Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Couple of Nukes. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey, and a couple of things on the agenda today. Number one, if you're not watching on YouTube, and if you are watching on YouTube and you're curious, the mountains behind me covered with snow and the lake behind me is the way I was able to be thematic with today's episode because I am with an Alaskan, and that is so cool to have someone from so far away I know I've, I've recorded with people from other countries, so it sounds like Alaska shouldn't be that cool, but Alaska is like its own country, you know, separate from the U.
S. Like, realistically, Alaska and Hawaii are like their own thing, so it's cool to have that. And we'll definitely talk about that for a little bit later here, but as far as today's episode, you know, on the show before we have addressed, the destruction of sexual intimacy and the impact it has had on society, we've talked about it.
How children and teenagers are being exposed to so much pornographic and sexual content, how it is making up their entire conversations as far as humor and slang, and the impact that's having on their brains and their health and their social lives. But we haven't really dove into the addiction side of it, especially With personal experience and so today we have a guest who is here to talk about that to talk about how it can destroy your lives and the, I don't want to say the best part because this is all an awful story, but the best part about it is this is a man who was married.
And a lot of times we think once you're in a relationship, that's it. There's no more pornography watching, you know, whether you consider that cheating or you don't have that desire anymore, but when you're addicted, just as an alcoholic drinks, even if they have kids and a wife or their health gets destroyed, just as people still do drugs, a pornographic or sexual addiction still is there.
After you get married or you're in a relationship, even if you have kids, you know, those factors can impact your ability to fight it but it's still there. And even after you're recovered, you have to be mindful of that. And something my guest and I were just talking about before we recorded here, as men of God, when it comes to subjects like this, we have to be careful not to lead others into sin.
So, a reminder for anyone out there hosting platforms like this, and if you're of the faith mentioning names of websites, or actresses, or whatever it may be, can be detrimental, because humans are naturally curious, and even if they're on the right path, that curiosity can lead them to a path of sin, so it's always important to be mindful when talking about this stuff, to go at it from a certain angle, so, without further ado, Mr.
Logan Hufford, I'd love for you to introduce yourself so we can dive right into this. I appreciate you so much for having me on and I'll keep it short and sweet. I mean, I, the way I introduced myself is the same way I introduced myself at a recovery meeting, which is I'm Logan and I'm no longer addicted to sexual addiction.
And I cherish that statement because for a lot of years, and as you said most of which was, you know, me as a husband, as a dad. For a lot of years I was in bondage and I did not envision a future where I wasn't continually looking at porn, where I wasn't continually having affairs and just cheating on my wife in all these different ways and hating, you know, to look in the mirror because I, I, I could never be a good dad.
I could never be a good husband. I was, I was just going to be, you know, this monster for the rest of my life. That's, that's what I thought. You know, I lived in that place of hopelessness for a lot of years. So to be able to say now, you know, that I'm not in bondage to that and to look back at, you know, eight plus years of recovery, sobriety not perfection, but, but progressive victory and healthy living.
And, and what God has given me now in my life today is, is an incredible thing. So I'm just, ultimately that is my purpose is to shed light on what God has done, you know, so that other folks can know. no matter how far I've taken something, like there's always natural consequences, but no matter how far I've taken something, God can deliver, you know, he can give redemption.
He can give healing. If I'm willing to seek after him. Amen. And you know, let's start with, first of all, the acknowledgement that it is bondage. I think that's a huge first step for most people because like any addiction, like anything that is controlling our lives in ways we can't see, we're going to be in denial about it.
We're going to say, no, I can stop anytime I want. Or, you know, it's just a little bit, or it might be like, Oh, it's only this type of content. Therefore, it's not bad. I'll give the comparison to alcoholics who say, Oh, I'm only drinking wine or, you know, alcoholic seltzers. I'm not doing the hard liquor and, you know, like whiskey or whatever it may be.
Therefore, it's alright. So like with anything, there's a lot of justification. And so the first step toward healing is recognizing that bondage. And so how did you end up recognizing that? Because for, I assume for many years, you were blinded to that fact. You didn't realize how much it was controlling you.
