#183: Irene Rollins: Reframe Your Shame
Pastor Irene Rollins wants to share with you the darkest time of her life, and how God helped her find freedom from it all.
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EP. 183
Tony: [00:00:00] Hey everybody. Welcome back to the reclamation podcast, where our goal is to help you reclaim good practices for following Jesus I'm Tony. And today is episode 183 of the podcast. And today you have got a real treat. I'm sitting down with pastor speaker. Marriage activist, Irene Rolands. Irene has this incredible new book out called reframe your shame.
And it's all about experiencing freedom from the things in life that might be holding you back. The shameful things. The hard things. She stares her, she shares her story of addiction. And we talk about the church and what it means to surround each other in community, such a good conversation with pastor Irene.
I know you're gonna love it. And Hey, if you do love it, hit that subscribe button right there. Wherever you listen to podcast, go [00:01:00] ahead and hit it. Leave a rating, a review on iTunes or Spotify, and the highest comment that you can give us, share this episode with a friend. I'm so thankful to be in this community with each and every one of you.
And remember if there's anything that we can do to help you, please don't hesitate to let me know the best place to find me. It's on Instagram at T w M I L T. Now, without any further ado, here's my conversation with pastor Irene Rowlands. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm excited today to have author and pastor Irene Rolands, Irene, thank you so much for being here.
Irene: So honored to be with you guys. So honor.
Tony: So I always like to kind of start in the macro before we go micro. And you've got a brand new resource out, reframe your shame. And we're gonna talk about all of that, but you do so many things. You're an Apostol pastor at a church. You do marriage ministry. How, how would you define the [00:02:00] call that God has placed on your life?
Irene: I would say right now my husband and I are calls kind of align. obviously we're called to marriage. And we're called to the marriages of leaders primarily. Obviously the masses, but our focus right now is on church leaders. And when you hear a little bit more about our story, you kind of understand why I'm so passionate about the marriages of leaders.
I believe it's. The loudest proudest best gospel message that we can preach. The world is a healthy marriage and we have overcome a lot. So we just wanna share that with the world and give people hope. I'm a recovery activist. I like to share about my overcoming of addiction in my life and just bring about awareness to people about emotional health and how our lack.
Awareness of our internal worlds can become something that makes us sick or reach for coping mechanisms that [00:03:00] can wreck our lives. So marriage recovery, and I would say leaders speaking into the lives of leaders. That's how I would define the season of my.
Tony: That's so good. And I, I appreciate the way that you call it a season too, because I think it gives a lot of space for things to shift and change.
I, I am curious, what have you seen with leaders coming out of COVID? I, I don't know that in my lifetime, we've seen a more stressful season for leaders and, and. In my own story. I left the local church to go do nonprofit work in the midst of that. And I know a lot of leaders seem to be shifting. What, what are you seeing in, in leaders and in their marriages, maybe more specifically.
Irene: You know, it's interesting that you say you transitioned.
We transitioned out of senior pastoring, my husband and I were senior pastors of his parents' church. We took, took it over. We pastored for 10 years together.[00:04:00] Relaunching their church. And prior to that, we served them for another 12 years. And we've, it's only been a year now that we transitioned our church to new leadership.
It was like a merge, but we the younger couple took it over and they're running the good race and doing an amazing job. But for Jimmy and I, what we noticed during COVID was just the exposure of UN. Emotional and health that was already there in pastors and leaders and in our world period. But then the trauma of COVID impacted us all in different ways.
People went Sideways to cope with their, their issues, whether the, the mental health crisis the numbers have increased addiction. Every, all the numbers in addiction went up during COVID. And what we noticed was that was happening even in church leadership. Even in church leadership mm-hmm so we were [00:05:00] having marriages fail, lots of crisis.
We were getting calls from friends and like these overseers I don't know what, what's the better word for that in so I don't use Christianese but Some senior leaders were calling us in to help with crisis management. Because we saw a lot of relationships falling apart, infidelity porn addiction going to an all time high when people are isolated in their homes medicating on, you know, alcohol and food.
And it was breaking families apart and we just felt like, okay, let's do something about it. Clearly. There's a a space where God wants us to use us because we were trying to pastor a church, but we were spending so much time pastoring pastors and we couldn't do both. So we figured, Hey let's we listened to God when we felt the, the Time to transition.
We handed over our church and now we focus on helping [00:06:00] pastors be as healthy as they can so they can lead strong and lead well and shepherd people the way God has called us to do it in a way that's healthy not killing themselves or their family while they're doing.
