Not my story

Not my story

      I am a Sexaholic/sex addict/whatever else you want to call it and this is my story. When I was about 9 or 10 years old I remember distinctly hearing a conference talk on pornography. A general authority shared an experience about when he was a young boy and he came across a dirty magazine. In effect he said, "I saw it, but listened to the spirit and didn't pick it up. I am grateful that I didn't because I don't know where I would be now if i hadn't done that." It was within three months that I had the same experience. However, I did not heed that spirit in my situation and my story is what his would have been if he had not heeded that spirit, as well as the story of many others who have not obeyed those promptings of the Holy Ghost at one time or another in their life(in relations to sexual addictions).

      I did walk past that magazine the first time I saw it but about one hundred yards later I turned around to get it. I was curious and excited but scared. As soon as I got back to it I threw it in my backpack. Not even two feet after that a member of my ward pulled up next to me and asked if I wanted a ride home, I said yes but felt awful for what I knew that I had in my bag. At the same time I was feeling excited because I was feeling all of these feelings of excitement and thrill for getting away with something, which I had never really done before! This was the beginning of my secret life, my second life. I remember going to a friend’s house before school and computers and internet were just becoming mainstream. We even found pornography there. Later on in life I would continue to find more and more, act out more and more, seclude myself more and more, as well as become a master con artist in hiding my emotions, thoughts, and true feelings about everything. I became so good that I even began to fool myself.

          I was confronted once as a kid about my addictions by my parents and even went to talk to my step-grandfather who was a psychologist. This did no good because I just lied to him over and over so he saw no problems other than the fact that my grades were slipping. So he developed a plan for me and did what I needed to so that I could get by, really what I did was become better at covering my tracks. I was just slipping deeper and deeper into my lies and performance of being a happy guy, when inside I was being tormented and suffering at the clutches of my own hands and eyes. What a sad and sorrowful state that I lived in. I would act out and then cry and plead with God then promise to never do it again! This was nearly a daily routine. I had isolated myself by this point and began to feel like I couldn’t talk to anyone, but this was a lie that I see now, I did enjoy acting out and I didn’t know how to live without it at this point so I didn’t want to talk to anyone else about it. I CHOSE(not my mom, dad, step parents, or anyone else) to continue in my addictions. This was my choice then and still was my choice. There is no one to blame anymore but me.

          Back to my story. My senior year of high school I began to dump my friends and really get into the gospel. My older brother had served a mission and was going to be returning at the end of my senior year. I adore my older brother and wanted to do exactly everything he did. So I began to prepare to serve. I read my scriptures, I prayed, and I even did my home teaching! I remember meeting with my stake president and bishops. I told my stake president about my problems, but we pressed forward. I then put in my availability date for a date that was not what I wanted. My older brother was getting married and my mom told me I had to stay. And that I couldn’t leave until after then. I was mad and felt the spirit that this wasn’t right, but I CHOSE to do otherwise and so I STAYED for my brother’s wedding. I did well during this time between receiving my mission call until about 2 months before I left. I was going to the temple all the time but I had slipped back into my addictions. Before I left on my mission I spoke with my stake president one more time, but this time I lied and couldn’t admit that I was struggling again. I didn’t want to not be able to go and be the talk of the whole stake about why I wasn’t going on my mission and have people whispering about it, so I CHOSE to lie. I did great for about a year and a half on my mission then fell back into my addiction. At the time I was a zone leader and our zone went from doing great to doing nothing. My mission president was inspired and asked me, Elder HOW IS YOUR WORTHINESS? I confessed and it felt great, but it still didn’t fix me and I struggled the rest of my mission.

          Upon returning home I tried to really kick my habits on my own. I talk to my bishop about it eventually but by then was dating an amazing girl who became my wife J! My bishop told me not to worry about my challenges because they would go away once we were married, of course I totally bought into that. No sex addict(not in true recovery) would turn that rationalization down, that’s my problem I just need to have sex, Of course that will fix everything! (there’s my one rant, that bishop is a great man, just not educated about sexual addictions like many other bishops, and this is a problem that I hope to help change in any way that I can). I had told my wife before we got married that I had a small challenge with pornography but we did not think much about it after the council I had received from my bishop and similar things from others.

          Dating my wife was amazing, I had never been so honest before with anyone. However, after we were married and things got any little bit challenging I would pull back and become a victim. I did this for a long time, so much so that I began to feel like she was the problem and that she was emotionally abusing me (read about this here). I have realized since that I am wrong in my thoughts. It got to the point though that my wife began to work on herself and improve herself and attend 12 step meetings for support for another loved one that she has that also is an addict(to other things). I eventually began to attend the support meetings as well. They were amazing meetings and I had never seen anything like it! I eventually started attending the church’s ARP meetings for myself under the disguise of something else that I had to work on, but secretly was going for my pornography and masturbation addictions, I even shared this to the group, but my wife had no idea still.

There was a weekend that changed everything for me. My wife was out of town and I acted out and suffered all weekend on my own, it was awful! When she got back I was so sad and disappointed that I took it out on her. She saw this and felt it. One night after a couple of days she asked HOW IS YOUR WORTHINESS?(no freaking way is probably what you’re thinking, I know my wife and I think the same thing). She asked the same question that my mission president did! This has been since August of 2012 and have since been on a very very slow path to recovery. I have even worked steps 1-3 with a sponsor then gave up at step 4. I am still in recovery and have since restarted my steps with the same sponsor and am currently progressing through step 4. However this is not my story, this is truly the beginning of my journey to recovery.

ps. this is not everything, there is so much more and I could/have done that. if you want to know more please just ask.