Navigating the Shadows: Understanding Sexual Compulsion and Recovery

Navigating the Shadows: Understanding Sexual Compulsion and Recovery

Jeffrey Besecker:

This is The Light Inside. I'm Jeffrey Besecker. Sexual Awakening, a time and age we all journey through. That time and land of great confusion, where we discover new thoughts, new feelings, a flood of foreign sensations, and of course, strange and often unexplained emotions and feelings. hormones rushing and sometimes quickening to a raging torrent. Yes, we are being that dramatic today, but hey, we've all been there, right? Oh, to be hanging on the verge of adulthood as we're wandering aimlessly through our tweens. Research illustrates how preteens and young adults begin to feel those often startling stirrings of puberty around or near the age of 9 to 14. Although a common pathway toward natural human evolution, these often unresolved emotions, feelings, thoughts, and mostly innocent explorations can somehow creep into the territory of those dark, forbidden pathways of sexual addiction. Today we look at sexual compulsion and the subconscious and unconscious factors that can take a stark turn, leading us down that oftentimes dark alleyway we call sexual addiction. Discover how identifying the deeper emotional triggers, embracing vulnerability and a little grace are key pathways to true sexual recovery when we return to The Light Inside. When it comes to mobile service providers, with their high-rate plans, extra fees, and hidden cost or expenses, many of the big-name networks leave a bad taste in your mouth. Mint Mobile is a new flavor of mobile network service, sharing all the same reliable features of the big name brands, yet at a fraction of the cost. I recently made the change to Mint Mobile and I can't believe the monthly savings, allowing me to put more money in my pocket for the things which truly light me up inside. Making the switch to Mint Mobile is easy. Hosted on the T-Mobile 5G network, Mint gives you premium wireless service on the nation's largest 5G network. With bulk savings on flexible plan options, Mint offers 3-, 6-, and 12-month plans, and the more months you buy, the more you save. Plus, you can also keep your current phone or upgrade to a new one, keep your current number or change to a new one as well, and all of your contacts' apps and photos will seamlessly and effortlessly follow you to your new low-cost Mint provider. Did I mention the best part? You keep more money in your pocket. And with Mint's referral plan, you can rescue more friends from big wireless bills while earning up to $90 for each referral. Visit our Mint Mobile affiliate link at thelightinside.site forward slash sponsors for additional mobile savings or activate your plan in minutes with the Mint Mobile app. Beneath the surface of sexual addiction lies a dark and consuming force, fueled by hidden triggers and unresolved shadows, pulling one deeper into a cycle that feels impossible to escape. In today's episode, we're diving into the intricate dynamics of sexually compulsive behaviors, and enroll our identity constructs, emotional triggers, and hyper-arousal play in reinforcing these patterns. Our subconscious often fuels compulsive behaviors when unresolved shadow material and emotional dysregulation resurface, making it difficult to break free from destructive patterns. Hyperarousal, driven by the autonomic nervous system, heightens these impulses as a way to cope with distress and trauma, but recovery is possible. By addressing the deeper emotional drives, engaging mindfulness, and reshaping how we relate to ourselves, we can move towards healthier expressions of sexuality. I'm excited to welcome today's guest, Logan Hufford. Logan will share his insights on how to break free from these cycles and reclaim a healthier, more balanced sense of self. So stay tuned for these key solutions and strategies to navigate the path of recovery. Logan, I'm excited to chat with you today as we explore the intricate interplay between ego development, hyper arousal, and understanding sexual compulsiveness. So thank you for joining us today, Logan.

Logan Hufford: Thank you so much for having me, Jeffrey. I appreciate it.

Jeffrey Besecker: So I'm excited to look at this topic. I feel it can be a very nuanced and complex topic where we overlook that subconscious unconscious connection a lot of times. So I'm going to let your story speak today. Logan, share with us your history with sexual compulsive behaviors and how that surfaced throughout your life.

Logan Hufford: Absolutely. I've been on a mission for a while now to shout from the rooftops, you know, bringing awareness to sexual addiction, sexual addiction recovery, because for many years I had a double life. And that second life was one where I was compulsively looking at pornography, masturbation to pornography, flirting with basically every woman that I came across, taking what I could get from essentially every female relationship that I had. And it got to the point that when I was engaged to be married, I cheated on my future wife with another woman, did that again, did that again, the whole time compulsively masturbation to pornography, you know, on a regular basis and just affair after affair got to the point where I was hiring prostitutes. For multiple years, these behaviors were going on where I hated myself. I hated the fact that I was doing these things to a large degree. I didn't know why I kept doing them. I mean, there was a certain amount of seeking pleasure, seeking the hit, seeking the dopamine, all these, but it was also, especially once I was married, you know, I'm married, we've got kids now. Like I've got every reason in the world to not be doing these things, to not be doing these destructive things. And yet I continually do them. And it got to the point where I felt like this is all I can be. I don't know how to live a different way. This is my MO and I'm just somebody who's going to keep cheating on my wife. I'm just going to keep doing all these things. Even though every day when I come home, I'm literally looking in the face of multiple reminders of why I shouldn't be doing this. And then the next day I would do it again.

Jeffrey Besecker: I know this can be a sensitive and raw topic to dive into. And I want to thank you for sharing that vulnerability and transparency with us today, first and foremost. I know how difficult that must be to open that Pandora's box and re-examine some of those past experiences.

Logan Hufford: Well, so I'll respond to that and take this, you know, how you will. Sometimes I don't know how to take that when somebody says, because in this, like right now, 2024 in recovery for eight plus years, when I speak about my past, like, I don't feel like I'm being vulnerable. I don't feel like I am putting anything out there other than just I'm speaking from places of gratitude because it's like, I, I remember hating myself and hating my life and just hating the fact that I existed. because I couldn't figure out how to stop being this person. And so now it's like the way I think about it is it's like I was rescued by a lifeguard eight years ago. Every chance I get, I want to tell the story of the lifeguard who rescued me kind of thing. So I don't know how relevant that is, but I just I operate with full transparency. And so when somebody says, thank you for your vulnerability, it's like sometimes I feel like I need to say that. I kind of don't feel like I'm being vulnerable. I'm just like, oh, my goodness. Like, hey, I found a way out of this cave and let me shout from the rooftops that there's a way out of this cave.

Jeffrey Besecker: Thank you for sharing that with us. I know that a lot of times being able to reframe that perspective is not always the case. So thank you for sharing that with us and being honest and genuine and authentic. I use that buzzword, reluctantly authentic to your experience. I think that goes hand in hand. Sometimes you And I think we are a little bit enticed culturally to have to kind of acknowledge that and feel its own social obligation. Yet we still have to be mindful, I feel to those that might have a different experience. I'm going to kind of frame that myself. Diving in, in our pre-talks, you talked a lot about how at that early teenage developmental age, you started to experience some of these connections with these patterns. So let's dive back into that. At what age did you feel that drive or that kind of first spark to start this sexual exploration and share that experience with us?

