July 14, 2024 • 30 mins
In this episode of Bleeding Daylight, Rodney Olsen interviews Logan Hufford, who shares his powerful story of overcoming a destructive sexual addiction. Logan recounts his struggles, which began in his youth and escalated through his adult life, leading to numerous affairs and a life filled with self-hatred and depression. Despite these challenges, Logan's journey did not end in despair. He found redemption through a Christ-centered recovery program, which not only helped him break free from his addiction but also transformed his life and relationships.
Logan's story is not just about his own healing but also about the impact on his wife, Carrie, and their family. Rodney and Logan discuss the deep emotional wounds caused by his actions and the parallel healing process Carrie underwent. This episode sheds light on the complexities of addiction, the importance of a supportive community, and the profound change that faith and accountability can bring. Hear how Logan, now an advocate for others seeking freedom from addiction, navigated his path to true freedom and reconciliation.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:08):
Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.
This is Bleeding Daylight with your host, Rodney Olsen.
Welcome and thanks for listening.
You can find links to our social media channels at bleedingdaylight.net.
If this is your first time listening, why not check out the dozens of other amazing guests at bleedingdaylight.net and hear their stories too.
(00:35):
Leaving a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts helps others discover Bleeding Daylight.
Addictions don't only damage those held in their grip, they can leave a trail of destruction in the lives of those around them.
Today's guest talks about his own struggles and the road to healing for both himself and his wife.
(01:03):
Today we delve into a powerful story of redemption and transformation.
My guest, Logan Hufford, bravely shares his journey out of the depths of a destructive addiction that dominated his life.
He once felt hopelessly trapped but his story doesn't end there.
Today we'll talk about his path to healing.
These days he's not only free from his addiction but is an advocate for others seeking freedom through a Christ-centered organization that has helped hundreds of men and their spouses reclaim their lives.
(01:35):
Logan, thank you so much for your time today.
Rodney, thank you so much for giving me your rooftop to shout from.
You're sharing your platform and letting us have this conversation.
I appreciate it.
In your own words, help me understand the addictions that dominated your life.
It's a big question.
I like how you said addictions because you and I have not conversed much before this conversation and yet there absolutely were multiple addictions.
(02:02):
But the primary addiction that I felt absolutely trapped by – and the word you used, dominated, completely applicable – was sexual addiction that started with pornography as a kid, then eventually seeking out attention from a girl as a teenager, older teenager.
(02:23):
I kept chasing that, kept looking at porn.
Then by the time I got married, June 4, 2011, when my wife Carrie and I said, I do, I had already cheated on her multiple times with physical sexual affairs.
That unfortunately did not slow down.
That only snowballed for almost five years.
(02:43):
As a 23, 24, 25-year-old married with kids, my life was filled with self-hatred, was filled with depression, was filled with a lot of darkness.
And yet, I continually kept making these destructive choices until I eventually got to the point where I'm going, I don't think there's a different way for me to live.
This is all I am, I suppose.
(03:03):
That's a really dark thought to have.
We know that addictions and the roads that we travel down life don't come out of nowhere.
So, you're saying you started this addiction to pornography as a child.
Where do you think that came from?
What was actually lacking in life for you that made you go searching for that attention that you mentioned in the wrong sorts of places?
(03:29):
My answer to this has got to be one of the most boring answers that anybody in recovery from addiction can get, because there isn't a specific thing that I can point to.
There was no trauma in my life.
That's a very big statement to say, but it's true.
Nobody's life is perfect, but there was no trauma.
There was no abuse.
I was in a house that I always felt loved.
(03:52):
I always felt safe.
There was nothing specific to point to like, oh my gosh, I never had that or I never had this.
Well, no wonder I became an addict.
This is something that I have grappled with and I've thought through.
I didn't need anything specific to push me to go find sin and to go get wrapped up into sin.
Was my family perfect?
(04:12):
No, but it was a great family to be raised in.
It was a family of love.
We were taught the right things.
We loved each other, all this thing.
But there was one thing that was missing and that was there was never really vulnerability from my mom and dad, from their own stories and that sort of thing.
They would share, okay, here's what the Bible says and here's why we believe what we believe.
(04:33):
They did a phenomenal job with that.
But I remember even as a kid, especially as a teenager, they don't ever share their own story.
They don't ever share what lessons have they learned.
I don't use always and nevers lately.
I try to not use those words, but I think it's pretty much true that they never expressed vulnerability.
(04:55):
So starting out as a young child and discovering pornography, using it more and more, and you mentioned that you even came to that time where you met your wife, you got married and yet it didn't stop.
Did you feel somehow that actually getting married was going to be the cure, that this was going to cause it to stop because you were able to find that connection in a different way?
(05:23):
Absolutely.
I completely felt that way.
I've come to know now in recovery, that's a very, very common thing is a guy struggles with porn, lust in general, and I get married, then my wife and I will be intimate and I won't struggle.
But I absolutely bought that not realizing it wasn't just an addiction to porn.
(05:44):
It was an addiction to the highs that I would get from chasing after whatever the thing was, whether it was porn, attention from a girl, getting a text back from somebody that I was texting inappropriately, all of these things.
I had created this behavior and this decision-making infrastructure.
My daily ground-level routines were rooted in sin, were rooted in chasing after sin.
(06:09):
That stuff is not going to go away just because I got married, just because I joined a Bible study, just because I moved to a different city.
All of those things might be good things and might be factors, but none of those things are just going to make me rewire my brain unless I actually have a complete overhaul of my life and how I make decisions and live my life.
(06:33):
We can sometimes hear two different responses from spouses of men who are caught in these sorts of addictions.
One is, I really had no idea, and this took me by surprise.
I'm shocked and now I don't know what to do.
The other is, of course, I always knew, of course.
Where was it for you and your wife?
(06:53):
What was the response?
Did she know any of what was going on for you personally?
It was a bit of both.
When we first started dating, I was open with her about the fact that I struggled with porn.
To that point in life, that's all I thought it was.
I didn't realize because at that point, I'd never had a real committed relationship of any sort.
