Oprah's On: Town Hall Meeting: Imus Controversy: Now What?

[Rain Man]

...and my hat goes off to him for bravely coming out and admitting his sin and what it took to overcome it.

On that note, I will confess this b/c you ALL are my longtime friends and I can say this to you without shame.

My name is Rain Man, aka Jason, and while I am a Man of God...

…I was also a longtime pornography addict.

It began when I was a kid, watching movies on The Movie Channel that I had no business seeing. Then as a teenager, watching more titillating material on late night HBO. Then the habit of masturbation began when I was 14 (yeah, I said it; tell the truth and shame the devil). By the time I graduated high school until the time I gave my life to the Lord 10 years later, I was practicing the habit on average, twice a day.

But wait, there’s more.

During my 2nd year of college, I bought my “first” pornographic magazine (while I had previously looked at a Playboy or Penthouse or Players magazine once in a blue moon, it had never done anything for me). But this time, it was different because now I was hooked, because I began to buy more and more and more. By my third year of college (1994), I was renting the occasional video, but by 1996 I was hooked on that too.

My spiral of degradation accelerated through 1997 and 1998. I was renting videos on average 3 TIMES A WEEK often renting at least 2 videos at a time at $5 a pop. And that’s not counting the magazines I was still purchasing. You do the math on how much $ I blew. And I was going through a bankruptcy at that time too. Romans Chapter 1 had definitely proved itself in my life (God giving you over to a reprobate mind).

By the fall of 1998 I had hit rock bottom. God had given me enough grace to take me out of my 3rd shift job I hated and get me a great running car at a steal of a price (I had owned 4 different cars in a one year period) and for His grace and mercy (mercy being getting me through a divorce and bankruptcy going on at the same time unscathed). In gratitude, I gave my life to the Lord December 6, 1998.

Was it all over? Hardly!

*to be continued*