Success Stories
This testimony was written by a young man who was an accomplished illusionist, experienced “character” trainer in public school settings, licensed pilot at the age of 17, completed search and rescue training by the age of 18, and had worked in Mexico rebuilding homes devastated by flooding and rebels. His goals were to become a missionary pilot and to teach children….unfortunately sin happens.
Just An Ordinary Guy
For men struggling with sexual challenges
By J. L.
Introduction
This is the most difficult project I have ever tackled. If it were not for my desire to be free, I would not have even considered doing it. What you hold in your hands is both the epitome of shame and freedom. I have heard it said: ‘a wise person looks for and learns from the mistakes others have already made.’ I am the unwise person, in this case, because I had to learn the hard way. Please take my words seriously and be wise.
The thoughts, ideas, and principles I have discussed in this testimony were learned during the many hours, days, and years I have spent behind prison bars trying to figure out what possibly could have gone wrong, and how can just an ordinary guy stoop to such a low position in society? I wrote this primarily for men. My purpose is to share my mistakes and put into practical terms how men can avoid damaging mindsets or thought patterns that lead to wrong actions. Please understand for me to expose my crime is to set me up for danger in the prison world. Sex offenders are the lepers of our day. Men have been murdered behind prison walls – I have witnessed atrocities I won’t mention. Please regard my information with all due respect – that I realize I do not deserve.
In the real world we are all going to make mistakes. We have bad days and we have bad moods. The question I have is ‘are you aware of what you are capable of doing?’ I will admit when I read the police report of my actions, I was repulsed by what I read. I could not believe it was really me they were talking about! Though this is short, it contains the tools, concisely stated, that I believe can help all of us men to conquer most of the sexual problems we battle. Join me for the next few moments on a journey through my mistakes so hopefully you won’t ever have to make the same ones or similar ones on your own!
Just an Ordinary Guy….
I have often been asked and thought, how could an ordinary decent guy end up in prison with such a long sentence? The how’s, why’s and what-if’s baffled me for the first five years of my incarceration. It was in the fifth year that the answers finally ‘hit’ a note in my heart. After reading a multitude of books and gaining ideas from my parents and from the resources they had access to, the story un-folded in my mind…the reasons became clearer…..the how’s became evident….and the why’s made sense. Thus….this story I know I needed to write. I wanted other men to hopefully learn from my example before they got caught up in a horrible situation like I am presently in. I know by putting this in the ‘black and white’ will be a tool to hold me accountable, also. Because I was just an average guy, I wondered who else ever thought like me? Does every man out there struggle with a problem like mine, or do similar issues plague them? I never realized that my thoughts and fantasies could ever lead me into a life behind bars…..
Reality Check
I was arrested and sentenced to 21 years to life. I used a gun to intimidate four separate women. With three of them, I asked for a ride and once in the car I tried to grope them. I was very nice but I, also, spoke with empty threats. Many people say to me: ‘that’s all?’ Others say, “You are a sick pervert who needs serious help!” Without a doubt, no matter what scale you use, what I did was VERY WRONG! I terrified people because of the presence of the gun. I didn’t hurt or defile anyone physically, but mentally I shook them up pretty bad. How does a man, who has everything going for him, never been in trouble, who had a wife, daughter, house, cars, a job, etc., get into a mindset of risking it all for a little ‘adventure’? A little control? My life was out of control!! This is my story and it could already be, in part, yours……
Where did ‘it’ start?
When I was young, I was raised in a pretty moral, religious family and so we only watched good family movies, etc. I won’t name the title of the movie, but one in particular, my family and I enjoyed very much. Everyone I know has seen this movie. It is well done and is considered good for the entire family to watch together. But for me, I believe, this is where ‘it’ all started. I realized this after knowing what I know now and watching it on TV in prison and experiencing the same feelings I remembered having back when I was a teenager. Something in the movie turned me on!! Of course, there were the beautiful girls. But there was something more to it than just seeing a pretty woman. At the time I never realized what it was that fascinated me, but now I see it so clearly! I found during the movie there were two situations where women were taken captive and were forced to stay until, later, the ‘hero’ come to save them. (You can probably think of hundreds of movies that fit that description!!) Well, as a young man, I would think and dwell on those situations; fantasizing and imagining me as the ‘hero rescuing the damsel in distress’. I would often masturbate while thinking of my rescuing them and making love to them. May I ask: What boy hasn’t’ done this? I did not realize at the time but I was training my body to associate pleasure with a girl in distress.
As I got older, I naturally watched R rated movies and saw a few adult films. As I would see rape scenes, and other situations of women in peril, it would turn me on almost instantly. I hated rape and using force against a woman and knew it was a horrible thing, so I would often imagine myself as her rescuer! Then, of course, in my fantasy she would love me – her hero! Over the years, I never imagined I had a problem because it was only in my thought life. No one else ever knew what was going on in my mind.
Marriage
When I married my wife, it was the biggest turn on. I felt like I was rescuing her from the clutches of her strict religious parents who seemed to me like ‘dictators’. I knew I could be a real hero to my wife. Marriage seemed to fix all my problems for a while. I didn’t masturbate or look at other women. It was perfect…for a short season. I didn’t realize that it was going to be so short-lived. I won’t go into all the problems in my marriage because whether or not they had an effect on me, in my eyes it is irrelevant! I know we all will have problems in our marriages as we grow together in oneness. What IS relevant is that I brought into the marriage my fantasies, my habit of self-gratification, and my expectations were distorted. Had I come into my marriage relationship with a ‘clean slate’, I believe we could have worked through a lot of our difficult issues more objectively. Bringing ‘baggage’ into our relationship only contributed to the demise of my marriage for which I am deeply regretful.