What kind of opened your eyes to that? Yeah. And this is honestly something we were just talking about a couple of weeks ago in, in the, the men's group that I was introduced to nine years ago. And, and by God's grace, now I lead you know, a prodigal chapter out here in the Valley, in, in Alaska. is, is, is denial and how it manifests.
Cause it looks, it looks different for different guys. It looks different at different points in my story. I don't, and sometimes when I, when I'm trying to think back on like, you know, 11, 12 years ago, it can be hard for me to remember anything from 11 or 12 years ago, especially when I was living in addiction though.
And the whole, my whole goal is to compartmentalize and isolate and basically block off and like cauterize. my memories. I mean, that's how I lived. So it can be hard for me sometimes to remember, like exactly what was my mindset and what, what was my process at that moment. But as best as I can remember, I don't believe that there was ever really a point, at least not once I was married where I was in denial of the destruction.
Like, I think I was always pretty darn aware of that denial for me looked a little bit different. It wasn't so much, Oh, it's not a problem. Or, oh, it's, it's not cheating. I, I, I definitely minimized how much trauma it was delivering to my wife. How, you know, like the word abuser, I would not have owned that title in the middle of it, at least not early on.
Whereas now I look back and like a hundred percent, a hundred percent, I was an abusive husband. But denial for me really manifested with denial of the fact that healing was available, which is a different kind of denial. But I, the way I put it is this is like, I didn't doubt God's power. I always believed in the idea of God.
I just doubted God's power in my life because I had done too much. I had gone too far. And so it wasn't necessarily denial of the fact that I was doing something wrong. I knew that, but I was in denial of the fact that I could be out of bondage. I did not fathom that was possible for a long time. Right this inability to have self forgiveness because of the shame over your actions And I think that's something a lot of people do with Any kind of addiction or even any actions that they have guilt over they get this mindset that well You know what?
I'll put it like in I believe it was Macbeth They said if you wade halfway through a river of blood going further, going back either way, you know, you're covered in blood. And the point there was that some people feel like they're too far gone and that no matter what they do, they're always going to be that person.
But that's not what we're called to be, who we're called to serve. You know, we are called for forgiveness. And it's just truly amazing how much mercy and forgiveness there is out there in the world. Not just from God, but just how we as human beings are capable of so much love and mercy just as God created us to be.
And you know, you talk about denial being, I think also just the fact that, By saying there is no forgiveness or no healing then there's nothing else I can do but continue indulging in it. Right. So I think that's a great example. Like you said, denial comes in so many different forms. Now I just want to dive a bit into addiction.
Like we said, we're not going to get into the details of it. But when you're saying you're addicted, Is this a few hours a day? Is this like excessively, like what, what is that level look like? And obviously there's are so many different levels of addiction. And like you said, some people, it might not be affairs.
It might not be a physical manifestation. Some people, it might be images. Some people might be videos. It might be masturbation, right? There's so many different forms of it, but for you personally, what was this looking like? And I love that question. In two things I'm gonna put out there. The first one is, is kind of just.
What you said at the end of your question, which is the different forms, different manifestations, right? Ultimately it's like different branches, but they're all on the same tree, you know, or, or two different flowers that, that have a little bit different coloration, but they're the same species of flower.
Right. Because like my mentor, Rick, a man that God put into my life. Almost exactly nine years ago. And he would go on to mentor me through a mentorship program, a two year voluntary house arrest program. And he's still a mentor of mine. Somebody that, you know, that I talk to regularly, one of my best friends, he had a very different story.
I, you know, my story was started with pornography, but it went to sexual affairs. It went to hiring prostitutes, phone sex. It was all, it was pretty much the whole gamut. And with him, he had a story he's older. He's, he's my dad's age. He had like a few decades of sexual addiction, specifically addiction to pornography.
So on paper, you know, somebody on the outside could go, okay, well, how's Rick going to mentor Logan? You know, Rick never went beyond pornography and masturbation, right? But very quickly, it was a, it was very obvious to me. Like, no, no, no, we got the same struggle. It manifested differently. But, you know, his wife could tell you the destruction that it caused.
