Facing the Beast - Overcoming Addictions Dark Hold with Logan Hufford

Addiction lurks in the shadows of many men's lives, creating a double existence filled with shame, self-hatred, and broken relationships. In this raw and revealing conversation, Logan Hufford bravely shares his journey through the depths of sex addiction – a struggle that nearly destroyed his marriage and his sense of self-worth despite coming from a loving, supportive family.

"There was never a day in my life where I didn't feel loved. There was never a day in my life where I didn't feel safe," Logan explains, shattering the common misconception that addiction only afflicts those from troubled backgrounds. His testimony provides a crucial reminder that addiction doesn't discriminate – it can ensnare anyone, regardless of upbringing or circumstances.

Logan doesn't shy away from the neurological realities of addiction, explaining how his limbic system began overriding his rational brain. "I'm responsible for my choices, but it also becomes harder and harder to make a healthy choice the further I get into addiction," he shares. This balance of personal responsibility and understanding the brain science of addiction offers a refreshing perspective for both addicts and those supporting them.

The road to recovery Logan describes isn't quick or easy. Sexual addiction specifically requires "four to six years of sobriety and active recovery" before relapse becomes unlikely. Through daily accountability calls, transparent technology use, and learning to "shut up and listen" to feedback, Logan gradually rebuilt trust with his wife Carrie and found freedom from his addiction. Now nine years sober, he works helping other men find their way out of addiction's grip.

For families supporting someone with addiction, Logan offers perhaps the most powerful insight of all: "You can't drag anyone to recovery, but you play a huge part in their lives when they're ready to seek healthy living." Whether you're battling addiction yourself or supporting someone who is, this episode provides both practical tools and the hope that true transformation is possible.

Key moments in this episode:

02:54 Logan Huffer's Story: From Darkness to Redemption

07:52 Childhood and the Roots of Addiction

10:14 Advice for Families of Addicts

16:01 The Non-Linear Journey of Recovery

23:21 Rebuilding Trust: Marriage and Family

29:23 Life Today: Family, Recovery, and Mentorship

35:58 Final Thoughts and Parting Message

Chapters

• 0:18 Journey Through Addiction's Shadows
• 5:17 Logan's Story of Sex Addiction
• 10:20 The Reality of Living with Shame
• 19:47 Building Trust After Betrayal
• 27:21 Recovery Tools and Daily Practices
• 32:04 Creating a Support System for Healing
• 38:13 Final Wisdom for Families of Addicts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

No, today we're going to embark on a journey through the shadows, exploring a topic that many men grapple with in silence. It's the topic of addiction, and addiction is a relentless beast that can tear lives apart and leave devastation in its wake, and it doesn't discriminate, but it doesn't show any mercy and can consume even the strongest among us. And so join us today as we're going to dive into the depths of addiction, exploring the struggles, the triumphs and the hope that lies on the other side. And, through my guest stories, we're going to uncover the resilience not only of the human spirit, but also the possibility of what redemption looks like in the face of adversity. And before we get into today's episode, let's come to grips about.

Speaker 1: 0:41

Another thing is that inevitably, there will come a time when we will hit a wall, and whether that's a marriage that's not working, or a career or business that's stagnated, or maybe your personal life is just flatline. So if you're dealing with any of these, or a combination of them, and you're finally fed up with where your life's at, then allow me to help you get clear about what needs to get done and how to go about doing that, so you can live a life where you were meant to live. Just go to theawakenedmannet and download our free setting, the compass exercise. Let's get started today With that. Let's get on with today's episode.

Speaker 2: 1:21

The average man today is sleepwalking through life, many never reaching their true potential, let alone ever crossing the finish line to living a purposeful life. Yet the hunger still exists, albeit buried amidst his cluttered mind, misguided beliefs and values that no longer serve him. It's time to align yourself for greatness. It's time to become a revolutionary man. Stay strong, my brother.

Speaker 1: 1:50

Welcome everyone to the Revolutionary man Podcast. I'm the founder of the Awakened man Movement and your host, alan DeMont. So do you struggle silently with addiction and are you even at the point of admitting that you might have a problem? When addiction is present, it can become very affected in all parts of our life. It's a journey not only of hope and anger, frustration, and it bears the soul of everyone that's involved in it, as each player has to reveal to themselves the part and the impact that they're having on the decisions that are being made. Once these decisions are painless, and regardless of whether you are reigning in that fight or if you're going to choose to play the scars that remain on all of us, then you need to make a different decision. So how do we go about surviving as addicts, how do we salvage our lives and how do we repair relationships? So these are just some of the questions we're going to dive into today's conversation. So allow me to introduce my guest.

