No longer in bondage - Vulnerability and Growth Beyond Sexual Addiction - Logan Hufford : 143

Living a life built on a foundation of addiction and deceit? Logan Hufford shares his profound and deeply personal journey through sexual addiction, starting with early exposure to magazines and leading to a series of destructive behaviours that nearly destroyed his marriage and family. He opens up about the harrowing moment his wife issued an ultimatum, forcing him to confront his addiction head-on and embark on an arduous path to sobriety.

Throughout this episode, Logan discusses the gruelling process of recovery, emphasizing the critical role of accountability, same-gender mentorship, and the essential support found in recovery groups.
By sharing his story, Logan aims to shed light on the pervasive impact of sexual addiction on relationships and the necessity of ongoing effort and support in overcoming such addictions.

Logan's transformation from a deceitful individual to someone striving for honesty and emotional openness is captivating. He reflects on the importance of vulnerability, open communication, and unconditional love in personal growth and family healing. Logan's leadership in recovery groups and his commitment to supporting others highlight the power of sharing personal stories and offering hope to those navigating similar challenges. This is an episode that, although you may not relate to, there are so many nuggets of insightfulness to grow our compassion for us humans. I hope you see that, too.

Let's gain wisdom from his story.

To connect with Logan: https://www.prodigalsofalaska.com/ 

Chapters

• 13:00 Journey to Healing and Recovery
• 18:25 Finding Healing and Giving Back
• 24:18 Understanding Sexual Addiction and Recovery
• 32:26 Rebuilding Trust Through Vulnerability
• 41:06 Sharing Hope Through Recovery Journeys

Transcript

Daniela SM : 0:04

Hi, I'm Daniela. Welcome to my podcast. Because Everyone has a Story, the place to give ordinary people's stories the chance to be shared and preserved. Our stories become the language of connections. Let's enjoy it, connect and relate because everyone has a story and relate because everyone has a story. Welcome, my guest is Logan Hufford.

Daniela SM : 0:32

This is a different episode from all the stories that I have listened so far. It's living a life built of a foundation of addiction and deceit. Logan is sharing a profound and deeply personal journey through sexual addiction, starting very early, exposed to magazines that were just regular and leading to a series of destructive behaviors that nearly destroyed his marriage and family. I am grateful that he is sharing his story about sexual addiction. We know a lot about mental health with substance abuse. We don't know much about sexual addictions and he mentioned there is a high percentage of individuals that actually go through that too.

Daniela SM : 1:15

This is a subject that maybe many people don't want to talk about. Of course, the story has a happy ending, where Logan is no longer in bondage to sexual addiction and he's able to say these words as the second biggest bless in his life. You may not relate with this episode, as you may never experience anything like that or know of anyone like that. There are so many nuggets, however, of insightfulness to grow or compassion for us humans that I hope you see that too, so let's gain wisdom from his story. Welcome Logan to the show.

Logan Hufford: 1:51

Thanks so much, Daniela.

Daniela SM : 1:52

Yes, I am happy that you're here and that you have a space to share your story. Why do you want to share your story?

Logan Hufford: 1:58

As much as I can't control how somebody receives my story, my goal is that by sharing my story, I can give some hope to somebody that has been in the shoes that I've been in.

Daniela SM : 2:10

Okay, and so when does your story start?

Logan Hufford: 2:13

I mean technically, it starts when I was about nine years old. Just at least give you the 30,000 foot view for right now, and then you can zoom in however you like. Hopelessness, being in a dark place of hopelessness, feeling like there's no way out. That was me for a lot of years, from maybe age 20 to age 25. I was a raging sex addict. I had been addicted to pornography for years, which then that sexual addiction progressed to where then I started acting out. The things that I was viewing with pornography and sexual affairs became the next level to that. And so by the time I got married June 4th 2011, I was 20 years old.

Logan Hufford: 2:56

I cheated on my wife multiple times and that just continued. That just snowballed for several years. We had kids young. We had four boys in five years. So I was an early to mid-20s husband and dad. Continually cheating on my wife, continually looking at pornography, got to the point where I was hiring prostitutes. This whole double life hated myself, hated the things that I was doing. I made those choices. I don't shy away from that. I don't blame anything on. Like you know, it was my addiction. It's like no, I had an addiction, but I made those choices.

Daniela SM : 3:37

But you didn't know it was an addiction, or did you?

Logan Hufford: 3:40

Not in it. No, I mean, it wasn't until I was 25, 26 years old where I actually encountered that verbiage like sexual addiction.

Daniela SM : 3:49

How did that happen? You were reading something or somebody mentioned it.

Logan Hufford: 3:53

Yeah. So after several years of this, and my wife knew I would confess things to her. Every time I would have a sexual affair, I would confess to her because I'd feel so bad about it, I would get it out of my system, I'd get it off my chest. And I want to emphasize that's extremely selfish, yes, and so that's kind of the point. Right, it wasn't to build trust, it wasn't that it was repentance, I wasn't changing my behavior, I just felt bad and so it felt good to vomit it out, and so that's what I would do.