He could tell you the destruction that it caused just because he didn't have the, he didn't cross the same physical lines with other people didn't mean that he didn't understand the struggle and the addiction. It is important. If I'm seeking healing if I'm seeking mentorship, I think in any area. It's important that I find somebody that's been in the trenches, that's been down the path that I've been down, but that doesn't mean they have to live the exact same life.
Right. So that's one piece of it, right? It's just that it manifests differently. Yeah. And then in terms of, you know, kind of addiction and what it looks like, it, it, cause like one thing I always emphasize is sexual addiction is not really about sexual behavior. And that might sound kind of goofy, but what I mean by that is it's not about like, Oh, I need more.
Of this behavior. I, I have too much of a sexual appetite. Like those factors might be there for some people, or at least in me, like sometimes there was that feeling of like, I want more. Usually it wasn't about wanting more. It was, you know, from an early age, I trained myself through pornography and then through what I call serial flirting, where it's like, it's not just, Oh, I'm learning how to talk to a girl.
That's cute. It's like, no, no, no, no. I'm seeking after whatever attention and whatever response I can get from every woman I'm at in my path. I trained myself to chase after new and different and more and darker and more extreme and more risky. No wife can compare with that, right? No real human can compare with that.
And I trained myself to chase after that, to chase after those dopamine hits, to chase after that adrenaline rush, to chase after all of that. So it wasn't about like, Oh, I have a high sex drive or, Oh, I just have this big sexual appetite in the same way that, you know, an alcoholic is. Some alcoholics might really enjoy the taste of beer.
They might really enjoy the taste of whiskey but it would be ludicrous to say alcoholism means that you like drinking alcohol more than other beverages. Like, Oh, that's not the point. Obviously some alcoholics might enjoy drinking alcohol more than other beverages, but that's not what alcoholism is about.
And it's that same thing. And again, like I, like we talked about offline, like you alluded to, I'm not going to share war stories. There's not going to be a sensationalism here. But I, you know, I will give some, some examples of kind of what this looked like. And, and so like an example would be, there were times where I would be intimate with my wife, physically intimate with my wife, and then look at porn after.
There's no sexual appetite logic there. It wasn't about feeding the sexual appetite, right? It was about feeding this depraved part of my brain that I had, unfortunately, trained in a really sinful, really dark way over the course of years. But it had nothing to do with the physical need for sex. Now you talk about your marriage being destroyed and in general, people's marriages being damaged.
Even an example of someone who just watches pornography isn't. Actively cheating on their wife or husband with a, you know, actual people, but there's still that damage going on behind the scenes within your brain, within your relationship that we're going to discuss here. And when we talk about your marriage being damaged, are we discussing that this is something that went on in the background for a very long time until you brought it forward?
Or is this something you got caught? And there was so much turmoil resulting from that. So I confessed these things to my wife. I was, I was always extremely careful to protect my addiction. To not get caught, to do whatever I could to not get caught. Cause I didn't want to get in trouble. I mean, that's like the childlike part of me.
Right. Yeah. I'm going to, I'm going to play with fire and do what I can to not get burned. Or I'm going to sneak candy and make sure I don't get caught. Did the same thing, you know, with, with my addiction it was mostly localized to, I would be seeking out attention from women and chasing after these things and looking at porn while I was at work, while I was driving to or from work, when I was home, I usually wasn't doing those things.
Keyword usually, because there were definitely times where I, I would feel enough of a drive and I would chase after it. And I would, you know, You know, look at porn, you know, in the bathroom at night or something, but generally speaking, I would, I would like localize it. I would silo it to these times when I'm away from my family and part of that was strategic again, and this is all sounding very dark and sad and unhealthy.
Yes, it, but that's how I operated. So part of it was strategic protecting my addiction. And then part of it was also just this natural. when I was around my family, there was at least, you know, glimpses of healthy infrastructure there, even though I did not have a very sturdy infrastructure, I didn't have accountability.
So, but once I was away from my wife, once I was away from my kids it was just so much, you know, any bit of infrastructure, any bit of resistance to temptation. It was like, well, now there's nothing. And so it was way easier for me to just give into any sort of temptation, whether it be mental or otherwise.