(07:16):
I had some dating relationships that were extremely shallow and short-lived.
As far as I could see, I'd never cheated on anyone.
I lost my virginity late in life compared to probably the average person.
I didn't have sexual experiences physically with other people for the most part, as a teenager and that kind of thing.
As far as I could tell, my past is pretty tame.
(07:37):
I don't think I have problems, but I struggled with porn because so much of it was internal.
It was like all these seeds that had been planted that were actively growing roots, but I couldn't see it.
It was under the soil.
She knew that I struggled with porn.
As far as the extramarital affairs, community adultery, just so you know and your audience, some of my verbiage is going to be kind of vague or kind of bland or clinical.
(08:03):
It's definitely not intending to minimize or hide from the things that I did.
I just want to be careful that I'm not graphic, that I'm not triggering.
So sometimes when I use verbiage that seems bland, it's definitely not to hide from evil that I did.
But when it came to the physical affairs, I didn't tell her anything.
She didn't know anything when we got married as far as that.
(08:25):
Then I had many more affairs after we got married.
Six months after we got married, I had had several affairs at that point.
I felt terrible about them.
There was no point where I thought it was okay.
I just felt awful and I wrote her a letter.
On some level, I really did believe I'm never going to do it again.
(08:45):
So I wrote her a letter and I confessed that I had had affairs.
I don't remember the verbiage.
I don't remember how brutally honest I was or how much maybe I minimized and hid from the truth.
I honestly don't remember.
But I was clear on the fact that I have cheated on you.
I have had these affairs.
She knew then, okay, my husband has done these things over the course of many months.
(09:06):
Then I had another affair.
I don't remember if it was six months later or a year later, I had another affair.
I confessed that.
Then I'd have another affair and I would confess that.
Every time I would have a sexual affair, I would confess it to her because it would feel bad.
This might be glaringly obvious, but I just want to make sure to emphasize, I was not repenting.
(09:27):
In my head, I thought I was, but there was no change to behavior.
Repentance is not just confession, but I'm turning around my behavior.
I was not turning around my behavior.
It was like I was going to confession and then I'd walk away feeling a little bit better because I got it off my chest.
Meanwhile, she's just getting stabbed emotionally by her husband.
I just keep hitting her with this and hitting her with this and I'm not doing anything healthier.
(09:51):
She certainly didn't know the full extent and then she would be in the dark for long periods of time.
Then I would confess again and then confess again.
We know that your addiction entered into these affairs and even to the point of being with prostitutes.
There was this added dimension to it beyond simply using porn and I don't want to that as an issue, but I guess that's what society does.
(10:22):
We're told again and again, even in comedy shows, so in a lighthearted way, there's these references to people using porn.
That's all right.
That's what everyone does.
How damaging is that, do you think, for the general population to be fed this line that, hey, everyone's doing it.
(10:44):
It doesn't matter.
It's natural.
Just go ahead, use porn?
Thank you for asking that question.
Again, you and I have not had a conversation prior to today.
We didn't talk about all the different questions you'd be asking, but you highlighting that is a big deal.
Most folks don't ask that question.
I realize we have limited time, can't ask all the questions, but porn is absolutely cheating.
(11:09):
Porn is absolutely infidelity.
Porn is extremely damaging.
I've gotten pushback on some level where it's like, well, you can't honestly say porn is just as bad as having an affair.
There's no way it's as bad.
My response is, we're not here to rank offenses.
We're not here to rank abuses.
(11:30):
Does the Bible say that in God's eyes, they're both sexual sin?
They're both separate me from God outside of salvation?
Of course, yes.
But the collateral damage of one is absolutely greater than the other?
Yes, that's also true.
It's kind of a paradox in a way.
The collateral damage is different, and yet they're both sexual sin.
(11:51):
And then specifically with porn, because the collateral damage might seem to not quite be there the same way an affair is, it allows it to sneak in under the radar.
Well, at least I'm not having an affair.
At least I'm not hiring a prostitute.
At least I didn't do this or do that.
At the end of the day, if I'm looking at porn, I am sexually putting myself with that person.
(12:13):
So it's absolutely infidelity.
If I am a single guy, I don't have a wife to cheat on.
I don't have a girlfriend to cheat on.
I'm a single guy.
What's porn doing?
And I'm just going to stick with just from a scientific angle, just for a little bit.
I mean, the spiritual aspect is a whole other side to this.
But if I'm looking at pornography, it is training my brain to be incredibly immature because I get what I want, when I want, how I want it.
(12:38):
And I can pick and choose exactly the sexual partner that I want or the things that I want to be doing.
That's not real life.
I mean, that's only like one piece of it.
That's like 1% of it.
But I mean, that right there, because I've had conversations with atheists.
I've had conversations with people that don't believe many of the things I believe.
And so even if you don't believe in my God, you don't believe in the Bible, even just from a biological standpoint, from a relationship standpoint, a societal standpoint, it is so ridiculously destructive.
(13:09):
I was having a conversation with Tanya from Sober On Purpose, and we're talking about porn.
Again, not ranking them, not comparing which one is worse, but there's actually something that happens with porn that doesn't actually happen if I have an affair, generally speaking.
And it's this.
If I have an affair, even if it's a very, very surface, shallow level, I'm having to take some amount of time and build some sort of relationship.
(13:38):
I'm having to put myself out there and risk something.
I'm not advocating for affairs, but I have to kind of put some skin in the game.
With porn, I can just do whatever I want, whenever I want.
And it's like there's no risk.
That's what I could tell myself.
Of course, there's incredible risks, incredible damage.
And sexual sin, just like any sin, just like any addiction, it is progressive.
(13:58):
It does not stay where it started.
I always emphasize that the porn that I watched when I was 20 was very different than the porn I watched when I started watching porn.
Just like the ways that I would treat women around me, the things that I would allow myself to do as a 24-year-old were very different than what 18-year-old Mogan would allow himself to do.
(14:20):
Now, there's lots of conversations that we could have.
I want to get to your healing journey in just a moment, but we could talk about the effect that it has on the way that you view women in general and all these sorts of things.