Speaker 1: 2:54

Today I have the privilege of sharing the story of Logan Hufford, a man who battled the grip of addiction and emerged victorious. He was born and raised in breathtaking landscapes of Alaska. Emerged victorious. He was born and raised in breathtaking landscapes of Alaska, and I can say that is for sure, I've been out there only once. Just gorgeous part of this world, and Logan's life is deemed seemed to be totally idyllic when you think about it on the surface. Yet beneath that veneer of all the normalcy lurked a painful struggle. It was a battle of sex addiction that created and threatened to unravel everything that he held so close to himself, and for years, logan found himself ensnared in a cycle of destruction, his marriage and his very existence hanging by a thread. And by 2016, the glimmer of hope had finally emerged, and it was through the grace of God that the journey of recovery that Logan found redemption. So today he stands as that testament of the power of resilience, faith and a transformative journey of recovery. Welcome to the show, logan. How are things, my friend?

Speaker 3: 3:59

Things are good. I mean that you can hear my voice. I'm not feeling very well, but I was not about to let this, this interview, go by the wayside. You and I have had the toughest time. I've done about a hundred interviews this year and we've no one has had a tougher time with getting our schedules together than you and me, and I'm like we're going to do this thing, but truly to be able to say, yeah, I'm doing well. I woke up this morning, spent time with my boys, spent time with my wife. I'm here. I'm going to go home later and spend time with my family and throughout it all. Life's not perfect, but I don't have shame. I don't have a double life. I can make mistakes and know that I had healthy intentions. I'm not secretly living in darkness, so life is good.

Speaker 1: 4:53

Oh, that's awesome to hear brother like to hear. That's this I start for our show today, and so, while we're going to talk a little, we're going to talk, obviously, and touch on the idea of what it's like to be wrapped, grappling with the, with addiction. We're not necessarily going to spend much time in the nitty-gritty, and of that it's more about you, the man, and how that transformative, that transformation, actually happens. So I'd like to start by asking, while I tease them, our audience, a little bit about what you've gone through. Tell us about, though, the time, that darkest time in your life, when you knew things just needed to change, and what did you do about that, and how did that shape you into the man you are today?

Speaker 3: 5:31

yeah, the darkest season of my life really would be once I was married, once that threshold had been crossed, because, like I, my addiction and my unhealthy behaviors, addiction to pornography, chasing after attention from women those things had started before I got married. But once I was married and I didn't stop, that's because I thought that I would stop. I thought that, okay, I'm like not making good decisions, I'm sowing my wild oats or whatever, but I'm not going to do that once I'm married, like that'd be crazy. And then I kept doing it. And then, pretty quickly, we got pregnant with our oldest, elijah. We had Elijah 11 months after we got married.

Speaker 3: 6:17

So within a couple months of marriage, I got a pregnant wife, I've got my boy on the way and I've already hired a prostitute. I've already, I've continually had affairs. I'm still struggling with pornography and it's only getting worse. And from that point on the next five years, it was a season, a five-year season of self-hatred. A five-year season of self-hatred, despair, complete hopelessness. I the entire time I believed in the existence of god, but it was like, obviously I'm not cut out to be part of god's family, to be a christian because I just keep screwing up, I keep doing all this evil.

Speaker 3: 7:01

That's not. It's not for me, obviously. It was just this whole wishing that God had never created me, wishing that Carrie had a different man for a husband, wishing that those boys you know could have possibly had a different man for their dad. And that's such a dark place to live, but that's where I lived for a lot of years.

Speaker 1: 7:24

Man, that's so painful. Just listening to that and hearing you go through that struggle and continue to work through that struggle it's. I think it's something that we don't ever totally fully overcome, necessarily. I think it's. There's always those scars that are left with us, as we talked about in the intro, coming into the, coming into this episode, but and yet you still had enough of a glimmer of hope to turn towards your faith, to help lift you from the place you're at. And so when you think back about how this addiction started, let's go back into childhood. Do you think were there any things that were happening in childhood that pushed you towards that or drawn you towards this type of this type of lifestyle?