You talk about still being intimate with your wife and then afterward, you know Giving into your addiction which like you said Logically and scientifically doesn't make sense for you still have a sexual drive after you know having that happen So what I want to know is was this at all affecting Your love for your wife because you're craving, you know, flirtations from other women and you know, these sexual highs from other women who look different than your wife act different.
Like you said your wife can't play all these different roles. I mean, no one can do it, right? Right. So did this form any kind of resentment in your heart for her not being able to do that? Did you blame her at all or did you just want to be intimate with her less because it just wasn't the same high as your addiction was giving you?
Yeah, for me personally, the answer would be no, but I do believe that for, for a lot of people that does happen. And for me specifically, had I continue, I mean, I, on one hand I continued for a very long time. I mean, this is one of those like, you know, one day of sexual betrayal is way too long. Right. One moment is way too much.
Right. And so for me, I mean, you know, from the I was married when it started before I was even married, but I mean, we're talking like a six year period from the first time I cheated on my wife to getting into recovery a little over six years. So that's a really, really long time. And yet I suppose, you know, yeah, compared to maybe somebody was doing it for 20 years, that's only going to compound.
Right. So it would, I think that would have been the natural outcome is that I would have naturally found my wife less attractive over time because I'm, I mean, it's the, the analogy I always give is you know, it's like, You can take the, the sweetest fruit on earth, a peach, a strawberry, whatever, like whatever your fruit is that you love eating and it's, it's tasty and it's beautiful and God made it that way.
Now go eat whatever your favorite candy is, right? Like, I like a Twix bar, you go eat that Twix bar, you go eat a Snickers, now go eat that strawberry, it will taste sour, even though God poured natural, you know, sugar, it will taste sour, it will taste maybe even bitter. Because it cannot compete with this chemical man made imitation of sweetness, right?
And that's what porn is. Of course, it's way darker and way more spiritual, but that's ultimately what porn is. So I, I didn't ever resent my wife. I never blamed her. I never felt like, Oh, you know, you're not enough of this. You're not enough of that. Of course, my actions communicated that I never had that thought process.
And that's, that's another crazy part of my story that. It's not going to be everyone's story, but like for me personally, I always, I always was attracted to my wife. I always, I loved her and I wanted to be a good husband to her. Like this was not me, you know, Oh, I'm going to play around and chase after these women and do these different things.
Cause she's not enough or because she did this or I'm mad. It was like, no, I hated the fact that I kept doing this stuff, but I kept doing it. Because again, I did not, I didn't have a healthy infrastructure. My, My infrastructure, my routines, my way of doing things was selfish and impulsive and like a little kid in a candy store, except the X rated grownup version of that.
You know, I really like what you said, your analogy, because I think it applies not just to pornography, but to social media in general, especially when it comes to young women. So we see a lot of young women comparing themselves to these women they see online, forming self esteem issues and eating disorders.
And then on the same side, you see these young men seeing these women online and developing these unrealistic expectations. What you see on social media is whether it's from body enhancements like surgeries or just very rare finds, you find that the women who are promoted the most, who have the most followers, who are being liked the most, are all extremely sexualized.
You know, they're, they're very skinny, they're very busty, and it sets this ideal standard that if a woman isn't that, then she's low quality or what have you. Same with weight, hair, makeup, all those factors, what they're even doing in their lives. And so I think, like you said, You have these young folks on social media, and plenty of older folk too, you know, on social media, seeing like you said, what we would call the candy, this artificially made, this enhanced, whether it's through technology or just the way they set things up, you have this unrealistic expectation and then same with pornography, you have whatever is happening, whatever they're doing, whatever the content is, It might not be something that every person is capable of.
Yet you get this expectation that, you know, if this woman can do XYZ, then my wife should be able to do XYZ, otherwise I'll trash her and find a new one. So I really like the analogy of, you know, what God made is perfect because God made a person for every one of us. You know, I do believe that every one of us can find love.
And you know, it's difficult in this world full of artificial, you know, goods, so to speak, when there's so much leading us astray, when there's so much sin being idolized, and so much blocking us. But what I want to get into, pivoting from there, is you talk about being a father, and I mean, I can imagine the guilt and shame that must come with that, because I assume I would hope that you want your kids to never go on this path, that you want to educate them properly.