And also the fact, I've heard statistics that over 70% of women who are involved in producing pornography have been coerced in some way.
(14:46):
Many have been trafficked.
And so, there is a very real harm to those women that goes beyond just viewing them online.
Is that something that comes into play when you consider that, as I say, over 70% of women caught in producing porn have been coerced in some way.
(15:09):
Does that put a different spin on it, seeing as we're sold this lie that, oh, these women are doing this out of their own free will?
I don't know if I had heard those types of statistics or that I was aware of that.
I don't that I was aware of those type of statistics, but that's not where my mind was.
(15:31):
I didn't care to find out the ways that I treated women in person.
I've gotten pushback on a couple of conversations I've had where I refer to old me as, I was a predator.
I was a monster.
In my opinion, that's absolutely an accurate description.
I'm not on a list.
I'm not a predator according to the legal system, but I was a predator.
(15:54):
I preyed on people.
I preyed on other people to get what I wanted.
That's not a predator.
What's a predator?
I was manipulative.
I was emotionally manipulative.
I was good at getting what I wanted.
So, I could tell myself, oh, well, these are consensual interactions, as if that's the bar.
And yet, I was not being truthful in presenting my situation to folks, whether I was truthful about whether I was married or about what I was looking for with this person.
(16:25):
I cared about one thing, and that's Logan wants to get what Logan wants.
I would take as much as I could get and squeeze as much as I could get out of each person I came across.
And if that was a full-on affair, I would take that.
If it was texting, I would take that.
If it was just a little bit of attention and then nothing more, I would take that and then I would move on to someone else.
(16:48):
I did my best to dehumanize everyone around me and myself, because it was the only way that I could operate at home when I came home to my wife, when I came home to my four boys, when I would stand in church singing praise and worship songs with my wife, when I would see my family, Sunday night dinner.
(17:13):
The only way that I could operate with even a level of sanity was to compartmentalize times a million and essentially dehumanize everyone, including myself, during those times that I was pursuing my addiction.
Tell me how did your journey to healing actually start?
Did you come to a place of rock bottom and decide I need to do something?
(17:37):
And then how did you pursue that?
Yeah, there was a rock bottom, but I think the idea of a rock bottom can really get misconstrued.
I don't believe anyone can accurately define what a recovery rock bottom is.
I think a rock bottom is going to be different for every single person.
I had multiple rock bottom points and I've heard of other guys share a rock bottom point and there's a wildly different range in what that rock bottom could look like.
(18:05):
Think about it with alcohol, right?
One person's rock bottom could be, I got in a car wreck while I was drunk and I killed a kid.
Somebody else's rock bottom could be, well, I was drunk at work and I got fired.
Somebody else's rock bottom could be something that I might see as kind of a light thing like, well, my rock bottom was I was camping and had too many beers and made a fool out of myself in front of my family.
(18:26):
And each one of those could be a rock bottom.
And I'm not going to be able to actually say this is a rock bottom, in my opinion, until I'm looking in the rear view mirror and I'm in a relatively healthy spot and I can go, that was the moment where, and I'm borrowing this from Craig Brown, where the pain was greater than my fear.
The pain of my addiction was greater than my fear of reaching out and getting help.
(18:51):
In July of 2015, I had another affair.
We were married for four years at that point.
And my wife would tell you this was the most painful affair that I ever had.
And after this affair, she said something that she'd never said before.
She gave me an ultimatum.
She said, if you don't get serious help and make change that I'm gone and the kids are gone.
(19:12):
She was pregnant with our fourth boy, Isaiah, and we already had Elijah, Darius, and Stephen.
Now my sobriety date is May 19th, 2016.
It's almost a year of the ultimatum to my sobriety date when I first started getting real traction.
But that was my rock bottom in the sense that that was when I realized, okay, I have got to do something.
(19:34):
So then the next 10 months, there was no toggle switch that got switched.
And then suddenly I was healthy.
The toggle switch didn't exist on May 19th either.
It was definitely a non-linear path, but it was a path of seeking resources, opening myself up to some people, still absolutely half-heartedly doing recovery, a hundred percent.
I was not giving it my full effort, not by a long shot.
(19:57):
But I was going to some meetings.
I was talking to some people.
Several months later, God introduced me to a man, Rick, Christian guy.
He had a similar story to me, but he had years of sobriety and recovery and healing, which is very different than just sobriety.
It wasn't just that he wasn't hurting his wife, but he was actually a healthy guy.
He, in turn, introduced me to the group that he had worked with several years prior.
(20:22):
And he's like, you need something different than the meetings that you're going to, Logan.
So he told me about Prodigals.
It's a Christ-centered recovery program.
He's like, I think you need this.
It's going to be really hard, but it's what you need.
It's what I need.
Finally, in May, I got in the program.
I started the process of fully submitting myself to God and godly men.
(20:45):
My mentor, he put it beautifully.
He goes, Logan, you are giving up a lot of freedom for right now so that you can have true freedom for the rest of your life.
He did not oversell that.
Everything I have now is like, my goodness, I have an incredible life, and by my own actions, I don't deserve any of it.
It's a blessing from God.
Oftentimes in situations like this, we can focus on the person who has the addiction, but as you've already stated, you are having these affairs and then certainly suffering from that yourself with this conflict within yourself, but it was actually your wife who was suffering the most each time you admitted to another affair.
(21:27):
I know that the program that you're part of isn't just for the men.
It's for spouses as well.
I know you can't speak for her completely, but what was the healing process like for your wife?
It's a different group, but we absolutely work in tandem with each other.
There's a Prodigals group, which is a Christ-centered 12-step recovery group for men struggling with sexual addiction.
(21:49):
The partisan process is for women that have been hurt by sexual betrayal trauma.
I'm not going to say it's common, but a good chunk of the men and women that are there are spouses.
This is not necessarily in priority order, but a big thing that Carrie learned over the course of recovery.
She started coming to recovery July of 16.
(22:11):
It was a few months after I started meeting with Rick and going to the group that he talked about, Prodigals.