Logan Hufford: The first time I started to feel that pull, I don't remember the exact age. I remember the moment, but I don't know if I was nine or 10 years old. This was definitely way before puberty. This was before I understood anything about what sex was. And I always call this, this was my introduction to pornography. And it wasn't with pornography. But it literally, it was as a kid who didn't know anything about sex, didn't know anything about dopamine, masturbation, anything. And I found it. I mean, I grew up, you know, we're talking late nineties, so there's no iPads and stuff floating around. And there definitely was no dirty magazines laying around, like not in the household I grew up in. But in the middle of JCPenney catalogs, I found that there's pictures of women in bikini and lingerie. And I liked how I felt when I saw that. And so I started compulsively looking at these pictures, not knowing what to do with myself, not knowing, you know, what was going on inside my head. And but I knew I liked how I felt. I knew I liked that feeling and I wanted more of that. So, I mean, the compulsivity started early on, even though it was just like the just the early seeds of it in so many ways. And then I mean, because it started off as this very, very slow progression compared to how it would go 10 years later. You know, where I, my behaviors were, it was like the snowball effect, you know, is it, my behaviors were just getting exponentially more extreme and risky as a older teen, as a young adult. It took me a few years to go from that JCPenney catalogs to compulsively looking at hardcore videos. It would take me quite a while to like cross over these barriers of acceptable behavior, to cross over these thresholds. But then once I would cross over one threshold, the next barrier, the next threshold would be a little bit closer, be a little bit easier for me to cross over until eventually I'm just, you know, hurtling over these thresholds of acceptable behavior.

Jeffrey Besecker: I think it's a fairly common culturally normative interaction as a young boy. You discover, have that quote unquote discovery of the opposite sex and those genuinely naturally wired impulses. It goes to say that we have to acknowledge our acceptance of that to some degree.

Logan Hufford: Yeah, I mean, one thing that I definitely recognize, one thing about me, almost everything I'm going to say is going to be focused on its I statements. It's, you know, hey, this is what I was going through. This is this is how I responded. I don't get into pointing the finger and blame shifting and things like that, especially because they're I don't have things to blame. I got myself into into, you know, messes. Nobody pushed me into this stuff. But I do recognize just as a fact, I mean, because every human is fallible and every household is not perfect, because that's just life, right? I had a really good household, really, really good upbringing, but there was definitely one thing that I do very much recognize. And even as a kid, I recognized somewhat it was missing. And that was vulnerability from my parents to have conversations really in general, but especially about stuff like sex. where they did a really good job instilling values and teaching us right from wrong. And it wasn't just a strict authoritarian thing, but it was really helping mold us in a lot of ways. And they did a great job in a lot of ways, but in terms of vulnerability of sharing their own stories, sharing the why, sharing here's how we fell short or here's lessons that we learned, that kind of thing. I really didn't ever get that. And again, that's not shifting any blame or anything, but it is something that I try to be very intentional with my boys that my wife, Carrie and I, we try to be really intentional with our four sons is, you know, just being vulnerable and just talking through stuff from that angle. And I'm not saying that that's going to, we can't control obviously what path our kids are going to go down. But I at least want them to recognize, hey, as they get older and they, you know, they're going to know that their parents have gone through these various struggles. They're going to know about some of the victories and why that victory was such a big deal, because they're going to know where we came from. So it is something that I work to be very intentional about is just expressing that vulnerability rather than shying away from these tough conversations.

Jeffrey Besecker: That's an interesting aspect to look at as we start to experience that as young boys on the verge of quote unquote manhood and some of the cultural and stereotypical models we have there. What was your experience when those urges, those drives come up and did that thought occur to you to reach out and communicate with your father or another male figure?

Logan Hufford: Never at all. I mean, not for 20 plus years. I mean, when I was maybe 13, 14, when I learned how to masturbate, I mean, that became a big compulsive thing. And I almost never attached it to porn purely because of availability. I would have if I could have, but it just, again, the combination of where technology was at at that time, and then, you know, pretty sheltered upbringing, didn't have much availability to seek out pornography, but I took it when I could. I went back well. Just like I started out with JCPenney catalogs, think of that as a pretty innocent thing. I would have basketball magazines and there might be an ad for something there and I would take what I could get and masturbate to that. And no, I mean, never did I have a thought of talk to my dad or let me, I mean, yeah. I mean, I guess if I'm really grilling myself, there probably were fleeting thoughts of maybe talking to like my older brother. about it, that probably would have been something that ran through my head. But if it did, it would have been a fleeting thing that I didn't respond to.

Jeffrey Besecker: So just to get a feel for your situation, you do have that older brother role model, quote unquote, you know, and I grew up in that same scenario with a brother just a few years older than me. Did you start to maybe recognize the older brother talking about females and any of this type of stuff as you're reaching that mature stage?

Logan Hufford: No, so I have two older brothers and my oldest brother, Chad, he moved out of the house like once he was 18, 19. And so I didn't really grow up with him the same way. And then my middle brother, who's five years older than me, Paul, he was like the shyest guy in the world. And there was no talk about girls or anything like that, really. So, I mean, again, we're brothers, we grew up together. I'm sure that there were conversations, but I don't remember anything really sticking in that way. I'll tell you one thing that did stick. And again, not blame shifting at all, but it's definitely, it's context is when, I mean, when I was growing up and I love my brother, Paul, he's one of my best buddies. We've been very, very close for our entire lives. But he would joke with me and make fun of me and pick at me that I was ugly. And that stuck with me. And I thought I was always going to be ugly. Girls would never like me. Girls would never give me attention. And that honestly became one of the pillars of my identity was I'm ugly. Girls won't like me. And I I ended up using that inadvertently as a, you know, this motivation, this fuel source to drive after, you know, all the porn, but everything that would come after that, you know, all the flirting, all the seeking out of attention. I definitely struggled with that one.

Jeffrey Besecker: That's a unique correlation there where that you are able to make that connection now where it actually did affect your identity. And that's, that's a often missing step that most of us do or experience as we're going through some of this emotional change. And as we're working through some of that buried shadow material from our past. We have that gap in making that subconscious correlation. I applaud and I say applaud because it is great to validate the fact that you do connect with that emotion. You are able to go reprocess it and you are now able to form a different reframing and understanding of it. So I applaud you for being able to make that connection now.

Logan Hufford: It's definitely always a work in progress for sure. Processing things and processing current emotions and things I deal with and all that.

Jeffrey Besecker: It's a huge thing because that identity concept drives a lot of that psychological need, that need for validation and acceptance. If we're closed off to that and we struggle with it, just feeling that acknowledgement now sometimes can stir some of that shadow material, even unconsciously, where we're not aware of how we resist just accepting that fact. I see you and I acknowledge with empathy and compassion what you've been through, what you struggled with, because it is a struggle. It is an emotionally challenging action to go through as we grow and mature.

Logan Hufford: Yeah.

Jeffrey Besecker: So going back to that time, you've mentioned a number of times having that impulse and framing it. I'm going to go back here and maybe point out something, framing blame shifting. At that time, as you're starting to look at the pictures, you're starting to feel the stir of these emotions, that stir of arousal, which goes beyond just the sexual arousal because at the core of that is just that basic neurological connection to our neural function of arousal. that's deeply, deeply tied and deeply ingrained with our emotional interactions. So going back to that time, what were some of the thoughts and feelings that might've surfaced for you if I can explore that a little with you?

Logan Hufford: So let me know if I if I go way off base, I may not be answering your question, but what comes to mind is not thoughts or feelings that I had during these times that I'm masturbating or seeking out, you know, material like magazines and stuff, because honestly, I don't remember. I don't remember much in the way of thought. It was very much, it was like, I'm responding to this primal thing that I don't really understand, but I like the feelings, and so I'm going to chase after it. I mean, that was pretty much, that's what it was. As much as I can remember, I mean, really, as far back as I can remember, I've always wanted a family. I always wanted to grow up and have a wife. I always wanted kids. This was like a very three-dimensional, this wasn't just like, oh, well, my parents are married and so I should be married. This was like a really three-dimensional goal, ideal that I've always had since being a little kid. And of course, there's a lot of healthy stuff in there. There's nothing wrong with that. But of course, part of that is this deep, I need to be needed. I need someone who will love me and who will be my partner for life. And of course, I don't know how deep I thought through those things as an eight-year-old, but I thought through them. I did think through them. And so that ideal that I'm going to be married and I'm going to have a family coupled with, but girls don't like me, but I'm unattractive, I had no clue that those two things were probably doing battle, but looking back on it, those are a couple pretty strong things to try to grapple with, right? And I definitely was not, at least I didn't feel equipped to deal with grappling with those two things. I want a family, I want to be desired, I want a wife, and women are not going to like me.