With every normal marriage like mine, there come changes: pregnancy, hormones, babies and if you are like I was: immaturity. During all these changes I found myself un-attracted to my overweight wife. She couldn’t turn me on. So I went looking for fulfillment somewhere else: to prettier girls. I ‘needed’ something to help get me through to the other side until my wife would lose the weight and be able to turn me on again. I wanted a temporary fix. Sneaking around on my wife was difficult. I still loved her and I figured after the babies then life would change for the better. Many nights I spent fantasizing about what life could be like. I loved fast cars, pretty girls, and damsels in distress! Every night I would fall asleep trying to imagine me in an adventure. After awhile I thought to myself: I wish I could save a girl from harm. I wanted to be someone’s hero. (My ‘disillusioned’ marriage was not meeting my expectations here) I actually went to parks late at night, dark alleys, and downtown hoping to find someone in distress. I wandered parking lots, big car garages, fields, and parties. I always had my gun on me, just in case. It made me feel confident and powerful. I hoped to save a girl, then, hopefully get lucky. I spent so much time dwelling on it, I got obsessed with it. My thoughts were out of control. I couldn’t get it out of my mind and didn’t know how to stop.
Obsessive; Compulsive
The obsession grew to compulsion when I started acting out my thoughts. After months of never ‘saving’ anyone, I got bored and discouraged. My adventures were hours and hours of wasted time with little or no fulfillment. It was then that the thoughts crept in: “what if I could create a situation of peril and create my own adventure?” I even thought, “What if I paid someone to attack a girl, then I could save her!” Well, I never did that because I was afraid to talk to anyone about these weird ideas I was having. That’s when I should have had someone close to talk to. I am convinced that would have helped me. Being transparent with our thought lives is not an easy thing – that is why I am being very honest now – keeping these kind of secrets never does anybody any good. Talking this over with an older man could have made all the difference for me.
The more I thought about my desires I surmised, “What if I attacked, then said I was only joking.” (I was this kind of a big brother all my life – so why wouldn’t it work now?) I thought this way I could be both the problem and the solution! (I actually said that to one of my victims in the police reports.)
The compulsion got stronger and the process got worse as I set out to fulfill my fantasies. I tried something once. Boldness was a problem for me because I have always been so shy, but I managed to get enough nerve to grab a butt one time. The next time it was a breast in a dance club. I’d say ‘oops’ – just to make it look like an accident. With this I became more bold. I was disrespecting these women and violating them, but in my immaturity I never equated it to that. The next time I was in a parking lot. It now had become exciting, exhilarating, and a real turn on! A ‘high’ you might say. But with time it seemed it wasn’t ‘enough’. It seemed like a drug – and the medicine wasn’t ‘fixing’ what needed ‘fixing’. Over the course of time, the desire got more and more powerful. I didn’t ever want to hurt anyone. I was even scared during some of the incidents.
The first time I pulled a gun on someone, she did everything I told her. Of course, I just wanted a free ‘feel’ so I did that and then I left. I really just wanted an exhilarating situation to be able to masturbate to. I tried the same thing three more times, except that I asked for a ride in their car first. Well, that really started an uproar with the media. They called it kidnapping and it scared a lot of people in the area. When I drove back to the scene of the crime before the policemen showed up at the last incident, I realized I was messed up. I couldn’t stop this on my own. I needed help. I yelled to God. I needed something! I needed someone to help me!! When I was finally arrested, I realized even though I would never hurt any one – this was serious. Something was dead wrong with me! The hero I wanted to be - never came out. It was just the villain in me that people saw. Who was I? What had I become?
The Answer: Retraining your mind and body!
For years I wondered why? What caused all of these thoughts and actions? My life was out of control (babies coming too soon after marriage, etc.), thus my crimes were driven by my desire to control something! Why did I use a gun? I felt I needed it to make me look serious since I am such a jokester.
It took almost five years to learn and understand the how’s and why’s of my actions. Why so long? Well, with no rehabilitation in our corrections system, I had to find outside sources, self-help books, physiology, and psychology helps. My parents and friends sent me tons of different books and ideas. They went to seminars trying to learn what they could to help me. They have become public speakers in the midst of all this and are teaching others. What they learned helped me to find out exactly what it was that led me into this mindset of control and even more importantly how to retrain my mind and body and help others learn how they can, too!! Believe me when I say I am surrounded by men who need to hear what I have learned!
What I have learned, I wish I would have known when I was first married. I believe this principle makes a lot of sense and all men should learn and understand this!! I have Stuart Vogelman, www.purewarrior.org to thank for ministering to my Dad – who then boldly came to me with some heart to heart conversation. Staying faithful to our spouses is something most of us guys want. We don’t think to ourselves, ‘oh, 10 or 20 years from now I’ll have an affair and wreck everything’! We truly WANT to stay faithful! But how do we ‘protect’ our relationship with our wives in such a way that faithfulness is the ONLY option?
