A personal story about a home repair dispute that became an unexpected lesson in boundaries, codependency, and not abandoning myself when my needs met resistance. I reflect on the drama triangle, over-explaining, and how learning to pause and stay grounded led to a better outcome.
I want to write about a recent situation that looked like a simple home repair issue, but turned into a very clear lesson for me about boundaries, codependency, and what happens inside me when my needs meet resistance.
This wasn’t about someone being right or wrong. It was about how quickly I lose my internal footing when conflict shows up, and how practicing healthier boundaries changed that experience.
Continue reading “Learning Healthy Boundaries Without Abandoning Myself”Now there’s a good question! In the Alcoholics Anonymous book, there are entire chapters dedicated to this question. Some will say, “you don’t need God to recover from alcohol addiction”. Others say “without a doubt, you do need God to recover”. But most say, “you don’t necessarily need ‘God’ to recover but you do need ‘a power greater than oneself’ or a ‘higher power’ in order to truly recover”.
I wholeheartedly agree that one needs a “higher power” in order to truly recover. For me this “higher power” is God. For others I know, their “higher power” is their collective 12-Step support group.
So, the main question I have for you is this: Is your current relationship with your “higher power” strong enough to help you recover from your addiction to pornography, lust, and sex?
I am a Christian, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to be precise. Yet even with my upbringing and belief that God is my Father and Christ is my Savior, this belief alone was not enough to “cure” me of my pornography addiction. I was a church-going, returned missionary who could not piece together 24 hours of true sobriety! Why?
Because I was not tapping into true connection with my higher power.
Two thoughts on this. First, connection with others I often find helps with my connection with my higher power. Coming out of isolation and connection with others is crucial to connecting with God. Attending 12 Step Meetings is a great way to connect in an honest genuine way with others. Breaking out of addiction is also a course in breaking out of isolation – isolation from others and ones’ higher power.
Second, specifically relating to communication with my higher power, I used to pray selfish prayers or pitiful “help me” prayers, if I prayed at all. I sometimes felt love from God, but my relationship with Him was focused on my desires and my will. I rarely opened up in a sincere way about my feelings, emotions, problems, sorrows, and true fears. I had no concept of surrendering my will or my life over to the care of my higher power. Now in recovery, I have learned to surrender to Him. I gratefully have a two-way connection with a God who is real and who wants the best for me, and who can truly heal me. I now trust Him, and I seek His wisdom and power instead of my own. So back to the original question: do I need God to recover? Yes, I do. Do you need God to recover? Yes, you do, but the God of your understanding will suffice. I promise if you pursue a journey into the 12 Steps for recovery from your sexual addiction that you will find a power higher and greater than yourself. Click here to find a list of 12 Step program options. Maybe I’ll see you there at one of them someday!
Some big questions you probably have as you’ve spent time on this blog are:
“Why Recover?”
“Is pornography even that big of a deal?”
“Why am I reading this blog when I could be getting high on my lust drug?”
The big answers are: It is a big deal! It is a dangerous and harmful drug! It is an addiction, and this is why you should seek recovery. It is almost impossible to stop this destructive habit unless you get serious help.
Pornography is addictive. I know, I was there. I was so addicted that I would make up excuses to go on business trips just so I could act out. I committed to myself over and over and over again that I would quit watching that stuff, and I continued to break that commitment over and over and over again. I would lie and hide. Despite being active in my church, despite being a husband and a father, despite knowing it was bad for me—I could not quit on my own in secret.
Pornography is a lie. It’s 100% lust and 0% love. It’s as unhealthy as cocaine, arguably worse. It drives disconnection and ruins self-esteem. Clicking “views,” even on free sites, feeds a multi-billion-dollar industry that abuses women, victimizes children, and treats all humans like objects. It is a slave industry where sadly, many of the participants and purchasers are willing slaves. Pornography “kills” us. It nearly killed me, my wife, and my marriage.
Pornography is a trap. If you are reading this post, it is likely because you feel something, something way deep down that tells you, “Yes, this is right. I have a problem, I’m in a trap”. Perhaps you are thinking you only have a “small problem” and that at least you are not acting out with real people. I used to think that as well. From where you are, it’s hard to realize that you are in a deadly trap and that you DO have an addiction.
Pornography is evil, morally wrong, and degrading to society. When I would view pornography in my past, I remember looking for the “good stuff.” What that really meant is that I was looking for something that would take me beyond the bounds of what I had already seen and would stimulate my brain in a way that it hadn’t before. I was slowly sliding deeper and deeper, darker and darker. The “good stuff” was actually extremely dark, very unreal, and nothing else can describe it but “horribly bad stuff.” Pornography makes us think good is bad, and bad is good.
