Ducks quack in the distance. This is Pure Life Ministries, a kind of religious retreat for men who hate what their lives have become. They flock here from nearly every state in the union, seeking righteousness in the simple landscape of rural Northern Kentucky. Pure Life residents are engineers, mechanics, doctors, ministers. Since it opened eight years ago, Pure Life has become nationally known for its unusual treatment program, based strictly on God and the Bible.
Referrals come from churches around the country.
Pure Life's founder, former Los Angeles police officer Steve Gallagher, has written several books about his own obsessions with prostitution and porn. Locals don't talk much about the place. Its location wasn't disclosed, but word got around. In an interview, one man told 48 Hours that his obsession with pornography had escalated to voyeurism. He would spend hours peering through windows in his home state, hoping for glimpses of flesh.