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The "No Bull Briefing" - The Monthly Newsletter of The Samson Society

Keep Your Eye on the Ball

October is a dangerous month for a man like me.

The baseball postseason is here, college football is in full swing, and the NFL has found its stride. On top of that, we're one month out from the midterm elections. Every screen in the house is offering something to get worked up about. For a guy who has always been good at getting worked up, that is a lot of temptation.

I'll confess something. During my years of active addiction, I was one of the best-informed men in America. I knew the batting averages, the point spreads, the polling numbers, and the latest outrage from whichever politician was annoying me that week. Talk radio and sports radio ran in my car, my office, and my head all day long. I could tell you exactly what the manager should have done in the eighth inning and exactly what was wrong with Washington.

What I couldn't tell you was what was going on in my own life. That part I didn't want to look at.

Looking back, I don't think all that listening was really about sports or politics. It was a hiding place. As long as I was furious about a blown call or a bad vote, I didn't have to think about the lies I was telling, the marriage I was neglecting, or the secret that was slowly eating me alive. I was a passionate man. I just aimed my passion at everything except the things I could actually change.

That's the trick, isn't it? The things we get most worked up about are often the things we control least. My opinion about a referee has never changed the outcome of a game. My vote matters, and I cast it, but it isn't going to swing an election by itself. And a man can find a way to put money on Saturday's game while losing something far more valuable at home: his attention to his wife, his kids, his brothers, and his own soul, one moment at a time.

So here's my suggestion for this October, brothers. Enjoy the games. I'm going to. Pay attention to the issues and go vote. I'm doing that too. But let's be careful about where we spend our passion, because recovery takes all the passion we've got. The daily work of honesty, prayer, and showing up for each other doesn't make the highlight reel, but it's the only game we're actually playing in.

And let's be especially careful with our fellowship. There's nothing wrong with talking sports or politics with your brothers. Some of my best friendships have survived a lot of trash talk. But that conversation can't come first. When we check in with each other, the first questions should still be the real ones: How are you, really? What are you not telling me? What's going on at home? Then we need to shut up and listen to the answer.

Our country is splitting along political lines, and I don't want the Samson Society to do the same. The man across the table from you may vote differently than you do. He may even root for the wrong team. But he's fighting the same battle you are, and you need him. He needs you too. That bond is worth far more than any argument you might win.

I don't want to tune out the world. I just never want to lose focus again. I've been the guy who knew every score and missed his own life, and I'm not going back.

Keep your eye on the ball, brothers. The right ball.

— Nate

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Don't Watch This One from the Stands

If you're looking for something worth getting passionate about this October, here it is. The 2026 Samson Summit is October 23–25 at Faholo Conference Center in Grass Lake, Michigan, with an optional bonus day starting Thursday, October 22.

John Lynch will teach four sessions, joined by Sam Black, Aaron Porter, and me. There will be small groups, walks with a brother, campfires, and a Saturday-night concert with Josh Bales. Lodging and all meals are included. Most of all, it's a weekend away from the noise, face to face with men who are fighting the same fight you are.

Last day to register to join us in person is Monday, October 12. That's days away, not weeks. Don't wait.

Register for the Samson Summit today

Too far to travel? Join the livestream, presented by Covenant Eyes, and receive 5 free bonus pre-recorded workshops. Registration closes for the virtual livestream on October 21.

Join the Livestream

Worried about cost? Partial scholarships of 25%, 50%, or 75% are available, so money shouldn't keep you home. Request a scholarship here. 

And if you're able, you can help a brother by funding a scholarship.

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A Bigger Table: Imagining the Samson Council

A few weeks ago, I asked for volunteers to help us think through the formation of a Samson Council. A lot of you raised your hands—which was encouraging, although it created the pleasant problem of having more volunteers than chairs around the virtual table.

The Working Group

I wanted to keep the actual Working Group small enough to have a real conversation, so after checking everyone’s availability I selected nine men, shooting for a mixture of virtual and in-person meeting experience, North American and European perspectives, longtime Pirate Monks and some newer voices. Those men are: Jamie Manship, Keith Hudgins, Spencer Morris, Dave Otto, Don Williamson, Mark Garratt, Mark Whitlock, Greg Redmond, and Luke Ramsay.

I’ll serve as convener. This group will meet for the first time on October 18, via Zoom.

