Childhood

I was born the third child and only boy into a home of much fighting and yelling.  I think my parents loved me.  Perhaps they even did the best they could coming from their backgrounds.  But for the most part, I didn't feel their love.

In the past few years, I have learned that we remember the events in our early childhood that made an emotional impact on us.  My very first memory was of a picture being taken of me.  I was a fat, little baby with a little curl on the head.  I never did like that picture.  My next memory was the one which has become a lifelong theme of pain in my life.  It seems harmless as an adult but for a two year old boy who desperately longed for the love of his dad, it meant a lot.  I was sitting on the floor with my dad looking down upon me with a frown.  I just sat there wanting him to touch me, to play with me, anything.  But he didn't.  He just sat there looking disappointed in me.  That was the first time I felt like something was wrong with me.  And that is how I've felt much of my life - like there's a big hole in my heart that hurts.  And I have tried to fill it with pretty much everything:  food, pornography, sex, music, performing and even working in church.  This was the beginnings of the "dark side" of my life.

When I was in grade four or five [age 9] I found my Dad's porno magazine collection in the garage. I promptly stole it and shared it with my friends. When we weren't looking at it, I stored them under my bed.  On one particular fishing trip that I took with my Dad, I came home to a thoroughly cleaned bedroom.  To my horror my Mom had cleaned everywhere, including under my bed.  I thought I was in deep trouble.  But instead, I found my pornography collection neatly stacked and tidied up for me.  As a young man I took it as an act of permission.  I have really struggled to forgive both my Mom and Dad for introducing me to and enabling me to delve into this habit which has controlled most of my life.

Many other painful events in my childhood stick out - most of which added to me feeling unaccepted, stupid, or rejected.  I'm sure they are no more painful than what most kids face, but for me they increased the hole of rejection in my heart which I have tried to numb with pornography!

Adolescence

Grade seven was a tough year.  I hit a growth spurt and seemed to overnight grow 6 inches taller than the rest of my grade.  Suddenly I became the conquest of all the other boys.  But I was only big on the outside.  Inside I was more the artsy kind of kid, but very insecure.  I didn't like fighting.  I didn't want to fight but they hounded me every day.  Finally, I gave in and beat up one of the kids.  But he had older brothers and friends so for the rest of my school years, they pursued and hounded me.  Eventually, they reduced their attacks to only screaming out my name whenever they saw me.  I hated it.  I was singled out from all the other kids when all I wanted is to be accepted.

During high school, my dependence on pornography increased and purchasing pornography, became a common routine.  Yet, at school I hung out with the Christian crowd. I think this is where I learned how to live a double life.  But I never realized that eventually, both lives would begin to crumble.  Nor did I realize how damaging living a double life would become.

I met my Jesus Christ in a friend's basement in the spring of 1989. I remember walking home that day feeling awesome. The only way I can describe the feeling was like I was bullet-proof.  I felt like something had changed and that I would never be the same.  When I got home, however, I walked right back into my life of darkness.  I did not have the courage to tell my parents that I had decided to become a Christ follower. So like the seed in the Bible story, which falls on shallow soil only to wither and die so was my commitment to Christ.

The next few years were Satan continued to destroy my life, but this time, in a different way.  My new girlfriend (with whom I began attending church off and on) was going through a rough time dealing with some of the pain from her own past.  Ironically, she had been wounded by the same attitude and perversion in men which fuels pornography - lust - the very sin Satan was using to destroy my life.  She even attempted suicide.  In my second year of college she became pregnant and as a result, moved in with me and my parents - not a good living situation.  So here we were - new parents - my wife an emotional train wreck and me, a full-fledged pervert.

Adulthood

We eventually got married and I pursued a university degree.  We had another child and on the outside things seemed to be settling down. I graduated and pursued my career as did my wife.  But under the surface, the darkness was appalling.  My sexual addiction got deeper and darker.  By 1996 I was fully immersed in the porn of the internet, regularly called phone sex lines, had a large magazine collection, and went to see strippers regularly.  I would commonly stay up all night looking at porn and charge up to $500 on out phone bill in 900's.  By then we and she had stopped attending church.

Ironically, the musical group I was part of was frequently asked to play gigs in churches.  I remember one particular Easter well.  The service was winding down and the people formed long lines for communion - a piece of bread that was torn from a large loaf and a sip from a communal cup.  As they stood in line they were to pass iron railway spikes to the person behind them and accompany them with the phrase; "Jesus died for your sins."  After they had taken the elements some people kneeled at the altar in tears.  This really wierded out the musicians I was with [we weren't a Christian group], but I found I could not hold back the tears and I recommitted my life to Jesus that day.  But the darkness continued to control my life and I was either unwilling or unable to give it up - maybe both. I desperately wanted to please God be free of pornography.  But I kept turning to it, trying to fill that hole in my heart.  Then another turning point: I finally confessed to my wife and told her I had been to see a lap dancer.  Understandably, she was furious and didn't speak to me for several days.  After many years away, she had recently begun attending church again and she issued the following ultimatum.  "You come to church on Sunday with me and the kids or get out right now!"  I went to church.

On The Road to Recovery - at last!

After attending awhile, I made an appointment to see the pastor.  He told me I needed to start dealing with my sexual immorality.  I went home that night and took my modem into the back yard.  I prayed over it and asked God to make it a symbol of my sexual addiction. Then I beat the living daylights out of it with a hammer until I was out of breath. In addition to destroying the porn links in my life, I was also asked to share my struggle with other men to help keep me accountable.

Looking back, I had hoped the modem desecration would break the chains of pornography for good, but there was more work needed.  I think I was looking for a quick fix to a stronghold I took years to develop.  But for me, both recovery and healing have been a process, step by step, one day at a time.

For the past three years I've had ups and downs both spiritually, morally and in my marriage.  I am so fortunate to have a wife who still loves me and wants to be my best friend.  I have also benefited from accountability partners and some additional counseling. Jesus has shown me that my addiction was not to pornography itself, but to the selfish fulfillment of my sexual desires.  I used my sexuality to medicate and numb the hurtful and painful memories of my childhood.  I used pornography to stimulate my sexuality, which I would use like morphine to numb the hurting hole in my heart.

In Session 08 at Freedom Session, we talk about inviting Jesus Christ to be Lord of our Pain.  I want you to know that this really works.  For me, when I began to invite Jesus into the hurt inside of my heart, He began healing the pain and I didn't need the medication anymore.  I still had to deal with the compulsive habit - which is hard and the quest for a pure mind continues to be a battle, but this is relatively mild compared to the voracious Grizzly my addiction was.

I have also begun to change the way I view myself.  "As a man thinks, so he is."  Before, I labeled myself a sex addict, loser, pervert and so I acted out those things.  Through Freedom Session I have begun seeing myself as a child of God worth enough for Jesus to die for.  I am a precious lost son, deeply loved by his Father, and a warrior enabled by the mighty spirit of God to carry out His will and His plan.  Because of the forgiveness and healing God is doing in my life, I can see myself as the hands and feet of Jesus sent to love those who are lost and still hurting.

I am grateful for this recovery community that accepts me just as I am but loves me enough to not leave me there.  My healing continues and God has never left me.