A new beginning: David in 2009, deter- mined to overcome his sexual addiction.


It had been five years since Nancy discovered pornography on David’s computer. They were hard years with two suicide attempts as David sank lower and lower. In one 24-hour period, the couple realized David was again suicidal and needed immediate in-patient treatment. Together, they checked him into a month long intensive sexual addiction program in western Washington. It was nearly halfway through the program before David could reveal the truth. Not only was he viewing pornography, he had been engaging in it with hundreds of prostitutes. He told his wife he knew the only way he could be free and save himself and his family was to come clean. The shock and pain of that revelation put Nancy straight into a week of grief and loss counseling at the same facility. The magnitude of it all brought her to her knees in complete surrender to her faith. She would come to rely on that faith for everything; first and foremost how to tell the


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couple’s then eleven and thirteen year old children about the nightmare their father was living. It’s easy to think, at this point, Nancy should run for her life. She had already lived through five years knowing her husband looked at pornography, now she had her own horrifying images of the double life he lead for 25 years. But she says there was never a question she would leave David. Nancy is no dependent, insecure, wallflower. She is an intelligent, strong, personable, beautiful woman. When she came out of the grief and loss treatment she faced a fork in the road. She says, “I could hear God saying if you really trust me, follow me,” to which she said, “if you really are who you say you are, I’ll follow.” Nancy started the recovery journey with her husband, knowing full well the depth of his brokenness. You see, she fought, then recovered from, a 23 year addiction herself and says, “How could I possibly turn around and say God was big enough for me and my addiction, but not for my husbands and his?”


and often is unrecognized until one is in recovery. He believes Nancy’s ability to deal with David’s sexual addiction was greatly enhanced by her experience with an eating disorder. “It gave her insight into the hopelessness an addict faces,” he says. Nancy finally beat her battle with bulimia in 2001 well before she knew about David’s addiction. The turning point for her came when she was asked to lead a Christ-centered 12-step recovery class. She remembers thinking, “there’s no way I can lead this when I just threw up before I came here.”


Nancy didn’t tell David the truth about her bulimia until she hit bottom


How could I possibly turn around and say God was big enough for me and my addiction, but not for my husbands and his?


Nancy remembers the moment her bulimia began. She was 11 years old and her mother threw a bowl of spaghetti on the family dinner table and walked out. That abandonment was the beginning of her world spiraling out of control. To gain control, she started binging and purging food. “The root of every addiction is medicating pain and gaining control. My bulimia was a response to the pain of my mother leaving.” Just as David’s sex addiction was a response to the pain from his childhood abuse. Control is one of many parallels between Nancy and David’s addictions. Stuart Vogelman, a local expert in addiction recovery, says the common root of addiction, medicating of emotional pain, can be compelling


and cried out for help. Later she would understand why David could not initially come clean about his addiction. But she also knew his long road to recovery started with full disclosure. The critical part to getting better was intense therapy for sexual addiction. One of the leading experts in sexual addiction in the country is psychologist Dr. Doug Weiss. He has appeared on Oprah, Dr. Phil, 20/20 and other national television programs. He says 83 percent of sex addicts get better from the day they leave the treatment office. But if they don’t continue with treatment, support groups, and therapy that percent drops to 20. “Without help,” Dr. Weiss says, “sexual addiction takes you to one of three places, jail, institutions, or death.”


David went to work to beat his addiction and he went about it with the same energy that propelled him to so many other successes. He attended


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