Members’ stories
Porn Obsession
My Porn Obsession – The Beginning
I believed in God since I was a child and became the most enthusiastic Christian in the youth group but I had a secret I was too ashamed to tell anyone. Sometimes I would sneak the ‘Littlewoods’ catalogue into my bedroom and masturbate to the underwear section. I felt a crushing shame afterwards and prayed for forgiveness and swore I would stop, but it wasn’t long before I found myself doing it again and I hated myself for that. It was self harm on repeat, shame was my blade. This was the beginning of 25 years of porn obsession.
Introducing the Internet
When I found the internet my porn obsession began to progress. For months I would only look at ‘tasteful’ scantily clad celebrities and fashion models, then found myself searching for topless pictures, then nude, then videos- but only those with women in, then hard core porn videos. All the time the obsession was progressing to a lower environment. It was as if my conscience hardened and to feel shame I needed to cross more boundaries.
I repeated the pattern of my teens of asking God for forgiveness, swearing I would stop, deleting everything on my computer. I read self help books, confided in church leaders and received prayer. Nothing seemed to work and I couldn’t stay stopped.
The Progression
I resigned myself to tolerating and accepting the porn obsession in my life. I’d tried to stop for 25 years and couldn’t, neither did I want to live my life in pursuit of lust. So I tried to manage it, keep it apart from the rest of my life. By now I was a church youth worker but I had become accustomed to living with the incompatibility of my faith and my porn obsession.
But this obsession progresses relentlessly and eventually the screen was not enough, I acted out with a real person and broke my wife’s heart.
The Solution
Staggering through the door of my first meeting of Sexaholics Anonymous, I was traumatised by what I had to face in myself and fearful I was about to lose everything I valued; my wife, family, home, reputation and job. I had been in charge of my life and had driven it off a cliff.
I couldn’t think straight, and had lost confidence in myself, but as I looked around the room there were people with stories like mine who had stopped. I was ready to try, I got a sponsor, followed his suggestions and stopped and stayed stopped- something I had never been able to do alone. I can’t describe the relief it is to finally break free of my porn obsession, the rewards of recovery are far beyond just stopping. As the years go by I am able to mature into the man I was meant to be without constantly undermining myself with shame and the fear I’d be exposed.
If you identify with our stories contact us, come to a meeting this week and see if it could work for you too.
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