Jeffrey Besecker: and through our subconscious and unconscious awareness that we're associating that differentiation, that we're associating that dual approach to looking at those identities. I'll say dual, and in this case, you know, it did become, would you agree, conflicted in some way.

Logan Hufford: Oh, absolutely. I mean, and of course, it, you know, these things, they continue to evolve and morph and grow. And then there's other identities and other poles and other things that are getting added in. And it just, you know, just became, it was more and more moving parts. But I mean, if I compare that, let's call it eight years old, right? These, these two, these two things I'm grappling with. and then shift forward 15 years. As a 23 year old, I'm in the middle of all of this junk. I'm in the middle of, I've already spent years having sexual affairs, including everything from porn to prostitutes to women that were my clients, all these things. I worked at a car dealership and I'm going home to my wife. I'm going home to my babies. I'm tucking my boys in at night and changing diapers and holding my wife's hand at church and like wanting desperately to be the thing that I wanted to be as a kid, right? I wanting desperately to be that father and that husband and that family man and that, but I don't know how to stop doing all this crap over here that, you know, this whole double life thing.

Jeffrey Besecker: It sets you up for a bit of cognitive dissonance there, where you simply have that emotional distress. Here is this conflicted identity again, and this other identity, and here is this ideal of what I see life being, yet then I'm pulled over here to this other thing. So let's connect those dots a little bit. At what age did you actually start interacting? with females, you know, with starting to explore dating and flirting and all of this.

Logan Hufford: Yeah, there was literally like out on probably one hand, there were instances in high school. So I was homeschooled. I played sports. But I mean, other than, you know, playing sports, going to church, I mean, my we lived in a somewhat rural area where like, we were 10 minutes away from from, from, you know, main Anchorage, which, you know, quarter million people, but We were, we were 10 minutes away. So we're, it was like the forest between, so I wasn't, you know, walking over to a friend's house. I wasn't taking a bike ride over to a party. Um, I mean, there were a few interactions. I would go to the YMCA and play basketball all the time. And so literally just hanging out with a girl for an hour, like, and I'm, and I'm, that's not a euphemism, like literally just hanging out, just spending time with a girl. That was something that was like, Oh, this feels really good. Like this, this girl and I, you know, we're, We're shooting hoops together, you know, it's like we're both 14 years old or 15 years old or whatever, but that that felt good. And, you know, of course, nothing wrong with that. Right. But I was so focused on, like, I want more attention. I want more to grow to be I want affection, different versions of affection. I want that. And really, I mean, so like when I was 18, so 2008, that's when I started driving, had a cell phone, started, or I'd been working that summer. But I mean, so that was really when, okay, now I have more opportunity to spend time with people in general. So it started to grow a little bit then. And really what set it off was the next summer, when I was 18 turning 19 in 2009, I went down to Houston, Texas. And that was like, that was my prodigal son moment. This was okay. I grew up sheltered. I grew up with all these rules. I grew up. Now I'm down here in this big city and I'm with a bunch of coworkers, a bunch of, just a bunch of dudes all living in this apartment complex. And we worked a ton, but when I wasn't working basically every night, pretty quickly. I mean, I would do whatever I could do. And I like literally thank God that I didn't have my own car because that limited my opportunities, but I would borrow my buddy's car when I could. But I mean, that's when I started really seeking out in a, I would say this was the first time that if you had a camera on me and you were watching my interactions with girls, you would watch everything for the first 18 years and probably be like, okay, Logan's a really nice guy, real quiet dude. Like he's all good. He's got a great head on our shoulders. And this would have been the first time where like, okay, Logan's doing some jacked up stuff. Like just seeking out whatever I can get from any girl in terms of gratification and mixing, partying, mixing alcohol with it, trying drugs, experimenting with various things and mixing various things together. And so during this time, I mean, I grew up going to church every week and not just as like a ritual, but I mean, we were as a family. I mean, we read the Bible together and pray together. And I've always believed in God. I've always believed in the Bible as truth. Didn't feel a relationship with God as a kid, but, you know, got baptized and believe these things to be true. When I was down in Houston, I would basically every opportunity I would if I needed to drive two hours to go across Houston, I would do that. Whatever I could do to party with a girl, I would do that. And then oftentimes get little or no sleep and then go back to work for a 12 hour shift. And yet almost every single Sunday I would go to church. And I had to work to get to church. Again, I didn't have a car. I'd have to get a ride from somebody in the church. I mean, I had to go out of my way to do that. And I wasn't doing it to like make my mom happy. I was doing it and I, so there's a lot of things that like, when I look back, it's like, okay, I didn't even realize what was going on, but I know now in the moment I knew like where my motivation was with this. And it was like, I felt, I was feeling so much shame and like dirtiness from like, I'm doing these things and they're fun and I like them and I want to do more, but I, I also feel gross. And if I can go to church on Sunday and just sit next to people who are in my mind healthy, who are in my mind, you know, the kind of people that have their stuff together. Like it made me feel a little bit better just to be close to people that I saw as healthy. And that was kind of a foreshadowing of some of the stuff that would come later, you know, where these moments with family, these moments being able to be the family man, even if I knew all the stuff I was doing in secret, you know, I knew the double life, but I, I kept going back to that. I want to be this healthy guy. I want to be this, this family man.

Jeffrey Besecker: Cognitive distortions such as selective inference and psychological dissonance can exasperate and influence compulsive behaviors. By assessing that, we can begin to see how these cognitive distortions impact how we identify with these sexual behaviors and drive that compulsivity. First, we have these belief structures we're grown up with. We have these cultural beliefs. We have our own personal beliefs, not to devalue them or dissect those systems, but to look at the fact that we all have belief structures that we hold. Looking at that first, do those beliefs fit in with what's culturally normal? Do we feel accepted with them? Or do we have those conflicts again? Belief disconfirmation becomes one form of cognitive dissonance, where we might feel or even sometimes project that sense of pull, where we might start to project, well, I might fear judgment here. I might fear whether or not this is acceptable. sometimes even very realistically dancing with that line of saying, yes, there is some awareness that this might be unacceptable or unhealthy for me in how I'm behaving.