She started going to this group.
One of the big things she learned was her husband did not cheat on her because of her.
I did not cheat on Carrie because she was not beautiful, because I didn't love her, because she wasn't enough.
It had nothing to do with her.
(22:32):
That's our story.
I realize everyone's different, but there are people out there that are unfaithful because they're unhappy.
She, for many years, would tell you that she thought that I was cheating on her because she wasn't good enough.
It had nothing to do with that.
That was part of her healing.
There's a lot of tangible, concrete things that they work on, like tools and boundaries, and how to be safe, and that kind of thing.
(22:55):
Sobriety doesn't bring healing by itself.
Healing comes through knowing my Savior.
Both of those things together have brought amazing healing and transformation.
It's not just changing my behavior, changing my behavior while I'm seeking after Christ.
I guess the third part would be, what can she control?
Because she couldn't control whether I cheated on her, but she could control whether or not she left.
(23:21):
She could control whether or not she would sleep in a different room.
If I was short with her and yelled at her, she can't control what I do, but she can control what she does.
You likened the addiction earlier to alcoholism, about how sometimes people hit their rock bottom at various places with the abuse of alcohol.
(23:43):
But one thing they say about alcoholics is that they're an alcoholic for the rest of their life, that it's something that they have to continue to fight.
What's that fight like for you as you continue several years after this?
Is that fight continuing for you?
Yeah.
I honestly really enjoy having this part of the conversation.
(24:05):
Labels are important.
Identity is very important.
The words that I use are extremely important.
That being said, I think we can also get too hung up on verbiage.
When I introduced myself for seven and a half years, I would say, I'm Logan and I'm a recovering sex addict.
I don't have any problem with that verbiage, but that's not what I say anymore.
(24:27):
I made this shift and it wasn't for any reason other than I really felt God leading me to introduce myself differently.
What I say now is I'm Logan and I'm no longer in bondage to sexual addiction.
That might not seem like a big difference, but the difference for me is this.
It clearly identifies the issue that I struggled with that kept me in bondage, that kept me trapped, that as you said, dominated my life.
(24:53):
It clearly identifies sexual addiction.
What it doesn't do is give it power over me.
I'm a sex addict and every single day I got to make sure that I don't accidentally trip up because that's not reality.
Now, could I go back to my sexual addiction?
A hundred percent, but unlike nine years ago, eight and a half years ago, I recognized like, no, but I don't need to.
(25:19):
I've got infrastructure in place.
I've got tools.
I've got boundaries.
I've got accountability.
I've got guardrails on guardrails on guardrails.
I could choose to let that beast out of the cage and start feeding it again, but I don't have to.
Whereas nine years ago when I was just flailing around in life, yeah, I was a sex addict.
(25:40):
I didn't even know how to make good decisions.
You found freedom through the pursuit of Christ.
You've got these tools that are helping you through that.
Obviously, you want the sort of freedom that you found in Christ for others, and so now you're helping others.
How important is that in your life to see others freed from the addiction that you once had?
(26:02):
It's the thing that drives me.
I am not someone who has big passions and dreams, generally speaking.
Those words do not describe Logan Hufford, but I will tell you, Rodney, I have a fire in my belly for recovery.
I have a fire in my belly to give men hope, to try to share the light that God has given me with others in a way that I don't have for anything else in life.
(26:26):
It's eight years and I still do not have a day, and that's not an exaggeration.
I don't have a day where I don't remember how dark the old life was.
I don't mean that in a negative sense.
I'm not wallowing in.
I'm not wallowing in shame, but every night when I pray with my boys and tuck them in for bed, I remember what it was like to be the guy that was tucking them in at night, or maybe I came home late from work and so I'm just kind of peeking in on, and I remember who I was with earlier that day.
(26:56):
I remember the crap I was watching on my phone earlier that day.
I remember the stuff I was texting this who knows who a week ago, hating myself.
It is my passion in life.
I believe this is why God put me on this earth is to give back to other men.
I know that there are people that are still where you were, both men caught in that addiction, but also their spouses who are caught in the hurt that that causes.
(27:23):
For those that are still caught in that right now and trying to find a way through, what would you say to them about the hope for future?
I don't believe that giving a bunch of advice and just like telling someone what to do generally works.
So all I would say is this, I would ask a question.
If nothing changes in your life, what are you afraid of happening in five years, 10 years, 20 years?
(27:49):
I'm not here to preach you of what's going to happen.
You answer that question.
Because if I'm honest with myself, if I'm struggling with sexual addiction, that's going to be a very dark answer.
It will progress.
It will get worse.
The noose will tighten.
To a woman, I'll keep it really short and simple because I don't want to pretend that I'm my wife, but everything I'm saying, it's not speculation.
(28:13):
It's not theory.
Everything from the woman's perspective is stuff that my wife, Carrie, has shared, that she teaches, that she lives out.
If you are a spouse who has been cheated on, is being cheated on, everything from porn to affairs and everything in between, number one, please, if it's happening, safety, boundaries, reach out for help.
(28:36):
You can't control if you get hurt, but you can control the things that you do to be safe and those around you, i.e. kids.
But also I would say this, please seek healing.
It's not your fault.
It's not fair that you have to seek healing, but I promise you it makes a world of difference.
We see it all the time.
(28:58):
God wants us to seek healing, to be transformed and to be restored.
If you're a guy, ask yourself, what's going to be your future if you don't change anything for the better?
And if you're a woman, please seek healing.
Not everyone is going to have access to groups like Prodigals or partners in process, but it's probably a good place to start to check out what those groups are doing and to connect.
(29:26):
Where's the easiest place for them to find that starting point?
You're absolutely right.
If anybody wants help finding resources, I mean, this is one of those things where Google is your friend, see what comes up in your area.
But I also recognize every group is different.
Every group is only as strong as what they believe in the people leading them.
If somebody wants help, you can reach out to me.
(29:48):
Not that I'm going to be the one to necessarily walk with you, but I can help.
I can jump on a phone call.
I can respond.