The Consultation Group

Just as important, I asked the rest of the design volunteers to serve on a larger Consultation Group that will react to the smaller group’s ideas, point out things we’ve missed, and occasionally save us from ourselves. David Gregg, Storm Myer, Bill Musall, Kyle Free, Jeremy Young, Andrew Ralph, Darren Hoelzer, Nathaniel Pinson, Sidney Sherrill, Justin Chizmar, Neil Bergeron, Blake Hendrickson, Lorne Williams, David Clark, Paul Clay, and Luke Stevens will serve on that group.

Many thanks to every one of these men for volunteering their time and perspective.

If I have overlooked or forgotten a volunteer, please shoot me a text at 615-438-8308.

One important clarification: none of these men has just been appointed to the Samson Council. There isn’t a Council yet. The working group’s job is to create the initial design for one—what it should do, whom it should represent, how members should be selected, and how it can give the Society a meaningful voice without creating another layer of bureaucracy.

This is a short-term assignment and the beginning of a process, not the end of one. The working group will consult with the larger team as ideas develop, and we’ll keep the whole Society informed along the way.

We’re not disappearing into a room with white smoke coming out of a chimney. We’re just trying to figure out, together, what a genuinely representative Samson Council ought to look like.

--Nate Larkin

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Exclusive Opportunity for the Men of Samson Society 

LifeWorks is hosting a 3-Day Men’s Clinical Intensive for Sexual Brokenness on November 13–15, 2026, led by Roane Hunter, Sr., LPC, CSAT-S, and Roe Hunter, LPC, CSAT.

This is focused clinical work, not simply another retreat. LifeWorks describes the three-day intensive as providing the equivalent of approximately 8–12 months of weekly counseling and as a way to jumpstart or deepen recovery. Participants also complete pre-work assessments through IITAP.

Dates: November 13–15, 2026
Cost: $2,000, including lodging and meals
Deposit: $500 non-refundable
Payment plans are available

This does not replace the ongoing community and recovery work of Samson Society. It is an opportunity for men who are ready to go deeper into the wounds, behaviors, and relational patterns underneath sexual brokenness.

If you keep finding yourself running into the same wall in recovery, this may be worth considering.

Information and registration

Please feel free to share this with another Samson brother who may benefit.

You Don't Have To Be In Michigan To Be Part Of The 2026 Summit

Because recovery was never meant to be another performance.

Not everyone can make the trip to Michigan this year. We get it. But we don’t want distance to keep you from being part of what’s happening October 23-25 at the 2026 Samson Summit. The good news is you can !

This year’s virtual Summit, sponsored by , features keynote speaker John Lynchand our virtual speakers who will take us deeper into the realities of recovery: our God-given need for connection and belonging, the lies and excuses we use to protect ourselves from pain, what it takes to stay emotionally engaged when our partners are hurting, and how we can move beyond a recovery defined simply by success and failure toward a life that is embodied, relational, and faithful.

It’s about learning to be known. Learning to stay when we want to run. Learning to receive grace instead of trying to earn it. And discovering that even the parts of our stories we would rather erase can look different when we see them through the eyes of grace.

Can’t come to Michigan? Come anyway. Your chair may be somewhere else, but your brothers will be right there with you.

Join us online October 23-25 for the 2026 Samson Summit

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 As a special gift from Covenant Eyes to those who attend the livestream, you will receive 5 bonus sessions, including the one above, from leading counselors and thought leaders that will help you gain even more momentum in your journey to live porn-free.

See below for more information!

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The Stay Engaged Method: 8 Essential Steps for Supporting Your Partner Through the Pain of Betrayal

Eddie Capparucci, Ph.D., LPC, CSAS

Recovery is about more than achieving sobriety or changing destructive behaviors. It also requires learning how to remain emotionally present with those who have been hurt by our actions—especially when their grief, anger, or pain is difficult to face. When a partner is hurting, the instinct to explain intentions, correct details, defend progress, or prove what “really happened” may feel protective, but these responses can leave a grieving partner feeling even more alone. Staying engaged requires a different kind of emotional maturity: the ability to remain grounded, attentive, curious, and emotionally available without becoming defensive or withdrawing when things get uncomfortable.

In this presentation, participants will learn the Stay Engaged Method, eight essential steps for remaining emotionally connected with a grieving partner during difficult moments. Rather than relying on “I don’t know what to do,” participants will leave with a practical framework for responding to pain in ways that foster safety, connection, accountability, and healing.