Logan Hufford: 4:23

So she knew about affair after affair. She didn't know how to respond. She's a young mom, she's trying to take care of her babies, and so in 2015, she did something that she'd never done before and she gave me an ultimatum and said if you do not get serious help, you will lose me and the boys. And I believed her, absolutely believed that she meant that. So we did a little bit of research summer of 2015,. Believed that she meant that. So we did a little bit of research summer of 2015,.

Logan Hufford: 4:48

Did a little bit of research on sexual addiction and she, I remember she found this website that had a test Are you a sex addict. She's like I want you to take that test. I passed that test with flying colors and then we found, like some, some groups and things, and that was the first moment where the possibility of I'm a sexual addict, I'm a sex addict, did that cross my mind. If you'd asked me, when I was 22 years old, let's say I don't know if I ever had heard that term before, but I would have thought like, okay, a sexually addicted person, a sex addict, that's a guy on like a FBI watch list, that's a guy, you know, some greasy dude in his basement, you know, that's, that's one of those, that's one of these, these real, these real weird, creepy people.

Logan Hufford: 5:30

Well, I absolutely was somebody who was driven by impulses, by selfish motivations. I was a predator, I mean, I was just this sociopathic monster and I trained myself to chase whatever was new and different and that you know, that was with pornography, that was with my interactions with other people, and it was. It was absolutely an addiction. But again, I I didn't yeah, didn't think of it in those terms when I was actively in it. It wasn't until I actually found some resources that that terminology even made sense to me.

Daniela SM : 6:09

And you were not addicted to anything else alcohol, drugs, nothing like that.

Logan Hufford: 6:13

There were definitely other addictions, not nearly to the level of sex addiction. I smoked for several years, but I don't even know that that was an addiction. It was pretty much siloed socially where I would smoke if I was drinking or if I was at work. I never smoked at home. I never smoked around my family. So even though I smoked for several years, I was able to just stop smoking, drank too much, but I don't know that that was an addiction. I actually had a really bad sports gambling addiction and that was throughout this whole time as well. I definitely have an addictive personality where I have to be careful. I mean literally games on my phone, just anything. I have to be careful. Nothing came close to sexual addiction when it came to. I have trained myself and allowed this thing to just drive me.

Daniela SM : 7:01

And why did you say that your story starts at nine years old?

Logan Hufford: 7:16

And why did you say that your story starts at nine years old? I'm taking ownership of where I was at my introduction to pornography. I grew up in a stable, relatively sheltered, really safe, loving home. There was no porn to be had. I'm younger than some. I'm older than some. This is late 90s. There were no iPads. There were no smartphones. It was JCPenney catalogs. I found the swimwear and lingerie in the middle of the giant Christmas catalog. I remember thinking I like how I feel when I see these women wearing lingerie and bikinis. And so again, that's not pornography by any definition that you and I were defined, but for me and how I interacted with it, it was Because I was sexually objectifying these images of these women.

Daniela SM : 8:07

But you just learned that later. Obviously you wouldn't have known that.

Logan Hufford: 8:11

Yeah, I mean in the moment. I mean I liked how I felt and I didn't know how sex worked, I didn't know what masturbation was, I didn't know what to do with myself, I just knew I liked how I felt when I would see these pictures. I felt some shame, I felt like, okay, I feel kind of bad, I shouldn't be. I mean, I definitely like I wasn't doing it out in the open, you know, but even at nine years old it was already starting, and so, you know, before too long I started looking at that same stuff on a computer again. Very rarely would I ever get that opportunity because of the home that I lived in, but when I could I would. And then it was around 13 or 14. That's when I first learned about masturbation and that's when I started looking at hardcore porn videos and that's when it really took it to another level, continued for several years, and then it wasn't until 19 that I started really interacting with other women in person and training myself that way.

Daniela SM : 9:12

Your wife. You met her in high school.

Logan Hufford: 9:14

No, it was shortly after that. We met at the end of 2019. We worked together, so it was about a year year and a half, I guess after we both graduated. We didn't know each other in high school at all, but yeah, we met when we're both 19. And then we got married about a year and a half later. I was 20 and she was 21.

Daniela SM : 9:34

If you knew that you like something new all the time and that you were excited about different things constantly, why would you want to get married?

Logan Hufford: 9:43

Yeah, because to that point my behaviors were basically limited to porn. I absolutely knew I had a problem with porn and I mentioned that to her as, like hey, I, I, I don't like that. I look at porn, you know. But I'm I'm trying to work on it, I think to to a point that was that was honest. Like I, I, I didn't like it and I did want it to go away. I didn't know how the heck to work on it and I wasn't really doing anything concrete and tangible to work on it, but I just in my head I was trying air quotes, right, but to that point I hadn't been cheating on people. I kind of skipped over some stuff.

Logan Hufford: 10:18

I mean, growing up I always was very insecure. I've always. I always felt like I was ugly. I always felt like girls wouldn't like me. I wanted attention from females but I was always very insecure and scared and shy around. I wasn't shy around people in general, but I was always shy around girls like my age. So there were, there were not a lot of external interactions with girls when it came to any anything sexual. I've had my first kiss and that kind of thing and stuff like that, but it was. It was very, very limited.