And so when it comes time to talk to them about this stuff, you'd be a hypocrite. I mean, how did that play out in your life? Oh yeah. And it was honestly, I, I wasn't even necessarily thinking about, Oh, I'm not going to be able to teach them about, you know, sexual faithfulness and pornography. That was, I'm looking at them.
Like, I'm not even going to be around to help them tie their shoes. You know, before too long, right? Like eventually I'm just, I'm, they're just going to be out of my life. Let alone any sort of like moral, you know, moral authority as their father, as, as a mentor. But yeah, I, I'm never going to be able to look them in the eyes and teach them anything because I'm a fraud.
I'm a monster. I remember thinking that once I was a couple years into this, once I was a couple of years into marriage and just continually cheating, Cheating both through physical affairs and through pornography, because it is, it's all cheating. It's all right. And just going like, I wonder how many more years I'll be able to have as their dad.
Cause like eventually for sure I will lose them maybe on the, like, this is so dark and depressing, but this was truly how my thought process was maybe on the good end. I can be around for as long as like they're in the house. But once they're adults, once they're older, like they'll know what happened.
And then like, for sure, they're going to like reject me and never want to talk to me again. But at least then I'll, I'll be able to be around them for a few years. That was like best case scenario. That was a really sad best case scenario, but, but in my mind, like there's no future that isn't me continually doing this stuff.
Cause I don't know how to stop. And so that I just given up by that point. But more than likely, that's not going to happen more than likely, you know, within a year, Two years, five years, you know, Carrie's probably just going to leave. The kids will probably just like, so it was just like, it was like, I was like a guy, this is how I felt like a guy on death row.
Like, I wonder how many, how many memories can I maybe try to create? Right. They're surfacy, even if they're surfacy, right. Before eventually everything's going to get ripped away. And, and, and if somebody is listening, like. Dude, like why wouldn't you just stop like stop cheating on your wife and it's like yeah, but Easier said than done anyone who's ever had an addiction.
It's like it There's these two things that are true and you know, not i'm sure not everyone that's listening or watching is a christian But a lot of folks are are going to be having that perspective. I I was raised in the church. I was raised going to church. I was raised in a christian family. I I know a lot of people that have that have this experience for me personally You I remember when I would hear the words addiction and you know, part of the 12 steps is, you know, recognizing that I was powerless to stop.
And I remember hearing those words, like, I had a big problem with that. I'm like, that, that's a, that's an excuse. That's saying it's not my fault. And it could be taken that way. Like I've, I've heard people use that type of verbiage where they are not taking ownership. And I, and I don't, I don't buy that.
What I didn't understand is the actual science of addiction. And that's, what's been such a huge part of recovery is. It is a moral issue. There's a huge moral aspect, but it's not just a moral problem. It is also a scientific issue. And it's not one or the other. That's the thing is like a lot of times the church can look at it as, Oh, you know, we don't believe in the addiction model.
We don't believe in this psycho analysis crap. Like we don't, and they reject the science. And then you've got people on the other side that are like, it's only a scientific issue. We don't need to think about God or spirituality. It's just science. And it's, it's both it's let's look at the science because ultimately God created the universe.
So he's in charge of science. Right. Yeah. And, and, and let's look at the spiritual. So it's both things. So recognizing like what, what I have learned if anybody wants to just be more educated, it just says as a resource that you can sit down and watch the conquer series by Ted Roberts, who founded pure desire ministries.
The conquer series is the best single resource I know of to just learn more about this. We're actually going through it right now in our weekly group. And it talks about, you know, the longer I go in addiction, the more I'm rewiring my brain, the more those neural pathways are getting, they're either getting corrupted or I'm forming healthy ones.
It's one or the other. And this goes with any sort of habit, any sort of muscle memory, you know, shooting a basketball, it's playing golf, it's, you know, not snacking at night or it's, you know, biting my fingernail, anything. I'm, I'm training my brain to do that thing. Well, it's pornography when it's flirting, when it's, you know, letting my mind fantasize.