Speaker 3: 8:10

Yeah, this is something that I have looked at so many times, whether it's through interviews like this, obviously, in my recovery work we did deep therapeutic work in the recovery program and the short answer is not really there's no perfect life, there's no perfect childhood. But, like, my childhood was a childhood where two statements that are very these are very powerful statements I look I know now, and yet these were both true. There was never a day in my life where I didn't feel loved. There was never a day in my life where I didn't feel safe. Like I realize now, most people cannot make those statements about their childhood, and yet I honestly can. And yet I still got into addiction. I still chased after more and different and more perverse, and I chased after sin. I chased after the highs. The dopamine hits, hits, all these things I, you know what.

Speaker 1: 9:13

I just want to touch a little bit on that. Thank you so much for bringing that, this point forward for us today. What you're, what? I don't want anybody listening to this episode thinking that for someone to be have an addiction, an addiction means that they came from a broken family, there was stuff that wasn't working at home.

Speaker 1: 9:32

This can happen and does happen to any of us all of us and so it's really important that we understand that when we're talking about addiction, that it isn't that there was something going wrong necessarily, but the challenge is that we have it's things that are within us, that are inside of us. That needs some nurturing and some work. And one of the things that you know, having dealt with that in my life and in my family, my oldest son is an addict. He struggles with making healthy decisions around drugs and alcohol and is in and out of incarceration, and he's been like that since he was 16. So right through juvenile and he's in his early 30s now and, as the parent or as a spouse, what do you think is going on for them and how do you think that, as that person now who's obviously involved deeply in the lives, what advice do you give for those folks that are struggling when they may have someone who's a family member, who's an addict?

Speaker 3: 10:36

In the family of an addict. On one hand, you know, maybe I'll never know, but at the same time I get glimpses of what that looks like the struggle with codependency, the struggle with wanting to fix that kind of thing. I'm sure there's tons of common denominators between being the spouse of an addict and being the parent of an addict, Although there's definitely some strong differences too. And I'll share a little bit from my wife Carrie's perspective, and everything I'll share from her perspective is straight from her mouth. None of this is speculation or guesswork. This is all stuff that she would actively share in her testimony.

Speaker 3: 11:07

For a long time, especially with my specific addiction, it wasn't just that I was choosing drugs over my family, choosing alcohol over my family. I'm choosing another woman to have sex with. That's a very strong addiction and betrayal and abandonment of family. And so she for years thought that I was choosing my addiction, choosing pornography and other women, because she wasn't enough, because she must need to give me something different or give me something more. She needs to probably look different or be more available. She thought those things because that would be a logical assumption, right, and that was a giant part of recovery for both of us, but especially for her, is recognizing. No, it wasn't about she's not enough or that I didn't love her, that she wasn't attractive. It's. I trained myself to chase after new and different and more. And Carrie can't be that. She can only be herself for a spouse, especially with sexual addiction. But I, honestly, I I would imagine this part is speculation, but I would imagine that those same principles are at play with other addictions.

Speaker 3: 12:18

Somebody that's an alcoholic. It's not that the taste of alcohol tastes better than any other liquid. It's not that a drug addict, that being high is their favorite thing in the world. Now, there definitely are people where those the taste of alcohol or the feeling of being high it, but there's plenty of people where it's gone way past that point. It's not about enjoyment, it's about this is how I live life. It wasn't. Oh, I need to find someone who is, who makes me feel better than Carrie, makes me feel it had nothing to do with that, it was. I'm chasing after these hits, these highs, and the darker, the more forbidden, the more risky the behavior is, the bigger, the high I get.

Speaker 3: 13:06

It wasn't that somebody was better than Carrie. That's a huge part of it. Is just recognizing. It's not a logical, it's not a math equation this plus this equals this. No, it's not that at all. I'd gotten myself to a point where my limbic system was that was the overriding driver of my behavior. You know, not my thinking brain Prefrontal cortex was back there sleeping. It was my limbic system running things.

Speaker 3: 13:31

And that's not to give me an excuse, that's not to say that I didn't know what I was doing or that it was my addiction that was choosing things. No, not at all. I fully reject that. I chose my decisions. But it is also true that the further I got into my addiction, the harder it became to make healthy choices. Yes, and that is that's a balance that I always hope that people can understand, especially folks outside of the addiction world is both of those.

