68 | Troy & Melissa Haas: We Just Want to Walk With People

One of the greatest gifts that can be given a person in recovery is presence. Company. Someone to walk with you. Someone to make sure you aren't doing recovery alone.

For 25 years, Troy and Melissa Haas have been walking with men and women impacted by addiction and betrayal trauma. Out of their own experience - with Troy's multiple addictions and incarceration and Melissa's discovery of Troy's infidelity & sexual addiction - came a process of healing, recovery, and wholeness. 

Their experience hasn't been wasted. In 2001 they founded The HopeQuest Group, an organization offering help and resources for addiction treatment. Based out of the Atlanta GA area, they offer inpatient treatment, intense outpatient treatment, individual and couples' counseling, and recovery communities for men in sexual addiction recovery (Walking Free) and women healing from betrayal trauma (The Journey).

#troyhaas #melissahaas #troyandmelissahaas #hopequestgroup #walkingfree #thejourney #recovery #healing #treatment #sexaddiction #sexualaddiction #pornaddiction #betrayaltrauma #grace #gospel #healing #awaken #awakenrecovery

HopeQuest Group website

Walking Free men's sex addiction recovery community

The Journey women's betrayal trauma support community

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

What We Really Want intro

Melissa Haas 0:00

So we have more awareness of the problem, but we're also living in heightened fear about it. Where in the past, primarily judgment would have shut down the church. I think these days fear gets in the way because of how public everything is in social media and all of those things. So we I think we have greater awareness, but we also have greater fear.

Announcer 0:21

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 0:34

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of What We Really Want. Today is episode 68. It's called We Just Want to Walk with People, and our guests are Troy and Melissa Haas. This is a really special one for me. Stacy and I have been looking forward to talking to Troy and Melissa. This is another couple who is working in the same space that we are. They've been doing it for longer than we have. Troy was one of the first people that I met when we made the decision back in 2015 to start Awaken. We had a mutual friend, my friend and I drove over to Atlanta to take a tour of the Hope Quest group, which is a therapeutic recovery treatment center that Troy Melissa started back in 2001. And it was just so encouraging to talk to somebody who had a same, the same kind of story and a similar vision for what he wanted to see God be able to do with the brokenness and the redemption that he had walked through. And here we are, 11 years later, having a talk with them with a whole lot more water under the bridge, a whole lot more things that have happened. Troy and Melissa have their own recovery story. Troy struggled through multiple addictions in a time of incarceration earlier in his life. Melissa experienced betrayal trauma similar to how so many women, including Stacy, went through. And out of that, they made a decision to take the healing and the help and the resources that they received themselves and turn it into a way to walk with people. We we called the episode We Just Want to Walk With People because that's something that toward the end of the conversation, Troy says multiple times, and it just it resonates so much with Stacy and with me, because that's what we want to do. People walked with us in the lowest point in our lives. And that made all the difference. I mean, people who are Christians say, well, God's the one that made the difference. Yeah, he he was. And the way that he did it was by not letting us walk through the darkest and the toughest thing that we ever went through by ourselves. We had a community. We had people who said, You're not the only one, and we're not going anywhere at a time that other people in our lives did go somewhere because they didn't know what to do with us. There were people who stayed and who walked. And that's something that will always be so special and meaningful to us. I know that it was to Troy and Melissa, and like them, we just want to walk with people as well. We're so grateful for people like Troy and Melissa who have spent their lives and continue to uh training, becoming better equipped to offer help and healing and hope and everything, all of the above, to people who need it so desperately. They uh founded the Hope Quest Group. They also started the Walking Free and the Journey recovery communities for sexually addicted men and women going through betrayal trauma. So much overlap between what they're doing and what Awaken is doing. And so it's just it's great to call them friends. It's great to be able to spend some time with them. We hope that this will be a super encouraging conversation for you to sit in on. It's episode 68. It's with Troy and Melissa Haas. It's called We Just Wanna Walk With People, and the conversation starts right now.

Welcoming Troy & Melissa

Troy Haas 3:43

You know, people with all these tech skills and all you Mac people that I mean, I'd love to be like y'all, but I just I'm not, I can't. I'm pretty tech savvy on a PC, but you know that the tech savvy and PC don't really, those are kind of oxymorons, right?

Greg 4:00

Yeah, but us Mac people we're nerdy and insufferable. So I'm not gonna argue with that.

Stacey 4:07

Yeah.

Greg 4:10

Melissa and Troy, so good to have you guys. Uh this is this is a lot of fun. I we I feel like we've known you sort of for a long time, but then more recently have really gotten to know you guys. And and I'm just it it makes a lot of sense considering the worlds that we live in.

Troy Haas 4:28

Absolutely. We're thrilled to be with you guys. And and again, I think you're right. I think we have we have known one another almost since you guys started. Yeah. Um, and yet this is our first time hanging out, and we're really grateful for the opportunity to hang out together.