You can find me on Instagram at no longer in bondage.
That's periods between all the words, no longer in bondage.
We can hop on a phone call, talk through what's in your area.
What's your story?
What are you going through?
What sorts of things could be helpful.
(30:09):
I will certainly put links in the show notes at bleedingdaylight.net so that people can find them easily.
Logan, I want to thank you for being open and honest and sharing part of your story.
Thank you for taking time to be with us today on Bleeding Daylight.
Thanks, Rodney.
Thank you for listening to Bleeding Daylight.
(30:31):
Please help us to shine more light into the darkness by sharing this episode with others.
For further details and more episodes, please visit bleedingdaylight.net.
Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.
This is Bleeding Daylight with your host, Rodney Olsen.
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(00:35):
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Addictions don't only damage those held in their grip, they can leave a trail of destruction in the lives of those around them.
Today's guest talks about his own struggles and the road to healing for both himself and his wife.
(01:03):
Today we delve into a powerful story of redemption and transformation.
My guest, Logan Hufford, bravely shares his journey out of the depths of a destructive addiction that dominated his life.
He once felt hopelessly trapped but his story doesn't end there.
Today we'll talk about his path to healing.
These days he's not only free from his addiction but is an advocate for others seeking freedom through a Christ-centered organization that has helped hundreds of men and their spouses reclaim their lives.
(01:35):
Logan, thank you so much for your time today.
Rodney, thank you so much for giving me your rooftop to shout from.
You're sharing your platform and letting us have this conversation.
I appreciate it.
In your own words, help me understand the addictions that dominated your life.
It's a big question.
I like how you said addictions because you and I have not conversed much before this conversation and yet there absolutely were multiple addictions.
(02:02):
But the primary addiction that I felt absolutely trapped by – and the word you used, dominated, completely applicable – was sexual addiction that started with pornography as a kid, then eventually seeking out attention from a girl as a teenager, older teenager.
(02:23):
I kept chasing that, kept looking at porn.
Then by the time I got married, June 4, 2011, when my wife Carrie and I said, I do, I had already cheated on her multiple times with physical sexual affairs.
That unfortunately did not slow down.
That only snowballed for almost five years.
(02:43):
As a 23, 24, 25-year-old married with kids, my life was filled with self-hatred, was filled with depression, was filled with a lot of darkness.
And yet, I continually kept making these destructive choices until I eventually got to the point where I'm going, I don't think there's a different way for me to live.
This is all I am, I suppose.
(03:03):
That's a really dark thought to have.
We know that addictions and the roads that we travel down life don't come out of nowhere.
So, you're saying you started this addiction to pornography as a child.
Where do you think that came from?
What was actually lacking in life for you that made you go searching for that attention that you mentioned in the wrong sorts of places?
(03:29):
My answer to this has got to be one of the most boring answers that anybody in recovery from addiction can get, because there isn't a specific thing that I can point to.
There was no trauma in my life.
That's a very big statement to say, but it's true.
Nobody's life is perfect, but there was no trauma.
There was no abuse.
I was in a house that I always felt loved.
(03:52):
I always felt safe.
There was nothing specific to point to like, oh my gosh, I never had that or I never had this.
Well, no wonder I became an addict.
This is something that I have grappled with and I've thought through.
I didn't need anything specific to push me to go find sin and to go get wrapped up into sin.
Was my family perfect?
(04:12):
No, but it was a great family to be raised in.
It was a family of love.
We were taught the right things.
We loved each other, all this thing.
But there was one thing that was missing and that was there was never really vulnerability from my mom and dad, from their own stories and that sort of thing.
They would share, okay, here's what the Bible says and here's why we believe what we believe.
(04:33):
They did a phenomenal job with that.
But I remember even as a kid, especially as a teenager, they don't ever share their own story.
They don't ever share what lessons have they learned.
I don't use always and nevers lately.
I try to not use those words, but I think it's pretty much true that they never expressed vulnerability.
(04:55):
So starting out as a young child and discovering pornography, using it more and more, and you mentioned that you even came to that time where you met your wife, you got married and yet it didn't stop.
Did you feel somehow that actually getting married was going to be the cure, that this was going to cause it to stop because you were able to find that connection in a different way?
(05:23):
Absolutely.
I completely felt that way.
I've come to know now in recovery, that's a very, very common thing is a guy struggles with porn, lust in general, and I get married, then my wife and I will be intimate and I won't struggle.
But I absolutely bought that not realizing it wasn't just an addiction to porn.
(05:44):
It was an addiction to the highs that I would get from chasing after whatever the thing was, whether it was porn, attention from a girl, getting a text back from somebody that I was texting inappropriately, all of these things.
I had created this behavior and this decision-making infrastructure.
My daily ground-level routines were rooted in sin, were rooted in chasing after sin.
(06:09):
That stuff is not going to go away just because I got married, just because I joined a Bible study, just because I moved to a different city.
All of those things might be good things and might be factors, but none of those things are just going to make me rewire my brain unless I actually have a complete overhaul of my life and how I make decisions and live my life.
(06:33):
We can sometimes hear two different responses from spouses of men who are caught in these sorts of addictions.
One is, I really had no idea, and this took me by surprise.
I'm shocked and now I don't know what to do.
The other is, of course, I always knew, of course.
Where was it for you and your wife?
(06:53):
What was the response?
Did she know any of what was going on for you personally?
It was a bit of both.
When we first started dating, I was open with her about the fact that I struggled with porn.
To that point in life, that's all I thought it was.
I didn't realize because at that point, I'd never had a real committed relationship of any sort.
(07:16):
I had some dating relationships that were extremely shallow and short-lived.
As far as I could see, I'd never cheated on anyone.
I lost my virginity late in life compared to probably the average person.
I didn't have sexual experiences physically with other people for the most part, as a teenager and that kind of thing.
As far as I could tell, my past is pretty tame.
(07:37):
I don't think I have problems, but I struggled with porn because so much of it was internal.
It was like all these seeds that had been planted that were actively growing roots, but I couldn't see it.
It was under the soil.
