Hi! I'm Dan, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS or Mormon church), a son of God, a returned missionary, married father of five fantastic children, and lust and porn addict. Now don't get me wrong! I don't sleep around, and I never have. But I have struggled mightily from an early age (about 12yrs) with a compulsion to masturbate, which addiction eventually evolved into a problem with pornography, and the resultant deceptions and lies that virtually always go along with that sort of thing. This blog is written with the intention of sharing hope for recovery from this addiction with others who are struggling with addiction or who want to help someone who is struggling with addiction. I am no real authority. The story is my own and it is evolving. While I am a member of the LDS church, I do not in any way officially represent the church. I am using my real name with no small level of apprehension. I am not afraid for my own sake, but I do worry about my family. Nevertheless, I have come to understand that addiction thrives in secrecy, so I intend to ANNIHILATE the secret! I have also come to understand that about 70% of LDS boys and men struggle with it. It is absolutely STUPID to continue to bury our heads in the sand when so many of our beautiful families are being ripped apart and devastated by this plague. A new culture needs to come about. A foundation of effective support systems needs to be established for the generations to come. I am willing to sacrifice my pride for the benefit of others. I feel that only when it is treated openly, and with less shaming than is presently happening, will we begin to make real progress. I present this with the most profound sense of love and empathy for the struggling addicts and their families. May we spare some from the immense suffering and heartbreak that is bound to affect far too many.
Note that I call it an addiction from the start, for so it was with me. Like an alcoholic who knows he is hooked from the first taste of beer, I realized almost immediately that in spite of a good LDS upbringing I was powerless to stop acting out. I had discovered a cure-all for all negative emotions. Stressed? No problem! Angry? Quick relief guaranteed! Depressed? You'll feel better really soon! It became something that I did nearly every day, sometimes 5 or 6 times a day, depending on opportunity or mood. And nearly every time I did it, I swore that I would never, ever do it again. I remember taking "Are you an addict?" quizzes even back then, and I would fail them miserably. If, through super-human control I managed to stifle the urges for a week or two, they would come roaring back and I would binge for days.
When I first discovered masturbation, I had no idea that it was sinful, at least not until my first orgasm. After that, I knew that it just had to be sinful! I assumed that it must be like adultery or something for which, if discovered, I was sure to be excommunicated. Oh, the humiliation! I could just picture my family disowning me for being such a little pervert! So naturally I hid it, sure that I would conquer it soon. Then, I reasoned, in a few years when I was safely distanced from the sin by a comfortable buffer of time, I would confess it and everything would be OK. But that day didn't come. Sears and J.C. Penny Catalogs were the porn back then, and nearly every family had them in the home. There were a few exposures to genuine porn but it was not a very regular part of the problem at that point.
Then came time for a mission. I had received a powerful witness of the truthfulness of The Book of Mormon, and felt sure that I would get the addiction under control. I did actually, by white knuckling for a time; long enough to convince the Bishop that I could serve a mission, and then through the first 9 months or so of my mission. Then I had a slip; then a few more slips. I confessed to my Mission President. A few months later, when it was time to go home, all of the departing missionaries met at the mission home for a big dinner with the Mission President. The Elders were called into his office, one by one, and given certificates of honorable service. All of the Elders, that is, except for me. Another sting to add to the growing list of negative emotions. No mention of it was made to my Bishop or Stake President, as far as I know, but I knew that as far as the Mission President and the Lord were concerned, I was a lousy missionary. I had, in spite of that, somehow had a fair number of baptisms, which seemed to be solid. No porn was involved during that period.
Within a year or so of returning home, I joined the Army. Porn exposure would increase, but I was resisting it. I met the Love of my Life, and was determined to get it under control again. I confessed the problem to my Bishop. He showed great compassion and love. We set a temple wedding date a few months out. I was transferred to a different state with a new Bishop who was stern. I had a slip and so the date was moved back a couple of months. Then came nights when I would wake up masturbating. By that point the urge was so strong, and I was so sleepy, that I did not consider myself accountable. Then one night I woke up doing it and realized that if I exerted every ounce of will-power, I could conceivably stop. But I didn't, and there was no way I was telling the Bishop, because I was headed to Germany in two months, and I was so in love (infatuated, more like)that I thought it would kill me to leave her, unmarried, in the US. It would have killed her too, I suppose, so there would have been two deaths! "I'll repent later" I told myself. I figured that once I was married, it would be easy-peasy, lemon-squeasy. Boy was I wrong!