All of those are, those are ways of training my brain. Of course, the stakes are much higher than biting my fingernails, right? But it's still the same thing. And so it's like, when I'm in that spot, yeah, I have moral decisions to make, but there's also the practical, real life, scientific, like, I've got to, I've got to have an infrastructure of accountability.
I've got to have people helping me. It's not just a matter of just being a better Christian. It's, it's both things combined. Right, and so you've talked about your addiction and how it was ruining your life and being in bondage, and you've talked about recovery from the, you know, kind of big picture point of view, kind of briefly skimming over some of the things you've done.
But let's hone in a little bit on when recovery really started in your life and the role God had to play in that, as well as you've mentioned A support group. So let's focus on that for a little bit here. So Carrie, I mean, I always emphasize this because this is a crucial piece of the story. Carrie gave me an ultimatum in 2015, and that was something that she'd never done before.
I had confessed Infidelities and specifically I'd confessed the physical ones. I wouldn't confess all the flirting. I wouldn't confess all the porn, but I confess like the worst of the worst. Cause I was not being healthy. I was just getting it off my chest letter basically. And she didn't know how to respond to that.
She's in survival mode. She's a young mom. She's stay at home mom. She's trying to take care of the family. Like she doesn't know how to respond to that. Right. And so finally, though, in 2015, after several years of betrayal, she stood up to her abuser, you know, she stood up to me and said, if you don't get serious help, then you will lose me.
If you keep doing this, you will lose me. And as I'll get into, I mean, she truthfully, and she would tell you this, like she didn't yet know how to really put teeth to that ultimatum. She believed it. And I believed it. As she got into her own recovery, you know, ladies helped her build up her infrastructure of boundaries and setting those boundaries and communicating those things and how to follow through with that stuff.
But she did give me that ultimatum and that scared me because I did not want to lose my family. As I said before, I didn't think that I could ever stop, but if I could try to keep my family, I wanted to try. So I started going to some in, in starting in August of 2015, I started going to I went to Sex Addicts Anonymous.
I went to Celebrate Recovery. You know, I looked up some resources online. I, I, I tried some things, did not jump into it wholeheartedly. I did not surrender my life a hundred percent, but I tried to do some things differently. That's really weak verbiage, but it's accurate. And I, I mean, I went into it, you know, in this real cycle of up and down and some victory for a few days or a few weeks even.
And I would, you know, fall off the wagon and I would go, go back to pornography. I didn't, I didn't have another sexual affair from that point forward, but I still, I, I, I mean, I, I went back to my addiction multiple times. Like at one point I had four months of sobriety, but I didn't have four months of healing.
I didn't have four months of active recovery. It was just basically four months of going to meetings and not doing the bad thing. Right. But what, what happened in this time, is God brought some people into my life, first and foremost, Rick, and I met him at a meeting that was not the meeting where I gained any long term traction, but he was at that meeting and he was like, Hey, I'm glad you're here, but you need more than this meeting.
He goes, Logan, you need more than what this meeting has to offer you. And he, you know, he, he would go on to share a little bit of his story. And he's like, I, I needed more than this meeting. He told me about this group called prodigals. He was like, it's the hardest thing I ever did, but it's what I needed.
And I didn't want to do hard work. I wanted to do the bare minimum. You know, I just, let me just try to gain some traction. But I don't want to have to surrender my life. You know, that sounds really hard. Right. And, but he, he started me in the mentorship program in May of 2016. May 19th was the last day that I acted out.
And sobriety in, at least in the prodigals group for sexual addiction sobriety is no masturbation, pornography, and sexual behavior with any women besides my wife, that that's the, that's the definition of sobriety. So may 19th, 2016 from then on, you know, is, is my sobriety date, but recovery is one thing I've learned really quickly.
Well, I should, I shouldn't say really quickly. I I've, I've learned, and I've learned this lesson very well. Sobriety is not the finish line. Sobriety is not the goal. The lack of sinning is not the goal. Like that's the first step, right? That's, that's like a pillar in this foundation, but that's not the goal.
The goal is healthy living. You know, the goal is, is a relationship with Christ. The goal is healthy relationships with my family, but it's got to start with sobriety for sure. And so in this process, I mean, I said voluntary house arrest and it wasn't like a legal process, but it was absolutely, it was, it was house arrest.