Speaker 3: 13:59

Things are true, I'm responsible for my choices, but it also becomes harder and harder to make a healthy choice. The further I get into addiction because I'm responsible for my choices, but it also becomes harder and harder to make a healthy choice, the further I get into addiction, because I'm literally wiring my brain. I'm re wiring my brain in a very dark and corrupt way, and that's not like a metaphor. That's that, literally, is happening. My neural pathways are getting changed and I can come back from that, and that's a beautiful part about recovery is that I can come back from that. But that's a beautiful part about recovery is that I can come back from that. But it's not going to be easy. It's not. There's no toggle switch that I can just flip off and go okay, now I'm healthy again. It's going to take years of work. Sexual addiction specifically, it's four to six years. I think is the range of four to six years of sobriety and active recovery is usually what it's going to take before somebody is unlikely to relapse.

Speaker 1: 14:48

That's a lot of, that's a long time and a lot of work, and so it takes a strong foundation to be able to do that work in, and so I'm really grateful to hear that you have that for you, because a lot of times that doesn't always exist for folks, and so it's important for all of us to understand.

Speaker 1: 15:07

I'm glad that you're making the comment that two things can be true at the same time, and because it is important to understand that when your limbic system starts to take over and starts making decisions, it's become something that it's much more challenging, and it is not a simple one plus one math equation. It's incredibly complex equation, really that you're trying to that you're trying to work through and understand, and you I know that said that the definition of addiction is something that I can quit on my own, but then you were talked about. That doesn't always mean that you're necessarily going to take responsibility for choices, but but you have been taking responsibility, you've been making that really clear in this and that every time that there's a step forward, there might be a bit of a relapse and then there's some more steps forward and then it comes back. So the journey is never a straight line, talk a little bit about some of those challenges that you've been, that you faced, and what were some of some strategies that you used to help you keep yourself on the straight and narrow.

Speaker 3: 16:12

Yeah, the nonlinear aspect of it is a huge part of it. And on one hand, I do see a little bit of the narrative sometimes, like on Instagram or in some resources for addiction that where it's like, hey, relapse is just part of the journey, relapse is just part of recovery. And on one hand, I don't want to like attack somebody just based on a meme that I saw, but there there is a narrative out there that kind of says that and I push back on that Relapse is not part of recovery, relapse is not a an okay thing. If it happens, then, yeah, the best thing I can do is jump back on the horse, jump back into group, jump back into conversation with mentors and sponsors and work and keep working on myself, as opposed to oh crap, I relapsed, I'm just the same old me, I'm no different, I'm never going to be healthy. So, yeah, relapse is not an excuse to give up, but I do need to come to a point where I see relapse as an avoidable thing that I don't need to ever do again, and that's a far cry from relapse as a part of recovery. Now, unhealthy choices. I think it's safe to say that unhealthy choices are just going to be a part of life. Again, not that they're okay, but I'm going to make unhealthy choices. But here's the thing the unhealthy choices that I have made and that I will make, the fallout from those choices, the consequences from those choices Should decrease over time. Those choices should decrease over time and then the frequency between how often am I making those unhealthy choices should also that should increase, right, in terms of between unhealthy choices.

Speaker 3: 17:58

An example the first year of recovery, the first year of sobriety, of not acting out. So no porn, no sexual behavior with other women, no masturbation that first year I made some terrible choices and I put myself right up to the point of acting out. I remember one time I wanted to look up some artist or some song and I this was absolutely the MO of how I used to do things where I'd go down a rabbit trail. Maybe it didn't start out that I was looking for something bad, but then pretty quickly, I'm seeing something and I'm, and so eventually it got to the point where, within maybe a minute of, I'm trying to find a song. I'm looking at, like Google, images of album covers, but it's a bunch of scantily clad women, not the kind of stuff I should be looking at, and I don't remember if it was three seconds of looking at that or 30 seconds. But you know, within a matter of some seconds I'm like, oh, this is not good, I need to stop doing this. And I clicked off it and I did report that to my mentor. That's a that's pretty extreme. That's right up there with some people would even classify that as okay. I, hey, we're going to chalk that up as you were looking at porn. So that was an unhealthy choice I made within that first year. It's been a long time since I've done something like that, but I still make unhealthy choices. You know if I, if a pop-up ad comes up and I click off of it, but before I click off of it I double take it that ad for just a quarter second and then I click off it, that's still an unhealthy choice. And so the types of choices I make, I should be making less and less of them over time and I shouldn't be doing the same stuff, same thing, with anger. I get angry still, but it's I'm not lashing out. I'm not acting out in rage the way that I used to several years ago.

