Recovery from Pornography Addiction is Possible from SA Lifeline Foundation on Vimeo.

Editor’s note: We recently received a comment from a reader who said she’d only heard of one man ever finding recovery from pornography addiction. The sense I got was that she felt pretty hopeless in regard to pornography addiction recovery really being possible. But recovery [block]1[/block] possible, and more people are trying to share that reality. We received this submission about a new unofficial website for Mormon men with sex and porn addictions, called PASG Works! (PASG = Pornography Addiction Support Group program of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). Yes, recovery is possible! 

PASG Works! Pornography Addiction Recovery is Possible

Read success stories and inspirational messages about the 12 Steps submitted anonymously by LDS men who are finding lasting sobriety:www.pasgworks.com

You may have heard of PASG,  but most members of the Church are yet unaware of the fact that seminary buildings and church houses are often occupied in the evenings by addiction recovery group meetings. “LDS Family Services Pornography Addiction Support Groups” started popping up a few years ago and still seem to remain one of the best kept secrets in the church. Right under our noses, LDS men are finding real and lasting recovery from the worst spiritual plague of all time.

I am an LDS man and also a pornography addict. I grew up in the church, served a mission, held church callings and read my scriptures every day… but, I had a “little problem.” My story is similar to that of many other men in the church; what I thought was merely a bad habit turned into a full blown addiction soon after I returned home from my mission.

I was introduced to the PASG program from a friend of mine who approached me one day to apologize for certain things in his past. I noticed a real change in his eyes and his demeanor, and I wanted to know how it had happened. My friend  brought me to my first PASG meeting that evening and I started to feel hope for the first time in years.

PASG is not just a meeting to attend each week, it is a lifestyle change. I learned how to live the 12 Steps from a support person who I met in the program; as my ‘sponsor’ he coached me through a rigorous course of honesty that ultimately transformed into lasting sobriety; this program worked for me where hundreds of prior attempts had failed. As time passed,  I continued to hold onto the PASG Program as a drowning man would hold onto a life preserver. Now living in recovery, I still attend group meetings every week and contact my sponsor daily.

Three years later I am blessed to maintain sobriety one day at a time. The depression and anxiety that haunted me for the majority of my life has turned to happiness and peace. I have dedicated my life to bringing the message of recovery to fellow addicts, I want this valuable program to be a secret no more… because PASG Works!

To read more recovery stories like this one please visit www.pasgworks.com. ‘PASG Works’ is a reader-supplied blog where men who are finding success with PASG  post their stories and thoughts about the 12 Steps.

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Read more personal stories of addicts and their loved ones who have found healing and recovery from the effects of sex/pornography addictions. For  any wives who may have a husband who has an addiction, remember, you, too, will need to do your own recovery work. Read this submission from a woman (wife of an addict) who talks about the Addiction Recovery Program of the Church and how it helped her find peace and healing.

“Gently Up the Stream” – © 2003 by Linda J Curley Christensen
Used by permission of the artist. For reflections on this painting and addiction recovery, see this post.

~by Michelle

I admit it. As a website manager, I usually love looking at our site’s analytics. I’m always interested to see what kinds of questions people are asking about Mormon life and beliefs, and enjoy a glimpse into what LDS readers are looking for as well.

But I confess that when this site was launched four years ago, I wasn’t prepared for some of the questions we’d get on a regular basis. Some of them break my heart. For example, following is a sampling of some of the phrases that show up in our Mormon Women analytics:

“how to deal with spouse addiction”
“how to recover from having a husband addicted to porn”
“lds 12 step women support group”
“my husband’s porn addiction is killing my feelings”
“partners of sex addicts support groups”

As I noted in Monday’s post, Mormons are not immune from hard problems, and this is an example of that reality. But the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that, because of Jesus Christ, there is always hope!

If you are one of the women searching for support and information as you face the challenge of a spouse with a sex/pornography addiction, please, please know that your questions don’t go unnoticed. In fact, because of the consistency and frequency of such searches, I’ve spent a significant amount of time over the last year trying to find people who can address the topic of pornography addiction recovery, either from personal experience, or from a professional point of view. I’m regularly asking them to help respond to questions, emails, and comments from readers (for example, see the many comments on this post: How can I deal with my husband’s pornography addiction?).