Logan Hufford: So again, all the way up until I was engaged for sure, And even parts of my time being engaged, my feeling guilty, my feelings of shame that I would have, feeling bad, feeling dirty, that was pretty much all based on the morals and the beliefs that my parents instilled in me that I definitely didn't have full ownership of, but I had some ownership of for sure. And it was all like, okay, I know that this is wrong. I know that this is morally wrong. I shouldn't be doing this. But I 100% felt like OK, I'm playing in fire, but I'm not going to get burned. I'll get out. I know when to get out. And to be honest, that's something that that manifested in so many areas of my life, far outside of just sex, sexual addiction, that idea of I know when to play in the fire and I know the exact moment to get out and avoid getting hurt kind of thing. That was always a big part of my ammo. It was once I was engaged and I'm like, OK, I'm going to be married to this woman. We're going to have kids together. We're going to have a family. And I'm in bed with this other woman. That's when it started like, okay, this is not just a moral dilemma. This is not just a, well, the Bible says it's like, no, no, no, I'm actively, I mean, we didn't have a home together, but I'm actively working on destroying a home. And then once we were married, once we had kids, there was nothing theoretical about it. There was nothing limited to, well, the Bible says, or at church, this is like, no, my wife is taking care of our babies at home and I'm in a hotel room with a prostitute. There was a, there's a few things that I always remember. Talk about, you know, the cognitive dissonance, double life, one of the darkest, I mean. There's so much darkness to this part of the story, and yet there were some moments, some seasons that were darker than others. And in 2015, during the entire month of July, I had a month-long affair, which was very different than most of my acting out with other women. It was usually, I hate the term hookup, but it was usually that sense of a thing. It was a one-time thing where I didn't want any emotional connection, I didn't want anything, I just wanted to move on to the next person. this serial predator, essentially. But this was different. This was a month long affair. There was emotion mixed in with everything. And there was a day where me and my wife, Carrie, and our boys and some nephews and nieces were out on the lake and we're having this incredible time. And just like, I mean, I still can scroll back on Facebook photos and see these photos. And I remember this day and we're having this awesome time at the lake on a beautiful Alaskan summer day. And I had to go home to get something for one of the boys. And on my way home, I get on the phone with this lady that I was having this affair with. And I'm just even just like picking up the phone. I hated doing it. I didn't want to do it. And I wanted desperately to do it. I mean, it's just this, this is not about a battle of these two things. Right. And in that moment, and of course that moment is just a microcosm of this entire season of life. It felt like, well, I'm going to be alone for, you know, 40 minutes driving home, driving back. Like I can't not reach out to her. Of course I could have, but I didn't feel like I had that choice. And that's where, I mean, I always point out like that when the idea of like powerlessness of addiction and, you know, I didn't understand that verbiage before getting into recovery. I think a lot of people push back on that as like, well, if I'm saying I'm powerless, then I'm not taking ownership of my stuff. And like, how do I balance those two things? How do I reconcile? And that's kind of that's an example that I give is in that moment, I 100 percent made that choice. I made these choices. I got myself to that point. But also in that moment, it felt like I didn't have a choice. As crazy as that may sound to somebody, you know, outside of addiction, outside of recovery. But I felt like, no, I've got to do this. I've got to feed this part of me.

Jeffrey Besecker: Again, I keep harping on the dissonance here, but that is one of the core subconscious and unconscious factors driving this interaction. It's what fuels that conflict. Post-choice dissonance, where we have that discomfort between what our perceived reality is. We want that reality where we have the genuine and true and deeply emotionally engaged loving relationship. yet we're still drawn back to that shadow material of fulfilling that identity, of fulfilling whatever that emotional void was, and going the other route, balancing the two. So there's that dichotomy or struggle of choice that's fueled by that chaos and that confusion. Neurotic psychological entropy, or simply put, that chaos of that emotional and mental stress. I know that's broad, and I just lost you as you trail off. No, you're good. I'm just… Processing, and that's a good thing. I'm hoping I take you there today. So I'm going to step back a little here, and I know this may go way off course from where we're at now.

Logan Hufford: Sure.

Jeffrey Besecker: Going back to those preteen and teen years, you relayed how you grew up in somewhat of an isolated situation. You were somewhat removed from your peers. So take me back to that time. As you have that disconnect in a way, What were some of the thoughts and feelings you might have experienced that, you know, especially as you're starting to get this drive to connect with the opposite sex?

Logan Hufford: Thoughts and feelings like completely unrelated from the sexual pole, that kind of thing, just in general.

Jeffrey Besecker: Let's just try to frame it if we can. Did you feel that sense of isolation? Was it salient? Was it something that came to mind that you could identify or might it have been kind of the specter in the background?

Logan Hufford: No, no, it was, it was a hundred percent front and center. And I personally, I hated it. Um, I hated how isolated I was. Um, I don't, I think it's fair to say I hated that I was homeschooled. I understood as a kid why, and I definitely understand now where my parents are coming from and my wife and I homeschool, like I absolutely, I, I see great value in it. But the isolation, which was a combination of, you know, this very strict moral upbringing, geographical isolation of, again, you know, we're eight miles away from a gas station and to a large degree, isolation in terms of our routines. You know, again, yes, I played sports, but other than that, I mean, it was sports and going to church on Sunday. That was going to the grocery store, you know, when we're running errands with my parents or something. But I very much hated that. Because as much as I was, when I talked about how insecure I was around girls and how much I felt like girls wouldn't like me and I was unattractive, I was shy around girls. I was not a shy kid though. I was very much extroverted. I always wanted to be around people. And so being isolated in multiple ways was not something I enjoyed at all.

Jeffrey Besecker: In that regard, you never really get that honest quote unquote experience of testing the waters, you know, building those social bonds, building those emotional bonds, both with male and female peers, you know, label it peers, because at that point, that's what they are. You know, there are compadres, you know, our mates in that sense. And in that swirl of chaos comes this notion that, well, maybe I'm quote unquote, not worthy based on what you've shared with me.

Logan Hufford: Right. Yeah, it's something that I, and I've had very, very honest and frank conversations with my parents, and at this point, I mean I can completely sincerely say I hold no resentment or ill will against them. I very much did as a kid though as a teenager I held a lot of resentment. And of course, because I was completely focused on me personally, how I feel it affects me, not concerned at all with where they're coming from. And again, they did a very good job in so many ways, very intentionally raising a family of five kids and doing a great job in so many ways. I mean, I'm the baby of five, I'm 34, and I work with two of my siblings. You know, we were all very close yesterday. We had a sibling's text that was running the whole day. And that's, that's not abnormal for us. Like I, so I'm very, very thankful for so much of what our parents gave in the upbringing, even if, yeah, of course it wasn't perfect because, because it can't be, but there were definitely things that I could they done a better job probably. And yet I was, I, I was very harsh with my judgment as a, as a teenager, for sure.

Jeffrey Besecker: I can relate that in my own story. I grew up somewhat isolated, out country kid. We had a family or two a mile away. Luckily for me, they were boy families with members that were right around my own age group, but feeling that sense of isolation out there. Yeah. versus especially a lot of my friends, you know, who lived in town or who lived in close proximity and they had that regular interaction. I can share that experience of feeling that isolation and experiencing that and being able to empathize with that because it does raise a lot of questions where you feel like, hey, I'm kind of left out of the loop here. Hey, I can't test the water. hey when these things come up I don't have that healthy reality test to say this is a normal behavior and this over here is the other behavior and I'll simply say the other behavior to test that model.

Logan Hufford: And to your point, you know, with peers in general, I mean, I, as much as I wasn't shy around boys my age when I was growing up, but those insecurities that I felt about girls not liking me, I felt those same insecurities in the sense of that I'm not cool. I'm not going to be liked in general, just as a friend. And so to be honest, like there's a lot of these pieces that are rooted in that, that I've done a lot of work on and there's been a lot of progressive victory. One area where I'll be honest, I work on it, but I actually still really struggle is in sports. So I play basketball regularly and you will not meet somebody who is going to, you won't meet many people who are harder on themselves. And so much of it for me is because of that. And again, it's like, just because If I could play well all day long, all morning long, and then I miss an open layup or something. And in that moment, the whole gym hates me. The whole gym thinks I'm a loser. I can go there in just this little second of time. And it was tricky just not having some of that testing ground, as you put it.

Jeffrey Besecker: So as you've kind of worked through some of your own work with these experiences, are you able to now go back and make those connections and connect those dots where, yeah, you know, I felt at that time, I didn't have this realistic view of myself, so to speak. And now I'm trying to find that identity.