Greg 4:42

I remember the first time I met you in person. It was when I came over to Atlanta and you gave us a tour of Hope Quest, your of your facilities, and it was just so inspiring because we were just getting started and still in that place that you guys probably remember of like, is this gonna turn out to be anything? You know, uh or are we in and over our heads? And the answer, of course, was yes, we were in over our heads.

Troy Haas 5:08

But God can take that and make something.

Greg 5:10

Well, just hanging around with people who've been in it for 15 years longer than us to say, okay, that this is this is okay. Let's just let's keep going. So yeah, really excited to hear, uh, to talk to you guys, to have a conversation. And we have a question that we tend to ask all of our guests at the beginning. And I'd love to ask y'all, what do you really want out of the time we're gonna spend together today? Ladies first.

Melissa Haas 5:35

Thank you, honey. I I think what I really want out of our time together is that somehow we could add value. And perhaps that value is just feeling known and being heard and seen to the people who are listening to this podcast and may wonder if there's hope, if there's a way forward. So my hope is that whatever we bring today to this time together would be inspiring and encouraging and hope-filled for people on this journey because it's hard sometimes to keep sight of that in the midst of the weeds of recovery.

Troy Haas 6:15

And what I would add is for for me, I mean, we all know this, relationships are the I mean, they're the sweet spot, they're the purpose, they're the they're really the everything of recovery. And what I when I saw that question, you know, my first thought was just a chance to get to know you guys better and to feel more connected to Greg and Stacy. I mean, we know Greg and Stacy, we pray for Greg and Stacy, we're aware of roots, like you, like you said, we've had a lot of overlap between our communities. A lot of walking free guys uh have been through the roots intensive. And so we just my my hope, what I wanted to get out of things was just to get to know you guys and feel more connected.

Greg 6:56

I love that. And I love your use, the the use of the words relationships because there's such a sweetness to it when we find them authentically and safely. But you guys know probably even better than we do, but we both know really, all of us know really well that for a lot of the people we work with, relationships is like returning to the scene of the crime. You know, we're we're wounded in relationships, but we heal in relationships. And so, you know, it's a scary thing, but it's a beautiful thing when you find the ones that that don't let you down and don't pull the rug out from under you. Well, in the spirit, Troy, especially of what you said first, and getting to know each other better, I'm gonna ask you just such a cheese ball like interview type question. We don't do that very much, but like because we haven't spent much time with you guys, here

Unexpected Swahili

Greg 7:46

it is. What is something fun about y'all that most people don't know?

Troy Haas 7:51

Oh my goodness. There's so many things.

Greg 7:54

I love it.

Troy Haas 7:55

You know, my my first thought is everybody knows everything, but that's everyone knows the the recovery story. But go go ahead. Right. Right.

Melissa Haas 8:03

So, what is fun about us? So we often speak in Swahili to each other when we don't want people to know what we're talking about. Well, that's amazing. I wish we could do that.

Troy Haas 8:12

Yeah, it's very, very helpful with your children. It's very, very helpful when you're in context where you want to say something and you just need privacy. Need privacy.

Greg 8:23

Right. Well, you have to do it right now a little bit.

Troy Haas 8:25

Well, uh, you know, to Lisa Kenya, Kwamiak Saba, uh, and uh to Tunapendo, Watuwa Kenya.

Melissa Haas 8:34

Sana, na tuna tuna jua mungu ali tu tumiya huko kufanya vitu vingi. Vitu vingi.

Stacey 8:45

It could be very inappropriate or it could be beautiful. We wouldn't be.

Troy Haas 8:48

It was beautiful. In fact, I don't I I don't know any Swahili cuss words. I don't know that there are Swahili cuss words.

Melissa Haas 8:55

There may be, but we don't know that.

Greg 8:56

Boy, I don't understand a word you just said.

Stacey 9:01

I'm growing up on the mission field. Growing up on the mission field.

Greg 9:04

Did y'all know about Stacy that she grew up in Africa?

Stacey 9:07

Yeah.

Greg 9:07

You're an MK.

Stacey 9:08

I was an MK. I am an MK.

Greg 9:11

Yeah. West Africa, Liberia and Senegal.

Stacey 9:13

Yeah. We studied French. I took French for like five years, but I didn't use it. So I don't really, I know little phrases, but I can't even, I can't even do a complete sentence. But and then Liberia, they spoke English, was the like the national language, although you know, very broken. But so yeah, when we learned like a few phrases, greetings and stuff, but I've always been jealous of the missionary kids that know a second language.

Greg 9:38

I'm feeling jealous now. I'm like, But you know, one of these things is not like the others.

Stacey 9:43

You know Spanish a little.

Greg 9:44

Un poquito. Yeah.

Stacey 9:46

Um yeah.