Speaker 3: 19:43

You asked about tools, some of the things I can do to own this stuff and to work on this stuff. The number one tool that I used in recovery was required of me because I was in basically a voluntary house arrest program. I had a lot of autonomy stripped away from me. I had to make a phone call every single day, and not a phone call that was just like to my mom or to my friend or to my brother-in-law Not that there's anything wrong with that. This had to be a phone call that was just like to my mom or to my friend or to my brother-in-law not that there's anything wrong with that. This had to be a phone call that was outgoing. So it's not you calling me to check up, it's me taking the initiative to call a recovery brother, a brother or a sponsor mentor, specifically in the recovery, to check in with how my day has been.

Speaker 3: 20:24

Now there's other ways that I can do that. It doesn't have to be on a phone call, but anything that I can do to download, to take all the stressor, not just sexual temptations, but all the stressors, all the frustrations, all the things I'm struggling with, all the types of things that in the past I've had trouble coping with and I just put it out there and bad decisions that I've made, temptations to make bad decisions. So I'm not talking about the football game on Monday night. I'm not talking about exciting weekend plans. I'm talking about the garbage that I struggle with Right and I'm owning my part. And then here's the key After I get done, getting current if I'm getting current with Alan, I'm on the phone or we're at a meeting, I'm getting current with you.

Speaker 3: 21:10

When I'm done speaking my piece, I share my day or my week, I have to shut up and listen and then you can ask me whatever questions you want, you can give me whatever feedback you want, and I'm not allowed to talk. Unless you ask me a question, I'm not allowed to talk. That was the single on a tangible level, just a practical tool. That was the single on a tangible level, just a practical tool. That was the single best thing that I learned in recovery was that muscle of shut up and listen, absorb. I don't necessarily have to do everything you tell me to do, but I have to at least consider it. I have to try it on and chew on it man, that's a heck of a way to get the limbic system shifted.

Speaker 1: 21:47

Yeah, no kidding. And because now you're in a position where really it's about looking at moving that sense of control that you have a way is you have to now be able to sit in. What was what is happening. And so what I like about that is it does force you to put it be in a different position.

Speaker 1: 22:06

And I want to just expand a little bit on this, because one of the things, something that happened to in my marriage of almost 10 years ago now is that I had an affair and it just about cost me that marriage as part of the reason, one of the big parts of the reason why I got into doing the men's work and doing podcasting and this kind of work.

Speaker 1: 22:21

And so, as I'm telling this side of the story I just wanted to get into for me, you talked about your outgoing call, daily call, and I know for me one of the things to rebuild trust in the relationship was that was one of those things, was the, was the making sure to call hey, I'm leaving the office, I'm, I'm coming home now and I would do that in the past before, but sometimes wouldn't be that consistent, and even to this day now it's something that's really important to me because, from an integrity perspective, and how I see myself today versus how I saw myself then is different, and so let's talk a little bit about some of the other things that you've done to help rebuild trust, especially in the, in your marriage and with the kids. What are some other things that you've been doing to help build that? And also then it helps shape you into, to a different type of man and how you see yourself and that aspect of it as well.

Speaker 3: 23:21

Yeah, Building trust within the family, within the marriage. That's, that's huge, and there's some common denominators that are largely going to be true in any couple. And then, of course, there's that's huge, and there's some common denominators that are largely going to be true in any couple. And then, of course, there's some that are going to depend on what the wife wants or what the husbands are. I mean, in this case I'm thinking about the man side, but the person who has done the betraying, whether that's the man or the woman, what their past has been, what their MO has been, For instance. Some wives cause, like my wife Carrie. She works with women in the sexual betrayal trauma healing space, so she works with other women just like women had worked with her in the past right.

Speaker 3: 23:55

There's some women that they're going to to your point about checking in on the way home. There's some women that are going to want that and some women that are gonna like, no, I don't want to be your babysitter, I don't want you to call your mentor, you check in with him. That was much more like Carrie. I had done so much oversharing like unhealthy oversharing, vomiting that she actually didn't want me to check in with her a bunch. She wanted me to do that with the guys. Now there's another lady. It's interesting I just shared this example yesterday in a podcast that one of the couples who we've gotten to know really well over the last few years.

