that you know, like it was taking over my life. And again, because it's so secretive, no one knew. I served on a church staff multiple times as a children's director, no one knew, and I would get so close to telling somebody, and then I'd be like, nope, I'll lose everything, everything will be gone.

Greg 32:07

Right.

Stevi 32:07

I my reputation was uh rooted, my identity was rooted in being the good girl who always did everything right. And I couldn't let the cracks in that fall to someone else.

Crystal Renaud Day 32:16

So thanks for sharing that, Stevi. Appreciate that. Yeah, thank you, Stevi. I resonate so much with your story and your experience, unfortunately. Unfortunately, however, you want to feel that.

Greg 32:28

It's both, isn't it? I mean, that's and that's why that's why we need community. It's unfortunate because, like, man, I get that pain, which means I went through it too, but it's fortunate because it now, now that the two of us know each other, we don't have to be alone in it anymore. So, yeah, it's both. There, there's so many conversations we have in our recovery community where we just say, hey, we're we're learning how to hold two things at the same time. You know, that's not that's not a muscle that we worked, that's not an emotional skill that we developed very much, just because there's a concreteness that that we kind of tend to stick with when we're when we're hiding or we're in shame. So speaking of speaking of hiding, speaking of shame, the the 1300 plus women who to some degree came out of hiding to participate in this survey, we've talked about the type of exposure, the type of porn they're looking at. We've talked about you mentioned that the most common trigger is not sexual arousal. According to the respondents in your survey, that was only about a third. So two-thirds of the women who use porn, it was out of things like loneliness, stress, anxiety, tiredness. And that's huge too. And that's that's not gender specific. I mean, men, that's the same way too. Sam Jolman has a really helpful part of his book, The Sex Talk You Never Got, where he says, you know, so many men will use porn in masturbation when they're not aroused because it's it's for it's for emotional regulation. But there were a couple of things that just really I I just I wrote the word tragic on here. One was the childhood experiences questions that 431 out of 1,300 had a parent with a mental illness, 274 had a parent with an addiction, 219, they were a victim of physical abuse. And about half of the women who responded were a victim of sexual abuse. So many adverse childhood and young adult and adult experiences, and of course that feeds in. And then the saddest thing that I saw was at the bottom where the questions were, have you ever sought counseling or attended a support group? And 72% had never gotten counseling, and 93% have never been to a support group. And so they're suffering alone. I mean, I'm I'm hoping, I'm praying that there are women who are gonna listen to this. I just am anticipating that the things you have to say about that are gonna be potentially really, really super hopeful and encouraging for them.

Crystal Renaud Day 34:57

Well, I do appreciate you speaking about the survey and actually talking about the numbers because I think it's important that we hear statistics and we forget that those are people.

From Sobriety To Wholeness And Roots

Greg 35:08

Yes.

Crystal Renaud Day 35:09

So each one of those women that you're talking about who was sexually abused or physically abused or had, you know, even I think the primary father figure was only 88% had a primary father figure. Just all these different experiences of growing up in in in environments and in situations and circumstances that you know you would tell a friend was horrible.

Greg 35:32

Yeah.

Crystal Renaud Day 35:33

Right? So you would tell your friend, oh, I'm so sorry that happened to you. Have you gone to counseling for that? Or have you gotten some support for that? But as women, we are the nurturers, we are not the ones who are nurtured often. And so we tend to put our needs, our wants, our experiences last. And when that happens, we end up using things that aren't unhealthy for us to cope. That survey also talks about women in food, shopping, social media habits, where we're transferring from sex to food, from food to shopping, from shopping to social media and going back and forth and back and forth, just searching for comfort, searching for relief, searching for something to make us feel better because of our experiences. And what's important, it's again to go back to the numbers, is that each one of those numbers is a woman who is declaring and saying, These were my experiences. So if you are listening to this and you've had a similar experience, you should know from hearing that and from hearing Stevi and from hearing me, like you are not alone in that. Like you do not have to sit in that isolation. You don't have to keep going to the thing you know won't fulfill the need. You can go and get the support that you do need and to work on not stopping behavior, not modifying, not sobriety, not performance. Because I know for me it was all about if I could be a good enough Christian girl, then I'll stop struggling. I led the worship team, I led the Christian club in my high school. Like I did all the good godly things to make this stop. But there was more than a it was more than a spiritual issue, it was more than an emotional issue, it was more than a physical issue. This was a full-bodied experience that needed to be all of the above. And wholeness means healing in body, mind, and spirit. And so if you're finding that you're creating, I like to say that a lot of recovery models build scaffolding around a problem. And a lot of what we do day to day to overcome is just building scaffolding. We're trying to support ourselves, but we're not repairing the foundation of what's causing the the building, the house, whatever, to you know, that's causing it to crumble. It's the foundation, not trying to fix the outside, not trying to fix it through scaffolding, but really getting back to what's the foundation, and let's fix it and stop adding things that were only going to maybe support it for a little while, but ultimately are not a long-term solution. And so for me, it's you know, it's becoming whole and focusing not on what you're struggling with, but why.