Greg 9:48

Well, the other thing that I've been looking forward to in getting this conversation set up with y'all is it isn't often,

Troy & Melissa's Story

Greg 9:55

it's it's been very rare on this podcast that we have gotten to talk to people not only having your own experience of a recovery story, but like us also taking that addiction and trauma story and starting an organization to help other people. There aren't, I mean, there thankfully there are a lot more of us than there used to be, but there still aren't just a boatload of people who have the experience and are channeling it into a very specific type of ministry and and nonprofit and help. And I would love it for the people who have not heard of the Haases or Hope Quest or Walking Free or Journey, just to hear a little bit of y'all's story. I know you've shared it probably a thousand times, and so you probably got the five-minute version, the 50-minute version. So just yeah, let us let us know a little bit more about you guys and how you got to where you are now. Where you want to start?

Melissa Haas 12:16

So I I will just say the short version of how we got into the predicament in the first place is that Troy had a ton of trauma that he had not worked on nor resolved. And we were naive to believe that a salvation experience, loving Jesus, would be enough to stop behaviors that had been habituated and were used for emotional regulation and all the things our nervous system prioritizes as a way to survive. And we knew nothing of that. We just knew we loved Jesus, we were gonna change the world for good. And we loved one another, we loved one another, we were gonna change the world for good. What could go wrong? And I'll let you pick up there from there, honey.

Troy Haas 13:01

When I met Melissa, I was I was seven months out of jail, had just been convicted of my second felony drug possession charge, and was a brand new follower of Jesus. And when I met Melissa, it was love at first sight.

Melissa Haas 13:16

He was a thug, y'all.

Troy Haas 13:18

And you kind of have that look. I began to understand that something was still deeply wrong, even though I knew Jesus, even though I was forgiven, even though I was cleansed, I I wasn't free. And I I began to realize that as I began to realize that I was trying to figure out how to be free. And everything I was trying wasn't working. You know, I tried all the spiritual things, and and again, I I I love my Bible, I love church, I love spiritual disciplines, but I was using all of that to try to fix something that it wasn't made to fix. Yeah. Uh, and so I shifted my attention towards Melissa and thought if I could be with a beautiful, godly, smart woman, that would certainly fix me. Because we all know marriage fixes most everything.

Greg 14:07

Everything.

Stacey 14:08

Everything. And no pressure for me to do it.

Troy Haas 14:10

It doesn't stir anything up.

Greg 14:11

No pressure for you, right?

Troy Haas 14:14

But before we even got married, I think I was aware that the my internal life and and my internal life was completely out of control. And I was developing, if hadn't already completely developed, this dual life where I was Troy the pastor, Troy the future missionary, Troy who loved Jesus and loved to preach the Bible, and then this secret world over here that nobody knew about. All of that, you know, again, seminary, ordination, missionaries on the mission field for seven years, all of that, God, God used us in spite of us, which again, God always uses people in spite of people. God always uses us in spite of us, even today. We're not being used because we've got things figured out and we're good folk now. We're we're being used because of God's grace and God's mercy. But for us, all of that kind of culminated in this big crash at the at the very, very end of 1999 that really shocked everybody, very, very much shocked everybody. We were in a Southern Baptist context, and if you've heard of the Lotting Moon Christmas offering for foreign missions, we were the we were the Lotting Moon couple for that year. So our stories and pictures and video went out to 36,000 Southern Baptist churches in 1998, and then in 1999, God said enough and let my sin, my double life be exposed. And so for the next couple of years, what we focused on was recovery. I got honest. We looked at, you know, finally for the first time, I looked at my trauma. I got honest about my trauma. There was a ton of trauma that I had never told anyone about. And we just spent the next couple of years working on our hearts, our lives. Um, I did a ton of individual work. I began to discover the power of group and relationships and finding people that really knew me and still loved me, and just being able to be uh authentic and vulnerable with other people. And we began to work, Melissa's working on her stuff individually and just dealing with betrayal trauma. And I say dealing with betrayal trauma, betrayal trauma wasn't even a thing back then. Right. Yeah, betrayal trauma didn't exist as a concept or as something to be worked on uh spiritually or psychologically. Um and so we're we're just trucking along, working on our individual recoveries, beginning to work on marriage, on our marriage. Uh, we had been married at that point a little less than 10 years, and it was a pretty bad marriage. It was a very bad marriage because my anger, you know, Melissa knew nothing about my sexual sin and my secret double life, but Melissa knew I was always angry, and I was inconsolable when I was angry, and I was controlling and demeaning and gaslighting and all those sort of things. But God, again, he's working in me individually, he's working in Melissa, he's working in us maritally, and as a part of all of that, God opened a door for us to move to Atlanta, Georgia, to Woodstock, Georgia in particular, not to do any work, not to start a ministry, but to continue our journey, uh, our personal recovery. So we got here to Woodstock, and uh we we we did more counseling, more individual counseling, more marital counseling. I began to try to find a group,

