Arizona- Marc Dewease blames his addiction to pornography for wrecking his 29-year marriage and estranging him from his son and daughter.

Now he’s helping his Mesa church start a dialogue to rid pornography from homes and to keep others from being

For the next two Sundays, Central Christian Church of the East Valley will host Porn Weekend as part of National Porn Sunday, a call on Christians to become aware of the impact of pornography and its human costs.

Senior pastor Cal Jernigan will preach on the topic Desperate for Intimacy at all five services this weekend. The event will culminate Oct. 15-16 with Pastor Craig Gross, founder of www.XXXchurch.com, speaking on ways to combat pornography. There will be a screening of the documentary “Missionary Positions,” which examines an industry estimated to take in $57 billion annually.

About 1,500 members of the church will be asked to join small groups for an eight-week study and discussion on “how to keep it from invading your marriage and your family,” said Jason Hamrock of Central Christian.

Dewease said his 35-year addiction to pornography began when he was 14. “I started out with what they called ‘girlie magazines,’ and it gradually progressed into adult movies and the Internet,” he said. “It was like that’s what I lived for on a day-to-day basis.”

When he married at 24, Dewease’s obsession continued. “I just never faced the reality of what it would do to my relationship and what it was doing to my wife.”

Dewease, 54, said he didn’t just pursue pornography in his spare time. “It was like I made time for it,” he said. “I had a job and everything and my family, but every opportunity I had, I could involve myself with it. I would do it. I would find ways to make time for it.”

He recalls the guilt. He realized it was destructive for his family “and it wasn’t good for a married man to be lusting after women he had never seen before and (who) never would see him, but the obsession was there, the addiction was there. . . . It was like it constantly needed to be fueled.”

His wife complained of being marginalized. “She felt like she was second to my personal desires and lust,” said Dewease, whose divorce became final in January. Even when he was involved in “family affairs, it usually centered on things that I was interested in, and I never fully got in touch with the needs of my family beyond the stuff that I had to take care of.”

His turning point came when he took a job in Bishop, Calif., and “I had time to start thinking. I had a chance to intermingle with new friends and see how they were living their lives.”

Early one evening, he confronted his pornography addiction. “It landed like a ton of bricks, and I just sat there, like half the night, crying my eyes out because I realized that what I had done and that the family bond had pretty much been destroyed. But by then, for my wife, it was pretty much over.

“I poured myself into the Bible, and I was dealing with the conflict of knowing that I wasn’t supposed to be looking at pornography as a Christian.”

Dewease said he had a vision of a sea of disheveled young girls. “I am looking at the girls, and they are staring at me, and they had this look of contempt and helplessness in their eyes.” They were telling him, “Your behavior made us what we are. Your desire and your personal satisfaction made us what we are.”

It dawned on Dewease “that these were every little girl inside of every woman I had lusted after.” He saw the devil, “and that devil was me. I just immediately broke down, and I said, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ I have apologized to everybody.”

Communication lines with family members remain open, and the healing continues.

A church taking on such a seamy topic might generate opposition, but Hamrock said he has heard no objections. “We had an unbelievable, overwhelming sense of people saying, ‘It’s about time.’ ”

Porn Weekend – Confronting the Epidemic of Pornography

When: 4:30 and 6:15 p.m. today and Oct. 15, and 8, 9:30 and 11:15 a.m. Sunday and Oct. 16

Where: Central Christian Church of the East Valley, 933 N. Lindsay Road, MesaInformation: (480) 924-4946 or www.cccev.com