CHAPTER 1

A Dirty War Declared

Legend has it that there was a day not so long ago whenmen were more sexually pure. There was a day when a mangave his word on his wedding day to forsake all others, andhe did exactly what he said he would do. He stayed marriedand faithful to the wife God gave to him to cherish. Inthat day, it was expected that men would keep their word totheir wives and to others. A man was as good as his word,as the stories say.

There was a day when a man would run from wickedwomen and avoid the porn store located on the dirty side oftown. Some with grey hair still talk of the era when a man'sword was as good as gold. Then the war started. This wasn'ta conventional war with bombs, planes, and navy ships,raised by some faraway nation. This war was raised againstus, the church and our culture, from the very pit of hell itself.

The enemy of our souls began a sexual campaign—oras we would later call it, a sexual revolution. This campaignwould question the very core biblical view of sexuality. Thevicious weapons of pornography, drugs, and sexual immoralitywere raised against our educational institutions andchurches, and the onslaught spread throughout the land.The fight pitted sons and daughters against the truths andvalues of their parents and grandparents like no other culturalwar in the history of mankind. These young peopletalked of free love, or rather free sex. Pornography was a rightand sex was a right without consequences or responsibilities.

This mind-set developed in many ways over the nextdecades. The Internet has taken this sexual combat to everyhome, computer, and cell phone. For most of us men, pornographyis only a click away, and it grants the enemy'sarmy easy access to our hearts, lives, and families.

This has an impact on every church in this great nationand many nations around the world. Some churches areactive in the fight against sexual sin, and some have no ideathey are in a war; half or more of their men are dead insidebecause their silent sins are keeping them from reachingtheir full destiny in Christ.

Clean is a solution manual for all of you engaged in thisgreat war. You didn't ask for it; you just happened to be bornwhen the enemy declared murderous intentions on you andyour family, church, and nation. You had no say, but youare called to help our God set free a generation. No churchcommunity in history has had to reckon with such anintense and sophisticated inundation of sexual perversity.And we are God's only warriors in this battle. Our culturesays we are crazy to believe God's Word about sexual fidelityand purity, whether we are single or married.

If we win this war together, we might see a return toChristian sexual values in our culture. We might return toa day when sexual purity is the standard once again, andperversion is seen for the damaging entity it really is. AfterI share with you some sobering statistics about our precarioussituation, I will take you through this warrior's manualto help you get and stay free your entire life, and to helpyour brothers in Christ.

I write this handbook from a place of absolute compassion.I never met my father. I was placed in foster homes,sexually abused, and fully sexually addicted as a teen andyoung adult. I know the damages of this enemy personally.This soldier has the scars and has experienced the shame offeeling flawed and disconnected from God and the body ofChrist, much like many of you do. The memories of this warare real for me, and so is the victory I will share with you infuture pages. Victory is so much sweeter, since this is whatGod has made each of us for—victory!

I have been sexually clean for more than twenty-fiveyears. I have not masturbated, viewed pornography, or hadany sexual behavior outside of my marriage. My clean lifestylehas been validated repeatedly by a polygraph, so I amtelling you the truth man to man, soldier to soldier.

You may ask, "Why a polygraph?" Well, several yearsago when my pastor fell sexually, one of the female groupleaders in my office began to wonder who she could trust.After all, her husband was unfaithful and her pastor as wellas mine was also unfaithful. She sincerely asked me if I wasreally clean. I wanted everyone to know the other cliniciansin my office as well as myself are clean. So all of the counselorsagreed to take a polygraph annually to verify our yearsof sexual freedom. We felt that this was the least we coulddo for those hurt by this pastor's falling.

In the last two decades of counseling men who weresexually addicted, their wives, and families who wereimpacted by the man's addiction, I have seen the ravagesof this war. You could fill a room with the tears I havewitnessed from the men, women, and children who havebeen wounded. I have also seen the miracle of men gettingclean and staying clean and their marriages andfamilies healed, and I have written several books relatedto sexual addiction. I am considered an expert in thefield of recovery, having appeared on Oprah, Dr. Phil, andmany other national television shows, and I've even hada Lifetime Network movie made about our treatment forsex addicts called Sex, Lies and Obsession. I am also thepresident of the American Association for Sex AddictionTherapy (AASAT). We train and certify counselors andlife coaches to help those who struggle with sexual addictionboth nationally and internationally.

The book you're holding contains tested and tried weaponsfor you to get and stay clean, not for a week, month, oryear, but for the rest of your life. Our culture needs mencommitted to win this war, today more than ever, and myprayer is that you would answer that call, for those you loveand who trust you to be a man of...