I discovered masturbation on my own one day while showering. I realized as I began experimenting with this, that the good feelings associated with masturbation approximated those associated with sexual intercourse.  After that I began tearing and cutting out pictures and pages from catalogs to look at while I masturbated.  Before long, underwear models weren’t enough—I wanted nudity.  I began drawing my own pictures (based on the catalogs I had seen) and writing down sexual fantasies to go with the new habit of masturbation. 

Because I lived in a conservative religious home I felt a deep need to keep everything secret, but I was not successful.  My parents found out I had been experimenting with masturbation and drawing nude women.  I confessed this, but I could not tell them how bad my problem had actually gotten.  I had to guard at least part of my secret; that was part of the rush, after all.

My mother tried to get my father to talk to me about these things and give me some guidance.  I was the oldest child, and neither of my parents knew how to help.  They had given me “the talk” about sex, but those conversations were awkward and we all seemed to want to avoid the subject generally.  At least I did.  As far as I can recall, I got no help or counsel regarding my sexual curiosity and increasingly compulsive behavior from either parent.  I was counseled from time to time by my clergyman, but I don’t think he knew what a terrible grip this behavior was beginning to have on me. 

Though I was not aware of this at the time, my parents’ marriage had been a struggle from very early on because of my father’s compulsive sexual behaviors.  When I was an infant, he molested a student at the school he was teaching, and was no longer able to teach for that reason.  He had frequent extramarital sexual encounters and hid them from my mother.  He was living a secret life.  I knew my parents had some problems, but the nature of them was never revealed to me.  My father was emotionally absent from the time I hit adolescence.  He was withdrawn and depressed all the time.  He is a gifted musician and spent a lot of time at the piano pounding out his frustrations in his own little world.

            My addiction began to escalate, and my own drawings and stories were no longer enough.  I began looking for material during innocent trips to the public library; just walking out with the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue because I was too embarrassed to check it out at the desk.  I would also go to the local drug store and look through the hot rod magazines for the pictures of babes draped over cars.  Often, I would bring change so I could photocopy the pages I wanted to keep so I wouldn’t have to face the clerk to buy the magazines.  I even found sources for stimulation in comic books.  Like a lot of kids my age, I was a comic book enthusiast and I frequented a store a few miles from my home.  I found that a lot of the published comics were sold with a sexual appeal, featuring scantily clad female characters with exaggerated body proportions.  I even found comics that, while not strictly pornographic, had plots centering on sexual themes and were loaded with suggestive content.  Eventually even Penthouse magazine began publishing comic books that were explicitly sexual.  I never had the opportunity to purchase or steal these, but I was aware of them.

Soon, this was not enough for me either.  One day I decided I was going to get some “real” pornography. I knew where to go to find it.  I had seen the dirty magazines on the top rack at mall bookstores and noticed that while most of the issues on the rack were wrapped in plastic, a sample issue would be unwrapped for browsing.  I had a transit map of the bus system and figured out that if I faked sick and stayed home the next day I could go to the mall, look at some porn, and then come home before anyone was home to ask where I had been.  I carried out this plan and ended up stealing some Playboys and a Penthouse from these bookstores.  I brought them home with time to spare and I binged.  Afterward, I felt so disgusted with myself that I got rid of the magazines.  I actually put the stack of magazines in a paper bag and ran over it with the lawn mower.  I was so angry that I could be so weak and sick, and I hated myself.  Later, feeling the need to feed my addiction again, I tried to recover what I had destroyed.  I used my plan again on other occasions but actually dared to purchase the magazines at the counter.  I had a mature look, but was obviously underage.  I don’t know why the clerks sold to me, but I wish they hadn’t.  I confessed to my parents that I was getting into trouble, but I don’t think they knew how to help me.  My father was too wrapped up in his own compulsions to advise me on breaking mine. 

Then my family connected to the Internet for the first time.  In those days there was very little pornography to be found online, and what there was required a user name, password and proof of age to gain access.  I found some, but the opportunities to look were rare and connections were slow.  One night I overheard my dad on the phone.  What I heard revealed to me that my father’s problems were sexual in nature and much more serious than I had thought previously.  Meanwhile, I battled with depression.  I would come home and pass the time in my room sleeping, crying, or punching walls.  I wore headphones and listened to music constantly to shut the world out, even at the dinner table.  My teachers at school jokingly said that they didn’t recognize me without them.