Logan Hufford: 10:46

So when, when I was dating my wife to that point, basically all of these behaviors were limited to pornography and I'm saying basically because I mean there absolutely were some seeds planted I didn't realize that there was depravity, I didn't realize that there was progression. At this point and I can expand on that, but maybe that makes a little bit of sense In my mind it was like okay, I struggle with porn, but that's it. And then this is such a common lie I didn't realize it at the time. When I get married, well then the porn will just go away, because we'll be married and of course she's in love with me and we'll be having sex. And that's not how it works. It does not make the porn go away.

Daniela SM : 11:24

I can only think about your wife, I mean, and the lack of knowledge, because this is not a subject that people talked about. You know, you hear about addiction with alcohol and drugs, and now we are a little bit more aware of what is going on, but in your case that is a bit different. So what happened? So you decided to work on it, you got an ultimatum and then how was the discovery? To realize, okay, I have an addiction, and also how bad could have gotten? How far have you heard of anybody that has gotten worse than you? What happens? Destroy marriages, I assume, and what else?

Logan Hufford: 12:03

else. So the last thing that you asked about you know how, how bad could it have gotten? You know other other experiences, other things I know about. There's a lot there and I want to unpack that, but I'll I'll respond to the. I guess the the first part, uh, in terms of you know. So, when I got the ultimatum finding recovery what what that looked like, because that was a journey in and of itself. I got an ultimatum finding recovery what that looked like, cause that was a journey in and of itself. I got an ultimatum from my wife at the end of July of 2015. My sobriety date is May 19th 2016.

Logan Hufford: 12:34

So there's almost a year where I still was not sober. I was still in hindsight, I still basically playing around with it, like I wasn't taking things seriously. I thought I was and to some extent I think she you know she probably was. I'm not saying this was healthy, but I think to some extent she was probably happy that I was making any efforts at all, even though they weren't very full bodied. So like I had started to go to some groups, I'd started to open myself up to to people for help, like I had four months at one point of sobriety, from July to November of 2015. I had four months of sobriety but I wasn't. There was no healing, there was no recovery. It was just white knuckling and not acting out, but I wasn't changing up the infrastructure of my life. Uh, I didn't have any real accountability, and so I remember very vividly November of 2015,. I had a bad day at work, went off into the bathroom, masturbated pornography and it was like just right back, right back there. I never had sex with another woman after after that point. But I continually struggled with porn for the next several months and there were definitely points where, you know, sexually inappropriate conversations with women and, and you know that kind of thing put myself in really, really bad spots. Thankfully did not go even further than that. But you know cause I?

Logan Hufford: 13:58

I've been asked like, well, your wife gave you an ultimatum in July, like, so why? Why didn't she just leave you between July and May of 16? And and she completely could have. Um, we were still I'm saying we, I mean I was still learning. She was still learning, like what it even looked like to be healthy, right, and how to respond in a healthy way. Just because she gave me an ultimatum. It wasn't like a toggle switch just got flipped and now suddenly she's the. You know, she knows exactly what to do in every situation. And now suddenly I'm this perfectly no, no, no, it was a journey, um, but what the ultimatum did is it. It did, um, it lit a fire, it? It? It showed me.

Logan Hufford: 14:38

I. If I'm going to keep doing this stuff, there are, there will be some very real consequences, which I I understood that theoretically, but I always felt like I can play with fire and I'm not going to get burned, and I mean that manifested in all kinds of areas in life. For me, that's just how I interacted with life was I can play with fire and not get burned. And so when she gave me that ultimatum, I was like, okay, at least my wife and my kids, I'm going to lose that if I don't make some efforts. But, like I said, so those efforts were limited.

Logan Hufford: 15:12

The healing was very limited until it was in March of 2016 was the first time that I actually have some hope, and what that looks like was I had met a guy named Rick at a celebrate recovery, so it's a Christian 12 step recovery group and there was there was some really good elements to this group and things that I really appreciate.

Logan Hufford: 15:34

You know, to this day, every group is different, but it was a little bit surfacy in the sense that I could come and I could share how I was doing, or I could share my story and I would get a lot of encouragement, and that's good. I needed a safe space. I didn't need a comfort zone, and it was kind of a comfort zone I could share. I would get encouragement. I would get guys to kind of pat me on the back and like, hey, man, we're glad you're here, glad you're working on it. But if, if I had had a bad week filled with like bad decisions, nobody was calling me out, nobody was like dude, what are you doing? And to some extent and this is true in most recovery groups, not all in most recovery groups you're usually not really allowed to do that because they want it to be a safe space and so people aren't really allowed to to grill each other a little bit.

Daniela SM : 16:16

That's the question that I have for you. Because you go to these groups, are you mixed with drugs and alcohol? So they're all together.

Logan Hufford: 16:24

It's just addictions, it's just a pool of guys.

Daniela SM : 16:26

But I feel like it's true you can share, but personally I would like to know how to get help. Just sharing and saying you're here good for you doesn't really help. Handsome people's personality, for sure.