Tony: Yeah, I, I think one of the things that I really like to see in the church landscape is there's a shift away from pastors having to kill themselves, kill themselves in order to, to help the flock survive. I, I think that's an important shift. One of the questions that I always love to ask leaders, especially leaders who've been who, who are a little bit more seasoned.
Who've been doing it for a while is, is how do you define. How do you know when it's God's voice versus just, you know, oh, this is what I want, or this is what, you know, my, my spouse wants. How do you know that this is like, okay, God, you really do want me to leave this church and this season to go do this next [00:07:00] thing.
Irene: Well, first of all, his words speaks to us. So when Jimmy and I were both in our word speaking, praying, and journaling. We would come back together and share what we were hearing God say through his word. And the confirmation was just one after the other, after the other specific scriptures that we may not have understood the totality of what it meant in that moment, but we marked it.
So we wrote it down in our journal. Something, we were hearing from God on this date and we continued to pray. Then we would go to like other PA every pastor needs a pastor. So we had we had people in our lives that we were sharing what we were hearing God say. So that through his word. So the scripture now on the practical side of it in our everyday life, what did that look like?
It looked like frustration. It looked like the grace was lifting [00:08:00] things that we enjoyed so much. Initially when we launched our church were becoming a frustration, becoming something we didn't wanna do anymore. We it's almost like the passion was going and I'm like, Lord, what's wrong with me? And it's like, the writing was on the wall, that it was a necessary ending and not necessarily something wrong with me or something wrong with Jimmy or like we were failing or giving up on our church and giving up on the call of God.
It was simply, the Lord was showing us through his word that he was transitioning us and confirmed it through various people. We're speaking into our life. We took a good month off just to go to a pastoral reboot counseling, where it was navigating all these thoughts and feelings with an unbiased outside person.
And it was a sole care thing. And yeah, [00:09:00] you know, we've done a whole lot of counseling, so many hours you can't even count on. Right. But this. More about how to hear slow down long enough to get quiet, have no distractions and no opinions of people that are recovering people, pleaser myself could be swayed by the voices and opinions of people.
So we were away and quiet. So we could hear the one that we wanna hear from most, which is God. And we went away on that retreat when we got. We knew, we knew it was time to transition and God had already sent the person. So the, like literally the month before pastor Steven Chandler was pastoring a church, 20 minutes away.
And he said, Jimmy, I hear you're frustrated, Irene. I hear you. You sense that the grace has lifted in your pastoring? What about if we did this together? And then you [00:10:00] can focus on what, you know, God has called you to do. Maybe it looks different in the next season. So we started looking at it like, what are we fear?
We started asking questions. Like what, what do we, what are we scared of? Well, then we answered the question. We're afraid of doing something different. . Well okay. Yeah. Like change everybody. Fears, change everybody fears, transition. It's painful. There's grief involved. They're like, but I thought we were gonna do this for the rest of our life.
We built this church together. Like our kids are highly invested. How is this gonna impact them? Like, and I thought of all the people that were a part of our church and I'm like, how will they feel? And so, and so then I thought about it. I'm like, who am I trying to please? Who am I playing for? I'm playing for an audience of one and that's Jesus.
So if I'm not Obed to him and what he's telling me to [00:11:00] do, then I, I can't sleep at night on live. I can't live with. Because I there's so much more, that could be at stake than what I even realize by trying to hold on to ch not changing. So let me tell you the testimony in it all in a nutshell is a year later, the church has exploded and under the new leadership and Jimmy and I are doing what we love and helping people, marriages, their, the testimonies are proof.
And I feel like we could have held. What the Lord wanted to do if we had held onto the Baton and not handed it over. So I'm really grateful for I think people that pushed us in the right direction, too.
Tony: Oh, praise God. I, I think knowing when to leave something successful is so hard and so I think that that's a, a beautiful thing.
The other thing I appreciate about your, your your story there is, is [00:12:00] how much you dependent on the disciplines that God has kind of equipped you with. And it really, it led me to a question. That's gonna jump into your story just a little bit. You're very open in this. Resource about your, your own struggle with addiction.
Mm-hmm I, I'm curious before we get into more of the details of the story, which I know everybody will want to hear, but how, how would you describe your relationship with God and your disciplines in the midst of your addiction? You know, and, and you know, how. Because I, I, it feels like those are probably
Irene: pretty, oh yeah.