Logan Hufford: Very much so. And I'm not exaggerating or just being cliche when I say it's a work in progress. It a hundred percent is. It's something that like there are a few areas of my life that I intentionally work on on a daily basis. Like my little rule for myself when it comes to working on myself is I don't expect that I will work on every deficiency at all times because I don't think that that's realistic. But I don't give myself permission to ignore it. So like there are certain areas where I go, OK, this is something I need to work on, but I'm going to back burner it for right now because there's some other priorities. You know, there was obviously a time where I need to work on porn addiction and sexual addiction and not having affairs like that needs to be the number one thing anger. You know, my struggle with anger was absolutely a number one priority for me for a lot of years. And so, yeah, this is one of those where it's not the number one, but it's a top priority is just working through the identity. And I kind of hate that you talked about buzzwords. I kind of hate the term. I have a love hate relationship maybe with, you know, self-confidence or self-worth. Because I absolutely believe that there's a lot of value in them. But I also, as you said, with some other words, like there can be some misappropriation with those words, too. But yeah, it's it's it's a work in progress.

Jeffrey Besecker: First and foremost, I think it's a healthy framing to understand that yes, all of this development work we do that we call self-development is heavy and nuanced, and it's a healthy framing just from the aspect of trying to focus on everything itself all at once can become a form of perfectionism, can become very stressful and trying to fix everything at once, quote unquote, trying to change those behaviors. Understanding that sometimes you have to put that focus and put that piece together. It's like putting that big 2,000-piece puzzle together. We see the big picture on the box, and if we're always focused on having the right piece at the right time, it becomes its own form of dissension. That borders on perfectionism. That becomes bordered on hyper-achievement and over-personalization. I'm going to throw that word in there. Where we're overly focused on the person is a form of ego dynamic. Without framing it with all of the cultural norms about whether or not you're hyper-focused or an inflated sense of self, you just simply are over-personalized with the process and in a way that it doesn't allow you to healthfully connect and beneficially connect with the rest of the world and the rest of your life.

Logan Hufford: Going back a few seconds, I love the puzzle analogy because when I think about it in terms of working on these various issues, that really is, that's a great way to frame it because it's like, yeah, if I'm building a puzzle, I mean, I'm not a puzzle guy, but I, you know, my sisters are puzzle people, puzzle girls. And so like, you know, every Christmas they're always building puzzles and it's like, yeah, I'm going to work on these trees. I'm going to work on these lake pieces. These are my priorities. These other pieces are not my priority there. I recognize them. I've got my eye on them. I know that they're there and there's going to be a time where they are the priority. But, you know, I'm not going to throw them in the box and put the box away. But I'm also not pretending that every single area of the puzzle is my number one priority.

Jeffrey Besecker: I love how you framed that there again, and then we go back to that framing and that being a key step of forming that analogy with life. Internal family systems. I don't know how much work or exploration you've done with that, but just identifying with these various roles and parts and belief systems, values, everything that makes us up is all a piece of that puzzle.

Logan Hufford: Right.

Jeffrey Besecker: Sometimes it is beneficial you get down to some of those last pieces and parts to kind of inspect things, experiment a little bit with it, turn around our perspective and view on it. That's the best way to form that analogy and that connection to me. Sometimes you have to experiment with the way that fit happens to see where that part fits in and how it completes that bigger picture.

Logan Hufford: Being willing to try on different things. I think about this just broadly in almost every area of life, but it is a good exercise for me to be willing to try something on, recognizing I don't have to wear it for the rest of my life, but let me try it on and not just be closed-minded to it.

Jeffrey Besecker: We've really went off the map today as we're putting some of these pieces together. I want to look at that piece of anger. Let's look at that proponent and the role it played for you. Share with me how that experience of anger started to surface.

Logan Hufford: Yeah, this one is. as opposed to so many areas of my life where it's like there's these slow progressions and I can't really pinpoint the A, I never thought I had an anger problem. And to be honest, it never did manifest. And I don't use the words always or never lightly. I very rarely use those words. I don't remember ever struggling with anger. And if you meet anyone in my life, siblings, my wife, my parents, they would all say the same thing. Yeah, no, Logan doesn't struggle with anger until I had kids. Because there is no greater test, in my opinion, of my patience and of my selflessness and and all these things, until I've got these little non controllable variables that not only do we need to keep alive. But we've got our hearts tethered to them and I'm trying to raise them and I'm trying to balance, you know, not being too authoritarian, but also not being just so lovey dovey and he's not staying in his room and he's not picking up the box or whatever. Um, it was when my oldest Elijah, he was a very, very easy baby, like really, really easy baby. So I don't, I don't remember ever struggling with anger when he was a baby, but when he was a toddler, once he could get out of his bed and he wouldn't, he had a big issue staying in his bed and I started struggling with anger so bad. And, and then it, once I started manifesting and once I started showing anger and letting it out, raging, yelling, screaming, throwing my fist through the drywall, throwing things. Then it became this response to many stressors. So now I'm much more likely to yell at Carrie when we're having an argument. And of course, I would express it in other ways too. There'd be the seething anger, there'd be the resentment, but this rage, this screaming Hulk rage, that I literally, I don't think I expressed for the first 20 years of my life that started coming out. And unfortunately it came out directed primarily at my kids. And it got to the point where, so this was about three and a half years ago, four years ago, maybe. So I'm four years sober at this point. I'm I've made huge strides in terms of sexual addiction recovery and in other areas as well, but especially, you know, this area that I was in bondage with for so many years. And Carrie had a frank conversation with me and she said, Logan, I gave you an ultimatum, which she did in 2015. You know, you need to get help or else you will lose me and the kids because of the affairs. She goes, I gave you an ultimatum and, you know, you risked losing me if you didn't get help. don't make me leave you because of your anger. And it was that serious. And so I started using ultimately a lot of the recovery tools that I had learned through sexual addiction recovery, tried anger management, tried some other anger recovery groups and different things. And I can thankfully say that there's been a tremendous amount of progressive victory in that area as well over the last several years. But yeah, I mean, that was the second monster in my life. And in some ways the number one monster. especially as the sexual addiction stuff started to really get worked on. That was like this last dragon in my life.

Jeffrey Besecker: So with that anger, and I know from my own experience and my own struggle with it, I'll say struggle with it, my own challenges with it, that there's often a secondary emotion that's underlying that. There's another driving factor. Is that a piece you've been able to connect with throughout your journey and discover some of that core emotion underneath that?

Logan Hufford: Yeah. Um, so much fear because of lack of control. Most of my, most of my anger, most of my rage outbursts was tied to that. I mean, when I think about like the moments where I've been most triggered in my anger, there's a buzzword that I kind of hate and yet it's a completely, completely viable word, but you know, I hate how it gets used sometimes, but, um, where I would get most triggered. I mean, I, I'd be brushing my teeth, easy peasy life's going good. And I would hear one of my boys fighting like as they're older now. And, you know, so maybe they're like six and four or something. And I'd hear one of my brother or one of my boys fighting with his brother and he screams. And there was a, I mean, you talk about feeling like I can't control myself, just like I felt like I couldn't control what I did with my phone, what I did with other women, even though I could, but I didn't feel like I could. I mean, up until like three years ago, if that happened. I felt like I didn't have a choice. I had to scream. I had to go rage monster on them. And, you know, when I would do that and I would, I would go Hulk and yell or slam, slam my hand, my hand down on the counter or throw something and just completely act in that rage monster way. The very worst thing that my kids could do is then comply, because what does that reinforce? Right. Is OK, well, the the best thing for me to do is to scream and then they obey. And so you asked about the root. I mean, so much of it for me was that fear of I don't have control and if I don't have control, then bad things can happen. And so, of course, let me do a terrible thing by raging on my kids, which there's no logic there. But in that sense, in that in that, you know, destructive mindset or unhealthy mindset, there's, you know, it's twisted logic.

Jeffrey Besecker: That idea of there's no logic there jumps right out to me instantly because yes, A, there is no logic there because your autonomic nervous system has taken control. That's a very genuine and true fact of our neurobiology. It overrides all prefrontal logic because you're simply looking for the survival tactics. You're simply looking for that sense of psychological safety. Underneath that is that connection to that need for safety and certainty for that need for control. Yeah.