Now looking back, and with my current understanding of addiction, I realize that it was next to impossible for a person in isolation to overcome the problem, because there were no support groups or programs. I began to understand why so many LDS men went inactive, even while it would appear that they had testimonies of the truthfulness of the gospel. The best my Bishop could tell me was "If you can't stop doing it, at least think only of your wife while indulging". Problem is, lust addiction is progressive. My wife was beautiful, lovely, willing and wonderful! For the first year or two, we were so very much in love! (Actually, I have never NOT been in love with her. She has always been the only one I really wanted as a spouse and lover) But married sex just wasn't enough for a lust addict. Around the barracks and other places on post, discarded porn magazines were becoming increasingly easy to access, and they were setting their hooks in me. The dopamine hits were coming closer and closer together, and I was taking more risks.
Back out of the Army, and off to college, then my first real job as a Registered Nurse. Now I had money for magazines and I began to buy them regularly. I would use one and then burn or destroy it as if to prove that it would be the very last time I would ever look at one. It was at this point in our marriage that my wife began to sense something was really, really wrong. I was acting differently in and out of the bedroom. We had five little ones. Stress was high and the acting out was frequent. I was becoming much less loving and more and more selfish. She says now that during that time she felt almost like a battered wife(even though I never struck her). I was just not respectful. I was treating her more like an object than a person.
Occasionally I was caught. I would go to the bishop, make an incomplete confession, and go back to my addiction. For some reason they kept calling me to positions. Scoutmaster, Elders Quorum President, Sunday School teacher, etc. My wife was frustrated and losing confidence in the Church's system of discipline. She wanted to see me have some serious consequences. Apparently the Bishops had seen this type of thing before, and didn't feel it was warranted. Either that, or they realized that severe discipline only served to drive people out of the Church completely. With no effective recovery methods, the person was doomed. He took it in the throat and was gone for good.
So there was my dilemma. There was no cure for the problem, as far as I knew. If I confessed it all again, I would still have the problem. I knew I would be right back at it. Why humiliate myself for nothing? I could just go completely inactive and quit worrying about it, and see my family fall into complete ruin. Or I could resolve to do everything else that I had the strength to do right, and hope for the best while lying about this one thing. I chose the third option, for better or for worse. So now do you see why so many addicts appear to be so good on the outside?
Of course I knew I was a whited sepulchre; filthy, stinking and rotten on the inside! Lies beget more lies. More ammo for those negative emotions that have such a great deal to do with acting out.
Now, most addicts want to see themselves as the exception to the rule. And of course it's true that no two addicts are alike any more than any other two individuals are alike. Some addicts start out mean or come from a background that predisposes them to become severe abusers. Some just never learned good manners as a kid. Some were victims of severe abuse themselves. My suspicion is that most Mormon youth, women or men who view pornography have not yet had extramarital sex, although some (too many)have. Most are actually good people, with a BIG problem. I have come to realize that unless there is intervention, every lust addict is sooner or later destined to become an adulterer or fornicator. Addiction spares no-one. To illustrate, imagine two horizontal lines. The bottom line represents the beginnings of lust addiction. The top line represents acting out by adultery. When we start out from that bottom line, we head upward. Some people, due to their backgrounds and proclivities, head nearly straight up toward that second line. Others have a much lower trajectory, so low perhaps, that they are unlikely to reach that second line in this lifetime. But all are headed there. There may be a few dips and valleys along the way, but the trend is always up. If you admit to addiction, but deny the possibility of becoming an adulterer, you are kidding yourself and have not got an accurate understanding of the progressive nature of addiction. Denial is the devil's tool, and he'll cut you with it.
Back to my story. In the late 90's we moved to California. I'd heard about the Internet, but now we had it. It didn't take long for me to realize that the days of embarrassing myself by purchasing magazines were over. And no more expense either. Internet porn was "better" too, with more graphic and degrading images. As dial-up progressed to high-speed, I could get videos. Now it's not hard to find any type of porn a person wants, all for free. Of course there are pay-sites out there, but a majority of users prefer not to leave a money trail for their spouses to find.