Logan Hufford: 16:40

Yeah, but most of this story is us living in Wasilla. I was working in Anchorage, all my behaviors were in Anchorage. I mean, that's a whole. Other thing is the geography of addiction is often a very real thing. I had these geographical boundaries of I'm going to keep my addiction to Anchorage, where I work. I'm not going keep my addiction to Anchorage, which where I work. I'm not going to bring it with me home to Wasilla. Okay, that makes sense. That's good strategy. Yeah, I mean. Yeah, I was. I worked very hard, you know, to protect it and protect myself and all this. Yeah, I like I went to an SAA group, a sex addicts, anonymous.

Logan Hufford: 17:15

I went to that for a few months, and that's where I had, like, I had four months of sobriety, but no healing, no, no transformation. That was an Anchorage. Celebrate recovery was in Wasilla, and so celebrate recovery again. It didn't. In and of itself, there was not a lot of. There was no healing or transformation there for me and I'm not I'm not blaming the group, like I, you know, I was not taking things very seriously, but what?

Logan Hufford: 17:41

What did happen, though, was God introduced me to a man, rick, and he what? He was the only other guy out of this whole group that was not there for substance and he he and I were both there for sexual addiction recovery. I mean he was there giving back Essentially he had I don't know eight years of of sobriety and recovery. And mean he was there giving back essentially he had I don't know eight years of sobriety recovery. And he was like Logan, I'm glad you're here, just like the other guys that said he's like I'm glad you're here, but you need something more than this. He's like, given your story, you need something more. I needed something more. And so he told me about this group called prodigals and he's and at that at that time it was only there was a group in Anchorage and that was it. He was like this group was the, it was. I did a program with them. It was the hardest thing I've ever done, but it's what I needed. He's like you don't need something lightweight, you need something heavy duty.

Daniela SM : 18:25

But he was in your group before that. He was, he was, he was passing by. How did that happen?

Logan Hufford: 18:30

So he, because he lived in Wasilla and so he and his wife attended the Celebrate Recovery he had found his healing not in Celebrate Recovery, he had found his healing in this prodigals group. So and that's where, like, I'm always thankful for Celebrate Recovery, not necessarily because of anything that I did with it, but because I met him there and so I still kept him at arm's length for a couple months where I'm like like that sounds really hard, that sounds like I don't want hard work, no-transcript. But they were, these were, these were good guys, like, these were just guys that you could just tell were had experienced a lot of healing and in most cases not all, but in most cases they had transformed marriages, they had restored marriages. So there's a prodigals group for men struggling with sexual addiction, but there's also a group partners in process for women that had been abused, with sexual betrayal trauma, for a woman that had suffered that from her spouse, who became my rent mentor, rick. He mentored me for two years in a basically a voluntary house arrest program where I had a lot of freedom stripped away. I had to. I mean it was a lot of hard work and but he always reminded me he was like you're. You're going to lose a lot of freedoms for the next couple of years so that you can have true freedom for the rest of your life, and I mean that's absolutely been given to me. His wife, Patty, became my wife's mentor and partners in process and helping my wife to heal from all the sexual betrayal trauma.

Logan Hufford: 20:26

You know, having a husband who for years I had been, you know, cheating on her both with porn and, you know, with women in person been lying, manipulating and gaslighting and just emotionally and verbally abusive. And you know I'm not here to preach, I'm a Christian. I'm not going to hide from that, I mean so I always I thank God, you know, for Rick, I thank God for Patty, I thank God for you know what they introduced us to, because it was so different than anything I'd ever seen. And again, no part of this is to talk down or blame other groups, like people can find healing in, in, in, in different places, and every group is only as strong as you know what they believe in and the people leading them.

Logan Hufford: 21:08

There was something so different about prodigals and and the biggest difference was I was able to look around and see guys that had lives that I wanted and I hadn't, I hadn't really had that before. Like the first group I went to it was, you know, it was led by a guy who I think he had like a year and a half of sobriety, um, but there there was no healing in his marriage and he would tell you that you know that there was no transformation. You know, there were a couple other guys, kind of similar shoes, like me, whereas, like you know, been sober for a few months, maybe six months, and and and this is not talking down those guys, like I'm thankful that they were here, it's good, but but there was nobody that I could look to and go, oh my gosh, your life has been transformed. But when I went to prodigals I, you know I was able to have that where I saw multiple guys, like eight guys, nine guys that had transformed lives, had years of healthy living.

Daniela SM : 22:05

And why do they keep going though? Just because you have to?

Logan Hufford: 22:09

I mean it's twofold Recovery has never left my life. May 19th was eight years of sobriety for me and July will be eight years of recovery for my wife. We have never left recovery. Part of it is for myself. I never want to be outside of a healthy infrastructure. There's other types of healthy infrastructure outside of recovery, but that's the best one I know of, so why would I just leave it? So there's part of it that's for me. But I mean a lot of it is to give back. And so you know these guys that I was able to meet, I mean, yeah, they were there on some level because it was healthy accountability for them, but they were also there to give back, you know, to be there for the new guys like me.

Daniela SM : 22:54

And now you're one of them.