It was, I went to work, took a selfie, sent it to my mentor, not my wife, my mentor. Cause that was part of it too. It was like, my wife is not my accountability partner. She doesn't need to be in charge of me. She doesn't need to be my babysitter that needs to be a man that can grill me, that can poke and prod and ask me whatever questions.
And, and also, you know, I can share my temptations and struggles and things. without, you know, sharing all this garbage to carry and in the process hurting her more and more. Yeah. Yeah. And so this process was, it was incredibly rigorous. It was every day I had to make a phone call, outgoing phone call to a man in the program, not my pastor or my wife or my buddy or my mom.
It's like, no, a guy that's in the trenches with me that knows how to talk to a liar that knows how to talk to a manipulator knows how to talk to an addict because he is, he's either in that spot or he has been in that spot. And it's a, the prodigal's mentorship program, it's a 12 step recovery program.
It's built off of, you know, the, the, that recovery process, but it's also centered completely around a relationship with Christ. So again, it's both of those things. It's the spiritual, you know, the moral issue. Yes. But it's also that, you know, what, what does, what am I doing, you know, scientifically, practically, tangibly, what things am I doing different.
It's not just one or the other. And. I was in that program for two years graduated in May of 2018. I mean, but recovery has never left my life. You know, accountability, having guys in my life who know all my stuff. I've got a group text with two different mentors that I, I pour into that text daily, they, they pour into that text daily, you know, we, and we put, you know, if there's a sexual temptation, absolutely put it out there.
Most of the stuff that goes on in that text thread has nothing to do with sex or sexual temptation or addiction. It's. My septic's backing up and I'm stressed out, you know, or I yelled at my kid and okay, here's the next right thing. Here's what I'm going to do. Or okay, my, you know, my wife and I got in an argument and I'm really struggling with resentment or, you know, I'm struggling, you know, financially paycheck was light or whatever.
Right. It's just like life stuff. You know, just how am I dealing with life? Am I dealing with it in a healthy way? Am I doing the next right thing? What does the next right thing look like? And sometimes guys. give a lot of feedback and a lot of advice that ask really hard questions. A lot of times they don't, but the muscle memory of teaching myself to take this stuff that's inside my brain, take it and put it out there, expose it to feedback, expose it to other guys.
That is such a crucial piece. And even if I don't get a bunch of advice or feedback or questions, By that process of being willing to listen, being willing to get their feedback. That's, you know, that's a slice of what it means to surrender, right? Surrendering might mean That God flips my life upside down.
Right. And, and God completely rips everything away from me like job. Right. Like that, that could be surrender. But what I didn't realize for a long time is that surrender is, it's not about whether or not I actually do have my life flipped up to flip upside down. It's like, am I willing to follow God, whether he does it or not.
Because not every guy has to go through the same stuff. I, yeah, I did some things in recovery. I've, I've had to make some sacrifices that other guys didn't make. I've also been spared a lot of things that, you know, certain guys have. They've been told, Hey, if you're gonna be in this program, you need to change your job.
You need to move, you need to do this. You, you need, you and your wife maybe need to live in separate houses for like, depending on their, their history and their story and, and the mentor, you know, his discernment. So not every guy has the same program in terms of exactly what it looks like day to day, but all of us Are required that we we got to be willing to surrender.
Yeah, and so in the description below we have your website Who should check that out because we understand you're working with helping people who are going through your you know Your same struggles and I want to put out there to all the listeners, you know It's not just men that struggle with this Now we've spoken before on the show in my episode on on gaslighting and narcissism and the psychological warfare that goes on in relationships What the guest shared was that?
Men are more visual creatures while women are more imaginative. So what that means is that men like pornography and pictures, while women like to think about it like, you know, reading erotic novels and what have you. You know, that's why you don't see a lot of men who have You know, who make money selling nude photos in the cells.
So it's interesting, but that doesn't take away from the fact that there are women who watch pornography, I think more now than ever before, because it's been growing way more. Oh yeah. Cause in the past it was a lot more, you know, socially unacceptable for a woman to be in touch with sexual desire and which it's not a bad thing when it's done in a healthy way.