Speaker 3: 24:30

I have a huge amount of respect for the man and for the wife for the work that they've been doing for several years now. She's taken almost the opposite approach that Carrie took. She's taken a very hands-on approach. She wants to know what's going on. She wants him to check in with her. But there's a reason for that. In his addiction he was very much the opposite of me. We both did unhealthy betrayal, but he was much more introverted, much more hidden and much more of closed off and emotionally anorexic. And so she wants him to check in, because he never checked in before. So it's basically I'm just trying to say there's not necessarily the right way and the wrong way that I need to be. If I'm in this space, if I'm struggling, I need to be checking in, but whether it's with my wife or with a mentor, like, that's where it's going to depend, and it shouldn't be up to the addict, it shouldn't be up to the guy, it's up to the mentorship team and up to the spouse. Yeah, I mean something I had to do and this was my mentor's, this was his rule that when he was working with me I think it was for the first several months yeah, when I got to work, I had to text him a selfie. If I went to lunch, I'd have to text a picture of me at lunch. Selfie back to work, selfie the whole nine yards, absolutely. And so with Carrie, even though she wasn't getting all the check-ins, she knew that I was checking in and we were blessed where her mentor was my mentor's wife. So my mentor Rick and her mentor Patty were married, and so there was if she, if Carrie, wanted to know something, there was a line of communication there. She knew that it wasn't, that there was a. There weren't hidden secrets, it's just I wasn't going to be pelting her with every single time I'm tempted. It's all that stuff was going to recovery brothers when we're at the house.

Speaker 3: 26:12

She's free to ask any question at any point, just on some of these things like should be obvious, but I'll definitely state them just to make sure that they're stated. My phone, obviously she's got. She knows my password. I can tell you right now it's not that often that she gets on my phone unless she's like using it to check something that like an app that I have that she doesn't understand. She doesn't get on my phone and check my messages a bunch, but she absolutely has permission to.

Speaker 3: 26:34

At any given point in my addiction I wouldn't pair my phone up to the Bluetooth usually when we're driving, because I wouldn't want a call to come in or a text to come in and then she hears the peeing over the speakers. So it's because I had all these these different things in motion that I was trying to hide and so just being able to have the phone face up or have the phone hooked up to the car stereo and not worry about it, cause if a call comes in or a text comes in. If it's from a woman or not, I'm not worried, because if it's from a woman, it's not from a woman that I'm doing anything inappropriate with, and so there's that freedom, right. But yeah, carrie, making sure that she is free to ask any question, because it's one thing, like I can tell my wife hey, you can ask me whatever you want, anything you want to know, I'll tell you. I can say those words.

Speaker 3: 27:21

But then if she does that, she asks me a question, she checks in on a red flag and I get defensive or I gaslight her or I try to bully her. And what am I doing? I told her she can ask me any question, but my body language and my verbiage and my actual behavior tells her you can't ask me anything. I'm going to bully you, you're not free to ask anything. And I did that at various points in the past where I would get so defensive and I would try to gaslight her and bully her, and so she didn't. She was taught very early in her recovery Don't go by what Logan is telling you and promising you. Go by his behavior, because his behavior over a period of time, that's what you can trust. That's what you can trust and, by God's grace, yeah, we're at a point where she can trust my words. We're also almost nine years into recovery. It wasn't an overnight thing.

Speaker 1: 28:16

No for sure not. That's awesome. Those are great points to for us to recognize right that it then something's going to be different, for the recovery process is going to be different for each couple as we go through it. And, yeah, sometimes they want more of that. That check-in, I know for us it was. It wasn't necessarily something that my wife asked for, it was something I felt I needed to do. Same idea with the phone, and to this day it's here it is, have be an open book.

Speaker 1: 28:40

I think for some of us that and I'm, I would say I'd lean towards the introvert side of it, so haven't been in the past, I hadn't been great at expressing emotion or letting things, letting people know what was really going on with me, and so that's really been a work of work for my work. To do that really has helped change. And it sounds like you you recognize that part, that shadow part of yourself that was getting you into the positions where you weren't making healthy decisions, was the piece that you needed to work on. And I think that's really key that we understand that everyone's going to have a little different part of that's going to play a little different part in their life. And when you recognize that and you start to work on, that's when things start to momentum starts to change. And I want to come closer to today. What's what keeps you busy today? What are you? What you work on? Work on today, what's, what are the things that are top of mind for you?