100%. So here I am a, a pastor leading a church, creating environments for people to come to know the freeing power of Jesus Christ and loving it. But I was three years into pastoring and the stress was eating, was reaching an all time high. And it was at crisis point. I, I didn't know how to deal with betrayal.
Hurt pain in my emotional health in a healthy [00:13:00] way. And I began medicating with alcohol and it was during that time that I was medicating with alcohol, that I completely began to operate on autopilot. So I'm doing the work for God, but I wasn't sensing him. Wasn't feeling him anymore. Wasn't felt like there was a li.
like, have you, have you ever felt like there's a lid and I'm like, everybody else is experiencing this like intimate relationship with God. I look around in worship. I'm like, why is there a lid over me? And I couldn't figure it out. I just can't hear God. Can't the word. Obviously, if you're drinking, you know, you're reading the same, you know, passage over and over and over.
And then I'm feeling shame about the fact that I'm drinking. So that, or hungover in the morning when I'm trying to do my devotions. All of that becomes backseat when, especially when the addiction takes over. And I just that's what shame does it disconnects us from God because we hide. So I hid from the word of God.
I hid from [00:14:00] prayer. I hid from the people at church. I , I literally showed up early I mean, late and left early. So I didn't have to interact the longer I was medicating and in the addiction, didn't want to be on the stage cuz I felt shame. But nobody knew. So it impacted my relationship with God tremendously, but the, he here's the deal.
The reason why I was drinking was not anything happening in that present moment in my life. It was all the stuff I hadn't even touched or uncovered that I was even unaware of. in my conscious mind from my past. And that was sexual abuse in my childhood. That was family dysfunction, all of these, this pain for my ch childhood, I was medicating it and the shame started literally at birth.
So the shame and the disconnection from. Had an early, early, early backstory. So by the time I was drinking that [00:15:00] disconnect from God was just at an all time high. So the moment I got into rehab, literally within the first 24 hours, I was there at my rock bottom of humiliation and shame as a pastor, as a wife, as a mother here I am in rehab humiliated.
And just, I wanted the ground to swallow me up and I, I had suicidal ideations. I was like, I can't do this. This is too much. Nobody can ever find out about this. I at my rock bottom, when alcohol is no longer in my system and not an option to lean on, to medicate my pain and keep the cycle of dysfunction going.
I opened my Bible. and the Lord spoke to me immediately Psalm 27. And that was my theme scripture. The entire time I was there, read it over [00:16:00] and over and over and over like these strong weight patiently on the Lord. And he promises in that scripture that you will experience joy in the land of the living.
So I held onto the promises when my flesh and everything, and my circumstances said, otherwise, it's like when the alcohol left my system, it gave me an opportunity to hear and see the word of God. Like I hadn't in the past, it, it was a six year period of time that I declined, introduced alcohol back into my life.
And then it became a problem three years and then probably three years of abusing it secretly. Yeah. Before I ended up in.
Tony: that that's an interesting part of your story. I, I wanted I have my notes to ask about mm-hmm because you, you drank early and you're really honest about that. And then then you, you kind of put it on a shelf mm-hmm for a number of years.
Do, do you ever look back now with. With a much [00:17:00] better awareness of who you are and see that in that dry period. I'm I'm that, that there were other things that were, were there other things, you know, what was, what was happening in your, I mean, because the trauma, until you deal with it, it doesn't go away.
Right? Like the trauma, just, it haunts you every day and there's somebody listening right now. Who's probably wrestling with trauma and. While they, they just may be doing socially acceptable coping mechanisms. Right. Is that, what are your thoughts on all that? There was a turned into a really long question.
I'm
Irene: sorry. I got you. I got you. Yeah. Cause I mean, I think what ha ended up happening a six year period of time. I went from. Introducing alcohol on vacation, my husband and I saying, what's the big deal about alcohol? Let's have a margarita with dinner. You know, Jesus turned water into wine. What's the big deal like, cuz we didn't drink from the moment we met until I was in my early thirties because we were in our religious environment.
We were in drinking was bad. [00:18:00] If you drank, you were bad. So we, when I'll never forget it, when I met my husband, I was like, look, I love Jesus and everything, but how do I stop doing things that I like, I like to drink? And, you know, I like margaritas. I like Corona. And he's like, you just kind of, God takes away the, the taste in your mouth when you make a decision to follow him and you're follow him wholeheartedly.