Right. When you're in a relationship and you have sexual intimacy with a partner, But there's a lot of women watching porn now or, you know, partaking in it as well to make money, or there's just a lot of, you know, barriers that have been broken down that were protecting people from the idea of just whoring around.
And so, like we said in the beginning of the episode, it comes in all forms, it manifests in all different ways. And it's important to know that women are affected by this as well as men. So I know we said men's support group. We said, you know, we talked about this just a reminder to everyone that is, it affects everyone.
So please don't just be listening to this and just thinking, oh, you know, it's men being men. This is something that, that women partake in as well. And it's important even more so to check in on the women around you. Because they're probably going to be more secretive about it because it's even more shameful society, you know, for, for them to be partaking in that.
So definitely be even more cautious around the women in your life to make sure that they're all right. And that being said, Mr. Hufford, And as I was mentioning your website and your mission, can you tell us a little bit about that? And just one thing I just want to tack on to what you said. I agree a hundred percent.
And I mean, I don't spend a lot of time talking about like the evils of the porn industry, not because I don't think it's evil, but it's like, well, what, what can I control? I can control what I do. I control what I say to somebody else or how I, I can't control what Playboy does. I can't control what websites do.
Right. So I don't spend a lot of time and energy on that. But at the end of the day, The porn industry. Is it satanic? Is it evil? Yes. It's an industry, right? It's a money making machine for sure. Group of machines. And so like anything, like Coca Cola, like a clothing company, if they have been primarily marketing to one group of people and then they decide or they realize, okay, we've been ignoring this other group of people.
And then they realize, A successful company is going to do what they can to start marketing to that other group of people. That's a hundred percent what has happened in the porn industry, right? There's different stats that you can find. There's different ways to quantify, you know, what does it look like to struggle with porn?
Right. Or, or how often on the low end, 70 percent of guys who regularly attend church Are looking at porn, at least on a weekly basis, and 30 percent of women who regularly attend church are looking at porn on a regular basis, and that's people who are self reporting, so it's probably a low number, and the last I checked, that's also a study from a few years ago.
I don't think it's getting better over time, right? So again, I don't, I don't like to spend a ton of time and energy talking about like those people out there. Right. To me, it's like, it's like politics. Like what, what can I control? Let's start, let's start here at home. Let's start with me. Not, I'm not going to preach about, you know, other people too much, but to your point about awareness, absolutely.
I mean, it is not just a guy's issue. And yeah, so folks can definitely, you know, they can check out the website. I mean, the website, we built it for guys locally here to be able to have contact info and, and meetings, meeting times and places and stuff, but there are some resources out there that could be helpful.
There's some, the thinking errors, the tactics to avoid change. There's, there's the relapse cycle. If anybody has questions on those things, they can reach out to me and talk through kind of how to use those how to look at them. So prodigals of alaska. com. And if anybody's on Instagram you know, give me a follow, check me out there.
And if you have a question, feel free to reach out. If you're struggling, feel free to reach out. My focus is, you know, specifically sexual addiction awareness. And, and, and I also touch on the betrayal trauma aspect as well, but there's not, you know, there's not enough people shedding light on this, especially from, from personal experience.
And so that, that whatever I can do to give back. Yeah, so, Mr. Alfred, I really appreciate what you're doing. I think it's like you said, there's so much shame around it that a lot of people who are struggling with it. Don't want to seek help or don't even think there's help. I think a lot of people don't realize that there is sexual addiction in the world and that there are programs to to help.
Like you said, they don't know about those sources, whether it's intentionally so they can keep indulging or if it's just, you know, unawareness, which I think is a huge thing. So I appreciate you coming on shows to spread that awareness, to share your story. And ladies and gentlemen, what I will say is definitely if you're hearing this, You know, use this as a time if you are someone indulging in affairs or pornography or whatever it may be on any level definitely take a look at it and see, you know, what is it doing to your life?
How is it impacting you and recognize bondage that may be hard to see. But again, Mr. Hufford, thank you for coming on the show. I appreciate having you. Absolutely. Thank you for the opportunity.
