Kimberly Drake:
With God's grace, I will redeem my wasted time

Both my parents were very hard working individuals. My dad started his own business in the summer after my seventh grade year. We soon discovered that he had workaholic tendencies. He knew how to love us by working hard and providing "things." He did a great job at it. We lived in a big house, drove big cars and had big boats. We went on expensive vacations and never wanted for anything that money could buy.

I knew in my heart that my dad loved me but I don't think I felt it in my heart. I didn't need my dad's money, I needed his arms around me. But I did not recognize what I was missing. If I had recognized it, I would have been too scared to ask.

Our house was also a place where the expectations to achieve were high. It always seemed that I could never quite measure up. I became an over achiever and was involved in everything I could fit into my schedule-swim team, Girl Scouts, violin lessons, junior symphonic orchestra, babysitting and so on.

None of those things filled the empty place in my heart and so I began at a young age (12 or 13) hanging out with older boys. I learned that if I dressed a certain way, talked and acted a certain way I would always have a following of boys. Looking back, I realize that I never had many girls for friends although I longed for them.

When I was 14 I spent the night at a friend's house. She invited a boy over that I had not met yet, but whom I desired to know. The boy raped me that night. He told me that I could be "part of the gang" if I would just continue to have sex with him. Consequently, I became sexually active. My need for male affirmation became sexualized.

I never went through the recovery of the rape and began drinking to numb the pain. When I was 16 I got my first abortion and at 18 I began smoking pot. I got married at 20 and six months into my first marriage pornography was introduced. Soon after, I tried my first line of cocaine and so began a drug and sexual addiction that lasted for over thirteen years.

I never felt guilty for these things because I had been successful in many aspects of my life. I was an accomplished violinist, a prosperous businesswoman and, in my mind, a good wife and mother. I had been in management, sold cars, and had a thriving manicuring business for ten years. My children were always polite and my husband was the best service manager in his region, winning many awards. Although I was "high," I thought everything was fine. And on the surface, all appeared to be. But, on the inside, my heart was still empty and had become hard.

The cocaine addiction lasted 10 years and included job loss, ruined credit, and criminal charges. It seemed endless, hopeless, and I wanted to die. We moved to Spokane in 1994 to escape this demon, although it quickly followed. In November of 1995, we finally were able to triumph over the cocaine, but the war was not yet won.

One day, someone suggested I was pretty enough to be a stripper. My husband and I had talked a lot about this as a possibility of employment for me for a long time. We were addicted to pornography and we saw nothing wrong with strip clubs. We would go into them for our own entertainment, to "spice up" our sex life. So my husband and I went to the Déjà Vu, the local strip club, to see if it was a "classy" enough place for me to work.

In December 1994 I entered an amateur contest and won $50.00. I thought this was wonderful! I was 32 years old. The managers told me how glamorous and sexy I was. They told me I would make tons of money. They made me feel special and they made me feel pretty. I later discovered that they told all the potential dancers this lie just to lure them into stripping. I wasn't special at all, I was just another prospect to be used to earn the managers more money.

By February 1995, I was a "showgirl." This was the fulfillment of a fantasy. I wanted to know that I was "sexy" enough to be the "centerfold" of my husband's life. But the truth was, there was a distance in our relationship. We did not communicate well unless we were high and used pornography as a stimulus in the bedroom.

The pornography we consumed made me feel that I never quite measured up, sexually. I felt like I was always competing with the women in the porn magazines and videos. If I could just become a stripper, I thought, I would finally be his fantasy.

I also knew that in the strip clubs I would have the ability to make a fast and easy buck. I thought that this would be perfect. I could make enough money to support our drug habit and be the sexiest thing in my husband's life all at the same time. Boy, was I deceiving myself!

So I began what I thought would be a lifelong career as a stripper. But stripping was not the glamorous job that the porn industry made it out to be. I began to realize that this was just a place of prostitution and addiction. It was dark and dirty. I pretended that the men who came to see me genuinely liked me. I pretended the girls I worked with were sincere in their friendships.

I smoked pot to numb the pain of the place I called "work." I had to get stoned to get naked on stage because I felt so degraded and humiliated. I was loved for my body parts, not my character. I was bit, hit, pinched, and grabbed every night that I worked. I witnessed prostitution, drug use and sales, lewd activities too numerous and grotesque to elaborate, even death and murder.

I thought stripping would be the answer to the years of heartache from abandonment, rape, abortion, drug and pornography addiction. Instead, it was another source of physical and emotional pain. My husband and I became distant from each other, even though we had sex every day. It was the only way that I could go to work and pretend that everything was ok between us.

This continued for a long time. Then at Easter 1997, my mother suggested we all go to church while she was visiting from out of town. Every week thereafter we (my husband, our three boys and I) would sit in church. Every week it seemed as if the pastor spoke just to me. The songs made me cry, the messages filled my heart, and the prayers for Jesus to show his love for me were answered. The empty place in my heart had finally been filled. In Jesus I found love and significance.

I am now a member of Valleybrook Community Church. It was not until I came to Valleybrook that I learned that church was a place to be safe, a place to be real, a place to find help and a place to find hope.

The message hit home because boy did I need help and it was there that I found hope. I knew I had to change. God began to demand that I adjust my life. So, with quite a bit of struggle, I quit smoking pot. God said that was good, but required more from me. All of a sudden, I could not make money like I had before and I knew stripping was wrong.

After I was baptized I worked two more shifts stripping and then, one night, God spoke to me in a dream and I could not ignore Him any longer. He told me I would never strip again. With very little money, no prospective employment and no way to pay our bills I stepped off the cliff and into God's arms. I took a leap of faith that He would provide for my family and I.

I quit the Déjà Vu and began looking for an "honest" job. Two days later my husband, who had been unemployed for two years due to a car accident, found a job in his field of expertise. The Lord eventually placed me in an organization where I had a Christian boss and where I met my spiritual mom. I worked there for one year while building the network for Spokane Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families (SCPCF).

In November 1997 I stood before the Spokane County Commissioners and gave testimony regarding my 2.5 years at the Déjà Vu. With my testimony they were able to pass a strict ordinance regulating sexually oriented businesses in the County of Spokane. This included the outlawing of "lap dances."

This has come at a price. I have had my property vandalized and my telephone lines cut. However, I gave my fears to God a long time ago. I believe God wants to use my experiences to help the victims of pornography.

My vision has been to bring an organization to Spokane that would help us to pass the necessary legislation providing a healthier place to raise our children. My goal is not only to help the men and women who are pornography addicts and victims, but also to educate our community about the harmful effects caused by porn.

I will continue to speak anywhere I am invited. Thus far I have spoken to youth groups, high school groups, churches, PTAs, town meetings, monthly American Family Association meetings and conference workshops. In addition, SCPCF has been invited to join in on a Web site that will provide information and education regarding the harms of pornography. I have been appointed, along with local pastors and bishops, to a steering committee initiated by our mayor, and my husband and I have been interviewed by our local ABC affiliate.

The urgency for assistance for the sexually broken in our country is overwhelming. In addition, we must actively work to regulate sexually oriented businesses to the full extent of the constitution, thus protecting our community from the secondary harmful effects these businesses cause.

With God's grace, I hope to redeem some of the time I wasted being "wasted."