And I did, I literally just stopped. but deep down inside, because at my first introduction to alcohol was age 10. And I lived overseas and helped myself to Heineken. When I in Switzer, when I lived in Switzerland and abused it, when we moved back to the us, I, when I did get my hands on alcohol, I would abuse it.
So the little alcohol had already been formed. So by the time I hit 21 and stopped drinking my new high. Was working for the church, working for God, having kids buying a [00:19:00] house, it was like, hi, high, high adrenaline, high one after the other. And at 28, the adrenaline had my last kid by 30, the adrenaline was gone.
We were settled in life. and it was like that vacation that it was that , that, that vacation I'll never forget that vacation. We made the fateful decision to add something back that we had no idea. I was already an alcoholic. I already had, my, my brain cells were already changed and altered at a young age.
So, and then the unde with trauma, I rolled out the red carpet for addiction. Hmm, that my counselors in rehab said, Irene, you were set up for addiction. And I bet there's many listeners out here who may be thinking like, okay this doesn't apply to me. My story's not as dramatic as hers or whatever, but I think we all have something that's been a hurt that we've been hurt by or experienced a trauma in our [00:20:00] lives, whether we've all experienced.
COVID. we have all experienced either someone in addiction betrayal, deaths, all of those things that hurt our souls. And if we don't deal with it yeah, it'll it. And then we cope with things that are socially acceptable. Like alcohol, like, dude, you can go. It's legal. The most addictive substance that exists is legal.
We celebrate it. You're weird if you don't drink, you're weird. Like people ask you why? Oh my gosh, you don't drink why? And I'm like, cuz I'm allergic to it. I can't have just one. right. And it makes me a crazy woman.
Tony: I always have to say that I, I never had a drinking problem. Always had a little bit.
Irene: Yeah, exactly.
It's
Tony: actually, that's actually a pretty good drinker.
Irene: I know I'm telling you I had a, to. That would put many guys twice, three times my size under the table. [00:21:00] And you know, I used to boast about it and it's like, no, it's not a good thing. My body was trying to tell me you have a problem.
Tony: let me ask you this.
I, I think that there's probably somebody listening. Who's who heard you talk about the highs and chasing highs, you know, and that career thing is a high and that. Beautiful home is a high and the kids are highs, you know? How, how does someone gain the awareness of of, of wrestling with that question?
Am I, am I chasing highs or am I medicating? Trauma where the in, in trauma, whether that's a acute trauma, something really hard, or whether there's cumulative trauma difficult scenarios over a long season, you know, how, how do you, if you have any thoughts on how to, how to judge, if it's you know, if you're chasing high or if.
Trying to be a good human or, you know, how do we live in
Irene: that tension? I think it's a [00:22:00] tension will manage for the rest of our lives. Like it's you don't resolve it. So we have to self-evaluate and self-respect reflect on a regular basis. And so here's the deal. It's this one word moderation . Mm. Anything that is out of moderation in your life.
You're doing it an extreme either too much or too little. Could be a problem. So let me give you a couple examples. My husband, his issue was busyness. So he was so busy that he like the church and was his world. Like he put everything into it. It was the most important thing. So our family, me and the.
Suffered. So we were the consequences for him being super busy was a disconnect in the relationship with the family at home. You're leading all these people to relationship with [00:23:00] Jesus. You're telling him how they need to have a healthy family and marriage. But then you haven't talked to your wife in a week because she's had, she's having black.
And you're angry and fussing at each other. Your kids don't talk to you really? Cuz you're never around cuz you're so busy with work. So it's like, it looked like alcohol to me, but it to Jimmy, it was being overly busy priorities being in the wrong place. For Jimmy, it looked like he ballooned up to 420 pounds because food, you need food to live.
So he would eat at his emotions out of moderation to the point where he gained weight. And it was, he was physically unhealthy as a result. So it's like, what are you doing? Is it causing you to lose sleep at night? Are you anxious? Are you more stressed? Because of what you are choosing to do, like you ha actually have this thing called a free, [00:24:00] will we have a choice?
so it's like, if it's out of moderation, that's probably a sign. And that means also like the opposite side, like not doing anything. So if we have apathy or whatever, in our relationship with God going to church, our church attendance out of moderation. So we've completely disconnected from people and isolated.
We're not in our wo you know what I mean? So any extreme behavior needs to be looked at and assessed, and then you make a decision on. Okay, how can I engage in this thing? Be a good human serve. God serve people, but he didn't intend for me to die in my marriage to go to hell for lack of H sticks, like seriously, like he didn't intend for my marriage to go just because I'm serving him in ministry.
