How Ex NFL Punter Steve Weatherford Beat Porn Addiction With God’s Help
By Movieguide® Contributor
On the “4:8 Men” podcast, former NFL Punter Steve Weatherford shared about his past struggles with addiction and self-doubt, revealing an experience that led him to a life-changing belief in God.
“My Wikipedia page looks amazing, right, but like what a lot of people don’t know is like during a lot of those highs, there were drug addictions, there were porn addictions, there was a lot of worthiness issues and a lot of self-hatred,” Weatherford said about his past.
Weatherford told Christian Huff on Huff’s podcast that when he was 11, he got saved at an alter call led by fitness enthusiast and pastor Keith Craft. Craft showed Weatherford that physical strength and a relationship with Jesus could go together. That prompted Weatherford to get involved in fitness, sports and eventually a career as an NFL player.
Twenty-five years later, Weatherford was invited to a men’s event in the desert called Emerge, and he brought his 11-year-old son with him. He had no idea which speakers were scheduled to be at the conference.
The pastor invited “the first speaker to come out, the keynote speaker, and this guy walks out. He’s six foot six, big white head of hair. I mean, this dude is jacked, and so I’m paying attention,” the former NFL pro said.
“The guy grabs the microphone, and as soon as he speaks into the mic, it was like a lightning bolt hit me, Christian. Like my whole skin and my whole body started vibrating, and it got warm but not like in an alarming painful way,” he told Huff. “Like your skin is vibrating.”
He asked his friend beside him the speaker’s name, and he told him it was Keith Craft.
“So I google Keith Craft, and the first picture that pops up is this picture of this dude in a mullet from, like, 1988, breaking bricks and bending bars over his head. I’m like, that’s the freaking guy from when I was 11 years old,” Weatherford said. “So my mind is racing.”
After Craft spoke, Weatherford fought his way to the stage and told him how he had greatly influenced the trajectory of his life.
Craft said, “That’s amazing. Let’s talk later.”
“I get back to my seat, and I see my buddy Nick. I’m like, Nick, you are never going to believe this,” Weatherford continued.
He told him the story, and Nick told him to look on stage. On the stage, Weatherford’s 11-year-old son was getting saved by the same man who helped him get saved when he was 11.
“As that’s happening, I’m thinking to myself, not only is God real, God is good, and God has been working all things together for a really long time for this to happen, and that was like a really powerful moment for me,” he said.
That would not be the only incredible thing to happen at that event, however.
“They gave each guy a two-by-four, and they asked each guy to write down everything that they brought out to the desert that doesn’t really belong to them that they want God to take,” Weatherford said. “So I wrote down porn because I was struggling with it mightily at that time. I wrote down pills because I was in the fight of my life with those and nobody knew.”
Weatherford previously elaborated on his addictions on Instagram: “I was stuck in a cycle of letting my emotions or exhaustion justify my habitual reliance on pornography and percocets/alcohol. As long as I was “producing” as an athlete or entrepreneur, I would find ways to convince myself that the self sabotaging techniques I was using were actually helpful in my particular situation.”
After Weatherford finished writing on his two-by-four, he carried it on his back and wore it for two and a half days until the end of the event.
“It was insanely uncomfortable the whole time, and then at the end of the event, each guy prayed with someone, and you threw your burden into the fire,” he said. “I was a group leader, I had about 30 guys on my team and I prayed for 30 guys and then I was about to take my burden off and throw it into the fire, and right before I did that, one of the guys said, ‘Hey, I need to pray for you.’”
“He wasn’t a preacher. He wasn’t a pastor. He wasn’t like a holy man,” he explained. “He was just a regular person that said, ‘Hey, let me stand in agreement with what god’s gonna take away from me right now.’
So the man prayed a simple, short prayer, and then Weatherford threw his burden into the fire.
“Ever since that moment, pills and porn are still things that exist in my life. But they’re things that God took away because I went straight home to my wife, and I said, ‘Babe, these are the things that I’ve been carrying around that I don’t want to carry anymore,’” he shared. “’I’ve given them to God, but I need your support.’”
“She was willing to get in the arena with me to slay those giants, and that was like three and a half years ago,” he explained. “That’s how I know that God is real; that’s how I know that he is good, and that’s why that’s how I know that he’s operating outside of time.”
Weatherford shared this story in July 2022. And today, he still prioritizes a healthy marriage without porn.
He shared an Instagram video about healthy marital intimacy on Instagram last Thursday. He said, “This week my wife’s mentor Bene Marsh joined us to talk about sex and the role it plays in marriage… and how God created sex to be a sacred and healthy part of biblical marriage… The Marsh family has been such a blessing to our marriage, ministry, and legacy. I’m excited to share Bene with you all.”
Movieguide® previously reported singer Billie Eilish’s realizations about porn:
“I think it really destroyed my brain and I feel incredibly devastated that I was exposed to so much porn,” Eilish said. “I think that I had sleep paralysis, and these almost like night terrors, just nightmares. I think that’s how they started, because I would just watch abusive [pornography] and that’s what I thought was attractive, and it got to a point where I couldn’t watch anything unless it was violent, and I didn’t think it was attractive.”
“The first few times I, you know, had sex, I was not saying ‘no’ to things that were not good,” Eilish continued. “And it was because I thought that’s what I was supposed to be attracted to. I’m so angry that porn is so loved, and I’m so angry at myself for thinking that it was OK.
“Women’s bodies don’t look like that,” the celebrity added. “We don’t enjoy things that it looks like we’re enjoying.”