Logan Hufford: 22:57

Yeah, so I lead a prodigal's group that I didn't even start. So my mentor, Rick, he started a prodigal's group out in the Valley shortly after I met him. So he started a satellite out where we live here when I say the Valley, sorry, that includes Wasilla so he started a prodigal's satellite group out here and then he and his wife moved to Washington a couple of years ago. So I took over the men's group and then my wife, Carrie. She now leads the women's group, the partners in process. So yeah, I mean last night I'm sitting in the church where we have the meetings and we were here last night. I'm leading the men's group, she's leading the women's group, but that's why we're here.

Logan Hufford: 23:34

I mean there's talked to a guy last night who we stayed like 30 minutes late. This was his first meeting, he had put it off for several weeks and this guy's different story than me and yet there's a lot of common denominators, right. I mean there's just brokenness in him, brokenness in his wife, brokenness in his marriage, but that's why we do this, because I thank God every day that I met a man like Rick, that I met the people at Prodigals. So whatever I can do, to just give back to try to show people hey, there's a different way to live, there's a way out of that cave. I always think about it like this dark cave that I got myself into and I got myself in there but I didn't know how to get out. I didn't even know if there was a way out.

Daniela SM : 24:18

And this Pro, this protocol group, is just for sex addiction.

Logan Hufford: 24:22

Yes, it's specifically for men struggling with sexual addiction.

Daniela SM : 24:26

And there's no women.

Logan Hufford: 24:27

Correct.

Daniela SM : 24:28

There's no women who have sex addictions.

Logan Hufford: 24:30

That's a really tricky one. I'm not going to speak to it too much just because I don't have the personal expertise, but I just know statistically there's a big chunk of women that struggle with sexual addiction. Depending on what study you look at, it's about seven out of 10 men that struggle with sexual addiction and it's about three out of 10 women. It's a big chunk, yeah.

Daniela SM : 24:51

Wow.

Logan Hufford: 24:52

And there's different ways to quantify struggle with sexual addiction, but I mean, no matter how you slice it, there's a big chunk of people out there that struggle with this. Given the nature of this, I would definitely argue it is ideal that same genders are working with each other. If I'm new to this and I'm struggling with preying on women, probably I shouldn't be mentoring or being mentored by a woman. I would say that that is ideal.

Logan Hufford: 25:14

The group that I first went to I don't go every week or anything, but I still go there every so often, every every couple of months. I try to go in there and again just to meet guys and connect with with old friends and stuff like that. They have tried to start up a group for women struggling with sexual addiction, but it's hard because they're you know they're trying to do it to to give hope to women, but they're also, you know, they want somebody who can lead it, who can do it in a safe manner and who knows what they're talking about, and so it's a tricky thing. I mean, that's a whole other you know ball of whack. Women struggling with sexual addiction yeah.

Daniela SM : 25:49

So when you are addicted to alcohol or drugs, you're not allowed to drink alcohol or, you know, even be close to drugs. What happened when you have a sexual addiction and you have a wife?

Logan Hufford: 25:59

Right Earlier I talked about. If you had asked me when I was like 22 years old four years before I ever got sober like what's a sexual addict, I would have painted this picture of what I thought that was right. Another part of what I would have probably misunderstood is this is not an addiction to sex. It's not an addiction to sexual intercourse or sexual behaviors necessarily. What it is. It is me training myself to chase after the high that I get from giving into the sexual behaviors. For one guy it's going to look one way and for another guy it's going to look a different way.

Logan Hufford: 26:33

My mentor, rick. He had decades of sexual addiction. He never had sex with another woman outside of his wife. It was decades of pornography. If we write out our autobiographies, our stories are very different. I took my addiction in ways he never took his, and yet there was never a moment where he would give me feedback or he would critique me or mentor me. There was never a moment where I was like you don't know where I'm coming from, you don't get me. I knew very quickly. This guy understands where I'm coming from. Our addictions have flowered differently but we're two limbs on the same tree. Our DNA is the same, even if mine manifested in different ways than his manifested.

Logan Hufford: 27:14

I didn't really actually answer your question, so I mean, I feel like that was context, so it's. You know, it's not. It's not an addiction to sex, it's an addiction to impulsively and compulsively chasing after sexual highs Outside of my marriage. Am I chasing anything sexual? So, whether that's inappropriate conversation, whether that's physical contact, whether that's pornography, so all of that is out of bounds, all of that would be breaking sobriety Within the realm of my marriage. There are things I pay attention to. Am I seeking out my own gratification here, or are we being intimate together?

Daniela SM : 27:47

So it's like the high that you get when you just meet somebody versus, you know, already being in a relationship. The things get a bit of a routine. So is that excitement? That is what is the high for you.

Logan Hufford: 28:00

Yeah, I mean that chasing that new and that different, because I mean I would get highs from from different things but when I would have an affair, in a lot of ways that the highs that I was really getting from that was not really even related to the sex, it was getting that text back, it was getting that attention, all of that stuff that I was feeding on, those were really the highs and to some extent I don't even think I even realized how much I was chasing the pursuit, even more than like the final culmination of it.

Daniela SM : 28:33

Yeah, like it would have been good to just stay in a fantasy.