Building Groups For Men And Women

Troy Haas 17:34

Greg, and I couldn't find a group. I had this wonderful group. I had multiple groups, in fact, in Fresno, California. I couldn't find a group. And I would go to this group of guys on the other side of town, and it was it felt like my old life, in that it was a group of guys that were just trying to encourage one another to just try harder and love Jesus more and you know, white knuckle it and you know, snap the rubber band on your wrist when you feel tempted. And I was just I was miserable. I'm like, this is not what has been helping me, and I don't want to, but I I was committed to group, I was committed to relationships, and so I began to lament to God and to some friends. I don't know what to do. And and and God said, Why don't you start a group? And so I didn't start a group, I didn't start walking free to have thousands and thousands, tens of thousands of guys go through it. I started walking free because the group I was going in wasn't very good, and I wanted a good group. And that's why I was like, and you needed a good group. I I absolutely needed it, and I had no idea what God was going to do.

Melissa Haas 18:41

And then shortly thereafter, yeah, and then shortly thereafter I started journey because again, it was the same situation. I'd come, I had experienced community for the very first time, authentic spiritual community in the context of this pain. It was life-changing for me. Yeah, I grew up in a church system that valued God plus me equals enough, right? And the purpose of living, a mature Christian gives, right? That's what a mature Christian gives. You don't have means you don't have means, you just go and serve.

Troy Haas 19:10

Jesus is all you need.

Melissa Haas 19:11

Jesus is all you need, except that's not biblical. So the correct equation is God plus me plus the body of Christ equals enough. So there was definitely nothing for women. Uh there were nothing for spouses. I've I found a couple of women who had you know been betrayed in their marriages, but they really actually were just surviving. They weren't thriving. And so after God did some pretty significant work in my heart, just him and me, I started a journey in 2002, in January of 2002. And still, we still have groups today. Um and because I wanted to create an environment where women's pain could be both honored and transformed. Uh and God has been very faithful in that.

Troy Haas 19:56

And then just to put a bow on the walking free and journey piece of that, at the same time, God was stirring in some other one of the other pastors at church and another young man at church. And we began to, because my my story is not just sex addiction, my story is addiction. I began to, you know, I began to smoke in the fifth grade, I began to drink in the fifth grade, I began to use drugs in the sixth grade. I had a major significant drug habit. I'm a twice convicted felon because of felony possession of a controlled substance. Drugs were a huge part of my story, sex even bigger. And so I began to have this heart for people in the church that that struggle with addiction because the church doesn't know what to do with addiction. They do a little bit better job with substance addiction, with drugs and alcohol, and accelerate recovery and those sort of things. The church really doesn't know what to do with porn

HopeQuest And Trauma-Based Treatment

Troy Haas 20:47

and sex addiction. But the reality is what we felt God calling us to do at that point was walking with people in a more deep way than just a support group environment. And so that's Hopewest was born out of that and pulling guys together that needed a more residential context where they could step into a healing context with other men. And our original program was a year-long program, and that's just not practically workable. And so very quickly, we made some shifts. We had no idea what we were doing. There wasn't a model. There, there was not a Christ-centered, clinically effective residential addiction treatment program anywhere in the country at that point. And so we began to build at HogeQuest not just the walking free and journey groups, but then this residential program that ended up being a 90-day residential program that's Christ-centered, clinically effective. And no matter what your addiction is, we're going to walk with you and we're going to help you not just white knuckle things and not just learn to manage your behaviors, but to find true and lasting freedom by resolving trauma and repairing attachments and bringing true deep healing that only God can bring, but God uses all of the tools to help bring that true and lasting freedom.

Greg 22:09

Well, that's a great transition into talking a little bit more about Hope Quest. And obviously, you've stated your credentials because from an addiction standpoint, Troy, I mean, you're an overachiever. I mean starting at 10 or 11 years old. I mean, you know, if anybody knows his stuff about addiction, it's that's right. That's right. Not so much lately.

Troy Haas 22:29

One of the things I'm good at.

Greg 22:32

But you were responding a lot, hun, to the things that Melissa was sharing.

Stacey 22:37

Yeah. Well, one of the things that you addressed was I was curious, yeah, if you knew prior to 99, you know, anything as far as that's a great question.

Melissa Haas 22:47

I I actually did it. I I knew that Troy had been promiscuous in his past. And I knew actually we struggled with sexual purity in our relationship. That was a source of great shame for me and for him. Um, you get married and magically, you're yay, it's legal. And especially free and right. Actually, it got worse after that, right? It seemed like his desire was less for me and I couldn't make sense of that. And so I knew that the big issue in our marriage before we left for the mission field was more his reactivity, his emotional reactivity.

Stacey 23:28

Yeah. Yeah.

Melissa Haas 23:28

So we did some counseling about that. In our premarital work, but neither one of us understood trauma. Neither one of us understood what was happening for him in these moments.

Troy Haas 23:38

And I wasn't being honest with myself or anyone.