She knew that I struggled with porn.
As far as the extramarital affairs, community adultery, just so you know and your audience, some of my verbiage is going to be kind of vague or kind of bland or clinical.
(08:03):
It's definitely not intending to minimize or hide from the things that I did.
I just want to be careful that I'm not graphic, that I'm not triggering.
So sometimes when I use verbiage that seems bland, it's definitely not to hide from evil that I did.
But when it came to the physical affairs, I didn't tell her anything.
She didn't know anything when we got married as far as that.
(08:25):
Then I had many more affairs after we got married.
Six months after we got married, I had had several affairs at that point.
I felt terrible about them.
There was no point where I thought it was okay.
I just felt awful and I wrote her a letter.
On some level, I really did believe I'm never going to do it again.
(08:45):
So I wrote her a letter and I confessed that I had had affairs.
I don't remember the verbiage.
I don't remember how brutally honest I was or how much maybe I minimized and hid from the truth.
I honestly don't remember.
But I was clear on the fact that I have cheated on you.
I have had these affairs.
She knew then, okay, my husband has done these things over the course of many months.
(09:06):
Then I had another affair.
I don't remember if it was six months later or a year later, I had another affair.
I confessed that.
Then I'd have another affair and I would confess that.
Every time I would have a sexual affair, I would confess it to her because it would feel bad.
This might be glaringly obvious, but I just want to make sure to emphasize, I was not repenting.
(09:27):
In my head, I thought I was, but there was no change to behavior.
Repentance is not just confession, but I'm turning around my behavior.
I was not turning around my behavior.
It was like I was going to confession and then I'd walk away feeling a little bit better because I got it off my chest.
Meanwhile, she's just getting stabbed emotionally by her husband.
I just keep hitting her with this and hitting her with this and I'm not doing anything healthier.
(09:51):
She certainly didn't know the full extent and then she would be in the dark for long periods of time.
Then I would confess again and then confess again.
We know that your addiction entered into these affairs and even to the point of being with prostitutes.
There was this added dimension to it beyond simply using porn and I don't want to that as an issue, but I guess that's what society does.
(10:22):
We're told again and again, even in comedy shows, so in a lighthearted way, there's these references to people using porn.
That's all right.
That's what everyone does.
How damaging is that, do you think, for the general population to be fed this line that, hey, everyone's doing it.
(10:44):
It doesn't matter.
It's natural.
Just go ahead, use porn?
Thank you for asking that question.
Again, you and I have not had a conversation prior to today.
We didn't talk about all the different questions you'd be asking, but you highlighting that is a big deal.
Most folks don't ask that question.
I realize we have limited time, can't ask all the questions, but porn is absolutely cheating.
(11:09):
Porn is absolutely infidelity.
Porn is extremely damaging.
I've gotten pushback on some level where it's like, well, you can't honestly say porn is just as bad as having an affair.
There's no way it's as bad.
My response is, we're not here to rank offenses.
We're not here to rank abuses.
(11:30):
Does the Bible say that in God's eyes, they're both sexual sin?
They're both separate me from God outside of salvation?
Of course, yes.
But the collateral damage of one is absolutely greater than the other?
Yes, that's also true.
It's kind of a paradox in a way.
The collateral damage is different, and yet they're both sexual sin.
(11:51):
And then specifically with porn, because the collateral damage might seem to not quite be there the same way an affair is, it allows it to sneak in under the radar.
Well, at least I'm not having an affair.
At least I'm not hiring a prostitute.
At least I didn't do this or do that.
At the end of the day, if I'm looking at porn, I am sexually putting myself with that person.
(12:13):
So it's absolutely infidelity.
If I am a single guy, I don't have a wife to cheat on.
I don't have a girlfriend to cheat on.
I'm a single guy.
What's porn doing?
And I'm just going to stick with just from a scientific angle, just for a little bit.
I mean, the spiritual aspect is a whole other side to this.
But if I'm looking at pornography, it is training my brain to be incredibly immature because I get what I want, when I want, how I want it.
(12:38):
And I can pick and choose exactly the sexual partner that I want or the things that I want to be doing.
That's not real life.
I mean, that's only like one piece of it.
That's like 1% of it.
But I mean, that right there, because I've had conversations with atheists.
I've had conversations with people that don't believe many of the things I believe.
And so even if you don't believe in my God, you don't believe in the Bible, even just from a biological standpoint, from a relationship standpoint, a societal standpoint, it is so ridiculously destructive.
(13:09):
I was having a conversation with Tanya from Sober On Purpose, and we're talking about porn.
Again, not ranking them, not comparing which one is worse, but there's actually something that happens with porn that doesn't actually happen if I have an affair, generally speaking.
And it's this.
If I have an affair, even if it's a very, very surface, shallow level, I'm having to take some amount of time and build some sort of relationship.
(13:38):
I'm having to put myself out there and risk something.
I'm not advocating for affairs, but I have to kind of put some skin in the game.
With porn, I can just do whatever I want, whenever I want.
And it's like there's no risk.
That's what I could tell myself.
Of course, there's incredible risks, incredible damage.
And sexual sin, just like any sin, just like any addiction, it is progressive.
(13:58):
It does not stay where it started.
I always emphasize that the porn that I watched when I was 20 was very different than the porn I watched when I started watching porn.
Just like the ways that I would treat women around me, the things that I would allow myself to do as a 24-year-old were very different than what 18-year-old Mogan would allow himself to do.
(14:20):
Now, there's lots of conversations that we could have.
I want to get to your healing journey in just a moment, but we could talk about the effect that it has on the way that you view women in general and all these sorts of things.
And also the fact, I've heard statistics that over 70% of women who are involved in producing pornography have been coerced in some way.
(14:46):
Many have been trafficked.
And so, there is a very real harm to those women that goes beyond just viewing them online.
Is that something that comes into play when you consider that, as I say, over 70% of women caught in producing porn have been coerced in some way.
(15:09):
Does that put a different spin on it, seeing as we're sold this lie that, oh, these women are doing this out of their own free will?