Here’s where it’s at – down and dirty: when we men reach orgasm, whatever image we are dwelling on in those few short seconds of extreme ecstasy is what trains our body to associate with pleasure. Endorphins and encephalin is released in the brain and these pleasure drugs write in indelible ink the image in front of us. These pleasure drugs are very addictive. In the context of marriage it is a GOOD addiction to our wives!! For example: if you’re married and your wife is who you are ‘beholding’ when you reach orgasm (and you are NOT imagining she’s someone else) then your desire will be for her and her alone!! Your body will respond to her because it has been trained to associate her with pleasure and you’ll always get turned on by her!! The more you have her image written on your mind the more you will only have desires for her. Isn’t that what we want?! This might sound too good to be true, but it makes total sense when looking at how our bodies were made.
BUT (a BIG caution here!) – this only works as long as you are not turning yourself on and masturbating with other images from movies, porn, magazines, newspapers, strip clubs, etc. Those other images, also, release the chemicals: pleasure drugs. This is where us men get into BIG trouble because those pleasure drugs are more addictive than cocaine and morphine (scientific studies have proven this). In other words if we are looking at any one who is NOT your/our wife then we are headed on a slippery slope downward! This is where we win or lose against the sexual temptations of our day.
After learning this, my next question was, ‘Ok, now what do I do??’ Everyday I see tons of women that turn me on; how do I stop that reaction that’s taking place inside me?? Women dress so provocatively today, but HOW DO I TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for MY thoughts?? I realize this may sound simplistic but hear me out!! I was given this simple solution. Enter: Miss Temptation. Bite your tongue (so it hurts). Pinch yourself (so it hurts). Snap your arm with a rubber band (so it hurts). Do anything to cause a little pain so your body will associate pain and not pleasure with anyone other than your wife! You can, also, say to yourself: “That woman is not mine. I cannot enjoy that!” What you are doing is telling your body that ‘hit’ is not good. Once I became aware of the chemical reasons behind this, I started retraining my mind and body. I am the first one to admit – this was no quick fix and I was not an overnight success! It took about 4-6 weeks of me staying ‘in pain’ whenever I viewed a temptress. (Now this might sound too simple to some, and I guess, for me it was a simple idea but very hard to actively apply on an every day basis. When I did it for 6 weeks straight, I realized I am cured as long as I could keep this up. This gave me hope of being free forever of the dangerous mindset that got me in here in the first place!!) At first, you may want to be more aggressive and later as you see yourself ‘leveling out’ you can balance it out with what you think your body needs. It might seem stupid, but my challenge to you is: will it hurt to try? I KNOW this has helped me and those I have shared it with. As I would watch T.V. or see a movie, I would always see beautiful women. And those pleasure drugs would start activating. I wanted to make sure I was cured!! I bit my tongue at every scene. On the ‘peril scenes’ (where I knew I was most vulnerable) I bit myself REALLY HARD. Now when I see a ‘normal’ pretty girl in a normal situation I say to myself, “that girl isn’t yours, so don’t get any ideas”! For some men and in some situations, you may have to look away every time – this is, also, an option. It takes time and it takes consistency – but it is being responsible and it is a pathway to true freedom for us men! I had to be willing to do it all on my own because at first I had no ‘support’ with my peers. Also, I realized no one else could motivate me or do it for me. Before too long, I realized I wasn’t masturbating hardly at all, which resulted in more self-control. I, also, started feeling better about myself – less guilt and shame. I started watching less T.V. which resulted in some creative writing (so here I am?!). Ideas started coming to my mind about what I could do to help others and how I could be a positive influence on those I am surrounded by. I even tried sharing this information with some inmates who I knew were in for sexual crimes. I admit, it was very awkward! So I am hoping this little booklet will ‘make the rounds’ to help guys be more aware of how they, too, can walk in freedom in this area. My ultimate goal is to be transparent when I get out – and talk to other men, especially young men, via an ‘awareness’ seminar to give them the tools needed to prevent them from falling down the slippery slope.
IF you are serious about wanting to be free of the guilt and shame associated with sexual temptations. I, also, offer this to you: do you want to wind up where I am? I am just an ordinary guy, surrounded by a lot of other ordinary guys (AND some not-so-ordinary guys). I would do anything if I could save you major pain in the long run. Don’t make my same mistake and assume: that’ll never happen to me! I guarantee you, if used properly; using this technique, as simple as it sounds, can actually help you to re-train your body. This is something I never knew about when I was married and if I had applied it I could have saved a ton of pain in my life and those closest to me.
After re-training my mind and body, I realized I didn’t need women to control my life from day to day. I no longer needed a ‘fix’. Of course, I still love women but I am no longer dependant on them or having to enjoy them every time I see one. I will admit, initially, I was fearful of totally losing interest in girls but I am still a guy. Now when I see a beautiful woman, I enjoy the beauty but now my mind, out of habit, tells me, ‘yes, she’s beautiful, but she’s not yours, so don’t get any ideas!’
Maintenance
On a normal day you might wonder, ‘how do you keep it up?’ What’s the maintenance for keeping this mindset? Like anything else in life, there’s always maintenance. Like being physically fit you have to exercise regularly to stay fit. This, too, requires exercise. You have to keep your mind and body trained. Sometimes it’s work, but after awhile it, also, becomes a habit and not that difficult. I have recognized that the thought patterns in my body have been trained to now HATE women in perilous situations. I still desire to be someone’s hero again some day – but now I know HOW to control this new body I am in!! There is something freeing about being able to look at a beautiful woman and walk away with no guilt or shame. This is my desire for you, too. May our manhood be restored!