Logan Hufford: I mean, the way I describe recovery to people oftentimes, and it's the same way that thankfully I've been able to work on my anger is slowing down. And I always, I think about it like in my worst moments and in my addiction and my worst moments with my anger. It felt like I'm in this self-driving car and I can't stop, I can't control it. And so now, whether it's a sexual temptation or a rage temptation, I can recognize, okay, I am driving the car. It's not a self-driving car. And not only that, but there's off-ramps. I don't have to be driving on this highway. If this is a bad highway to be on, I can take an off-ramp. I can stop. I can slow down, I have options. So that to your point, yeah, there's always going to be that limbic system and that survival brain, lizard brain, these things are like, I'm going to have those things, but I can make healthy choices and recognize the healthy choices while not ignoring that survival part.

Jeffrey Besecker: It's such a great aspect to frame today because that not only in our conversation becomes a pivotal piece, but overall and how we all navigate those conflicting emotions become such a pivotal piece. You know, sometimes we do get caught in that logic reasoning cycle where we're struggling with that idea to find logic and reason, especially, and I know from my own attachment with anger and control, that need to establish that control and certainty through our logic and reason.

Logan Hufford: Yeah. You and I talked, you know, when we first met, I mean, so much of my sexual addiction, you know, struggles with impulsive and compulsive choices there. What was tied also to this power and control dynamic, right? Because of some of the root stuff of I'm not going to be attractive. I'm ugly. Well, okay. So then let me try to make sure that girls like me make sure that women like me. And I was able to gain ground. I was able to conquer. I was able to dominate. And of course, these are unhealthy ways to, but that's how I looked at things. That's how I looked at my interactions with women generally. And so, it was this whole other power and control dynamic. So, I mean, power and control is, I mean, obviously anyone familiar with addiction, I mean, that's, I'm preaching to the choir, but I mean, power and control issues were a gigantic, and still can be if I'm not careful, area for me to need to work on.

Jeffrey Besecker: So as you've worked down through the bottom of that barrel, so to speak, throughout the course of your own interaction with these patterns and habits, have you been able to kind of identify or start to make a connection or association with what underlies that need to control? You know, is there a certain situation that comes up that you reflect back to that now I understand how that ingrained that pattern in me?

Logan Hufford: There's been some natural, um, like when it comes to the sexual aspect is general statement, but there's definitely been some natural, you know, this is where again, kind of letting healthy logic intertwined with the survival brain. Like, Hey, I have this incredible family. I got this incredible wife. Um, you know what that waitress, she might think I'm ugly. Cool. That's fine. No big deal. It doesn't matter. Has it has no bearing on me. You know, so there's been some of that, like just recognizing these, again, which to a healthy person that's never struggled was like, well, duh, like, but I, I struggled so much with those things. Right. So there's definitely been some of that. And in terms of just broad power and control issues, especially as it relates to anger, a lot of it for me, not at all saying I'm a finished product, but a lot of the progressive victory I can say is rooted now in healthy contentment, healthy gratitude. I always say, I don't come on any podcast to preach, but I absolutely, I do believe in a huge piece of my healing, the central part of my healing, of my recovery has been relationship with my creator, with my savior. And so having that health and contentment in, I am so blessed. I have so much in my life, spiritually and physically. It doesn't fix it. It doesn't mean that I don't ever struggle with power and control, but it does help a lot to recognize, yeah, I can't control this aspect of this thing that's going on in the house or, you know, the paycheck is light or whatever. I don't need to freak out about it. I don't need to go medicate. I don't need to go seek out. No, like What's the next right thing I can do? What is within my control? I mean, the serenity prayer is something that can be cliche. I mean, it's, you know, Seinfeld. But it's such a beautiful frame of mind. It's such a beautiful thing to say, no, let me actually believe these words to control the things that are in front of me that I can control. And there's a whole heck of a lot that I can't. Let me be at peace with that.

Jeffrey Besecker: Right. So within that, do you feel you've found that healthy middle ground of acceptance, especially with yourself?

Logan Hufford: I don't use the term found. I don't think there's anything wrong with that term, but for me personally, I don't use the term found.

Jeffrey Besecker: That was very guiding. It was very guiding.

Logan Hufford: For me, it's… And this is just like this is my is how my brain works. But I think the term found that implies to me that it's like it has happened. I have done it. And it it's definitely not a static thing. Right. Every day, every moment of every day. I mean, it's kind of exaggeration, but not really. I mean, most moments of the day, I have to work to rebalance. I have to work to get to this healthy point of just in life of recognizing where I'm at, where my motivation's at. Doing podcasts. You know, I've done a huge amount of work on Instagram to bring awareness to this stuff. There's all kinds of stuff that comes up there with ego. And let me make sure that my talking point comes across really well. And let me make sure that, you know, that I look good in this picture and limit. So, I mean, that's a specific example, but it's a heightened example of there's I don't know that I'll ever not have. a pull, a temptation where in a second I can camp on very unhealthy, egotistical and self-focused things. And so I just got to be really intentional. It was almost a casual side thing that a recovery brother mentioned one time. I mentioned, I was like, yeah, I feel stagnant. I don't even remember what I was referencing, but I'm not doing bad, but I don't, I just kind of feel stagnant. There's no stagnant. I'm progressing forward or I'm backsliding. It may not seem like I'm moving forward or back, but I am moving forward or back. I'm not ever just sitting still when it comes to healthy living. And I take those words to heart and I absolutely believe them.

Jeffrey Besecker: Is there anything today you'd like to share more to bring this whole cohesive message and shout from the rooftop what you intend to engage people with?

Logan Hufford: I mean, there's definitely something knocking at my brain that maybe we don't need to dive into. Maybe it's just muscle memory. I usually spend some time talking about this.

Jeffrey Besecker: It's relevant. Let's bring it in.

Logan Hufford: So, I mean, just in terms of, we've spent a lot of time talking about my addiction and the darkness of it. It feels unnatural to not spend some time talking about recovery for the purposes of- That's our gap, thank you. So, I mean, there's that that comes to mind. And then a lot of hosts don't want to dive into this other piece and that's totally fine. It depends on you and your audience, but anytime I am able to at least share or shed some light on Carrie's healing journey and just what she chose to do. It's always an honor and privilege to be able to do that. Some people are like, no, I only want to hear what you did and that's fine too.

Jeffrey Besecker: And to me, that does show that great care and concern and resolve that illustrates how you have transformed out of some of those more egocentric drives to be able to reconnect and create those genuine adaptive common bonds, especially in your most intimate relationship. So how would you like to segue that? you for that?

Logan Hufford: I mean, what comes to mind, maybe this is like two layman's terms, but it is literally kind of what I just said a minute ago. It's like, okay, we've spent a lot of time dissecting the darkest moments of your life. You're not there anymore. It's just kind of, how did we get here? How did we get to this point? I can be very zoomed out and then allow you to zoom in on anything you want to say.

Jeffrey Besecker: Let me frame that a little bit here and then dive right in from there. So Logan, as you've traveled this journey, we've talked a lot about what you've battled with, quote unquote, and struggled to do to move past some of those darker points in your life. Could you share with us some of those key pivotal moments that have allowed you to reach back into that light and discover this pathway to recovery?