All of those rotten images were weighing heavily on my conscience, and I began to seek other ways to numb the pain. I experimented with alcohol and other substances, and used one substance for about a year. During that time, porn use and masturbation nearly stopped. This helps to illustrate what is really going on with addiction. Emotional pain is what drives the addict to use his drug of choice, whether dopamine from the brain, which is produced in response to pornographic images, fantasies and masturbation, or another substance, ingested, injected or inhaled. I eventually fell under suspicion of using at work and quit using before I was caught. This illustrates another point. For me at least, the substance was far easier to quit than the porn and masturbation. It is a full-blown, genuine addiction and should be accorded the same level of respect. It is, in reality, a disease. The brain is broken, and cannot be fixed without help anymore than hypothyroidism can be controlled by will-power.
Then I got caught again. I knew things were getting bad. I was perilously close to a complete mental break-down. I decided to stop and see the Bishop on my way home from work one night. I let it all out, probably for the first time in my life. The Bishop was patient and gently prompted me until everything was spilled. I had a heart to heart with my wife, who was understandably devastated. But there was something new this time. The Bishop recommended a new Pornography Addiction Support Group. I began to attend and to find hope. I was clean for a few months. That was four years ago. There were problems. The Church Service missionaries and the Facilitator were inexperienced. The facilitator to me did not seem to be in solid recovery, and neither was anyone else attending. I began to lose faith, and slipped back into old habits. But some good came of it. I learned that the meetings existed and that some were finding recovery. I also learned the value of a really thorough confession. Since that time, I have slipped into and out of periods of recovery, some coming pretty close to the real thing, by practicing principles I had learned.
Then, eight weeks ago I had another wake-up call. Someone very close to me, someone I love even more than myself, disclosed that he too had a problem. It struck me that if someone this kind and good and faithful and loving and beautiful can fall into the trap, it can happen to anyone! "I HAVE GOT TO FIND A WAY OUT OF THIS ONCE AND FOR ALL!!" I told myself. And I've got to start sharing with everyone I can. Relationships are dying left and right. There is just SO much pain. So I did an Internet search on LDS pornography recovery, and I found some really GREAT stuff! You might try "Rowboat and Marbles" and "LDS Recovery Blogs" for starters. I re-confessed to my wife and confessed to another loved one who also struggles. I determined that I needed to start attending meetings. I learned that there is an organization with a longer track record of success in our area known as Sexaholics Anonymous, an organization with values that dovetail perfectly with our own. My heart was softened to an extreme as I began to see that the real secrets to recovery beyond a sincere desire, are: 1.) Admission to a complete powerlessness over the addiction. 2.) WORKING the twelve steps found in PASG and/or SA programs. 3.)Real fellowship with other recovering addicts. Of course, working with the Bishop is also critical, but it will not, in and of itself, work for the truly addicted. Also, in most cases a good counselor to help one work on identifying those underlying, triggering emotions and how to deal with them effectively is of great benefit. Look up LifeStar.
Let me say a word about the PASG program. I have not personally been able to return to that meeting due to my work schedule. I understand that strides have been made with regards to maturity of the program and the finding of sponsors for each attendee. I think that the sponsor is critical, and I know that in SA, everyone gets a sponsor. In the meeting I go to there are many with significant periods of sobriety. The wisdom of those who have achieved lasting success is so very helpful. But I am also a member of what I consider to be the True Church, which has worked very hard to bring us an effective program. Might I suggest going to both if one is able? The more meetings one attends, the more likely he is to become successful. And I would add to that the blogs and other networking, the Bishop, the spouse and anyone else who you can get to listen.
I will say something else before I quit. I have spent most of the night writing this. I pray that it will help someone. The words that follow pertain to the struggling sisters. I have so much love and respect for the good sisters of the Church. I know that there are many more of you that struggle with these exact same things than most people realize. It carries a huge stigma, particularly within the Church. I want to break down that stigma, and if I could do it single-handed, I would. I would take the embarrassment for you if I could. But I can't. I love you. I know you are suffering perhaps much more than many of the men. You are terrified to come clean. But we need pioneers. It might help you to know that there are enough sisters with the same or similar problems to form a support group in virtually every Ward of the Church. We now have some courageous ones who are coming forward and insisting on the same solutions. Their lives are being blessed in miraculous ways! I envision a day when it will be so much easier to do. That is how Satan will be bound! When we tell things as they really are, he loses all of his power to control us! Fear dissipates, and love takes its' place! Don't let the mockers in that great and spacious building stop you from partaking of the fruit! I'm getting pretty emotional here because I have such a great compassion for every single one of you who might be reading this. I'll close this entry with the words from 1 Corinthians "And now abideth faith, hope, and love(charity), these three; but the greatest of these is love (charity). May we bind satan with that love that conquers all is my humble prayer!