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Hard Wired for Connection: Why Our Need to Matter, Belong, and Be Loved Is Part of God’s Design

Jeff Schulte, Founder, Tin Man Ministries

We were created for connection. The need to matter, belong, and experience secure attachment is not a weakness to overcome but a profound reflection of being made in the image of a relational God. Yet many of us have learned to distrust our neediness, minimize our longings, or believe that changing how we think should be enough to change how we live.

This presentation invites participants to reconsider their needs and longings not as liabilities, but as pathways to intimacy and transformation. Love is expressed through needs and the meeting of needs, and our willingness to be known—including allowing others to see what we need—determines how deeply we can experience being loved. By understanding how we are hard wired for connection, we can begin moving away from performance and self-protection and toward the authentic relationships through which we learn to love, be loved, and grow.

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Failure, Embodiment, and the Manageable Life of Faithful Recovery: A Framework for Spiritual Direction in Pornography Addiction Recovery

Matt Wenger, MA, LPC, CCPS, CSAT, Executive Clinical Director of Begin Again Institute

What if recovery is not a separate set of practices we perform, but a way of learning to live more fully and faithfully as human beings? Drawing from the novels Gilead and Jayber Crow, Matt Wenger invites participants to expand their understanding of recovery beyond the pursuit of success or the avoidance of failure and toward a more embodied, relational, and sustainable way of life.

Through literature and the contemplative traditions of the Church, Matt offers another framework: a manageable life of faithful recovery. Rather than striving to become the hero of our recovery story, we can learn to inhabit the ordinary limits of our lives, make room for failure, and become more attentive to our embodied needs and desires. The contemplative tradition shifts the emphasis from simply knowing about God to experiencing relationship with God, offering ancient practices that closely parallel the slow, relational work of recovery. In doing so, recovery becomes less about achieving an ideal and more about learning to live faithfully, honestly, and fully within the life we have been given.

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Lies and Excuses We Make in Early Recovery: Moving from Self-Protection to Grace, Acceptance, and Healing

Nick Stumbo, Executive Director of Pure Desire Ministries

Most of us enter recovery after years of rationalizing, minimizing, denying, or explaining away our behavior. Even after recovery begins, those patterns do not simply disappear. Our brains are wired for self-preservation—to move away from what feels threatening, uncomfortable, or painful—and many of the lies and excuses we tell ourselves began as attempts to protect us from something we did not know how to face. But what begins as self-protection can eventually become self-destruction. When we continually avoid pain, shame, fear, vulnerability, or uncomfortable truths, the very strategies meant to protect us can keep us trapped in the patterns from which we are trying to recover.

In this presentation, Nick explores what lies beneath the rationalizations and excuses common in early recovery and how understanding these behaviors can change the way we approach them. Rather than continuing to run from the things we have spent a lifetime avoiding, recovery invites us to turn toward them with honesty, curiosity, and courage. In doing so, we create space to experience a level of God’s grace we may never have allowed ourselves to receive, acceptance from other men we did not know was possible, and the deeper healing that avoidance has kept just beyond our reach.

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Rebuilding from Ground Zero: 16 Steps and 4 Key Questions for Ongoing Recovery from Nehemiah

Jim Cress, CSAT, CPTT, CMAT, LPC, Certified Daring Way Facilitator

Drawing from the Old Testament book of Nehemiah, Jim explores what it means to walk honestly within our stories as an essential part of ongoing recovery. Using Nehemiah’s journey of confronting what has been broken and undertaking the work of rebuilding, Jim identifies 16 steps and four key questions that help us examine our own stories—from ground zero to the “red dot.” Along the way, he invites us to consider where we have been, where we are now, and what it looks like to continue moving forward with honesty, intention, and grace.

