Our Stories
The stories below were submitted by SAMPG members. As you may learn from the stories below, you are not alone in your struggle with pornography and sexual impurity.
Story 1 Story 2 Story 3
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Story 1
Pornography became important to me when I was eleven. My friend Steve had every Playboy issue dating back to 1958. When I was at his house, looking at the magazines it was all I wanted to do. I couldn’t think of anything else. It really annoyed him sometimes when I would ask to see them. It was really all anyone who had been in Steve’s house would talk about.
Once Steve and I stopped being good friends, my porn source was cut off. It didn’t take long for me to get the courage to walk into the neighborhood convenience store and ask the man for the new issue of Playboy. He looked at me and asked if I really needed it, and I muttered, “ uh huh.”. I had the exact change, including tax of $2.10.
When I got my drivers license, I quickly fell into the habit of buying every new Penthouse. I knew the day it should be out, and always got a little anxious if it was a day or two late. I stored all of the issues under my mattress. After accumulating probably fifteen issues, my mom discovered the stash while changing my sheets. She cried hysterically and warned me that the magazine would rot my mind. I kept buying the magazines, but changed my hiding place.
In college, the campus theater started playing porn flicks, the Aggie term being grode flicks, spring semester of my freshman year. I never missed one in the next six years I spent at TAMU. Sometimes I had to beg a friend to go see the grode flick, in that I was a little uncomfortable going by myself. I think I did go alone once.
I brought porn into my marriage immediately. It was something my wife and I were able to enjoy together. Once the internet became available, it opened a whole new world. I viewed at home as often as I could be alone, at work, any free moment.
Through alcoholics anonymous, I came to believe that there is a God who cares about what we do. I immediately knew porn viewing was not God’s will , and resolved to remove it from my life. I had occasional success, as long as six months at a time without using pornography, but would eventually find myself back in front of the images.
Finally my son confronted me with evidence of having viewed porn from Windows media player. He did come out and accuse me, but I believed this had to be the last straw. I was done with porn forever. It lasted maybe a month and a half. Three months after he had shown me the evidence on windows media player, I found myself locked out of Cyber Sitter. When I mentioned the trouble to my son, he explained that I would not be able to open it, and placed an article about pornography addiction in front of me.
That has been one year. I have had one slip since then, but it has now been seven months since I have viewed pornography. I owe it to this group and the grace of God.
Story 2
I am a middle-aged father of two and have been married for over twenty years. Both of my kids attend Catholic school. I go to mass regularly with my family and am active in my parish. I have also volunteered in various organizations outside of my church. For all intensive purposes, I have always appeared to be living the life of a good Christian husband and father. However, I used to live a secret life which few of my friends or relatives were aware.
For sixteen years I struggled with pornography addiction. My addiction started when I discovered adult movies at the hotels I stayed at while away from home. Eventually I started buying them from adult video stores close to home. As soon as we got the Internet at home, I was surfing for pornography on a regular basis, usually when my family was gone or at night when they were asleep. During this time I made repeated attempts to stop viewing pornography, only to fall again and again. I was caught up in a true addictive cycle of acting out followed by periods of sobriety and then; eventually, succumbing again to temptation. I would tell myself, each time that this would be the last time, fooling myself into thinking I could control my desire for pornography. I did not think I was addicted at first; moreover, I rationalized that it could be worse since I wasn’t having an affair.
From the start, I told my wife what was going on. I knew what I was doing was wrong and felt that telling her would help me control the impulse to act out. On the contrary, using my wife as an accountability partner did not stop me. I found myself keeping my addictive activities secret, only confessing if I was questioned directly. My addiction also affected my son who became aware of what I was doing. I had tried to be careful not to let either of my kids know what I was up to, but it was inevitable that they would stumble upon an undeleted file or hear my wife and I discussing the subject.
Once it became obvious that my actions were having a negative impact on my family, I decided to seek help for my problem. I first looked for help on the Internet, eventually finding a site dedicated to dealing with pornography addiction. I took a course provided by a Christian organization running the Website which gave me several tools to help deal with the addiction. I learned that I was powerless to control my addiction and had to rely on God to help me. I also realized that I needed face-to-face accountability from other addicts. After a lot of procrastination, I finally mustered the courage to attend support group meetings. For almost two years, I have been attending meetings with Sex Addicts Anonymous and St. Augustine Men’s Purity Group. During this time, my desire to look at pornography has diminished a great deal. I no longer struggle with feelings of guilt that accompany a life of acting out.
It’s obvious to me that I was trying to fill the spiritual hole in my life with pornography. Like so many stories in the bible, my sexual sin was separating me from God and keeping me from experiencing his grace. Fortunately, I had sense enough to realize that I needed
to stop going through the motions with my faith and start developing a stronger spiritual life.
I know there are many other men and even women who struggle with sexual addiction. Like myself, many are living respectable lives on the outside; while inwardly; they are trying to fight a battle that they cannot win alone. There is help if you are willing stop going through the motions of being a Christian and turn control of your life over to God.
Story 3
For me, today, I realize that I am a true egomaniac with an inferiority complex. I never felt as good as, smart as, or as attractive as other people. I remember the message that I heard as a little kid from TV and other kids, you stay tough because the strong survive and you don’t show emotion because that would be considered a weakness. So I stayed in loneliness and silence, never revealing the true me, because you wouldn’t like him. I turned to sex, women, fantasy…anything to make me feel okay about who I was. My worth in life was about what I did and who I was in the business community. To all outward appearances I was a good father, husband and provider but my secret life was killing me and destroying all of the relationships that meant anything to me. I always knew inside that I was living in sin, having my running affairs with pornography and masturbation. In the beginning it started with adult book stores and prostitution. I always justified my actions as my right, always feeling totally defeated again and again after making a resolution to NOT act out or cross the boundaries that I set. I was a true addict with obsessive-compulsive behavior…truly powerless over sex. I was doomed to live my life like this until I found this group and other 12-step programs which have allowed me to practice my faith along with the principles of recovery. I came to believe that I was not alone. Other men were having similar problems just the same as me. I realized that there is a solution….God and working with others in an open and honest faith based forum. This has allowed me to express my true feelings and challenges knowing that I can expect frank and candid feedback in return. The hole that I had been trying to fill with sex is now being filled with God’s love and forgiveness.