I don't know if I had heard those types of statistics or that I was aware of that.
I don't that I was aware of those type of statistics, but that's not where my mind was.
(15:31):
I didn't care to find out the ways that I treated women in person.
I've gotten pushback on a couple of conversations I've had where I refer to old me as, I was a predator.
I was a monster.
In my opinion, that's absolutely an accurate description.
I'm not on a list.
I'm not a predator according to the legal system, but I was a predator.
(15:54):
I preyed on people.
I preyed on other people to get what I wanted.
That's not a predator.
What's a predator?
I was manipulative.
I was emotionally manipulative.
I was good at getting what I wanted.
So, I could tell myself, oh, well, these are consensual interactions, as if that's the bar.
And yet, I was not being truthful in presenting my situation to folks, whether I was truthful about whether I was married or about what I was looking for with this person.
(16:25):
I cared about one thing, and that's Logan wants to get what Logan wants.
I would take as much as I could get and squeeze as much as I could get out of each person I came across.
And if that was a full-on affair, I would take that.
If it was texting, I would take that.
If it was just a little bit of attention and then nothing more, I would take that and then I would move on to someone else.
(16:48):
I did my best to dehumanize everyone around me and myself, because it was the only way that I could operate at home when I came home to my wife, when I came home to my four boys, when I would stand in church singing praise and worship songs with my wife, when I would see my family, Sunday night dinner.
(17:13):
The only way that I could operate with even a level of sanity was to compartmentalize times a million and essentially dehumanize everyone, including myself, during those times that I was pursuing my addiction.
Tell me how did your journey to healing actually start?
Did you come to a place of rock bottom and decide I need to do something?
(17:37):
And then how did you pursue that?
Yeah, there was a rock bottom, but I think the idea of a rock bottom can really get misconstrued.
I don't believe anyone can accurately define what a recovery rock bottom is.
I think a rock bottom is going to be different for every single person.
I had multiple rock bottom points and I've heard of other guys share a rock bottom point and there's a wildly different range in what that rock bottom could look like.
(18:05):
Think about it with alcohol, right?
One person's rock bottom could be, I got in a car wreck while I was drunk and I killed a kid.
Somebody else's rock bottom could be, well, I was drunk at work and I got fired.
Somebody else's rock bottom could be something that I might see as kind of a light thing like, well, my rock bottom was I was camping and had too many beers and made a fool out of myself in front of my family.
(18:26):
And each one of those could be a rock bottom.
And I'm not going to be able to actually say this is a rock bottom, in my opinion, until I'm looking in the rear view mirror and I'm in a relatively healthy spot and I can go, that was the moment where, and I'm borrowing this from Craig Brown, where the pain was greater than my fear.
The pain of my addiction was greater than my fear of reaching out and getting help.
(18:51):
In July of 2015, I had another affair.
We were married for four years at that point.
And my wife would tell you this was the most painful affair that I ever had.
And after this affair, she said something that she'd never said before.
She gave me an ultimatum.
She said, if you don't get serious help and make change that I'm gone and the kids are gone.
(19:12):
She was pregnant with our fourth boy, Isaiah, and we already had Elijah, Darius, and Stephen.
Now my sobriety date is May 19th, 2016.
It's almost a year of the ultimatum to my sobriety date when I first started getting real traction.
But that was my rock bottom in the sense that that was when I realized, okay, I have got to do something.
(19:34):
So then the next 10 months, there was no toggle switch that got switched.
And then suddenly I was healthy.
The toggle switch didn't exist on May 19th either.
It was definitely a non-linear path, but it was a path of seeking resources, opening myself up to some people, still absolutely half-heartedly doing recovery, a hundred percent.
I was not giving it my full effort, not by a long shot.
(19:57):
But I was going to some meetings.
I was talking to some people.
Several months later, God introduced me to a man, Rick, Christian guy.
He had a similar story to me, but he had years of sobriety and recovery and healing, which is very different than just sobriety.
It wasn't just that he wasn't hurting his wife, but he was actually a healthy guy.
He, in turn, introduced me to the group that he had worked with several years prior.
(20:22):
And he's like, you need something different than the meetings that you're going to, Logan.
So he told me about Prodigals.
It's a Christ-centered recovery program.
He's like, I think you need this.
It's going to be really hard, but it's what you need.
It's what I need.
Finally, in May, I got in the program.
I started the process of fully submitting myself to God and godly men.
(20:45):
My mentor, he put it beautifully.
He goes, Logan, you are giving up a lot of freedom for right now so that you can have true freedom for the rest of your life.
He did not oversell that.
Everything I have now is like, my goodness, I have an incredible life, and by my own actions, I don't deserve any of it.
It's a blessing from God.
Oftentimes in situations like this, we can focus on the person who has the addiction, but as you've already stated, you are having these affairs and then certainly suffering from that yourself with this conflict within yourself, but it was actually your wife who was suffering the most each time you admitted to another affair.
(21:27):
I know that the program that you're part of isn't just for the men.
It's for spouses as well.
I know you can't speak for her completely, but what was the healing process like for your wife?
It's a different group, but we absolutely work in tandem with each other.
There's a Prodigals group, which is a Christ-centered 12-step recovery group for men struggling with sexual addiction.
(21:49):
The partisan process is for women that have been hurt by sexual betrayal trauma.
I'm not going to say it's common, but a good chunk of the men and women that are there are spouses.
This is not necessarily in priority order, but a big thing that Carrie learned over the course of recovery.
She started coming to recovery July of 16.
(22:11):
It was a few months after I started meeting with Rick and going to the group that he talked about, Prodigals.
She started going to this group.
One of the big things she learned was her husband did not cheat on her because of her.
I did not cheat on Carrie because she was not beautiful, because I didn't love her, because she wasn't enough.
It had nothing to do with her.
(22:32):
That's our story.
I realize everyone's different, but there are people out there that are unfaithful because they're unhappy.
She, for many years, would tell you that she thought that I was cheating on her because she wasn't good enough.
It had nothing to do with that.
That was part of her healing.