Conclusion
I might have been a lot more daring than most men. I realize my boldness came from my uncontrolled ‘no fear – can’t happen to me’ mindset. It, also, came from my being goal oriented that I learned early on in life. When I got an idea and made that my goal or dream, I would put everything into it until that dream was realized. That’s how I became a pilot at age seventeen; that’s why I married a girl I loved since I was fifteen; that’s why I always wanted to be physically fit and I have attained that goal while in prison. These were all goals I had at an early age. This motivation can be used for good in accomplishing many things. It can, also, be used for bad things which resulted in me doing prison time. Writing this was a goal I had after I realized something could cure me. I realized there was a hope and that I was not a hopeless, cureless pervert. I wanted this testimony to be a catalyst cure for others as well. It was hard to put my thoughts on paper, but my motivation is to see fewer marriages broken up because of prison terms; and less women and children scarred the rest of their lives because someone scarred or molested them in some way or another. I know I am very sorry for the pain I’ve caused in my victim’s lives and my families. I hope in writing this that it will save many more people from being victims. I hope through this you’ve learned something or maybe you know someone who is struggling who could use these ideas. My goal is to help men realize anyone of us may have a problem, but if we are aware of them and get control of them, they’ll never control us. Don’t ever be afraid to talk to someone close if you think you might have a need. Being humbled is not easy – but it does produce true freedom. I’d hate to see you in any kind of a prison – you now have the keys from the inside of the cell – so be set free!! May you have a happy life with little pain!
J.L.
For those of you on the ‘outside’ I would highly recommend you hosting Stuart Vogelman’s workshops in your area. www.purewarrior.org
For your wives, I would recommend hosting a PUREWives workshop – information available at www.purewarrior.org, also.
Frank's Story
My story is one filled with shame and guilt, but fortunately doesn’t end there. I grew up in a Christian home with plenty of love and support from my family. When I was in 7th grade I was exposed to pornography for the first time. Up until that time I had never experienced anything so exciting. Although I knew it was wrong to look at pornography, I found myself making every effort possible to find more. I was masturbating practically every day since I was 12 years old. I would do this multiple times, most days.
Being a pastor’s kid, I was pretty good at pretending like my life was perfect. I was never accustomed to airing out my faults. In fact, I took great effort in hiding them. I always thought that once I “grew up” I would get over this behavior. I figured once I got married, the pornography and masturbation would stop. I couldn’t have been more wrong. My sexual addiction evolved over the years into wanting more explicit sexual material, along with frequenting strip clubs and nude beaches.
After many years of this behavior and spending literally days at a time looking at porn on the internet, I began getting more and more excited at looking at younger and younger girls. I found I could look at legal “nudist” sites and see plenty of teenage and pre-teen girls. Although I felt extreme guilt at this, I also felt extreme excitement. To make a very long story a little shorter, when I was 39 years old, I started exposing myself to young girls. The risk of doing this, and the total absurdness of this, provided more sexual excitement for me than I had ever felt.
I couldn’t believe that I had turned into such a pervert, but I also could not stop. I didn’t give a second thought to how this behavior would negatively affect these young girls, my family, or anyone else. I was so consumed by my selfish desires that nothing else mattered. I honestly thought I could do these things, but still be a good husband, father, and leader in my church. After all, I had been living in sexual sin, my entire life, yet was still looked at by others as a great husband, provider, father, and church youth leader.
Fortunately, I was finally caught for exposing myself to a couple of 13 year old girls. I was arrested and was identified in the local newspaper. My wife and two teenage sons had no idea of my struggles until my arrest. This was a complete shock to my family, friends, and church. Since I had spent my entire life pretending, I could not stand the thought of being found out for the person that I really was. I actually was so self-righteous before I was arrested, that I thought I was not that bad because, at least, I never physically cheated on my wife like others I knew. That’s crazy isn’t it?
Needless to say this arrest had extremely negative consequences for my family. I was sentenced to 6 months in jail, I lost my career, and I moved my family out of state because I was too ashamed to stay in the city I had lived for so long. The hardest part of the whole thing was to see how tough it was on my wife and two sons. They did nothing to deserve this extreme humiliation and pain. The fact that they and many other family and friends suffered so much because of my sexual misconduct was sometimes too much for me to deal with. During the first couple of years after my arrest, I contemplated suicide, or just running away and disappearing. Fortunately God’s mercy in my life helped me to avoid these extreme measures.
One of the things that made me realize that I am a sex addict is that even after all of this happened, I still greatly struggled with the same temptations. For 4 years after I was arrested, I tried fairly hard to kick my bad habits of lust and masturbation. I saw a number of psychologists, and was in some recovery groups. After all of this, I still found no success. I felt there was no hope for me. I felt as though I was destined to be a complete failure in this area until the day I die. I just knew that God had no positive plans for my life, because I had blown it so many times. I had asked for forgiveness and promised to change so many times without any success.