At the end of my second year of high school our family moved to a new state where my dad had landed a much higher paying job.  There we got Internet again and the technology had advanced.  My opportunities to look at pornography also expanded.  Until I graduated from high school I tried to fight this addiction more or less on my own with the help of my clergyman.  I slipped up and repented regularly, but limited access to porn prevented me from getting too involved.  The progression of my addiction stagnated in those years. 

My father’s problems came to a head when he was fired from his job for viewing pornography on company time.  During the Christmas just before I graduated high school, my mother decided to divorce my father, who moved out to an apartment in town.  My mother took my siblings and myself to live with her parents and be close to her family in another state.

We lived with my grandparents for a year.  I was unable to go to college full time because of the high cost, so I took on a part time job while I took classes here and there on the side.  My family was very busy during this time.  My siblings were teenagers and had their own lives.  I had no friends in this new place and spent a lot of time alone.  I had my own car and plenty of gas money, so I could go where I wanted.  Since I only worked part time and nobody was keeping track of when I came and went, I did just about whatever I wanted to feed my addiction. 

I discovered the use of chat rooms for sexual gratification.  I got into cyber sex and I was good at it.  After I turned eighteen I realized that I could go into adult bookstores to look at and buy whatever I wanted, and I got into the habit of visiting these stores.  There I found pornography more intense than anything I had seen outside the Internet.  At one point I was routinely spending as much as $80 at once on pornographic magazines only to throw them away a short time later in a fit of guilt.  I occasionally sought help from clergy but often felt frustrated that nothing they ever told me and nothing I ever tried under their counsel seemed to help.  I wanted out of the addiction so bad, but I felt completely helpless.  I remember driving home from work one day and thinking “I will never again be capable of loving or being loved.”  A few tears ran down my face as this thought sunk into my chest.  It felt cold and black and utterly hopeless.  The only escape from this pain was more pornography.

Some days at work I wanted pornography so bad I felt physically sick.  I had shakes and cold sweats, and my stomach would do back flips until I could get a fix.  I started bringing magazines with me so I could look at them and masturbate in the car during my break.  It’s really a miracle I was never arrested.  Often the stacks of magazines I bought would end up in the garbage because I felt so guilty, but soon I needed another fix and I would go back for more. 

For another year after we moved out of my grandparent’s house my addiction continued to escalate.  I bought my own computer and got my own high-speed connection to the Internet, and my involvement with chat rooms basically became my only social life or recreation.  I started regularly communicating with a young lady out of the country.  We struck up a great online friendship that I, at least, began to treat like a romance.  Though we were feeding each other’s compulsive behavior, the friendship and affection we felt became genuine.  The more I felt for her, the less okay the pornography seemed to me.  I was becoming squeamish even though she was not. 

On the fourth of October in 2000 I woke up and began dressing for work.  I put on some music to listen to while I dressed, which was my habit.  The music I put in was a soundtrack from an IMAX film called Everest.  The first track began with Buddhist chanting.  This made me think of prayer flags.  I thought of what a beautiful symbol of prayer those flags were, constantly petitioning the gods for favor and blessing.  Suddenly my heart shattered.  I sobbed and wept more violently than ever before or since.  I was changed forever. 

I began to seek weekly counsel from my clergyman as well as professional help from counselors of my faith.  I felt hope for the first time and really felt that I had connected with God in a profound way.  I confessed to my mother all the secrets I had kept from her, and I reconciled with my grandparents for bringing pornography into their home while I was living there.  For a while I tried to maintain my relationship with the friend with whom I had struck up a relationship online, and I let her know that I was trying to quit my compulsive behavior.  She seemed to support me, but one day she just stopped writing. 

I went without pornography for over an entire month, which was something that seemed impossible before.  That period of sobriety was miraculous to me.  I still struggled and occasionally slipped up for a long time afterward, and before long password restrictions were put on my Internet access so I could only use the computer with someone present.  I fought the battle every day; I have never done anything more difficult. 

