Mess it Up Show 443 - Fungible

Mess it Up Show 443 - Fungible

How do different strategies aid in addiction recovery? This conversation gives you a front-row seat to how Christian counselling and hard-won experience can turn deep messes into meaningful messages. Guest counsellor Cory Schortzman from Transformed Hearts shares his journey from secret lust and emotional affairs to specialising in sex addiction and intimacy anorexia. He talks openly about growing up amid divorce, farm hardship and family trauma, then facing his own behaviour after a crisis in his marriage.

As he puts it, addiction "is a heart problem not an eye problem," and real change starts when pain finally outweighs the pain of change. You’ll hear why Cory believes great therapists have done their own recovery work, and why he sees most people as "addicted to something," even if some addictions are more socially acceptable.

He introduces intimacy anorexia – "starvation of love" – and shows how it quietly sabotages marriages, often sitting behind porn use, affairs and emotional cut-off. The chat ranges from prison work and Celebrate Recovery to the stigma around sex addiction and the way social media fuels attention-seeking and offence.

Cory’s big theme is offence: he argues that "at the heart of any and all addiction is the addiction to being offended," summarising marriage as "you can be right or you can be free, but you can't have both." He also shares a raw poem, "Grief", tracing his life story in sharp, painful images, and explains his blog as "public journaling"—a way of turning long-term recovery lessons into free content for anyone who’s struggling.

If you’re wrestling with porn, sex, resentment or just the feeling that your heart’s stuck, this episode might prompt you to ask: what pain am I finally ready to stop wasting?