My name is Thomas, and I am a sex addict in recovery. My addiction started when I was 8 years old. Despite being raised by awesome parents who taught me that pornography was wrong, I still fell into its trap. At a young age, I participated in professional stage productions where I found and sought out pornographic images hidden around backstage. For the next several years, as I continued to be involved in these productions, I knew where all the images were hidden and would view them regularly. By age 12, I was acting out physically with others, which was directly related to the images seared in my mind. Before I even reached my teenage years, I was already treating girls and women as objects to satisfy my lustful, selfish desires.
In my youth, I began to master a Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde lifestyle. A “good” son, brother, and “religious” boy by day — but a selfish, pleasure-seeker by night. I kept up this “good-man-bad-man” dynamic for 30 years, which included trying to keep a façade throughout my 16 years of marriage. The more I was rotting on the inside, the more I would attempt grand and showy outward behaviors to hide my true self.
One night in our 16th year of marriage, my wife finally got the courage to confront me. She said that she could feel that I didn’t love her, that my behaviors had ruined her, and that she was “done.” She said she was going to take the kids and move in with her parents. “You can have the house. I can’t live this lie anymore,” she said. In that desperate moment, I felt a strong inner voice tell me: “Tell her the truth now, or you will lose her.” My wife felt and saw many symptoms of my addiction, but she did not know that I, in fact, did have an addiction. There were so many secrets I had kept from her.
I didn’t want to lose her, so I decided to “come clean.” I started to tell her facts she had never heard before, going all the way back to the time when I was 8 years old. She was so hurt, betrayed, and devasted that she picked up the alarm clock off the bedside table and threw it against the wall. I was terrified. The truth was coming out, and I was on the verge of losing my wife, my children, my church standing, and even my career. This was my rock bottom. This is what rock bottom is – when “the pain of the solution is less than the pain of the problem” (White Book, pg. 27).
Within a few days, both of us met with our church leader. This wise man directed us to the Addiction Recovery 12-Step program offered by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I had a lot of fear walking into my first meeting. But the second time I went, I felt strongly that this was exactly where I was supposed to be and that I truly belonged there. Each 12 Step principle hit me like a lightning bolt. I learned and progressed step by step and began to find true recovery. The recovery process for my addictive behaviors happened in phases, just like it does for drug or alcohol addicts.
I am grateful for the true happiness and peace that I’ve found during my 5 years of sobriety and recovery. The journey has been difficult — but also wonderful — for my wife and me. We share our recovery process in our book Dark to Light: My Recovery from Pornography and Lust which explains specific ways that we have found healing, focusing on 12 Step principles.
My life has never been better than during the last 5 years of my recovery. I am a new man with a new heart. Change is real and possible. True connection with my God, my Savior, and my wife has replaced my old disconnection, discord, and disobedience. Light and truth have truly replaced the darkness of my past.
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