Logan Hufford: Yeah, this is one of the things that when I look back at this journey of eight and a half years, almost eight plus years. So when I think back on what started my recovery journey, what started this healing journey for our family, because it wasn't just me, it was Carrie jumping into betrayal, trauma, healing, all the abuse that I had put her through. I see a series of landmarks that God put in our life. And these landmarks are people and instances where it's like through different humans, through different scenarios, God is like in my face going, Hey, we're not doing things the old way anymore. It's a new, my mentor and his wife, we call it, there's a new dance that we're doing now. And the very first landmark that I see is that ultimatum I referenced earlier that so that month long affair I had, I would confess affairs when I would have them I would feel so bad about them and then afterwards I would I would confess it to carry and which was a totally other unhealthy thing that I, you know, There was no repentance. There was no change behavior. I just felt bad and I'd vomit on her basically. And so I vomited on her about this one. You know, I had another affair and that's when she gave me this ultimatum. If you don't get serious help, if there's no change, then I'm gone. And she was pregnant with our fourth boy, Isaiah. And I believed her. So that was this first landmark of, okay, I don't know exactly what this is going to look like, but there are some real consequences that are headed down the pike. And I started to do things differently. That's super weak verbiage, but it's accurate because I didn't just flip a switch and become healthy. In fact, I didn't get sober until almost a year later and sober in terms of sober from masturbation, pornography, and sexual behavior with other women. That was May 19th, 2016. But over the course of those several months, I started to attend recovery groups. I started to reach out and inquire on resources imperfectly, but I did start to do that. And through that process, another landmark, which was I met a guy named Rick and I met him at a group that wasn't, it didn't actually become a central part of my recovery, but I met him at this group and he was like, Hey, I appreciate you coming. Thanks for coming. You need more than this group. And he was very upfront about that. And he's about my dad's age. He was like, I needed more than this group. And at one point, so he and I were the only two guys at this group that you were self-identified recovering sex addicts. And he had about maybe 10 years of sobriety and healthy living at that point. At one point, I'm like, Rick, could we get together for a cup of coffee and maybe talk about this stuff every now and again? We could meet up. And he looked at me, he's like, Logan, if you want to get together for coffee every now and again, I don't have time for you. That was the second landmark. Rick has gone on to become a father figure to me, my best friend outside of Carrie and truly one of the most loving people that you will ever meet. And in that moment, he was telling me, we're not doing things the Logan way. You know, we're not just going to do this casual get together. And because he quickly followed up, he goes, if you want to seriously work on this, because it's a big problem, I will walk with you. But it's not going to be getting together for coffee every now and again, it's going to be hard work, it's, you're not going to control it, and it's maybe going to be the hardest thing you've ever done. And those words were true, but he ended up mentoring me through a two year voluntary house arrest program. He and other men, what they allowed me to do was, because I didn't need recovery to get injected into my life, like a dose of recovery. I needed my life, this exoskeleton that I had spent years building, both intentionally and unintentionally, my way of doing things. I needed that thing to get like ripped into and shredded apart and destroyed. And I needed a new infrastructure. I needed a new way of doing things. And I didn't know how to do that by myself. I didn't know that I needed to do that. And so Rick and these other men, God used them to help me build this, to destroy what was there and then build a new one. And doing that for my family, for my relationship with Carrie. And as I said, you know, so I got into, I seriously got into recovery. I started really building traction in May of 2016. She started going to Betrayal Trauma Recovery, which my mentor's wife led that group. in July of 2016 and recovery has never left our lives. And ultimately, you know, I use that exoskeleton imagery because that's what it was for me. I got into recovery for one very simple reason. I wanted to get sober. I wanted to stop looking at porn, stop having affairs. Maybe I could stop doing that. I didn't even know if I could. I didn't get into recovery to work on my anger. I didn't get into recovery to be a more selfless person. Let me try to stop cheating on my wife. But it wasn't just about that, right? It was about all these unhealthy ways of dealing with life. All this stuff that we've spent over an hour talking about, right? And so the program itself was two years, but these recovery tools, this infrastructure, I mean, I still use these tools on a daily basis. The infrastructure has never and will never leave my life. look different as time goes on. I used to make phone calls every single day. I had to in the program. I don't make them every day, but I make them regularly. A few times a month, I'm making a phone call to recover brother to gut out, to like gut out what's in me. What are the stressors? What am I holding onto? What are the triggers? And just put it out there. And maybe I'm going to get hit with hard questions and tough feedback and incredible advice. Maybe not. But it's a, it's a heck of an exercise to empty the garbage in me. And I don't mean that in the sense that I'm garbage, but like the stuff, right.

Jeffrey Besecker: The stuff that we acquire and just go, Hey, garbage baggage. It's doing nothing more than weighing us down. Correct. Here's my stuff. Yeah. We're able to purchase.

Logan Hufford: Yep. Cause I mean, it's a, it's a combination of stressors and fears and anxieties and triggers and, you know, poor choices that I've made and, oh, I'm feeling this anger towards my kids. And, oh, I had this argument with Carrie and I don't know how to deal with all of this stuff. It's life stuff, but I didn't have a way to deal with it. And it's like, it's like, I have this incredible way to deal with it. Why not use it? Right. And so, and of course accountability, which is the other piece to all of this. true, rigorous accountability, guys knowing my stuff, guys knowing, you know, they have an invitation to ask me any question, to give me feedback at any point. That is what I needed. I needed a complete overhaul of how I did life.

Jeffrey Besecker: That's a great way to frame that. We go back a lot in our conversational arc here at the show and looking at that idea of a junk drawer in our house where we shove all these pieces that no longer serve us, you know. Yeah. stains it, or essentially just baggage or excess stuff. Sometimes we have to clean out that closet, so to speak, that storage unit. You know, I use the analogy of cleaning out our storage unit a while back. We'd accumulated all of this crap. It was crap. It was things we had no use for throughout life that weren't serving us. You know, we went back through, we cleaned the space out. We no longer allowed that space to occupy time in our lives. We no longer needed it. We just let it go and move to the things that served us.

Logan Hufford: Yeah. And that is one reason why, and I don't say this lightly and Carrie will tell you the same thing. I mean, we, she, especially we went through like a hell on earth. I mean, our story when, when, when I graduated from my program, I shared my testimony. Carrie shared her testimony and we invited some family and friends and stuff. And my sister, she knew about this stuff, but she'd never heard our full story. And when she heard that she was like, Logan, I don't ever want to hear that again. Yeah. And she was just like, that was a horror story. Like that was so hard for me to hear. I'm thankful I heard it, but it was so hard for me to hear. And it absolutely, it was right. And yet Carrie would tell you, we would not trade our story for anyone's because what it has allowed us to have is it's not like we got back to center. Like, Oh, we got back to the people we were before I started making bad choices. No, no, no, no. I mean, there's been a complete transformation in so many different ways where I and I don't say this from hubris. I say this from gratitude only. Like I have these incredible tools to deal with life that I that I use imperfectly, but these incredible tools to deal with life. And so many people close to me, so many people don't have. And I'm so thankful that my stakes were so high. Because if I wasn't facing an ultimatum that I'm going to lose my wife and kids, if my issues, if my deficiencies were something that didn't seem so obviously destructive, I probably never would have gotten an ultimatum. I probably never would have gotten into recovery. I probably would not have these tools that I have today. And I'm so thankful for that.

Jeffrey Besecker: So as we close today here and we consider the value of those tools in that journey, if somebody is in that struggle with any kind of addiction, whether that be sexual compulsion, whether that be betrayal addiction, whether that be any kind of chemical addiction, they're trying to find that solid rock to launch from, what might be a first step?