Melissa Haas 23:42

So so I I on the mission field, I began to have really deep like nervous system responses to I knew something was incredibly wrong. I didn't know what it was. I didn't know what it was, but I knew something was incredibly wrong. I can just I woke up one day and remember thinking he doesn't love me. And and I and so I was walking around in a lot of pain, and his reactivity got off the charts worse. And I was blaming culture shock and all of the things. Which I mean, it's true, it was very hard. But I didn't know about the secret life. There were times that I I had glimmers, and looking back, they were glimmers God gave me that I just ignored or denied because no, that couldn't be true. But it wasn't until God blew it up for us that I really understood. And then even then, Troy denied everything at first. At first, and so it wasn't till several months later that I really got the whole, the whole of it.

Stacey 24:47

Yeah.

Melissa Haas 24:48

So and it was very much a dribbled, staggered disclosure, which was painful. I hate the method and torture. And we actually went through recovery in a time when a formal therapeutic disclosure process was not a thing. So these were many conversations between the two of us in private with not a consular present, where we tried to do the best we could. So yeah, it was definitely a limp through the process kind of recovery. And I give credit to God and some caregivers who were doing the best they could with a really hard situation.

Greg 25:27

Isn't it amazing that well, let me just say, it's amazing to me when I think about you guys 25 or so years ago, us 17 years ago when our lives blew up. So before, before most everything that's available for people today was available and able to be found. I mean, I would never want to, you know, suggest that a couple going through what all of us went through do so without some of the tools and the resources and the processes. But even without those, like you you really can't stop a loving God from healing people who want to be healed and want to surrender to a process. And when the processes and the resources are supporting that, instead of like, oh, without that, you're screwed. I mean, I I love that perspective. And I I again I don't want to say, okay, well, the way that we did it without any help at all is the way to do it, because I don't think any of us would say that it is. So despite that, you know, we can clearly see God. But even in the midst of it, that's also God.

Troy Haas 26:35

Yeah, God gives us what we need at the moment and what's available, and people do the best they can. Thank God we learn. Thank God we don't do things that way anymore. And yeah, people uh here at HopeQuest, one of the things we do in our residential program is we do a full therapeutic disclosure with every client, and we have robust spouse support for spouses who've experienced betrayal trauma because we know the importance of that. And no one should have to go through this process without that spouse support, that wife support as a betrayed spouse, and that full therapeutic disclosure, because we know the four of us know how difficult and painful it's bad enough today. We don't want anyone to have to go back to that old way.

Greg 27:19

Well, when you were talking about the development, the founding and the development of Hope Quest, you you used a phrase. So people who've been listening to the show for a while, I've probably given three or four references that let people know how much I love Ted Lasso. And I'm not a I'm not a soccer fan. Like I don't know everything I know about English soccer in the Premier League, I know from watching that show. One thing that I do know is that the fans are really creative with coming up with taunting chants. And one of the ones that I remember from the first season is, you don't know what you're doing. You don't know what you're doing. And like you said that it was kind of that was where you were when you were starting this thing. And it kind of folds into a uh one of the few questions I wrote down to ask you. Looking at what HopeQuest is now and what you guys offer now, because you've got like a high-intensity outpatient program. You talked about 90 days. People can do their 90 days, but if residential is not an option, they can come and spend a lot of time during the week and it's it's focused. But then you've also got the residential 90-day program. The way that you're doing things now, is this what the vision was, or have there been so many tweaks and adjustments? And okay, well, that didn't work. I mean, what what has the path between then and now looked like?

Troy Haas 28:34

Yeah, Greg, I great question. I I would say the the vision was walk with people

Learning As You Go

Troy Haas 28:39

in the way that you've been walked with. And as we began to try to figure out how to do that, we quickly realized we don't know what we're doing. And so we began to reach out to people and we began to ask for help. And we I remember Marnie Ferry was one of our first calls. I can't even remember how I bumped into Marnie or how I met Marnie, but I was amazed at just her story and the things that she had built there at Bethesda. And so I called Marnie up and I said, Hey, can we come to Nashville and we just sit down with you for a few hours? And she said, sure. And you know, we had a couple of other people like that that were beginning to do that work and or had been doing that work for a while. So we just began to ask questions, we began to read, we began to pray. Melissa went back to school. Several of our staff, when you look at like our executive team, our two clinical directors were were were were one was a was an Air Force medical doctor, and one was a pastor, and they both went back to school, and they both now are brilliant clinicians. Melissa went back to school. Melissa was a school teacher. She didn't have any clinical skills or experience. Her clinical skills and experience were as a client. Um she knew how to be a client. So we we we just we we learned, we asked questions, we prayed, we tried to always look at what we were doing through the lens of how can we do this better? How can we more deeply help people? We knew what it was like to have obstacles, and we knew what it was like to not know how to move forward, and so we just began to say, okay, God, how do we help people overcome those obstacles? How do we help people learn to move forward? And you know, looking looking at all of that, we began to kind of just walk with people and even the walking free and journey materials. We didn't write those books and then create a group around them. We were doing group for a couple of years before we wrote the materials, and the materials kind of bubbled up out of this journey of walking with people. I mean, we were we were running, we were running 50, 60, maybe a hundred guys before we ever had any materials. Because again, I wasn't smart enough to write the materials ahead of time, but as we're walking with people, the the the the process and the ways and the direction were bubbling up to the surface, and then we're just trying to make sense of that and put it into a coherent fashion. So that's that's what I say. We didn't know what we were doing. We really had no idea, but we knew how to pray, we knew how to ask for help, we knew how to find people that were further down the road than us, and uh that's what we did.