Speaker 3: 29:31

What keeps me busy is family. That really is. That's number one, and it's such a blessing to because for the longest time those years from June 4th 2011, when I got married, or even going a few months beyond that before that, all the way through 20, early 2016. And at that whole span, I felt a lot of shame. A lot of shame about how I was as a husband. But, I'll be honest, I felt even more shame sometimes about who I was as a dad, and I don't know I don't necessarily know why that is or if that's like a good thing or bad, but it's accurate Like I felt a ton of shame as a husband, but I think even more as a dad is I will never be able to lead these boys. I will never be able to mentor them, hold them accountable, teach them. I will never be able to love them holistically without all of this burden of shame. And so to be able to imperfectly but genuinely authentically love them and parent them is such a blessing. But family is a huge piece of it, but recovery is a giant piece of it.

Speaker 3: 30:31

I don't like this. I don't do this for a living. I'm not a sexual addiction therapist or a sexual addiction coach for a living. Obviously, I do a lot of coaching, just ministry wise, but it's going on podcasts, doing my Instagram work and then working with guys locally up here in Alaska. That's a huge part of my life, of Carrie's life. Working with guys locally up here in Alaska. That's a huge part of my life, of Carrie's life, and I love basketball. That's like my one hobby, that is my, that's my me time and that is my exercise and that's my decompression is spend as much time as I can in the gym playing basketball.

Speaker 1: 31:02

Love that, Love that. That's awesome. You're talking a little bit earlier about mentors, especially on your in your addiction recovery, and I think it's important, when we have mentors, that there's probably been a couple of things that they've said or they've done. Maybe it was an action, but think back to the mentors that you've had in your life and what's something that they've or a piece of advice that they've given you that has been so profound that it's still affecting you today.

Speaker 3: 31:29

There's one thing that always stands out to me about my mentor, rick price. That was this was such a kick in the pants and it was such a great way that that God introduced me to him. This we'd already met, but we met at a group, a celebrate recovery group, and it was a surfacy group. There was no sexual addiction, specific recovery, there was just general. Just guys met in one side and women. And he told me as soon as he met me he was like you need more than this group has to offer, and so he already had planted the seeds of you need to do something more intentional, more serious, but I tried to keep them at arm's length and just do the bare minimum. This was several months before I got sober, so like the winter of 2015, 2016. And at one point I asked him Rick, could we get together for coffee every now and again? And in my mind I'm like really reaching out, I'm trying to do something. And he looked at me and Rick is one of the most loving people I know. He is a father to me. He is like my best friend outside of Carrie. And he looked at me and Rick is one of the most loving people I know he is a father to me. He is like my best friend outside of Carrie and he's grandpa, rick, to our boys. Rick looked at me and he was like, if you want to get together for coffee every now and again, I don't have time for you and that hurt my feelings, that was offensive to me. But he quickly followed it up and he goes if you really want to work on things, I'll walk with you, but it's not going to be just getting together for coffee every now and again. And he went on to emphasize like it's not going to be Logan's plan. We're going to do things differently. It's going to be. You're going to be giving up a lot of freedoms. It's not going to be easy. And he absolutely followed through on that. He walked with me hand in hand for those two years in the program. He's continued to walk with me as my mentor, as my friend, as accountability, as a brother in the trenches. But that was such an incredible way that he made it very clear this is not the Logan program.

Speaker 3: 33:25

And another thing along those same lines was this would have been probably a couple months later I had gone, I'd finally gone, to a prodigal's meeting. There was a sexual addiction specific meeting. But I still wasn't sober yet. Okay, and remember, I'm at work and he called me and he was like, hey, how you doing? And we talked for a minute and then he was like, hey, and remember, this is, this guy would go on to become like this incredible beacon of hope and love and working with me. But in this moment he was like hey, I'm not going to call you again for quite a while Because if you want help, you need to be calling other people. You need to be the one to reach out.

Speaker 3: 34:04

And out of context that could sound harsh mean, but looking back, even in that moment, I think I understood his point I definitely understand it now which was Logan has to take ownership of his recovery. Other people can't drag Logan to healing. Other people can't drag Logan to a place of recovery. And this gets back to that point of you asked earlier about spouses, family, parents of addicts. Right, and that is such a hard truth to understand, but it is the truth. Nobody can drag, doesn't matter how much you love that person, how much you care how much, how many resources you may have, love that person how much you care how much, how many resources you may have. They have to experience enough brokenness and pain and desperation to where they want it for themselves.

Speaker 1: 34:52

Man.

Speaker 1: 34:53

That just that really hits home.