Logan Hufford: Okay. So this is something that I spend quite a bit of time focusing on like with Instagram and when I'm working with people locally in recovery groups. If I am starting out in this process, and as you said, whatever struggle I'm working through, whether I'm the survivor of abuse, I am struggling with addiction, whatever it looks like, I need hope. Right. And I'm only going to find hope in my experience, at least if I find people who they've they've been in the trenches that I am currently in in some version of them. Nobody has the exact same story. Right. But they've they've lived some version of this life, but it doesn't stop there. If I find people who have been in the who are in the trenches with me, that can help me move away from shame. And that's good because I'm not the only one. Right. But that doesn't necessarily bring hope. What I need is to find people that have been in those trenches, but they've experienced healing. They've experienced that transformation. And so they can, they can know where I'm coming from, but they're in a different place and they have the type of life that I want. Right. Because people will often ask like, Hey, I, you know, you're in Alaska. I'm in Orlando. I'm in London. I'm in Sydney. Like, I don't know how to find your, I can't, I can't go to your group. I can't, and it's totally accurate. you might find a similar group, you might not. But what you can do is I can teach you how to fish, right? These are the types of things that I need to look for in resources. These are the types of things I need to look for in a mentor. So that is like the number one thing I can put out there is find people that have the type of life that you want, but they've been where you've been. And one tool I will just put out there, and we alluded to it earlier, so I won't sit on it for too much, but I've referenced making phone calls. And not everyone can completely replicate that with their current infrastructure. I have recovery brothers that they knew my stuff, they were in the program with me. I could call them and they knew the protocol, right? But I can exercise that muscle, even if it looks different. Because ultimately what that muscle is, as you said, it's emptying that junk drawer, right? It's putting it out there to a safe person. I like how Brene Brown says it, right? Somebody who has earned the right to, mixing the metaphor or mixing the references, somebody who's earned the right to help me clean my junk drawer. So I'm not just sharing it to a random buddy, but somebody who is relatively healthy, who can help me with this stuff, whether that's a therapist, a coach, whatever that looks like. And a big piece of the phone call that I didn't mention, at least in our program, I would make the phone call, I would put out my junk drawer, and then I shut up and listen. And if I'm calling Jeffrey, I am not allowed to respond or defend myself. I share my stuff. And then it's his turn to ask me questions, to poke and prod, to give me advice. And maybe he will just say, thanks for calling. I don't have anything, but I have to shut up and listen. And what that forces me to do is recognize, I mean, talk about power and control, right? It forces me to just sit there and go, I'm going to. Yeah. I'm going to absorb your feedback and your advice. I don't have to do the things that you're advising me to do, but I, but I'm chewing on it. I'm absorbing it. I'm recognizing that I don't have it all figured out. Other people have ideas and that's a good thing, right? That's, that's a muscle that I did not exercise for the first two and a half decades of my life. And I don't think I would have exercised that muscle if it were not for recovery. And so just as a very specific thing, find ways to exercise that muscle, you know, to empty the junk drawer, shut up and listen and just absorb, recognizing that I don't have to do all the things that people are advising me to do, but it's good to chew on it. It's good to think about it from a different perspective and go, what if?

Jeffrey Besecker: That's a great tip to share from my perspective, and it will not or cannot exist if we don't have that mutual bond of trust. So thank you for sharing that with us today. In closing today, is there any other aspect or little nugget we might've overlooked today that you'd like to share with our audience?

Logan Hufford: Yeah. And I'll be, I want to be careful how I say this because I recognize I am only me. I'm not Carrie, but so she's time and energy perspective. She's not going on podcasts right now, but anything I ever share from her perspective, this is not speculation. These are things that she openly will share in her testimony and when she's working with folks and it's the betrayal trauma aspect. So Carrie would, would openly say this. She was somebody I love metaphors. So she essentially was was stabbed and on the side of the road. She did not ask to be stabbed. She did not want to be stabbed. It sure as heck wasn't her fault. She had a choice to go seek healing to go seek a hospital, or she could go, Hey, Logan, I'm glad you're working on not stabbing people, but that's your freaking problem. I don't need to spend my time going to recovery group or doing homework or putting my stuff out there. Like you caused this problem. You cheated on us. That's not my issue. And she didn't do that. She recognized that there were intense wounds that had been created that were a hundred percent, not her fault. And it's completely unfair that she should have to spend her time and energy to work on it. but she chose to embrace and jump into healing. And again, I recognize that might sound weird coming from the dude in this scenario, coming from the guy that was the perpetrator in this scenario. But for anyone who may need to hear that, please hear that because there's a lot of guys that will share an aspect of my story and their wives do not seek out the healing. And there's a whole list of logical reasons why. And what ends up happening, though, is generally speaking that we see it constantly that that woman becomes frozen in time. She is forever the betrayed spouse. She's forever this scarred victim. And it's like it's not fair that she should have to seek healing. It's not her fault. But if again, if Carrie is wounded on the side of the road and she has a choice to seek healing or not, it is a choice. So I always put that out there because It feels uncomfortable to say it every time, but I'm not going to back away from sharing the truth.

Jeffrey Besecker: It's such an essential part in that journey, especially as a life bonded couple. So I want to thank you for sharing that relevant piece with us today. Logan, where can our listeners go to reach out to you if they're seeking that support and feedback?

Logan Hufford: Yeah, the very best way is Instagram. That is where I funnel most of my energy in terms of like connecting with people outside of Alaska is Instagram. I put a lot of content out there focused on sexual addiction, recovery, betrayal, trauma, recovery, addiction in general. And you're not going to find just a trendy Bible verse on B roll waves. It's I get into the meat of it. And so, uh, no longer in bondage, uh, is my handle at no period, longer period in period bondage, quite frankly, because to be able to say I'm no longer in bondage to sexual addiction is something that I cherish. I went years thinking that I would be in bondage forever. And so once I got an Instagram, it was pretty easy. Like, yep. I know, I know what that handle is going to be. Folks can, if you have a question, if you want to reach out, if somebody wants to jump on a call, I'm willing to do that. I don't do this for a living. This is purely a ministry, but whatever I can do to give back, you know, at least be one of the hands that can reach into the pit or, or give a resource. And to that point, if even if you're somebody who you don't personally struggle with this with either side of the coin, you would like to understand addiction. You would like to understand betrayal, trauma, understand. where I'm coming from on this, where an addict is coming from. Check it out. Give me a follow. I think you will find it very beneficial and insightful. If you found this conversation at all intriguing or beneficial, check out the Instagram and you will enjoy it, I think.

Jeffrey Besecker: I truly want to thank you for so openly and genuinely sharing this journey with us today. I truly am grateful and blessed to have been a part of this with you and hear your story. So thank you. Thank you so much. Namaste. The light in me acknowledges the light in you.

Logan Hufford: Thank you, brother. I appreciate the opportunity to shout from your rooftop.

Jeffrey Besecker: Likewise, I'd like for you to come back anytime and continue to share this message and this inspiring journey with us. Thank you. I appreciate it. I appreciate you. In this episode, we explored the key pathways to sexual recovery, focusing on how identity constructs, emotional triggers, and hyperarousal reinforce patterns of sexually compulsive behaviors. Recovery begins by recognizing the subconscious drivers behind these patterns, often stemming from unresolved emotional trauma and dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system. Key strategies highlighted included addressing emotional triggers by bringing unresolved feelings to light and working through them mindfully. Engaging mindfulness to create a healthier, more balanced relationship with sexuality and reducing hyper-arousal responses. Reshaping identity constructs to foster self-awareness and reclaim a sense of agency over compulsive patterns. We leave you now with a few encouraging words. No matter how dark the path may seem, Recovery is always possible. Every step towards self-awareness, every effort to face the shadows, and every mindful choice you make brings you closer to healing. Stay hopeful and remember that the journey of recovery is not about perfection but progress. Stay hopeful and keep moving forward. And remember, there's always a light at the end of the tunnel. If you found value and meaning in today's episode, please share it with a friend or loved one. And as always, we're grateful for you, our valued listening community. This has been The Light Inside. I'm Jeffrey Besecker.