Like he didn't want my relationships with my children to deteriorate and fail. [00:25:00] Because of busyness and work and career, he meant for us to have an abundant life. And in order to have that abundant life it's that slowing down and being able to evaluate. What's out of moderation right now. Hey
Tony: guys, just PAing this conversation with pastor Irene to remind you that the reclamation podcast is part of the spirit and truth podcast network.
The spirit and truth podcast network is a 5 0 1 C3 ministry of spirit and truth each and every day, we do our very best to equip and awaken the local church to things like disciple making evangelism and the power of the holy. To find out more to get connected or to come be a part of our Facebook community.
Check us out@spiritandtruth.life. Yeah, my it's so funny that you say that you're you're over here. Convicting me, pastor. I, I don't have look, I'm getting ready to start. Yeah. Have you ever heard of the hard 75? It's one of those ridiculous workouts things and I'm getting [00:26:00] ready to start some with a group of guys.
And the only thing I hear you saying over there is moderation, moderation, moderation. I'm like, oh, I gotta drink a gallon of water today. I gotta work out twice a day. So me and the Lord are gonna have to talk about that.
Irene: cause when we tell you you burn yourself out and then you fall flat on your race and then you're like, oh, then we shame ourselves.
And then we avoid the behavior, which is actually supposed to be healthy for us. Right. So I get it.
Tony: One of the things that you talk about in the, in the book is this idea of about, about it being a family disease. And, and you and, and Jimmy have made some decisions to try to help shift that in your own family.
I I'm wondering if you can talk about that and, and you, your kids are. Are almost grown or Grown-ish kinda like, you know, like they're right in that season. Can, can you talk about how this impacted them, how you guys handled it with them? Sure. How you helped them as they as they continue to grow.
Sure. So
Irene: let me get [00:27:00] real vulnerable and give you a picture of what it was like. We were building this church. It was amazing. People were giving their lives to Jesus. We were serving the community. it was amazing. But at home, when I would drink at night, I would Jimmy and I would argue, and my daughter would hide my The two younger ones that hide their heads under pillows.
So they couldn't hear us arguing about drinking. Mm. My daughter would find me passed out on the bathroom floor when my husband was outta town and he, she would call him and say, dad, can you come home? I what's going on with mom. Is she sick? They didn't know anything about alcoholism and I was hiding it.
So they didn't know. She, he was like, just leave her there. And instead of coming. he stayed at his engagement wherever he was. And so the kids experienced trauma themselves. So that's abandonment for me and [00:28:00] Jimmy not feeling safe around me because I was slurring words and not W just as much needed to be addressed as my ADIC addiction.
A lot of the time we focus on the person who's in the addiction, but the family members of the addict are just as sick emotionally as the person using a substance. So that means Jimmy had to face his enable. Behaviors. He, he, he's such a strong guy. He's an eight on the Enneagram. He was like, what? I'm not an enabler.
And a boy when he came the family week at at my rehab and started to learn how he contributed to the dysfunctional system we were in. And we realized our kids were, we had introduced our kids to that dysfunction. They had to be a part of the healing. Oh, wow. It was Alanon Alaine so it was them getting aware that there are [00:29:00] resources out there.
People who've experienced what our family had experienced there, and just being the, the person who's not the addict. So being able to set functional boundaries, how do I not become an enabler? They had to do all of that work. They were in counseling just as much as I was in therapy. A big part of our healing as a family was I would come home from my counseling, whether it was EMDR or somatic therapy.
I went to all kinds of therapy for whatever the need was that I was trying to deal with. I went to AA, I went to codependence anonymous. When I came home, I would share with my children. This is what I learned. and it gave me an opportunity to say, I'm really sorry, cuz I heard somebody share a story about how they felt about their family member or an experience they had.
And I'm starting to think like, I can't imagine what you guys have felt. And [00:30:00] part of our healing was having these family meetings once a week, 45 minutes, whoever had the Baton would share a feeling or an emotion and then we all listen. And in those family meetings, I heard a lot about how my children were impacted, how my husband was impacted by my drinking.
So throughout the week I had opportunities to say, I'm sorry, ask for forgiveness. And I proved to them that I was serious and that I wasn't gonna betray their trust again, or their their ability to forgive me and how gracious they were by changing my behavior. So not drinking. My sobriety became the most important thing to our entire family.