Melissa Haas 31:31

And I will just add to that we did have a framework for what God did in us, and so we there were pieces of it that we knew we wanted to have that were life-changing for us, and there were pieces that we knew we wanted to avoid that were not helpful for us, and so I think one of the things I really love about God's redemptive purposes is he doesn't waste pain and he doesn't waste experience. So, even my experience as a school teacher, when I started writing the curriculum for spouses, all of those, all of my English classes, right, were used by him because I can write. And even though Troy had never done started a rehab before, he's got great people skills and networking skills, and you know, missionary slash pastor equals good sales. And so all of that God doesn't waste the gifts he's given us, and it all coalesces into something beautiful when we follow him.

Greg 32:39

You're so right. Uh it's funny because one of the jobs that I had after I lost my pastoral role when my addiction got exposed in 09 was selling cars. And I've heard there are so many former ministers who are really, really good car salesmen.

Troy Haas 32:56

Greg, I sold cell phones. So when we when we first got here to Woodstock for two years, as we were getting things rolling, I I've sold cell phones. Yeah, sold a lot of them.

Greg 33:08

If you are a relational person, if you're a curious person, and if you are comfortable talking with people, I mean, you can do great in sales. And uh the fourth thing is if you're honest. That's the thing that a lot of people miss.

Stacey 33:20

But what about me? Because I tried to sell a few things along the way, and I fail because I'm like, I mean, I like it. And if you want it, it's like you I can't.

Troy Haas 33:30

You probably don't, you know, it's fine. I'm sorry I'm even here. You and Melissa are are too honest. There, there's a there's a line there that you shouldn't go over with your honesty, and y'all are too honest.

Stacey 33:43

That's so true. But man, this this field, which I never would have in a million years, who's who says, Oh, this is what I want to do. Because nobody comes out of your experience. Yeah. But I do feel not confident in a way that's like, I know what I'm doing, but I have experienced it. So I am not afraid in the things that I say, or I feel very bold to be able to say a lot of the things. I'm a lot of things I say, I'm I'm like, oh, I don't know how this is gonna land. But it's it's just interesting to me, to your point of God doesn't waste our gifts. Like I didn't know till I was when when did this all happen? 30 38, 37. Yeah, 37 years old. And then it's like I've doing this, I feel like this is why I'm here. Like I really didn't know before. I mean, being a wife and a mom, wonderful, loved it, still love it. But this just feels like I'm doing what God had called me to do.

Greg 34:37

Yeah. People, people have said, How did you guys come to do what you're doing? I'm like, Well, what you do is you look at where the money and the prestige are, go the other way, and then you turn around and you walk the opposite direction.

Melissa Haas 34:51

Following Jesus is never safe and it rarely leads you to wealth. Just that's right.

Greg 34:58

Well, hey, I want to uh maybe get into one more thing in the time that we have, and it and it kind of links back to something, Troy, that you said, not in passing, but just as a part of your story near the beginning, when you said something to the effect of the church just doesn't really understand much about this. And I think you said, you know, it's better now than it was, which is definitely true, but there's still a huge gap in between what what you and I, what the four of us would say needs to be the aptitude of ministry leaders, the understanding and the skill set versus what it actually is. You know, back in well, we just interviewed Kristen Jensen, who wrote the Good Pictures, Bad Pictures books, and we met her in 2016 at the Set Free Summit, which was uh y'all were there too, weren't you? I was, Melissa wasn't. Yeah, I think that may be where I met you.

Troy Haas 35:55

We that's where so many of us met for the first time face to face. Yeah.

Greg 35:59

That's right. Just one of the things that Barna uh released was this comprehensive study that they had done on the church and pornography. And one of the most depressing or riveting, whatever you want to say, statistics was that I think it was 88% of pastors say that pornography is the greatest or one of the greatest threats to the church. And 8% of churches have any solution that they have that they they have to offer. So there's an 80-point gap between knowing that it's a problem and actually doing something about it. Now, we hope and we believe that in the last 10 years that's gotten a little bit better. There's still a lot of improvement. Here's that long windup is leading to a question that I want to hear from y'all's experience. What have you noticed regarding how the church approaches addiction, specifically sexual

Why Churches Struggle With Sex Addiction

Greg 36:53

addiction and betrayal trauma, not only in like what are they doing about it, but even how do they feel about it? Do you still experience a lot of leaders resisting even acknowledging sexual addiction as a thing? Do you do you experience a lot of the skepticism towards psychology and psychological modalities? You know, just like you said, we love Jesus, you know, that that being enough, what how has it been? How do you notice that it is now? I'm just curious as to your experience with that.

