Addicted to Porn: Guest Post

My friend C writes:

‘Mr Hyde has taken over again. He is gone and left me with wreckage. I feel desolate and I hate myself for for letting him win… again.

“If my wife or children ever find out then life will be over.”

“God himself is turning his back on me.”

“I’m so ashamed.”

“I’m such a piece of filth.”

“God must hate me.”

“Why do I do this?”

“That was the last time. No more!”

“You stupid pervert!”

“Hurry up and get home… think of a good cover-up story… come on, THINK, you idiot!”

“So tell me, moron, was it worth it?”

“One of these days God is going to “take me out” because of this. I wish he would right now… you piece of trash.”

 

This is one of my typical self dialogues as a porn addict and a Christian. Trapped in shame by spiritual blackmail. Having full knowledge of the vileness of what I was participating in. The self loathing. Feeling helpless to get free. Fearing Jesus must not be big enough for my problems. Fearing that Jesus didn’t want me.

Now in recovery, I have come to see a better picture of my porn addiction. I am able to look clearly at its beginnings in my life. I have come to recognize my childhood was not innocent, I had merely rewritten much of it. I’ve long held to a myth of an idyllic childhood before sin (porn) entered my world. I have come to see my attempts to recreate the innocence that was never in my past as a futile effort to re-enter Eden.

I am coming to grips with the adolescent boy within.

He is afraid that he doesn’t have what it takes to be a man, and these fears are reinforced by the world and his own father. I recall nights of verbal rage unleashed upon this boy. Hour upon hour the clear message penetrating his heart:

You are not enough.
You’ve never been enough.
You will never be enough.

 

He picked up and carried his father’s shame, and the weight nearly killed him.

The years as a boy spent in isolation, the cultivating of a fantasy world where I was enough. I discovered my father’s porn, and to me it felt like life itself. It was a relief from the pain of existence, and I came to look forward to it. Most days after school I would indulge before my parents got home from work. I learned to cover my tracks well, because although it made me feel alive I knew that “sex” was dirty and my pleasure was tainted with a mean dose of shame.

I came to hate porn, and yet live for it. To swear it off, and then seek comfort in it. I was trapped before I was old enough to understand what I was dabbling in.

All men ask the question “Am I enough?”. The curse of Genesis has men toiling against the thorns and thistles. All we turn our hand to will eventually come to mock us. Our labors are ultimately futile, and life is pain. “Am I enough?” Experience says “no”. The world says “no”. Sometimes our fathers say “no”. Even God says “no”.

Porn on the other hand says “yes”. Porn says that you are God, you are to be worshiped. Unlike the life the real God has for you, porn offers a world where there is no risk, no failure, and no weeds to contend with. Porn is a rage against God for the sake of the curse. It is the consumption of image bearers, it is the vicarious enjoyment of the suffering of others. In it’s perverse way, porn looks like a back door into Eden where you are placed on God’s throne.

Like all of Satan’s counterfeits it leads to death. It promises life, and yet destroys. It destroys those who participate in it, those who use it, and everyone who loves those who are caught.

I hid my addiction from everyone for many years. I lived a double life. There was the person everyone knew: responsible family man, friendly, natural leader, lover of jazz and growing roses. Then there was the secret life: Mr Hyde. He is selfish, impatient, prone to rage. Really he is that little boy soothing the pains of existence. He still believes he’s not enough, and he still carries the heavy load, some of which isn’t actually his.

For years I have wanted to kill this boy, leave him in the ditch for dead, drive far away and forget him. He always returned, taking childish risks and hurting others for the sake of his own instant gratification.

My wife, who has a history with eating disorders and sexual abuse was especially hurt. She lived somewhere between the two versions of me. Her problems with body image were compounded by my actions. “Sex” was something between me and my genitals. Many was the night I avoided the risk of failure and chose sleep instead of seeking the intimacy which would require me to give of myself. I refused to act and take the chance I might prove that I really wasn’t “enough”.

I slept while she wept quietly and rotted inside. I was close to no one, emotionally anorexic. For nearly twenty years I was telling her with my addiction she was too much trouble and not worth the risk. Damaged unlovable garbage. It nearly drove her crazy. Even now, while I’m in recovery, there is the risk of panic attacks from my wife when we go out in public. There is still the deep conviction that she doesn’t compare well.

For most of the time of my addiction, I was a Christian, but I was ignorant. I accepted Jesus and became part of the body of Christ. Salvation was all I knew about. When it didn’t “cure” me it added to my shame a sense of underlying terror: “Jesus can’t/won’t fix it, I wonder if I’m beyond being saved, maybe I even lost my salvation because I’m too bad, maybe God is mad at me and no matter what I try I’m doomed.”

The next time you are sitting in a church pew, look to your left, and then to your right. If you do not have a serious problem with porn then statistically one or both of those sitting next to you does. I happen to think these numbers are a little conservative as such surveys require honesty on the part of the participants. The statistics for those in church leadership unfortunately are actually worse. It is THE problem the church faces in this modern age.

I believe the biggest thing we as the Church can do to help one another is to be open, to be a safe place for truth. I had no safe place and had to slog it out alone. I had no older men who had been where I was to mentor me in this area, so I gave up fighting. For many years my addiction grew in the dark. Pride often stops members of Christ’s body from being used by Him. Do not be afraid of being vulnerable and sharing your own testimony.

It is also important to understand that addictions are the result of soothing past and current hurts and silencing fears. They are answering the pain of life with a false salvation. As addicts we are supremely narcissistic, the entire world revolves around our pain and our addiction. Behavioral change is essential, but it is not where we end. If we do not investigate the childhood pain and answer the root lies that drive us to this self soothing, we will drop the porn just to become rage-a-holics, or drug users, or worse, adopt other self centered zero risk lifestyles. There may be the temptation to end the pain for good through suicide.

We cannot kill our Mr. Hydes. We must face them and teach them. They are not monsters (sinful yes, but not monsters). They are actually parts of ourselves, out of our own history. They need to know they are safe, so they can learn they do not need their sinful coping methods. If we uncover our festering wounds we can allow Jesus to heal us. This takes courage. If we surrender the pain to Him, He will make us enough.

The danger of course in all this introspection is that we become too wrapped up in our own past hurts. We must never forget that we are in fact perpetrators against those we love, and those we vicariously used. We must not forget that we are first called to repentance. This is the hard part but it is also the point. Repentance is a verb and it is not as passive as feeling sorry. We must commit our works to the Lord and He will establish our thoughts.

Real recovery is a life long process of increasingly becoming more and more Christ-like. To turn to the truth and see our sin as it really is. Real recovery bears fruit. Real recovery doesn’t end with behaviorism but continues on in stages of internal healing that allow Christ to work through us and to love through us’.

 

Places that help/resources:

http://xxx.church.com

http://dirtygirlsministries.com (for women struggling with porn/sexual addiction)

http://ccef.org/breaking-pornography-addiction-part-1