There's a lot of tangible, concrete things that they work on, like tools and boundaries, and how to be safe, and that kind of thing.
(22:55):
Sobriety doesn't bring healing by itself.
Healing comes through knowing my Savior.
Both of those things together have brought amazing healing and transformation.
It's not just changing my behavior, changing my behavior while I'm seeking after Christ.
I guess the third part would be, what can she control?
Because she couldn't control whether I cheated on her, but she could control whether or not she left.
(23:21):
She could control whether or not she would sleep in a different room.
If I was short with her and yelled at her, she can't control what I do, but she can control what she does.
You likened the addiction earlier to alcoholism, about how sometimes people hit their rock bottom at various places with the abuse of alcohol.
(23:43):
But one thing they say about alcoholics is that they're an alcoholic for the rest of their life, that it's something that they have to continue to fight.
What's that fight like for you as you continue several years after this?
Is that fight continuing for you?
Yeah.
I honestly really enjoy having this part of the conversation.
(24:05):
Labels are important.
Identity is very important.
The words that I use are extremely important.
That being said, I think we can also get too hung up on verbiage.
When I introduced myself for seven and a half years, I would say, I'm Logan and I'm a recovering sex addict.
I don't have any problem with that verbiage, but that's not what I say anymore.
(24:27):
I made this shift and it wasn't for any reason other than I really felt God leading me to introduce myself differently.
What I say now is I'm Logan and I'm no longer in bondage to sexual addiction.
That might not seem like a big difference, but the difference for me is this.
It clearly identifies the issue that I struggled with that kept me in bondage, that kept me trapped, that as you said, dominated my life.
(24:53):
It clearly identifies sexual addiction.
What it doesn't do is give it power over me.
I'm a sex addict and every single day I got to make sure that I don't accidentally trip up because that's not reality.
Now, could I go back to my sexual addiction?
A hundred percent, but unlike nine years ago, eight and a half years ago, I recognized like, no, but I don't need to.
(25:19):
I've got infrastructure in place.
I've got tools.
I've got boundaries.
I've got accountability.
I've got guardrails on guardrails on guardrails.
I could choose to let that beast out of the cage and start feeding it again, but I don't have to.
Whereas nine years ago when I was just flailing around in life, yeah, I was a sex addict.
(25:40):
I didn't even know how to make good decisions.
You found freedom through the pursuit of Christ.
You've got these tools that are helping you through that.
Obviously, you want the sort of freedom that you found in Christ for others, and so now you're helping others.
How important is that in your life to see others freed from the addiction that you once had?
(26:02):
It's the thing that drives me.
I am not someone who has big passions and dreams, generally speaking.
Those words do not describe Logan Hufford, but I will tell you, Rodney, I have a fire in my belly for recovery.
I have a fire in my belly to give men hope, to try to share the light that God has given me with others in a way that I don't have for anything else in life.
(26:26):
It's eight years and I still do not have a day, and that's not an exaggeration.
I don't have a day where I don't remember how dark the old life was.
I don't mean that in a negative sense.
I'm not wallowing in.
I'm not wallowing in shame, but every night when I pray with my boys and tuck them in for bed, I remember what it was like to be the guy that was tucking them in at night, or maybe I came home late from work and so I'm just kind of peeking in on, and I remember who I was with earlier that day.
(26:56):
I remember the crap I was watching on my phone earlier that day.
I remember the stuff I was texting this who knows who a week ago, hating myself.
It is my passion in life.
I believe this is why God put me on this earth is to give back to other men.
I know that there are people that are still where you were, both men caught in that addiction, but also their spouses who are caught in the hurt that that causes.
(27:23):
For those that are still caught in that right now and trying to find a way through, what would you say to them about the hope for future?
I don't believe that giving a bunch of advice and just like telling someone what to do generally works.
So all I would say is this, I would ask a question.
If nothing changes in your life, what are you afraid of happening in five years, 10 years, 20 years?
(27:49):
I'm not here to preach you of what's going to happen.
You answer that question.
Because if I'm honest with myself, if I'm struggling with sexual addiction, that's going to be a very dark answer.
It will progress.
It will get worse.
The noose will tighten.
To a woman, I'll keep it really short and simple because I don't want to pretend that I'm my wife, but everything I'm saying, it's not speculation.
(28:13):
It's not theory.
Everything from the woman's perspective is stuff that my wife, Carrie, has shared, that she teaches, that she lives out.
If you are a spouse who has been cheated on, is being cheated on, everything from porn to affairs and everything in between, number one, please, if it's happening, safety, boundaries, reach out for help.
(28:36):
You can't control if you get hurt, but you can control the things that you do to be safe and those around you, i.e. kids.
But also I would say this, please seek healing.
It's not your fault.
It's not fair that you have to seek healing, but I promise you it makes a world of difference.
We see it all the time.
(28:58):
God wants us to seek healing, to be transformed and to be restored.
If you're a guy, ask yourself, what's going to be your future if you don't change anything for the better?
And if you're a woman, please seek healing.
Not everyone is going to have access to groups like Prodigals or partners in process, but it's probably a good place to start to check out what those groups are doing and to connect.
(29:26):
Where's the easiest place for them to find that starting point?
You're absolutely right.
If anybody wants help finding resources, I mean, this is one of those things where Google is your friend, see what comes up in your area.
But I also recognize every group is different.
Every group is only as strong as what they believe in the people leading them.
If somebody wants help, you can reach out to me.
(29:48):
Not that I'm going to be the one to necessarily walk with you, but I can help.
I can jump on a phone call.
I can respond.
You can find me on Instagram at no longer in bondage.
That's periods between all the words, no longer in bondage.
We can hop on a phone call, talk through what's in your area.
What's your story?
What are you going through?
What sorts of things could be helpful.
(30:09):
I will certainly put links in the show notes at bleedingdaylight.net so that people can find them easily.
Logan, I want to thank you for being open and honest and sharing part of your story.
Thank you for taking time to be with us today on Bleeding Daylight.
Thanks, Rodney.
Thank you for listening to Bleeding Daylight.
(30:31):
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