Troy Haas 37:26

Yeah, of all the of all the catchphrases or descriptors of Hope Quest that I love, the one I probably love the most is we call ourselves and we strive to be the church's resource for addiction help.

Greg 37:44

Love that.

Troy Haas 37:45

The church just that you know, even even those that are that are well-meaning and and believe that it exists, they don't know how to deal with it. They don't know what to do. So you do have a still a very large subsection of the church that sees it only as a spiritual problem and sees a sin problem, a spiritual problem with spiritual solutions, and would completely be dismissive of counseling, psychology, integration, trauma, attachment, all those sort of things. And I don't know what to do about those folks other than to pray for them and trust that God, just like God always brings us to an end of ourselves and always brings us to a place in desperation if we'll allow him. So we just pray for for folks that are in that camp. But there are a growing number of pastors and churches that would say, I believe this is real. I've seen too much destruction, I had seen too many marriages, I had seen too many people hurt by addiction, sex addiction, and pornography in particular. I just don't know what to do. And so I think we're at a place, Greg, where we in this space of helping others have got to figure out how to bring some practical help and practical tools to the church and to become, as we call ourselves in Drunk Quest, the church's resource for addiction help. Because their pastors are so busy and they have so many things pulling on them. They they just don't have the time, even if they care and believe in the reality of sex addiction, they don't have the time to address it in a healthy way. So we've got to figure out how to bring practical help to the church and to pastors and leaders.

Greg 39:38

Well, I'd see what you said and raise it with the additional truth that most churches in America are under 200 people. And so the pastors are busy, and they also don't have the budget to hire a designated staff person to do this. I mean, thankfully, some churches can and have done that. Right. And they've brought like, you know, clinical psychologists who has their theology masters as well, and they're bringing that integrated approach, but most churches can't do that. That's correct. So to figure out a way to offer an easy on-ramp to partnership is huge.

Stacey 40:13

I had a thought.

Greg 40:14

Well, I'd love for you to share it. I didn't raise my hand. I just thought you were saying how I just thought you were doing a hallelujah.

Stacey 40:20

Well, I'm just thinking about like, okay, we go to church and we find out we're sick, we go to a doctor, and the church doesn't have a problem with that. Like they don't know how to care for us and our sicknesses physically. So, like, is it more what I have heard and what I experienced myself was like, it's not so much that I have to fix all of this within the church. It's more like if if people go to them and they get the deer in the headlights look, or I don't know what to do. That just adds to the feelings because sex addiction is so if there, I don't know, there's just something different about it than alcohol and drugs. But even those, you take you send people to places for healing from drug and alcohol, but but you need it to be not something that feels shameful. So it's more about the silence of it in the church, I think.

Troy Haas 41:11

No, I I think you're spot on because you're right. We, you know, and that's why I said we want to come alongside the church. We want to help the church because the church is they don't have the bandwidth or the wherewithal, but but you're right, at least if they would not get in the way and they would point folks towards real genuine help, and they would help resource that help as best they can. I think the church can make a huge difference. And and the church can be a real purveyor of freedom, which would be the heart of most pastors. But you're right, we would never we would look at a church that says, Oh, you have cancer, do not go see an oncologist. Let's just pray, don't do chemo, don't do radiation, don't see a doctor, just pray. There would be no way we would approach diabetes or lung disease or cancer or heart disease, none of that. But that's what I mean.

Greg 42:08

There are a few people who do that, but it's definitely the microscopic minority.

Troy Haas 42:13

Yeah, yeah, that that would be very much the minority, and that would be seen as as pretty aberrant for mainstream evangelical Christianity. And so I I think, Stacey, you're exactly right. We've got to help churches see it for what it really is and see the solution for what the solution really is.

Melissa Haas 42:34

Just anecdotally, I think what I'm seeing more and more in churches, especially with younger leadership, pastors who are millennials or pastors who grew up with the internet, there is an understanding more that this can be a problem. And I think there's a greater openness in talking about pornography addiction, sexual addiction. I I

Awareness Rising And Fear Rising Too

Melissa Haas 42:56

think in the church the problem becomes because it is so harmful in relationship. Sexual betrayal is so harmful, and because it also has very scary consequences sometimes. And all of the, you know, everything is broadcast on social media. Everything, there are no, there's no secrets anymore, and people make big judgments and cancel and all of the things. We're living in heightened, so we have more awareness of the problem, but we're also living in heightened fear about it. And I think that where in the past, primarily judgment would have shut down the church, you know, some kind of judgment statement that this is just an issue you need to get over and repent, or you're just screwed up, please leave. You know, we don't want you here. Judgment would have gotten in the way. I think these days, fear gets in the way of people asking for help or seeking help because of how public everything is in social media and all of those things. So we I think we have greater awareness, but we also have greater fear. Yeah. And that is a piece we need to address as the body of Christ.

