MY ADDICTION, OUR SECOND CHANCE

By Danny Bias: It was in early November of ’04 when my wife first discovered my secret. I had been hiding all the mail, trying to cover my tracks. We lived in the mountains and our mail was at a PO Box. I would usually stop by on my way to work, pick up the mail, destroy or hide anything incriminating, and head to work.

But on that one day, she got the mail and the phone bill happened to be in it.

A very expensive phone bill, filled with calls to a phone sex line.

She confronted me about it, but I denied it. I came up with some crazy story about someone tapping into our phone, and she bought it for a while. But when she called the phone company, the representative kindly told her, “Ma’am, I’m sorry. Your husband is lying to you.”

My wife immediately called me and confronted me about it. I kind of confessed, but really just told her what she wanted to hear. I told her that I had been messing around on the phone and would stop and get some help.

I never got any help. Eventually, things blew over, and I was right back at it.

From October 04’ till January ’05 my life completely spiraled out of control. My phone sex/porn addiction was at its worse. My wife worked days and I was working nights. I would wake up and spend all morning calling phone sex lines, and when I got home in the early morning I would spend all night looking at porn on the Internet.

Eventually things stopped making sense to my wife. She couldn’t figure out why we didn’t have any money. We weren’t paying rent, she and I were both working, and we didn’t have any real bills. It only took logging on to our bank account to figure out what was going on. She then called the phone company and got a hold of all that info too.

That night, she sat me down and confronted me again. I was frozen! I sat there for what felt like an hour in silence, and then I opened my mouth and everything came out. I told her everything I could remember. I had never told anyone the things I told her. It was an ugly and devastating moment in our lives, but also beautiful because our second chance was born out of it.

That next day when we woke up, she asked me to leave. She told me I needed to get help. So I did. I moved in with my parents and immediately got into counseling.  I attended my first 12 step meeting, and also attended church for the first time – all within that first week of us separating. I spent the next year in counseling, got some recovery under my belt, and started to really grow closer to Christ.

On Superbowl Sunday night, I found myself sitting in a pew. I kept feeling a pull on my chest, like a pull to get up. I thought it was crazy but I got up and walked down the aisle. When I knelt down to pray, I felt a hand on my back, and it was my wife.

From that point forward, it hasn’t been about me anymore. It's been about us – and our second chance. After nine years of marriage, we’re still together, and my amazing wife has stayed both my biggest fan and critic.

This was the story we never wanted anyone to know, but after seeing others helped by it, I can say I’m proud to be People of the Second Chance.

We are proud, I should say.