Logan Hufford: 28:36

Yeah, a definition of sexual addiction that I use is this Sexual addiction is, generally speaking, an infrastructure of routines, habits and thought patterns that are destructive. And yet I, if I'm a sex addict, compulsively and impulsively continue to think and act in destructive ways around sex. The spectrum of sexual addiction can vary wildly in how the addiction manifests. Behaviors include, but are not limited to, masturbation, viewing of pornography, inappropriate conversations, inappropriate physical and sexual contact and voyeurism. You, you know, you had asked earlier about, like, where can this go? I'll just say something very quickly.

Logan Hufford: 29:12

And so my, my sexual addiction progressed, I mean in a. In a sense it was kind of like a linear progression. Started with, you know, magazines that wasn't even technically pornography by the world's definition, and then it went to still photos, and then it went to videos and you know, so on and so forth, and then each of those behaviors had their own progressions, like the type of porn that I watched when I was 20 was not the same stuff I watched when I was 13 or 14. The things that I would allow myself to do in terms of my interactions with females and how I would treat them when I was 24 was not the same stuff when I was 19,. All of this progressed and it got deeper and darker. And so, just like my addiction manifested differently than my mentors, other people have manifested differently than mine.

Logan Hufford: 29:56

And it's not a guarantee necessarily that you know, if struggle with porn addiction and you don't stop it, you will for sure do the exact same things that I do. No, not necessarily. There's different reasons why Somebody maybe won't ever actually physically have an affair because they're afraid of getting caught, or because of fear of STDs, because maybe the opportunity is not quite there. There's different reasons, but it's going to progress quite there. There's different reasons, but it's going to progress. I believe very strongly that people that I might be tempted to view as monsters, people that society views as monsters, they didn't get there without going through this journey. That's not to say that every sex addict is going to get to that point. People that are in prison for stuff related to this, they didn't get to that level of depravity without starting where I started, without going through things that I went through. I believe that very strongly. So you asked about where can it go. That's where it can go and where it sometimes does.

Daniela SM : 30:55

And so you will say it's a mental illness.

Logan Hufford: 30:58

I mean yes and no. I'm not going to pretend to like if we're getting like clinical definitions and stuff like that, I'm not sure it's absolutely something that I need healing from, I need to do serious, intensive work on, but it is something that I can't experience. Healing from my behaviors alone, just not even looking at anyone else. I mean the types of things that I did routinely, the types of the way that I lived my life, the ways that I interacted with the world around me, was very depraved, was very toxic that's an understatement Like I was a monster. I was. I was just an absolute sociopath. There should not have been a future for me. That is the life that I live now like, where I can have an incredible marriage with my wife and a friendship with my wife, where there's trust, not in the sense that like, oh, there's a band-aid and we've been sewn up and we've worked through some things. No, there's complete transformation. That doesn't make any sense logically, except without true healing.

Daniela SM : 32:03

Logan, this thing about calling yourself a monster is that something that is part of the healing process? Because I feel like if you had a situation, you had an addiction. This happened to you, so I don't know about the monster part.

Logan Hufford: 32:19

So when I say I was a monster, I mean there are a couple of things there. To me, it's very important that I take ownership for my stuff. The way that I treated the world around me was terrible. It was monstrous, it was evil. I took what I could take from everyone around me. Basically, if you were a female, I would do that.

Logan Hufford: 32:41

But even outside of sexual addiction, I was a manipulative, narcissistic person. That just my ego and my agenda and my way trying to work the room and all that. So there's one part of it is taking extreme ownership over my behaviors and my decisions and I just I don't ever want to minimize what I was absolutely was a sex addict. There was an addiction there. I got myself into this deep dark cave. I was trapped in a deep dark cave. It's also true that I took the steps to get into that cave. Nobody made me an addict. Do I believe that I was born with addictive tendencies? Yes, I do. I was not born a sex addict. I do not believe that I made choices. I took steps to get myself to a point where I found myself trapped in this deep dark cave and not knowing if I could get out of it, not knowing if there was a way out.

Daniela SM : 33:35

What could have been different? Because you know you had a good family. So now you have four boys. How would you avoid that this happens to your kids?

Logan Hufford: 33:43

There's a lot that I can't do, and I have to recognize that, like in all aspects of parenting right, especially with this, it's like I can teach them, I can train them. I can't control what their future is right, I can control what they end up doing. The one thing I can that I really am intentional about trying to do, though, and I would say this is one I had an incredible upbringing in a lot of ways, but there was one thing that wasn't there, and that was vulnerability from my parents. There really wasn't ever vulnerability from my mom or dad. They would teach us, they would train us, they would teach us right from wrong, but there wasn't vulnerability or or stories. Here's why I'm teaching you this, logan. Here's why this matters. I didn't really get that from them, and that's not. I'm not trying to talk them down, it's just it's a factor. So one thing I do really try to do with my boys is, yeah, I want to teach them right and wrong. I want to teach them principles and help them understand things, but I also I share with them, whether it's with this, which is with dishonesty. You know why it matters to tell the truth, why it matters how we treat people, not necessarily. Hey, if you, you know, if you do this, you're going to end up like me. But you know, hey, this was, this was my life, this was, this was how it was for me, and it hurt a lot of people.