In 2001 I went on a full-time mission for my church, which was one of the hardest and most rewarding things I have ever done.  Somehow, my addiction persisted.  Sometimes I called promotional lines for phone sex services to hear the sexy advertising.  Toward the end of my two years there, I actually called a phone sex line and paid for it.  The bank noticed the large transaction and called my mother to verify it.  I had to tell her what I had done.  I confessed to my religious leader, which was the only reason I was not sent home immediately.  Because of what I had done, pornographic junk mail was sent to our mission headquarters with my name on it.  For all I know, it’s still being sent there to this day.  I began having regular counseling sessions by phone with a professional counselor of my faith.  That seemed to help and I got through the rest of my mission successfully.

I went home with a lot of fear about starting my life over after this experience.  I also had a great deal of regret over what I had done to taint my otherwise great experience.  I began to wonder if anything good would ever happen to me without being ruined or marred by this addiction that had haunted me since I was a child.  When I got home I started slipping back into the addiction.  I had problems with the Internet from time to time, but I never bought any more magazines and never returned to the chat rooms.  While I was not as consumed by this addiction as I once had been, it still troubled me deeply. 

I transferred to a university out of state and moved in with my brother.  For a while, things were okay, but eventually the stress of school got to me.  I indulged in pornography on the computers on campus from time to time, but I didn’t have my own.  Before long I rented a computer and got the Internet hooked up.  My addiction persisted at basically the same level, and this troubled me a great deal.

I thought pornography had crippled me for life, that I was poisonous and did not deserve to be happy with anyone.  I figured I would just ruin some poor girl’s life if I ever tried to get married, just like my father ruined my mother’s life…and mine.  I was tired of fighting this and I did not want anyone else to get hurt, but something important started happening to me. I’m not sure exactly what motivated me, but I deeply felt the need to find someone to marry.  This was strange, but I started dating actively, which seemed to help me fight the urge to look at porn.  I also started attending a support group for porn addicts at my university, where I learned things that revolutionized the way I thought about this problem.   I started incorporating these new ideas into my daily life and I felt more confident than ever about being able to face this addiction and win. 

During that time I met the woman who would later become my wife.  I told her about the problems I had been struggling with when things between us started getting serious.  In spite of this, however, she offered me her heart.  I offered her mine in return, and it was only a few months later that we were married.  It was not long after our wonderful new marriage began that the urge to look at porn came back and I gave in.  When I confessed to my wife she was heartbroken and devastated.  I despised myself for having put us both through that agony.  I continued going to my support group, but I was only going through the motions.  I went to punish myself because I thought it would make my wife feel better.  I became dedicated to a campaign of self-destruction and believed I deserved every minute of misery, sickness, and regret.  Even after all that I've been through I can't believe how out of control addictive behavior can get sometimes.  Once I even looked at porn with my wife just a few feet away on the other computer.  Part of me doesn't want to admit that it was me that did that, but I can't deny it.  These were just a few incidents in a hurtful cycle, and it makes me sick to think about them now. I'll be ashamed of these things forever.

It was only when I started opening up in the group that I realized that I had resented my wife for working against me, insisting that I was worth loving.  I didn’t want to believe her.  I didn’t remember what being okay with myself felt like, because I hated what I saw in the mirror.  I thought that hatred would save my wife even if it destroyed me, but I hit rock bottom and realized I was wrong.  I decided it was time to break the cycle of hatred for myself and I had a change of heart.  I decided to quit seeking out pornography, not to please anybody else or to punish myself, but for my own good.  I decided to care about me and treat myself in the way I realized I deserved.  

Since then I have lived a happy, sober life with my wife.  By no means have I found the elusive “magic bullet” that makes it all go away.  Temptation still comes, and my education continues.  I learn more all the time about what it means to be an addict, and when I look back now, I wonder what I was thinking.  Pornography twisted my mind so that in the heat of needing a fix, nothing else mattered to me; not my wife, not my faith, not my job, not my life, not my freedom, not me.  That’s how insane I got.

That’s how insane addiction can get. 

I walk with God every day and I rely on Him to carry me through this.  I’ve come to terms with the fact that I am helpless against this addiction and that only through my faith in God can I stay clean and press forward without this destroying my life.  I want to join the fight, to prevent what happened to me from happening to others. 

Please join us at Families Against Pornography as we work together to increase public awareness and help the rising generation avoid the addiction of pornography that so many have fallen prey to.  Help us show those who already suffer from this addiction that there is a way to o heal and move on.  I pray that all addicts and their families may one day be healed.

-D.K.