Please get help. Get help now! Continue reading more of the excellent posts in the More Freedom Blog. Scrape together even a spark of desire to break free from this trap, and you will find it, step by step. I PROMISE you will feel more fulfillment, true love, connection, peace, happiness, and joy in your life without pornography! Recovery is the answer! I know, I am experiencing it.
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.
I once had the opportunity to be Foreman for a federal court case. It was about drug creation and distribution. There were several defendants including a fairly young couple with three small children and a man who was well into his sixties. It was made abundantly clear to use by the defense that if we found these people guilty then we’d be condemning children to grow up without parents and a man to die in prison. We had to find them guilty though due to the evidence. It was horrific. What had started out as something exciting and interesting as reality television had become a tragedy.
I went home that night and as I prayed I felt inspired to pray for forgetfulness and then to be more specific and pray for the Spirit of Forgetfulness to take away the painful memoires of faces, names, and the situation. After about three days of doing this, I noticed it began to work. To this day, I can not remember the names of the people and barely remember the faces of the parents but not the children.
This leads me to suggest this is something to consider when we repent of some of the awful things we did under our addictions. The inappropriate relationships, the actions, the words we used, and so forth can bubble up in our memories at bad times. I have prayed for the Spirit of Forgetfulness and it is slowly, slowly working. I don’t remember the names of the people I should forget. Sometimes, like picking at a scab, my brain will nitpick at it until a name does pop up or a situation but then I just turn back to prayer and pray to forget.
Somethings we need to remember to keep from doing them again but I think there are many things we shouldn’t remember so we be better about surrendering those things that could trigger our addictions. Ignorance is bliss is an often used phrase but I’d change that to forgetfulness is peace in this instance. While this kind of prayer is one way to let go of something bad, we should also remember to make sure it is surrendered as well so it does not linger within us.
Sobriety is where recovery starts. Once I’ve put my addiction down, then I can start recovering. I like the sobriety definition from Sexaholics Anonymous:
Continue reading “Sobriety”“In defining sobriety, we do not speak for those outside Sexaholics Anonymous. We can only speak for ourselves. Thus, for the married sexaholic, sexual sobriety means having no form of sex with self or with persons other than the spouse. In SA’s sobriety definition, the term “spouse” refers to one’s partner in a marriage between a man and a woman. For the unmarried sexaholic, sexual sobriety means freedom from sex of any kind. And for all of us, single and married alike, sexual sobriety also includes progressive victory over lust.”
Sexaholics Anonymous, 191-192
Below is an outline of the basics of my recovery program. Most of it I’ve learned from books or other people in recovery, but I’ve lived it and made it mine now. Each link will take you to a list of blog posts that have something to do with that topic so you can dig into any of the topics you want to.
When I am working with someone new to recovery as their sponsor, I tell them to get the basics (listed below under “The Basics” in place first, then start working the 12 steps, and then everything else will fall into place.
My addiction to pornography, lust, and masturbation started when I was about 12 years old. I didn’t think much of it at the time. I didn’t think I was hurting anyone, so I continued to use these things to escape from depression and loneliness (though I didn’t know it at the time) and to cover up the things I didn’t like feeling. Around age 16, I started drinking alcohol with my friends as well.
I graduated high school and left home to go to college 600 miles away. Free at last! I partied with my new-found friends. My sexual addictions were always there in their various forms, but I kept them very private because I was ashamed of what I was doing to myself and others. They progressed to sex with others, strip clubs and more. It seemed there was no limit to where I would allow my addictions to take me. I isolated from friends at church and eventually stopped going to church completely. I was often around large groups of people, but I felt completely alone. I was nearing rock bottom and would consistently use lust and alcohol to numb my pains and escape from the realities of life.
Continue reading “A Lifetime of Addictions”In my earliest days of recovery, I can clearly remember the mornings. My eyes would open and again I would realize it hadn’t been a dream or nightmare but reality. My wife knew everything and so did my children. I didn’t feel like getting up and just rolling over but I couldn’t do that either or my wife would become suspicious I was doing something again.
In those days, I would share in group and talk about feeling not just like crap but “the thing that aspires to be crap.” It was to show how low and worthless I felt. The guilt and shame were heavy loads. I was still in the middle of Step 1 and admitting I needed help. Step 2 was Hope and what hope was there for me? How could this ever get better?
Continue reading “The Thing That Aspires To Be Crap!”I’m writing this to the wives of addicts since that’s the most common situation. The same advice is relevant for a husband if the addict is a woman. And all of this is helpful for any family member or friend of an addict.
First of all, there is great hope for freedom and happiness. There is a way out of addiction and hundreds of thousands of people have followed this path out. One important key is that the addict has to want to recover from his addiction before he can receive help and make real progress. If he doesn’t want to get well, it will be more difficult for him to get well. Sometimes just going to meetings unwillingly at first will help him gain the hope and humility needed to start the path of recovery. Many have started out this way.
Continue reading “For Spouses, Families, and Friends of Addicts”
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