At about the time, I truly did completely give up, I was invited to join a Pure Warrior Ministries Freedom Group. I figured I would give it a try just so I wouldn’t sound rude to the guy that asked me. What I found was so amazing. This was a group of 5 or 6 men that all were struggling in some way with sexual addictive behavior. Some of us struggled in similar areas and others of us struggle in different ways. The bottom line though is that we all were failing in our efforts to get beyond our sexual struggles.
I didn’t see any earth shattering results in any of the guys for a couple of months. I think that once you struggle for so long without any success, you get very jaded and skeptical of God’s power and your own ability to do what it takes to change. After a couple of months, though, things really began to get interesting.
There are a number of things that God has done through Pure Warrior Ministries. The coolest thing is to actually hang out with a group of guys that are taking this battle very serious. I have seen tremendous growth in every guy in this group. Most of us still blow it at times, but these times are getting to be farther and farther apart. God is truly changing our hearts and some of us are experiencing sexual sobriety for the first time in our lives.
One of our goals is to increase the time between falls, and decrease the time to confession. Before Pure Warrior Ministries, the only time I was ever “sexually sober” for more than a few days, was when I was in jail. Other than that, I never experienced any length of time without falling. Since Pure Warrior Ministries, I have seen over two months of sobriety and am looking forward to what God has for me in the future. There are many things that contribute to the success that guys are having in our small group. There are definite steps to take in this battle. The key is to learn what these steps are and then go into this battle with like-minded men. Men that will pray for you, listen to you when you fall, lift you up off the ground, and share God’s grace with you. It has amazed me how much joy and peace can be felt when the right choices are made. I never experienced that until recently. Sure life will always have it‘s struggles, however, going through them with a pure heart and having the ability to rely on a God that loves and cares for us, is absolutely awesome.
Fortunately for me, I am still breathing, which gives me peace that God still has some plans for my life. My wife and kids have hung in there with me, which is also a complete miracle. The fact that God can use someone like me to actually give Him glory is truly an amazing sign of his love and power. I am now truly looking forward to the future for the first time in many years.
From Frank's Son
Never go through life thinking nothing bad will happen to you. People mess up all the time. No matter who it is. They can forget about everything that has meaning to them. The preacher who gets caught making sex tapes of twelve-year-old-boys, the father who has an affair with his wife’s best friend and gets walked in on by the one he really loves, the boy whose thefts become an addiction that leads to violence, and the perfect, religious girl that secretly sleeps around to fulfill her feelings of love and satisfaction, but soon has to tell her parents she’s pregnant. The world is full of bad choices and we all have to learn to deal with it.
These things will ruin relationships or make families go insane. No one ever wants to end up like this. These appalling situations happen more often than you think. My life is a perfect example of one of these tragic and bizarre stories. One that most people wouldn’t suspect would happen to a teenager like me. I mean, who would think that a boy with so many friends and dreams that haven’t been fulfilled, would have such a tormented life. A life consumed in depression and confusion. Who do I trust now or what do I trust now? Will my life ever get better?
Let’s start from the beginning. Walking through the front door with a smile on my face was soon distorted into a look of fear. My mom was crying and soon I found out my dad was arrested. No one would tell me why so thoughts of my dad in the worst situations filled my head. All day I couldn’t stop thinking, “Was my Dad a criminal his whole life? Was he a crazy sex freak and no one knew about it?” What could he have done? I kept asking my mom why she couldn’t tell me. The only replies were soft cries full of anger and bitterness. My bed was my only comfort those lonesome four days.
Once my mom got over the fact that he messed up and we’d have to start our life over again, she began telling small details. Like my grandparents were coming down to help him make bail and he didn’t hurt anyone. The next thing she told me was that he was getting out the next night and asked me if I wanted him to come wake me up once he got home. Thinking I was ready to see him and smiling for the first time in days, I told her yes.
“Hey Bud, I’m glad to see you.”… “Hey are you awake.”… “I missed you so much.”… “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”… “I love you…”
All I could think about was my dad was a criminal. I couldn’t even look him in the face. The day before I was so excited my best friend was coming home and I could talk to him. Now it started sinking in. The sound of my dad’s voice, cracking and pausing. I could tell he was holding back tears. My face began to tickle and I soon wiped mine away. The strong, big hands that rubbed my back soon became knives that dug deeper into my heart.
“Why are you touching me? Do you even know what you’ve done to our family?” I couldn’t stop thinking to myself.
Everything I loved and trusted was gone. Love was what I wanted, but I felt betrayed. I couldn’t love a man who juggled with his family’s emotions. I felt used and lonely. “I love you,” was the last thing I wanted to say. Lost in my thoughts I couldn’t answer him. My door shuts. “I love you too, dad.”
The next day my dad woke my brother and I up and said he wanted to take us to McDonalds to talk about everything. When I got there all I heard were lies. You can’t hurt your family this bad and say you still love us. You can’t say you were sorry and think I’ll forgive you when you’ve ruined my life. How am I supposed to believe my life will get better when I have to move away? I can’t trust you anymore so I can’t believe a word you say. Every question I asked him that day was answered but not how I wanted them to be answered.
“Why’d you do it?”
“I don’t know. I just got lost in sin.”
“Did you think about us? Did you ever see your family getting torn apart by that one mistake?”
“No, I thought I’d never get caught.”
“Well, you should’ve thought harder and cared more!”