They were pushing me out the door to go to AA and I would come home with my coin and they would celebrate the bajes mm. To say, good job, mom, you got healthy. You're doing this, no shame. You know what [00:31:00] I mean? Like we punched shame in the face when we celebrated one another. And that created this safe place for healing.
And sharing cuz the trauma was real for them. And we're still dealing with the effects of that because my daughter was in ninth grade, the other two were in middle school and elementary now they're 17, 19 and 21. And whenever something comes up, there's a reminder. There's a trigger. We still talk about.
we still create the safe space to be like, Hey, that when I saw that show, it reminded me of that time, mom, when such and such happened and just talking about it. Ugh, the healing, just from just saying mom, that hurt me or me saying, Hey Jimmy, when you shamed me about my drinking, like it actually made me want to drink.
Sure. He's like, wow. And just our family healed through that [00:32:00] honesty
Tony: as your 21 year old had to wrestle with their own decisions about drinking. Whoa.
Irene: Yes. And my, I had to deal with the fact before they even got to that decision making point that they might decide to do something that is contrary to what our family values are.
Now that we know there's addiction in the family and they choose to drink. Anyway, I had to deal with how I was going to deal with that, but they have, I left the decision to them. I educated them, did the best I could to educate them and help them become aware of addiction cuz I wasn't aware of it. And then the decision was theirs and they've tried it and made their mistakes and their learning.
But at least they're going in with their eyes wide open and they know that the, our house always has a welcome mat and there's no shame here and we're gonna stand behind them and help [00:33:00] them if they ever get in a bad situation. But I've done everything I can to equip those babies with what they need to make good decisions.
They still don't make quality decisions, but we know how to recover as a family from those bad decisions. Does that make.
Tony: perfect. I I'm I've I, my oldest is 16, so I'm a little bit behind you. I have a 16 year old, a 12 year old and a 10 year old, two boys and a princess. And and I, I know I just know how I'm wired and that, and, and so I I'm, I feel like I see it on my oldest son and he doesn't necessary.
Well, you know, I'm very open and I've preached about it and I've written about it and all the, all of my shortcomings. But I also know that he's really, he's really acutely aware that he's not me. Dad, I'm not you. Oh, oh my son. I, I, I got you. I love you. You call me when you need me. right. I, I don't know.
It's this it's a daily actor surrender, [00:34:00] right? Or
Irene: is it really is surrendering it to God. Like I, oh my goodness. It is. And you know what, just to encourage you, even though there has been some dabbling on their part and to the point where it could have gone, gone to the unmanageability side. Yeah. The, as the consequences were increas, For my son, he began to see it and be able to articulate, oh my gosh, mom does this mean?
So if I didn't wanna go to class a lot, because I was under the influence, does that mean that it really was impacting my life. And I'm like, yeah. You know, and I'm just trying not to, he had dummy, you know, but how many times he had this conversation, like, haven't you had enough proof mom being in rehab, like, hello, but he had to get it for himself.
And so at least I'd been [00:35:00] able to infuse enough conversations about the addiction scale and what the slope looks like, that the light bulb went off and he was like, Hm. This is headed the wrong direction. This really could make my life unmanageable. Oh, let me stop. So praise God. We're a good place right now.
Tony: We're really good. Yeah. I love it.
Irene: I love it with him and her and all of them.
Tony: Oh, one of the things that you talk a lot about in the book and in your story is, is holistic healing and how it, I mean, so you clearly love the Lord and I love that. I you're an incredible pastor and you're pastoring pastors. You believe in divine healing. That's I I've listened to enough of your sermons to know that that's, that's a part of your ministry, which I, I, I love as well and believe in the power of the holy spirit.
I also have a counselor and on occasion when, you know, [00:36:00] in this season of my walk believe in the power of the 12 steps and we'll go to a 12 step meeting when I need to like talk, talk to me about bringing all of that together in your world and. Because it, that your rehab place was, was more than just it
Irene: wasn't church camp, right?
No, it was not. It actually wasn't a Christian quote unquote environment. It was, it was, it's called actually the Meadows treatment center in Wickenburg, Arizona for anybody who's interested in it. And they dealt with, it was a dual diagnosis place. So they dealt with addiction through the lenses of trauma.
So like, Number one, like you were saying the 12 step program, which people don't realize if I simplified it, it's Jesus and the be attitudes like it's Bible, right? It's literally the renewal of the mind and reframing behaviors that were weren't serving us well in dysfunction. And it's renewing our mind to [00:37:00] behave in a, by repeating the same thing over and over and over with accountability of a sponsor.