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FULLY AUTHORIZED: Introducing The "Samson Society Council"

 

The No Bull Briefing: The Monthly Newsletter of the Samson Society

 

THE SLOW WORK I used to think my drug of choice was pornography. Turns out my real addiction was speed — the desperate need to make bad feelings go away right now. Impatience, impulsiveness, a rock-bottom tolerance for discomfort: these weren’t side effects of my addiction, they were the engine of it. Twenty-eight years into recovery, I’m still in remedial class on this one. Allie and I are older now, and aging and cancer have ways of putting a bullhorn to a lesson I thought I’d learned. Like it or not, there’s no hack for a body that heals on its own schedule and not one minute sooner, no matter how many YouTube videos I watch at 2 a.m. convinced I’ve found the one weird trick doctors don’t want you to know. The same was true, on a much deeper level, for Allie’s healing from my betrayal. I wanted it finished. I wanted her to feel safe again by Tuesday. Every time I tried to hurry that process along — with the right words, the right gesture, the right grand romantic overture — I only slowed it down. Real trust doesn’t arrive faster because you knock on the door harder. What recovery actually gave me wasn’t a cure for impatience. It gave me a practice: one day at a time, trusting that whatever I feel — dread, grief, even joy — will pass, and that healing that comes slowly is still healing. Some things simply cannot be rushed. Least of all, apparently, me. — Nate Larkin Hey guys, I am getting amped up about our summit in October. I’ve had some great conversations with John Lynch, our main speaker, and he is putting some great effort into our time. John has always been so good at articulating how the gospel gives us the opportunity to discover a transformative identity in Christ. But at the summit this year we are going to tie that importance into the recovery walk and story work. In other words, we are going to be building bridges between what we believe in the pews and Bible studies and what we believe when guilt, shame, and condemnation come gnawing at our souls in the darkest hours of the night. Basically, we’ve all got a narrative running in our heads about who we are and what we are worth. Those stories are generally rooted in and anchored to our past experiences. It may be in childhood experiences, wounds, betrayals, loneliness, perceived failure, or struggles with sin and utter failures. All of those voices are so loud, demanding our attention and capturing our identities. How we tie our faith into our recovery and community walks is not just important; it’s vital. That’s what we are going to be working through in Michigan this fall. I can’t wait. If you haven’t signed up yet, the details are below. Do the planning team a solid and make your arrangements today so we know who all is coming and how to get ready for you. And remember, if you want to come a day early for some time with your brothers and a little heart preparation, that is available to you as well. Hoping to get to hang with you all in the fall (yes, I know, it rhymed, and was awesome). Aaron COME TO THE SAMSON SUMMIT What if you gave yourself a weekend to step away from the noise and remember what matters most? The 2026 Samson Summit is October 23–25 at Faholo Conference Center in Grass Lake, Michigan. It’s a weekend of truth, grace, and brotherhood—a place to drop the masks, tell the truth, laugh with other men, and experience the freedom that comes from not having to do this alone. This year, we’re honored to welcome John Lynch as our keynote speaker, along with teaching, small groups, conversations, walks, fun activities, and plenty of time gathered around the campfire. Come for the teaching. Come for the brotherhood. Come because sometimes you need to get out of your normal environment to see your story—and yourself—differently. And if you can’t make it to Michigan, you can JOIN US VIRTUALLY for the Summit from wherever you are. Come as you are. Bring the parts of your story you’ve learned to hide. See them through the lens of grace. Register Today!   Want to help a brother attend? Click here to donate to our Summit scholarship fund! NO BULL ABOUT THE MONEY A few guys have told us recently that they’d like more transparency about Samson House finances. I think they’re right. Samson House exists to serve the Samson Society, and the guys who support this work deserve to know where the money comes from and where it goes. So here are the numbers: Through September 2, Samson House has received about $212,000 and spent about $226,000. That puts us roughly $14,000 in the red for the year so far. Our biggest expense is people: about $118,600 in salaries and wages, a little over half of everything we spent. After that, about $21,000 on the Harbor, $15,000 on office, technology and website costs, and $9,600 on travel. Samson House also handles Sarah Society funds, and those run through our books on both sides. Counted as a whole program rather than a calendar year, that retreat is running about $13,700 short of its registrations. As of August 31, we had about $56,000 in the bank. Of that sum, $35,000 is held in reserve to pay for the Summit and $21,000 to cover upcoming fees for the website and app. We also own the Harbor, carried on our books at $690,000 with about $343,000 remaining on the loan. It brought in $28,000 in rent this year. There’s considerably more detail behind those numbers, and we’ve put it on the app for anybody who wants to look under the hood. But we’re also going to make this kind of report a regular feature. You shouldn’t need a finance degree — or an invitation to a board meeting — to have a reasonable idea of how Samson House is doing. --Nate Donate View this email in your browser.

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