Logan Hufford: 34:56

All four of our boys know to some extent our story. My eight-year-old doesn't. He doesn't know all the same stuff that our 12-year-old does, but they all know when we go to recovery on Monday nights, like they used to well, they still usually will call it night church because we go to the same church building that we go to church on Sunday mornings, but they know it's recovery. We go there for recovery. They know that since 2016,. We've been going, you know, to work on our own healing and they know that we go now primarily to give back. You know, to help others.

Logan Hufford: 35:27

There's a long way of saying you try to be vulnerable and I just try to keep that conversation open so that you're going to make mistakes. There's going to be things that happen where you, you hurt someone or you do something wrong, but we can always talk about it. Tell my son, my oldest son, all the time like you can make decisions, that that absolutely would have consequences, like you could make choices that would hurt people, that could have consequences. That would not make me not love you, that would not make me reject you. Anything you could do, anything you could possibly do, I will still love you. I will still talk with you about things whatever, whether that's giant, big stakes or small stakes, you know.

Daniela SM : 36:07

Yeah, I won't stop loving you, but I may not like you.

Logan Hufford: 36:11

Yeah, yeah, I mean I know people felt that way about me, some of the ways I live.

Daniela SM : 36:15

Yes, and what about your family? Were they affected in any way you know, until you discover what your addiction was?

Logan Hufford: 36:24

In terms of the family I was born into.

Daniela SM : 36:26

Yes, yeah, yeah, your parents and siblings.

Logan Hufford: 36:29

It took time to build trust, for sure, because I mean I kind of alluded to this but I was a liar. I used deceit and manipulation just throughout life Cheating in school, sneaking treats as a little kid, I mean just everything. I would do what I had to do to get my way being emotionally manipulative. So there was definitely trust to be rebuilt with my sisters, with my oldest brother for sure. Yeah, I mean with my mom. I mean that's a whole other podcast. I mean I had a terrible relationship with my mom all throughout childhood, especially in high school years. I truly had hatred for her. One of the many blessings that has been given to me over the years is having a completely different relationship with her, and that's, I mean, that's really there's some connection, obviously, but it's a totally different thing. But it's just, you know, becoming a healthier person, and so I have a great relationship with her now. But it took a lot of time to rebuild trust with my family.

Daniela SM : 37:24

Okay, you said that when you were younger, you were not confident and you didn't think that you were attractive. However, you developed this, getting your way manipulation. When did you switch from being like oh, I'm not confident, I'm not cool. Certainly I am deceiving and a liar and manipulating people?

Logan Hufford: 37:49

The manipulation and deceit getting my way. That was almost always there. I mean, I learned really quick how to get my way and this might be kind of a goofy analogy, but it makes sense to me. Hopefully it'll make sense In some ways. It's almost like if you're watching a movie where there's like the cool con man, he can always get his way, he can always get what he wants, but then you see the scene where he's like it's by himself and he doesn't enjoy life, he doesn't enjoy what he's doing. He looks like he's got this, that and the other and he can always get what he wants, but internally that's not fixing anything.

Logan Hufford: 38:13

So it wasn't until I was in my late teens, early adulthood, that I started. Oh, I can charm a girl, I can, you know, get what I want there. But I mean, even as a little kid I remember and I'm not saying that like being charming is always a bad thing I took it to an extreme level. But just, you know, being charming and being emotionally manipulative and that kind of thing I mean that was there when I was seven, eight, nine years old.

Daniela SM : 38:40

Wow, that's fascinating, super interesting.

Logan Hufford: 38:43

You know being the youngest, so I wanted the attention right and I knew I I'm either going to have to be louder or funnier or more charming to get people to talk with me or engage with me or what have you. On one hand, I don't want to like demonize, you know being being charming as a kid, like it's not necessarily going to point to something, like you're going to have a sexual addiction, but I do think it is something that it can. It can definitely manifest in an ugly way if it's just completely left unchecked. Yes, I didn't even get into this, but the whole time when I was active in my sexual addiction, almost the entire time, I was a car salesman. I was really good at my job, not because I knew the most about cars or because I had the best sales tactics. It was because I could charm people, I could connect with people and get people to open up to me.

Logan Hufford: 39:32

It wasn't like a fake thing. I mean. I've always cared about people. I've always enjoyed talking with people and getting to know different people. It didn't necessarily have anything to do with sex, I mean. I enjoyed talking with people and getting to know different people. It didn't necessarily have anything to do with sex. I mean, I enjoyed talking to an 80 year old couple from a little town, like I enjoyed talking with them, I enjoyed connecting with them. But if there was somebody that I viewed as somebody that you know was attractive, that I wanted to chase after, well then I would. I would do those same things, but it would malicious intent, essentially.

Daniela SM : 40:01

Yes, I mean. Charming is you can see that you can get things with the charm. So, like every talent that you have, you can use it for bad or for good.

Logan Hufford: 40:10

Right, exactly.

