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Bakersfield, Ca – from www.kget.com – Rehabilitation is a word usually associated with drugs, alcohol or gambling.

But what about pornography?

In a special report, 17 News investigated an organization in Bakersfield that helps those affected by the adult film industry.

About 85% of the world’s adult content is produced just south of here in the San Fernando Valley.

Shelley Lubben, a former porn star who lives in Bakersfield, has devoted her life to bringing members of the adult film industry back from the brink.

“It was like I had somebody who was like-minded who had been through the same abuse and the same trauma that I had been through,” said former porn star April Garris.

“It’s all about learning to live a different way and learning to think a different way,” said former porn star Jenni Case. “Getting a normal job, learning how to handle your money, how to function in day to day life.”

Garris and Case left the adult film industry and are getting their lives back on track thanks to former porn star Shelley Lubben.

“The cumulative characteristics of a porn star’s background. What really is in the background of a woman who would choose to do pornography?” asked Lubben.

She says all women in porn have the CPSB or Classic Porn Star Background.

“Sexual abuse, parental neglect that’s always at the top, a loss of a loved one, there’s always a history of some kind of trauma.”

Lubben knows it because she’s lived it.

“I just remember that I was full of rage from my father and mother kicking me out on the street. That rage fueled my career in the sex work. I was out to get revenge to any man who ever hurt me. I hated men and every man like my father would pay.”

Lubben says her childhood was filled with neglect, alcohol and a desperate search for love in all the wrong places.

“Sex meant love to me because I realized if I gave the boys sexual favors they would say the words that I desperately wanted to hear from my own dad. ‘I love you, you’re so pretty, there’s no girl like you’ and I just needed that love.”

Lubben’s search for acceptance landed her in the sex industry as “Roxy.”

She says the industry has a system to pick up new girls.

“They’re pampered and told how pretty they are, and then there’s veteran porn stars who help groom them, ‘girl you’re going to be so hot I’ll show you’. Porn stars get kickbacks from porn producers to bring in new meat,” said Lubben.

Lubben did about 30 films in the porn industry. By the end, she was addicted to drugs and alcohol and had herpes, an incurable sexually transmitted disease.

“I cried out every single day. Eight years in the sex industry ‘God, where are you? I knew you as a little girl.’ I loved Jesus as a little girl. How could a loving God let this happen to me?”

More than 100 porn stars have died from AIDS. More than 36 have died from disease, murder, suicide and/or drugs since 2007.

“I hear about women who die and I think. That should be me.”

Lubben, with the help of her husband Garrett, got out before it was too late.

She went to rehab, attended therapy and became a devout Christian. Now, she’s an ordained chaplain and founded the Pink Cross Foundation.

Pink Cross is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that rehabilitates porn stars and porn addicts and fights for safe and healthy work conditions in the adult film industry.

“85% of the world’s adult content is produced right here in the San Fernando Valley,” said Lubben.

But, she says the industry doesn’t follow the rules. Under Cal-OSHA law, all adult actors must use protection to prevent the spread of bodily fluids.

“In the porn industry, it’s no condoms allowed,” said Lubben. She explains that porn viewers don’t want to see condoms in porn. This means film actors violate the Cal-OSHA laws in nearly every film.

Lubben says the porn industry has dodged the laws by shooting in secret locations around California.

But in 2009, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health shut down the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation for not meeting appropriate standards for health care. The foundation recently reopened, but is now a private organization that doesn’t have to adhere to county codes and laws.

Lubben says it’s a small victory, but it doesn’t stop porn from being produced. The AIDS Health Care Foundation, Lubben and other former porn stars have been lobbying to public health officials to regulate every porn production in California.

“Either you force this industry to comply to workplace laws just like every other workplace has to in California, or you shut it down,” said Lubben.

This is only one side of the fight. The second half of the battle is waged at home.

“My part is to really speak to parents who are ignorant right now and letting their kid on the internet all day long quietly in their bedroom, and these kids are online looking at porn,” said Lubben.

Safekids.org reports the average age a child first views adult content is eleven.

There are currently more than 400 million porn pages on the internet and the main audience is children.

“The largest group for viewing online pornography is ages 12 to 17,” said Lubben. “Where are the parents?”

Lubben says the industry is trying to cater to young people to get them addicted early. But, Pink Cross is there for those on the other end of the computer screen as well.

“Porn was taking over. It was a full blown addiction,” said recovering porn addict Roger Niccum.

Niccum says technology plays a key role in marketing adult content to young children.

“The pornographers are going to where the children are, online, cell phones. They’re giving away this virtual drug for free unbeknownst to parents and authorities so it’s a serious problem.”

If you’d like more information you can visit Shelley Lubben’s website at www.shelleylubben.com.