With accountability of a group, a support group and hearing stories and testimonies. That's what those 12 step programs are. They're not weird, crazy for those people. They actually are for all of us because all of that renewing of the mind and becoming this functional adult versus the leave and leaving the dysfunction behind.
Comes from awareness. So it's being around other people, hearing their stories you know, wow. You've been sober for 20 years. How did you do it? I still crave alcohol. When does the cravings go away? Like I look to somebody who's gone ahead of me to get that information. And so going to those support groups, whether it's celebrate recovery or AA really helped me feel like I wasn't alone.
I wasn't crazy. People speak my language. Gave me tools on how to avoid [00:38:00] relapse. Cuz I heard their stories. I'm like, Ooh, hungry, angry, lonely, tired. And you relapsed after seven years. How does that not become me? or becoming a dry drunk. You're not drinking, but you have all the behaviors of as if you were still under the influence.
So becoming aware of all of these things gave me new things to tackle. Embracing the fact that the 12 steps was a recovery program and we all need to recover from something, cuz we've all been hurt. We've all had a hangup like unforgiveness people have experienced divorce, trauma, all of us. And then all of us have the propensity to have a a habit that.
Can become unmanageable and impact our lives. So go going to these recovery programs tells us number one, admit that you have an issue. That's the first step then Nu whether it's codependency people pleasing, [00:39:00] overworking, overeating, it could be anything. It's not just a substance. And then you need God in order to move forward.
Cuz when we confess our sins, God were forgiven. When we confess our sins to each other we're healed. So we're walking around forgiven a lot of the time, these church people in the pews mm-hmm but we're not healed because we don't tell anybody else. We don't have that counselor. We don't have that support system of people who are broken raggedy rag dolls, just like.
All of us in need of a savior, all of us in need of Jesus. We need to be surrounded by people who are comfortable not being perfect. So like, I'm so glad I don't have to be this perfectionist and hide in my perfectionism anymore and taking care of other people and not taking care of myself. And I learned in the 12 step program, like.
Stay connected to God, stay out of [00:40:00] resentment. You know, the steps tell us to deal with our resentment and forgiveness, ask for forgiveness on a regular basis. And then everything that we learn, we give it away and it helps keep you sober. It's like the renewing of the mind, the Bible has always been there and like, it's, it's crazy how before science and science is now catching.
To the Bible. Yeah. It's all there in the Bible, but we look at it like it's for those people. Recovery's for addicts. How about recovery? If by definition means to return to one the one's natural state of mind, strength and body to recover, what was lost or stolen? All had something lost. We've all had something stolen.
We've. Can benefit from returning to God's original intent for us. But anyway, now I'm preaching. So I'm gonna
Tony: I love it. Let's I'm ready to take an offering. Let's go.
Irene: like recoveries for [00:41:00] everyone. We can.
Tony: Listen, I, I, I really believe that Matthew 28 disciple making is what we see in, in recovery. I think it's so important to walk alongside people.
I, I know that there are a lot of church people listening right now. And they may not realize that this message is for them, but undoubtedly they know someone in their church right now, who's in the thick of it. And, and whether that person admits that they're in the thick of it or not, we all know we can see 'em a mile away.
They're in the midst of it. What, what's the response that the average church person can take to one help. But, but maybe even more importantly not hurt. Mm.
Irene: This is, oh, yes. That is such a good question, because I feel like as Christians, once we give our lives to Jesus and we become a follower of Christ, We can become very dogmatic in our thinking in [00:42:00] terms of like, mm-hmm, okay if the Bible says this and I don't get it right.
Then shame on me. Right. Then the shame comes. So we hide and then we don't wanna tell anybody, because we are fear anybody knowing that we're imperfect and then the cycle just goes on and on and on of hiding. Cuz when we isolate the enemy has so much fun with us. So why would we as Christians? Do anything different than love the way Jesus loved he?
How did he's our ultimate example, right. For everything we do. And he showed compassion and empathy for people that were wounded hurting in need. So that's my advice. Empathy show, compassion, ask questions. Like how can I help? What's going on in your world. I'm not saying the Bible says to exp go. The PA Paul said it really well, like go into somebody's world and experience it from their point of view, but I didn't have [00:43:00] to take on their way of life.