That talk made all my feelings of rage build and anger couldn’t describe what I was felt. I couldn’t even drive home in the car. I just walked out of McDonalds and walked home crying. Life would never be the same and at that point I could care less about starting over or even living. Yes I thought about suicide but that would make my mom and brother’s life harder. I couldn’t imagine what my mom would do if she lost her trust for the one she loved the most then lost her son for something her loved one did to her. I soon got over that thought and just told myself to just quit talking to my dad. Another thing that was impossible. My mom still loved my dad. She just couldn’t trust him anymore. Despite that they stayed together. This meant that I had to keep seeing him and eventually I would have to talk to him. From then on out I just had to deal with what life had to offer. From here it only gets worse.
School was the next thing that hit me. All I saw when I stepped out of the car the next morning were stares from everyone that knew. Once I came to my senses again and realized I didn’t want to go through with this I turned around to look for safety from a green Explorer. It was gone. I was stuck in a world full of questions that I didn’t want to answer. School became the second hell next to living in a house with no trust from or for anyone.
That day would soon become the last day of school in California. I found out later that day that the kid in school that everyone hated was talking sh_ _ behind my back. Saying my dad was a freak and my family was really messed up. All this just so he could get the pride of being the one who started all the rumors. After school that day he would regret all of the hurtful things he ever said to anyone.
In the locker rooms, before baseball practice, I asked everyone what they heard about my dad. This only enraged me more. I got my cleats on, put on my hat, and gripped my baseball bat like it was the only thing I had to hold on for comfort. My goal was to get to the field before everyone else. I walked past sh_ _ boy, as I’ll call him, and told him to get to the f_ _ _ing field fast before I humiliated him in front of everyone. This kid could talk shit, but in reality he was the bitch next door. I saw the fear in his eyes and knew I would mess him up. When we arrived to the field, my plan of being the first one out was off my list of things to do. There was already a crowd waiting to see how bad sh_ _ boy got messed up. It was all talk from there.
“So you like spreading sh _ _ about my family. Well that was a bad choice to make.” Rage building in my eyes seeing the fear building up in his.
“Dude Justin, look, I didn’t say anything.” I could hear him quivering.
"Then why am I hearing that you’re the one spreading rumors that my dad is a sex freak and I’m going to end up like him one day too?”
“I never said that. All I said was that I thought your dad was weird now.”
“Bull Sh_ _! Just think how you’d feel if your dad did this to your family and all the changes you’d have to go through and all the people that would look down on your entire family; even though you had nothing to do with the whole situation. Wait you can’t cause your too much into yourself and how cool you look in front of others. Well no dice on becoming cooler for this one cause I think everyone here hates you a hundred times more than they already did. Now you better go call your mom to pick you up so you don’t have to explain to her why you got f_ _ __ed up by me.”
This kid was the kid that was all talk so he left almost in tears. All of us just cussed at him and rubbed it in his face that he will never have close friends again. I call my friends now and they say he is still talking crap about me, but no one will ever forget the day that he had to call his mom so he wouldn’t get beat up.
From then on my life changed. I got kicked out of school since they had a no tolerance policy and soon found out the worst news of all. I had to move to Idaho and start all over cause my dad couldn’t get a job in California. The thought of moving and never seeing my friends and having to make new ones made my life harder and harder to deal with. Once the day came that I had to pack up and move, just didn’t seem like reality. I packed my things, called my friends to say my final good-byes, and I was off to a strange town with no friends or anyone to talk to.
I couldn’t stop thinking that I was never going to go to school with my friends again. The feeling that dug deeper into my heart each second was the fact that it wasn’t my fault. I had to hold all my anger and hateful comments away from my dad because I knew how much he was going through and I didn’t want to make it worse. I had to block it out as much as possible, but I knew I would never get over it. Anger, rage, fear, seclusion, and rejection were my only friends. I wouldn’t accept reality, but life would soon show me that I had to learn to cope or it wouldn’t get better. This taught me a lot and made me mature more since I felt like I was the only one in my life that cared I was living. Years after I learned that life sucks and sh_ _ happens, I had to suck it up, deal with it, and move on. The next twenty-four hours would be the end of one life and the beginning to a whole new one, one that I wasn’t going to accept for a long time.
Devin's Story
Dear Pure Warrior Organization:
I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for the time and effort you have put into your ministry website and organization. It is not only encouraging but refreshing to know that there are others who are seriously concerned about the well-being of our nation's men and women.
I was once a pornography addict and was bound for ten years. (Note: I am only 22 years old.) I was exposed to pornography at the age of 12 by one of my friends at his sleepover party. I didn't think much of it at the time, but I saw a consistent and dramatic desire for more and more kinky and dirty forms of pornography.
Pornography is a drug. You have your pushers and users. I was both at one time. I used to "feen" or "pheen" for pornography. I couldn't go to sleep at night without doing it. I would manipulate my friends into letting me watch it. I would wake up at three and four am in order to watch porn that I had downloaded on my computer. As you can see, it began to take over my life. Thus, I had strong desires for sex. That, too, became an addiction.
I know if it had not been for the grace of God in my life, I would not have survived. Pornography was not the only stronghold that I dealt with. The spirit of perversion, lust, jealously, came right along with it.
How did I get free? It wasn't until one day when I was watching a porno movie in my room and I literally got sick from watching it. I was totally disgusted. I wasn't even masturbating at the time. It was a sickening feeling that I felt in my soul. That was when I knew I had had enough. I couldn't take it anymore. So I got desperate for God. I put the same amount of energy into Him that I did into my new love - pornography. (I fell in "love" with porn at one time. As odd as it sounds, it became a "god" to me. Anything that you put that much time and effort into becomes a god.)