Greg 44:08

Well, I love what you're saying about identifying what's getting in the way. You know, if I can find out what the objection is, if I can find out what the person in ministry is scared of as it relates to psychology and these modalities, and I I mean, sometimes the answer is obvious because there are some psychologists who say what you need is to walk away from religion. Right. And, you know, and and so yeah, that that's a part of it. But there are so many, so many who aren't. And and a good and a good therapist, even if they are an atheist, is going to defer to the the the religious preferences of their client. They're not going to try to work their own ethics into it, they're going to support what their client wants. So it's kind of like when I sold cars, right? I'm I'm not there to sell you a car, I'm there to figure out what's keeping you from buying a car and address those objections. And so, like, I feel like that's one of the things that can help us. If the two things that are obstacles of ministries like ours and the church working together is I don't know what to do. Well, we can help really fat. But if it's like we don't need what you're offering, you know, I g I guess we could shake the dust off our sandals, or we could say, tell me more about you know why you're so opposed to this and let us speak to that a little bit. Have you had opportunities in your world to do any of that?

Melissa Haas 45:27

I would I would say I I think. I think the relational approach when we encounter resistance is God's way.

Curiosity Over Combat In Ministry

Melissa Haas 45:36

You know, when I look at what Jesus modeled, as he said things that the establishment could not take in about them, about God's way, they could not take it in. And they killed him for it, actually. Um I he always chose a relational way. And so the reality is as we are walking around on this planet in having been redeemed and restored out of our own brokenness, our mission, and this is what I love about you guys, is to join people and walk with them for a minute. And and they can take what they need and leave the rest.

Greg 46:17

There you go.

Melissa Haas 46:22

And we remain committed to the relationship, which is love, because God is love. And I think that's the stance we have in all that we do.

Troy Haas 46:34

And I think I think being curious about what's going on in a person's heart, you can never go wrong. Trying to avoid judgment, trying to avoid certainty, trying to avoid assuming you know what's going on, getting curious about someone's heart, listening. You can't go wrong with that. You may not come to a place where y'all can can can work together, but at least you you have done what you can. And I will I will say this as well there's all sorts of politics and fighting on on both extremes, both edges. One of the things that we've always tried to do here, I'm grateful for the ministries and the people who are called to you know be on those edges and fight against some of those things. That's not us. We just want to walk with people and we want to help people experience freedom. I know what it's like to live in bondage. I know what it's like to be a follower of Jesus and not know how to get unstuck from sin and addiction. And we just want to walk with people so that people can not just be alive in Christ, but people can be free in Christ.

Greg 47:50

Yeah. Well, and to maintain that curiosity, and maybe this can be a sort of a closing thought, to be able to maintain

Regulation, Surrender, And Closing

Greg 47:58

that curiosity, we all know can only happen when a person is generally emotionally regulated. Because when when we're hypo or hyper-aroused, we lose our ability to be curious. Yes. And we instantly become self-protective, judgmental, you know, because we got to survive.

Melissa Haas 48:16

Yeah.

Greg 48:17

Melissa, you were talking about what you learned about what had been going on with Troy before you guys were together. You used the term emotional regulation. And, you know, hearing you speak at the retreat of uh several weeks ago, it was just talking about our window of tolerance. And, you know, maybe we'll have a deeper conversation about that sometime. But just when we are in a situation where our buttons are getting pushed, you know, we find ourselves either wanting to shut down or our blood is boiling, we we will lose the ability to be curious. And so the fact that you just said, hey, we just want to walk with people, we've been through this. Hey, if you if you like, if you want to pick up what we're laying down, that's great. I mean, I think that that is typically not exclusively, but that's typically the mindset of a person who is at peace, you know. And if you like what we do, join us. If you don't, then God be with you, you know. And and hopefully more people will find that the types of solutions that y'all are trying to offer, that we're trying to offer, that so many other people now are trying to offer, maybe it's better than the thing you keep cycling through and winding up at the same frustrating place. So, yeah, when when you're ready. I mean, have you ever seen somebody really go far in recovery who is trying to accept it being forced on them? No. We we heal when we're ready to surrender. Yeah. You guys have walked with so many hundreds, probably thousands of people in that, and God's given us the same opportunity and just so thankful, so grateful to get to be there. There's some some weeks it's so heavy, some seasons where it's just everybody seems to be going through the dark times. And that's why I think it's good for people who do what we do to know each other so we can kind of commiserate and refuel. That's it. But thank you guys for what you do, and thank you for spending some time with us and being some of our newer friends.

Troy Haas 50:11

Well, likewise, and we so appreciate you guys and how God's using y'all. And uh look forward to uh some more time together.

Greg 50:19

God bless you guys.