So you still have a boundary that says, I'm not saying that what you're doing is okay. In fact, now that I've built relational equity and just loved on you been around you empathized, I've been compassionate. I share with you what the truth of the word of God says. If I'm asked and invited in I have boundaries where you can't drink in my house, but I'd be happy to, you know drive you to rehab or I'd be happy to, you know, like offering things when you're welcomed.
Not forcing it on someone or shaming somebody with the Bible. So how can I be a help asking questions? Do you think your drinking is a problem? Do you think your I don't know, maybe somebody in your church confesses that they've been watching porn, the statistics say that more than 85% of people are looking at it on a daily basis.
So. [00:44:00] You know, they're confessing, don't shame them with you. Shouldn't have looked at that. Why don't you get covenant eyes or some type of software on your, just ask them, get curious about where like it started. and empathize with, maybe it's trying to cover up some type of pain and then offer the resources.
So the thing about whatever it is, you're dealing with get educated, whether it's alcohol porn, there's devotions out there on you, version a boatload about everything you can think of that somebody approaches you about at. Trail trauma, identity issues, addiction. There's great. Devotionals, do a devotion together and then talk about what it is that you're learning about.
And then a lot of the time they will get to a place where like I see myself in that maybe I do have a problem. What options can you help me? And then you help 'em get help.
Tony: That's good. I, I don't [00:45:00] think we can ever have enough empathy. Mm-hmm I think that's a, a really good word. Yeah. Okay. I, I have one more question for you, but before I ask it, I know that my listeners are gonna want to connect with you all over the interwebs.
Sure. I, there's about a hundred questions we didn't get to about reframing and the book comes out August 2nd. I just wanna encourage you to go get it, but where can they learn about what How God is using you and Jimmy and your guys' ministry.
Irene: You can follow me on social media at Irene Rollins on Instagram.
And my marriage ministry, you can find us@twoequalsone.com and that's spelled out T w O equals. one.com and that's for our marriage ministry, with the coaching, you can learn more about how to have a an intensive at your church for your church leadership. And we do participate in conferences and things like that there.
And then Irene rawlins.com. If you visit just my name online and you can down. Free gift, if you pre-order my book, or if[00:46:00] this episode airs after my August 2nd launch there'll be resources on my website as well. And my tip Twitter and Facebook and all that fun stuff will be there as well.
Tony: All the, all the things. Okay. Last question. I always love to ask people. It's an advice question, except so I'm gonna ask you to give yourself one piece of advice, except I get to name the the season. Okay. So I'd like to invite you to give yourself one piece of advice the day after you married Jimmy.
And so so if you pull up a chair in front of that young lady who who's got all those heavy things inside of her, but also has just married this amazing pastor and is madly in love. If you could look her in the eyes, what's the one piece of advice you're gonna give her.
Irene: okay. I had to close my eyes and think, and picture that young lady again, [00:47:00] just who doesn't know anything about anything.
And the one thing I can think of is actually a word in Swahili and it's Poe slowly, slowly. That's what it means. And I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in 2013. And the guides that were with me, they challenged me. They said, Irene, you have to respect the mountain. If you go too fast, you will get sick from altitude sickness.
So the whole time I climbed that mountain, it was the hardest thing I'd ever done before rehab. They said PO PO slowly, slowly. And that's the advice I would give her. I'd say, honey, take it slow one day at a time. Don't bite off more than you can chew. It's gonna be ugly. It's gonna be messy. You're not gonna be able to breathe some days and, but you're not gonna die.
You'll make it. If you go [00:48:00] slow slowly, slowly.
Tony: Yeah. amen. Amen. What a great, what a great place to end at pastor. Thank you so much for your generosity of time today and your heart and your vulnerability is so good. I know it's gonna help so many people.
Irene: That's my prayer. I just wanna help people get free.
Yeah, that's all I wanna do. Bring awareness and help people get free so they can enjoy and live the, their best lives and be the best versions of themselves. So yeah, I really appreciate the opportunity to do that. And. Wow.
Tony: I love this conversation with pastor Irene. I can guarantee you that you're gonna hear more from her later.
We're gonna get together again with her husband, talk about their marriage ministry and all the things. What I really love about this conversation is how personal it got. I love how honest and vulnerable she is, what an incredible voice that the church needs to hear. Again. Thank you guys so much for being a part of the reclamation community.
Thank you for listening and for giving up [00:49:00] your time. Again, the best compliment you can give us, hit that subscribe button, leave a rating review on iTunes or Spotify, and be sure to share this episode with a friend. I appreciate all you guys so much. And remember if you wanna follow Jesus, you must be willing to move.