God has and is still working with me. I make wiser decisions now such as having the porn movies disabled from my TV when I have to sleep in hotels for overnight trips. I apply the Word the God when the old memories "pop up" in my mind. God also made me go back and apologize to everyone that I had had sexual encounters with, whether it was just oral, and intercourse or masturbation partners. I even emailed two of my favorite porn actors and apologized to them for lusting after their bodies and fantasizing about their scenes. I had to break these "soul-ties" both naturally and spiritually. (Note: One of the porn actors even gave a positive response. HALLELUJAH!
To anyone else who reads this email, know that there is hope. THERE IS A WAY OF ESCAPE! I almost ended my own life partially due to the weight of the bondage that is associated with pornography. This is a SERIOUS issue and the CHURCH needs to wake up and address it. Too many of our leaders are being destroyed because there are very few people who will let their guard down and talk openly about this issue.
One of my spiritual fathers wrote a book about his pornography addiction and I believe that it is a wonderful resource as well. His name is Fitz Houston and the title of his book is REAL MEN TALK.
Thank you for allowing me to get that off of my chest! Have a blessed day.
Your brother in Jesus Christ,
Randy's Story
For those of you who don’t understand what sexual addiction is, let me briefly tell you about it. Its taken me quite a long time to really figure out the bottom line to this whole thing, but I might be able to boil it down to just a few minutes and some very basic points.
When I was very young, I experienced quite a bit of emotional and personal trauma. It doesn’t really matter what the trauma was, the fact was the result of this trauma manifested in my life as a tremendous amount of shame, hurt and overall feeling of worthlessness. I didn’t have the tools or the know-how to deal with this kind of stuff. My parents weren’t quite equipped either. I had no mentor that could help me work through the confusion and help me understand things I didn’t know. Add to this mix the presence of an addictive culture and continued family dysfunction, I basically stumbled through my childhood continually hurting, fearful, afraid isolated and basically broken. When I got old enough to discover my hormones and sexuality, I stumbled upon the ultimate way to alleviate my pain – masturbation. Now what we now know is that the chemical highs created by orgasm or more specifically ejaculation create chemical stimuli in the brain that are 10 times more powerful than cocaine. Finally, I now had something to feel good about. Gaining a sexual high was easy. It was cheap and I could basically have it whenever I wanted it. I created the neural pathways in my brain – no I plowed the neural pathways in my brain that told me basically anytime I wanted to feel good and worthy, all I had to do was take care of myself and myself only.
Thus my road to addiction was constructed. The destruction of my soul was underway. The destruction of my body was underway. And the destruction of my mind was underway. I hated this term addiction when I first applied it to my situation. At least I understood that I was totally responsible for my own actions and I had a choice – I wasn’t addicted. Addicts are those skinny, strung out people in the movies or on the street corner that had to shoot chemicals in their bodies to get their high. I never really engaged in drugs or alcohol to numb my pain, so I never understood the ‘high’ that people always talked about. No, I experienced much better highs. In fact, not only was my high ten times more powerful than theirs, I could actually function in society and all around and nobody, absolutely nobody knew my secrets. Unlike drugs or alcohol, I could engage in self-behavior and literally 10 seconds later, fit right back into society, – no marks on my arms, no loss of mental focus, no smell on my breath or person, no hangover, no loss of money. Question - How many people in our lives that seem to be functioning quite normal (as well as normal gets these days in our busy lives)and seem perfectly adjusted are masking hidden secrets? – its kind of a trick question, but maybe you get the point.
And so it goes for 10 years, 15 years, 20 years. Always feeling bad about myself for doing what I knew was wrong, but as Paster Ted Roberts illustrates, the noose around my neck only got tighter. I prayed, I tried. I willed it. I prayed some more. B.C. (Before Christ) I tried Los Angeles (a Buddhist movement) – that didn’t work. I prayed some more. The more I tried, the tighter the noose got. Year after year. I tried personal counseling. Maybe I wasn’t mature enough – maybe I wasn’t fed up enough – I don’t know, but the noose was still tight.
Still all the time not knowing how to deal with the pain and shame. Getting married and not knowing how to deal with it. Getting jobs and being successful at work and not knowing how to deal with it. Going to church and looking at people in the eyes and saying “I Love Jesus!” and “Praise God!” and “I’m so blessed!” and still not knowing how to deal with it.
God then brought me into personal accountability with another man. This was the start of my road to recovery. You know there’s actually some truth in the bible when it talks about the fact that confessing my sins to another will bring healing – HEALING. 1 John tells me that confessing my sin to God will bring forgiveness and cleanse me from all unrighteousness, but confessing to my brother will bring healing!
Yea, that’s right, after all those years after accepting Christ, I was surprised to see the bible actually spoke some truth. You see when you’re wrapped in addiction and self-pity and shame and hurt and pain and oozing puss out of every pore of yourself, most of scripture doesn’t really mean much. The separateness from God when you’re living in so much sin is real. Sure, I loved Jesus – I needed Jesus - I wanted Jesus so bad to remove my pain. Scripture and sermons just went in one ear and out the other – I wanted to be healed. “Praise God!” and “Lets give God a hand” at worship times was just empty clatter and noise.