Daniela SM : 40:11

So, now that you are sharing your story, which your group is now sharing their stories, amongst the outside population, right, how did you get inspired about doing this?

Logan Hufford: 40:21

There's a few things going on there. It's been a couple of years now that I have had this fire in my belly and I've had different ideas about what it would look like. Almost two years ago it was at the end of summer 2022, I just started having this fire in my belly of, like how can I connect with other people? How can I just share what God has given me, what I have been given, this gift of recovery? How can I connect with other people? Like, how can I just share what, what God has given me, what I have been given, this gift of recovery? How can I share that with more people? So there've been some things within the group as far as you know. You know just putting it out there within the community and stuff, and so people don't know hey, you can come to this group. Like, this is a group that's available. But then just thinking about other things with connecting with people on a larger global scale, just like, what can I do to share this light?

Logan Hufford: 41:06

And I think, especially with sexual addiction, because there can be so much shame, we're talking about some dark stuff. There can be a tendency to hide recovery under a bushel, where it's like I cherish my recovery. I'm thankful for it, but this is my recovery. My recovery, I'm thankful for it, but it's, this is my recovery and I don't want to like put it out there because you know there's guilt and there's shame and I don't want you know. People to, you know, think of me a certain way and so I'm just, I'm thankful that I'm sober, but like I'm going to keep it under a bushel. I understand that thinking. Maybe if somebody has a certain type of job shoot I mean, if somebody was a elementary teacher and they had my story, like yeah, they probably wouldn't want to put it out there.

Logan Hufford: 41:45

I have this, this passion now for a couple of years, going whatever I can do to put this out there, not not my story, but but what God has done through my life, through my wife's life, through our marriage, through a lot of people all around me. It's an amazing gift that, again, when I was going full circle, the very first question you asked me right, like, why do I want to share my story? It's because, as much as I was responsible for my choices, I also remember what it was like to be a 23, 24, 25 year old dad, wanting nothing more than to have never been created because I hated my life. I hated the fact that God created me. I hated the fact. I mean these words with all sincerity. I hated the fact that I was a dad, not because I hated my kids, I hated the fact that they had me. That's a dark place to live in and I didn't think that there was healing. I didn't think there was hope for me.

Logan Hufford: 42:32

So whatever I can do to put the fact that recovery exists, even from the stuff that I did if I can put that in front of anyone I want to do it Specifically with podcasts. It's something that's come about just in the last maybe like six, six, seven months, cause I've thought about writing a book and putting together, you know, courses or something like, and maybe something like that could still come to fruition. But I also can struggle with perfectionism and so it's like would I ever actually finish it with podcasts? Like, hey, let me just jump in. Let me just jump in and start doing it, get better as time goes on and get better at sharing my story and doing podcasts, and started an Instagram page just putting content out there just again to try to give any hope to anybody that might see it.

Daniela SM : 43:17

Yes, and Logan you mentioned, would you have listened if you were 23 and you would have met Rick.

Logan Hufford: 43:24

I mean that's like the age-old question, right? It's like if all of these things had happened at 22, 23, I don't know, and I mean I've thought about that and I don't know the answer to that Like maybe I wouldn't have felt enough pain. I don't know.

Daniela SM : 43:41

Yes, yes, interesting, interesting. And so now you have your Instagram account, which you please say the name.

Logan Hufford: 43:48

It's at no longer in bondage. So it's periods in between the words of no period, longer period in period bondage. I mean I cherish those words because I mean we spent a lot of time talking about sexual addiction, feeling trapped right and feeling in that dark place. People have asked like so are you healed now? Like you're fixed now, and I don't like that verbiage. I don't get too hung up on labels, but I don't love that, as if it's like it couldn't ever come back.

Logan Hufford: 44:16

If I chose to pursue it, it absolutely would come back. I would be feeding this beast that's locked away, that's thrown under lock and key kind of thing. But I'm not trapped anymore, I don't have to live that way anymore. I legitimately thought that I couldn't live any other way. This is just who I am for the rest of my life. So that's why I chose those words it's at no longer in bondage. And yeah, folks can follow. For content hopefully some hope and some inspiration. And also, if you don't, if you have a question and you want to reach out to me and you can shoot me a message on there not going to promise that I can. You know I I'm the one who's going to walk with you for the rest of your life, but I can point you in the right direction, hopefully, and help talk with you about resources that are available.

Daniela SM : 44:59

Yes, you're very brave. I enjoyed and appreciate the story. You taught me something that I didn't know, never heard it before. I am certain that you will help people, one person at a time, and that's amazing. So thank you so much for being so vulnerable and sharing this with us and with me.

Logan Hufford: 45:16

Absolutely. Thank you so much, Daniela. Thank you.

Daniela SM : 45:19

I hope you enjoyed today's episode. I am Daniela and you are listening to, because Everyone has a Story. Please take five seconds right now and think of somebody in your life that may enjoy what you just heard, or someone that has a story to be shared and preserved. When you think of that person, shoot them a text with the link of this podcast. This will allow the ordinary magic to go further. Join me next time for another story conversation. Thank you for listening. Hasta pronto. Thank you, thank you.