Speaker 1: 34:54

Logan, as a as I said, as a father of an addict, and when I, when I say to others, when I talk about it, when I go on shows, I can't want my son's recovery more than he does, I want it more than him, but I can't want it for him.

Speaker 1: 35:12

He has to do it, and until he chooses to do that, then I have my choices to make, and so it's always a struggle. There's never one person involved when addiction comes in our lives, and when things happen in our lives, there's lots of people who are affected, and what I hear about your story is that not only have you taken responsibility and ownership, but so has, it sounds like your wife Carrie has done that, especially your mentor, rick. Everybody has owned their piece, and it isn't necessarily the Logan program or plan, but you played an integral part of it because you were willing to show up, and so thank you so much for sharing that. As we're coming to the close of the show today, if there was anything that we didn't get a chance to touch on, what would be a parting message you'd want our listeners to take with them?

Speaker 3: 36:10

So almost every interview closes with a similar question. Right, and I've shared different things, but usually it's along the same lines. I do feel led to say something differently, just based on what you just said. I do feel led to say something differently, just based on what you just said. So I'll be honest, I'm going to say it to you, alan, given your relationship with your son, but I think this would be for anyone that's in a similar spot If you care for somebody who is struggling, who's not currently choosing healthy choices.

Speaker 3: 36:38

Something that I cherish now but even though I didn't quite didn't quite, I didn't quite understand it I cherished even in my darkest times was I always knew that my mom was praying for me. I always knew that my mom wasn't just praying like God, please deliver him from his struggle. She would tell me she prayed for God to break me, but that was encouraging me because I knew that she loved me enough to pray that prayer. My oldest brother, he was somebody who he loved me enough to give me some really tough feedback that I did not like. That hurt my feelings in some dark times, but he loved me enough to be real with me, to be strong and share the truth, my family and, of course, carrie. At the end of it all, she loved me enough to give me an ultimatum and say I can't control what you do, I can't make you, not cheat on me. But finally she gave me an ultimatum in 2015 and said if you don't get serious help, I will leave. You will lose me and the boys.

Speaker 3: 37:41

So my family couldn't drag me to recovery. They couldn't fix me, but what they could do was be strong enough and rigid enough, not be flimsy, not be wishy-washy, not just try to be nice. I think about it like castle walls. They're rigid, right, they're strong, they're fortified. They're not gonna feel nice and cozy, but they are strong and when I'm ready to enter, I'm inside a stronghold, like I was surrounded by people who loved me enough to be real with me and not just tell me nice things that were cozy and comfortable and made me feel warm inside. But once I was ready to seek recovery and seek healthy living, I already had multiple people ready to be a part of a healthy infrastructure and that was such a huge blessing. So I hope that can be encouraging to you and anyone listening yeah, you can't drag anyone to recovery, but you can still. You still play a huge part in the rest of their lives when they're ready to seek healthy living.

Speaker 1: 38:50

Man. What a powerful way to to wrap up our show there. I just love that so much. Thank you, logan, for spending time with us today and showing us that recovering from addiction can happen if we're willing to hear the call to serve and to step into who we are as men. And so if any man out there that's listening to this episode today, if they're interested in getting ahold of you or participating in your work, what's the best way for them to do that?

Speaker 3: 39:18

It's absolutely the best way is on Instagram. I'm at no longer in bondage. No period longer period in period bondage. Those are words that I Instagram. I'm at no longer in bondage. No period longer period in period bondage. Those are words that I cherish, that I'm no longer in bondage to sexual addiction. I didn't think I could ever say those words seven, eight, nine, 10 years ago. But give me a follow. I put out daily content just like what we're talking about here and if you have a question, feel free to reach out. If you need help, feel free to reach out. As I said before, I don't provide services for hire, but if I can be part of a healthy infrastructure, if I can share healthy resources, if I can jump on a zoom call, I will do that. I'll be one of the hands that can reach in and try to help somebody out of that pit.

Speaker 1: 39:58

Outstanding. I'm going to make sure we have that information in today's show notes and anywhere else that you're on the internet. We'll do a little creeping here and make sure we get to get your bases covered for you. Once again, my friend, thank you so much for being on the show. Loved our conversation.

Speaker 3: 40:12

Thanks, Alan, Appreciate you brother.

Speaker 2: 40:21

Thank you for listening to the revolutionary man podcast. Are you ready to own your destiny, to become more the man you are destined to be? Join the brotherhood that is the awakened man at theawakendmannet and start forging a new destiny today.