Personal accountability brought the start of the healing. I don’t know why – scripture says so – I confess my sins to a righteous man, the healing will begin! From there, God brought opportunity after opportunity. He brought Stuart Vogelman with Pure Warrior ministries who brought Ted Roberts and Pure Desire – this book spoke directly to my heart and soul at just the right time. It is an awesome resource for both the addict and church leadership. I’d already read just about every other book on the topic in the last 10 years but for whatever reason, this one started to click. Then God brought Dr. Doug Weiss and the Freedom Group material. More stuff that made sense. More growth and more healing.
So right now for me, its basically a lot of hard work and being clean and recovering actually seems to hurt a lot more at times now than the pain that I was actually trying to medicate for most of my life. The experts predict a complete healing can take 3-5 years. Pure Warrior is such an appropriate term because this really is a battle – a war. Its bloody – you have to be on offense – slip back into defensive mode, and your sunk. Its scary. Its messy and its very, very inconvenient. Getting rid of the inappropriate sexual behavior has really been the easy part. Stepping out and confessing addiction is only a small part of the total battle plan. In fact, nowadays in our groups, we don’t really talk much about acting out or the sex stuff – we end up discussing ourselves as men with common ground sharing with each other our pain and our own personal battles, truly holding each other to account for our weekly behaviors and figuring out the wrong choices we’ve made in the past that led us down this road. Most importantly, I now have been able to catch a glimpse of the goodness and comfort that my friend and mentor Jesus Christ has provided– those words I just spoke are no longer empty for me. Christ is my friend and my mentor – is that what they mean when they talk about a personal relationship? I understand them and I have also started to just comprehend the sacrifice that he made just for me. The separateness and gap between me and the Father is closing rapidly. My body has mostly been healed, my mind is underway of being transformed no longer to the patterns of this world but the hardest issue for me right now is still the lacerations and wounds in my soul that are slowly recovering.
I have launched two mens groups now so we have a place for men to meet and engage the same battle. Unlike ten years ago, there is now a plethora of resources from books, to counseling to seminars and online information that is available. Obviously, the amount of information available speaks directly to the progressive and cancerous nature of this sexual issue in our church and society. We know sexual sin is nothing new – the trouble today with the electronic age is that its readily available, commonplace, cheap (if not free) and plentiful. There is an article out there that talks about how our youth are becoming so numb to sexual activity that the simple thrill of seeing a naked body or engaging in lewd sex acts is now mundane and routine.
So really why I’m sharing this stuff with you is to give you a glimpse of the nastiness, insidiousness and the results of sexual sin in someone’s life. I know that many of you if not most of you in your roles as pastors and leaders have been in the trenches for years and have seen the gamut of the human condition. I’m sure you may have seen worse outcomes than mine – divorces, multiple families, sickness- maybe death from an STD, criminal activity resulting in jail time. . . I don’t know . . . but here’s the thing . . . there are a number of you in this room that I’ve had a relationship with to some degree over the years. Did any of you have an inkling of the hell I was fighting on a minute by minute, day by day basis, year after year after year? – maybe this is another trick question? I know its not your job to perform mind probes or open-soul surgeries to know a man’s heart – you’re not supposed to follow us around and spy on our lives. It was my responsibility to confess and be honest. But I’m giving you a first-hand account of the deviousness and cover-up we create to avoid confession and recovery. You see us addicts are what we call ‘masters of systems’. We figure out what the system is and then how to implement our own tactics to stay isolated, concealed, ‘safe’ and continue living our secret lives. Instead of full confession we ask for prayer with our ‘thought life’ or confess mildly that “I’m struggling with a little bit of internet porn”. When I hear these, I now recognize them as code words that he is probably in a lot more pain and anguish than what we see on the outside. They’re certainly words I used all the time – I did my part as a good Christian to confess my ‘sin’ and even got brothers to pray for me, yet never revealed the depth of my issues or attacked the roots –because no one I’d ever had a relationship with was equipped to deal with the tactics of the enemy in this particular battle. I’m not blaming anybody – but no-one ever offered me the tools needed to break the bondage. There was also never really a safe place to do it – this may just be my limited perception and please correct me if I’m wrong, but it is very hard to be broken in the church today.
I’m not trying to create some paranoid hysteria about every male in our society even though statistically 1 of every 2 men are engaged in this bondage and 3 to 4 of every 10 pastors are hooked, but the question is how do you fight something that you can’t even see or are not even aware of? I don’t have the best answers but I can offer a couple of realities that might help. Asking the addict to pray and try harder, attend another bible study (or even get into a bible study or “men’s group” – whatever that means), or give them more scripture to study and memorize usually doesn’t help – in fact it can be counter-productive. Traditional church counseling methods can fall well short unless the core, addictive root of the man is being excavated. Attending personal counseling can be a great start, but unless there is true 100% accountability either with a Christian brother or group, the addict will not, I repeat will not find healing. The accountability needs to be consistent and long term and needs to address issues specific to our addictive natures. This is not my personal assessment but rather the consistent, irrefutable truth professed by all the experts in this area. This is what our groups offer. As Pastor Ted Roberts states, ‘the issue of sexual addiction and bondage in our church today is not simply a counseling issue for the Church, it is a matter of our spiritual life and death”. I think I agree.