Greg 38:33

Yeah.

Crystal Renaud Day 38:34

And getting to the getting to the root of that why.

Stacey 38:36

I was thinking about myself, my own story, and any women who might be listening who don't identify maybe as struggling with sexual brokenness in that in the way we're talking about it. But like when we got married, the narrative, the belief was give him sex so he won't cheat. And so, you know, just doing that, there's so much in me that's not you know settled or understood to where I'm believing that, first of all. And then like when we get into well, it doesn't work. I can tell you it doesn't work. And I don't and I honestly, I thought that because of the way I showed up for sex before all this blew up, that if I had done it better or nice at all, because I wasn't very nice about it, that it wouldn't have happened. And I've met so many women who love sex and always were willing and wanted it, and they still got this same story. So I know that those things are not true. But even when we got into recovery, I found myself almost in a stronger way, like, okay, but now I really need to do it right, or or show up and be willing because now I know what happened. And if if I don't do it, it's it's it was insane. Like it didn't work before, it's not gonna work now, but that is not what the what I was thinking. And so just uh getting into my whole backstory to your point, it's getting to those roots, even if it's coming out different ways, I still didn't have a healthy outlook of sex. I was doing it for the wrong reasons. I was insecure and not valuing myself, you, our marriage, sex the way God intended. And so, yeah, if you find yourself where that is the belief, like I'm responsible to whether it's dress appropriately to keep the men from sinning or like just being like you know, if you find yourself in that place, please give me a screach out. Or yeah, that that keep him satisfied or that he needs it every so often. That's just it's just not true. But again, just knowing that and then doing it, think you think if you don't understand yourself and get down to what's really going on in you, that's it stems back to the childhood, which a lot of people eye roll, like, here we go with the childhood. But it's so true. And I've uncovered more not like things that I didn't know and I remembered, but just like connecting dots in the last few years that has really impacted our relationship.

How To Get Help Through She Recovery

Crystal Renaud Day 41:14

Yeah, and thank you for that, Stacey. You know, I think about, and maybe Stevi, you can agree, my recovery has been for 20 years, but it's not it wasn't done 20 years ago. There's I've walked into recovery 20 years ago, but my experience and learning more about myself and healing more layers and discovering there's more layers to it. I had no idea I had so many layers, you know, and that it's that healing is an ongoing thing for those who are like, oh, sobriety is the answer, or if I can just get a grip on my my behavior, like they're gonna think that that's that it's not enough because there's always more, especially as believers. I believe that God is always asking more of us to refine us, to stretch us, to grow us, to become more like imitators of Christ. And so in doing that, you are having to peel back the layers of your life, which includes those childhood wounds nobody wants to talk about, but are affecting you today. And it just has to be dealt with. It has to be.

Greg 42:19

Hey, Crystal, you've been super kind and I know that our time is getting close to being over, but I wanted to give you a chance to talk again, just mention your book again. And I know you have events, and tell us about the ways that people can connect with living on purpose and she recovery and some of the uh online events and summits that you have. We we'd love for our listeners to get to hear about that. And of course, we'll put links in the show notes.

Crystal Renaud Day 42:46

Yeah, I know I thank you for the opportunity to say that. So the easiest way to connect with all of our resources is she recovery.com. It's just she, like the pronoun recovery.com. And there you can learn about our membership, which is where our meetings reside. We have chat communities and Zoom meetings every day of the week. With living on purpose, is the parent organization where we do our coaching and counseling and spiritual care services. Again, everything's virtual, everything's online, including our upcoming summit, um, the She Summit, which will take place October 19th through the 23rd of this year, 2026. It's entirely free, it's entirely online. It's our fourth one since 2020, and it's really all about helping women to focus on why they are struggling and how to heal. We are going to actually be like combining it with the release of my book this year. So, what drugs women to porn? So every day of the summit, it's five days, will be one of those drivers. And so we'll be talking through those drivers every single day of the week that week. And so it's free. You can find out on she recovery.com or she virtualsummit.com. There are upgrades. Passes for extended content, extended time to watch things, but otherwise you should just come join us for free.

Greg 44:06

I don't want people to miss that it is free. And also, if you want to be able to continue to go back to it, you and I communicated some about that. And the options for having lifetime access to it are unbelievably affordable. It's just, it's great content. And I know that, you know, information is not what heals, but information sometimes is what stirs up an awareness of the things that do need to be healed. And it points us in the direction of the people who can come alongside of us and and provide that healing. And so, Crystal, I just am so grateful that you've been offering this to women for so long. I mean, longer than just about anybody who's in this space. And so I'm glad that we finally got a chance to talk to you.

Crystal Renaud Day 44:45

I really appreciate the time. Thank you. Thanks, all three of you, for your time and your words and encouragement. I appreciate it.

Greg 44:52

Take care.