And while we’ve tried to touch on this topic on our site, I keep feeling that more needs to be done.

Last night, I spent over an hour on the phone with Elisa, CEO of Mormon Mommy Blogs (MMB). She has also been planning to do more on her site for wives of sex and pornography addicts who are feeling alone, hopeless, unsure of what to do.

We decided that we wanted to work together to help spouses of porn addicts find support, information, hope, and healing. (We hope those who are dealing with addiction themselves will benefit from our efforts as well…and we know some of those people are women.)

On our sites, we will be sharing personal stories of women and men, spouses and addicts, who have walked the path of recovery. You’ll hear more about the truths and principles that have helped them find hope and healing through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. You’ll learn about the plethora of resources and information available to help those who are currently facing this challenge — and also to help parents, community leaders, and others who want to become more educated about pornography addiction and addiction recovery from a preventative point of view.

We hope that as more people are willing to share, talk about, and become educated about the hope of recovery from pornography and sex addiction, we’ll be able to build a community of Latter-day Saints and others with similar values who can wrap their arms around our brothers and sisters who are facing this challenge. We also hope that armed with information and increased faith, we can each be more proactive in our own spheres of influence to help thwart and prevent the devastating effects of the plague of pornography.

In a 2009 BYU Women’s Conference address (“Nourishing and Protecting the Family“), Sister Julie B. Beck, General President of the Relief Society, said the following:

We have a huge problem in our families with pornography and the influence that it is having in our families. The powerful feeling that has been coming over me is, “Sisters, fight—fight, sisters.”

Will you join us in the good fight?

• If you are struggling right now with this challenge, either as an addict or a spouse of an addict, we urge you to reach out for help and support. Talk to your bishop. Find a 12-step group (LDS Addiction Recovery (PASG) or Family Support groups, S-Anon, Al-Anon (principles are similar to S-Anon). Consider getting a therapist. Connect with others who have walked this path and who know what is needed for recovery. (If you don’t know anyone who has dealt with this, feel free to email me at mormonwomen(at)gmail(dot)com and I’ll forward your request on to women who have walked this path (or professionals who have helped others in your situation) who have offered to help.)
• If you have a personal story of recovery to share, please email Elisa at elisa(at)mormonmommyblogs(dot)com or email me at mormonwomen(at)gmail(dot)com. You can also submit stories directly via MMB here. (If you have your own blog, you can share in that way, too…just let us know where to find you.) As you write, please let our readers know what truths or principles have helped you face difficulties and hold onto hope through your journey of recovery.
• If you are an LDS therapist experienced in helping people (spouses or addicts) in the process of addiction recovery, a representative of a non-profit organization (or blog/website) that provides education and resources on the topics of pornography and sex addiction, or you have helpful information or ideas to share, please let us know.
• If you have access to social media, we invite you to help us help others by sharing information and requests for submissions via your blogs, Facebook accounts, Twitter, and other social media. Also, again, if you have a blog or website that addresses this topic, let us know so that we could consider it as a resource to share with others.

Of course, we’ll still be having our regular content on each of our sites, but we are excited to join together (and, we hope, join with others — with you!) to spread the message of hope to addicts and loved ones alike, and to build faith in the healing power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ…because we all need Him. We all need His help, and because of Him, we all can have hope, regardless of the trials we face.

As Elisa says on MMB: “Let’s populate the Internet with hope, people. Let’s use it for good.”

You Don’t Have to Do it Alone

~by Anonymous

Let me tell you a little about myself.  I’m a young mother and I’m a blogger.  I’m also married to a recovering pornography addict, who thankfully is doing really well.

Five or six years ago when I found out, and I was expecting our second child, my world was crushed.  We went to the bishop, we went to counseling, but I still ached inside.  One day, while visiting with the bishop, he asked how I was doing – what I needed.  I told him, I just needed someone to talk with – someone who could relate to me.  My family didn’t know; my friends didn’t know; I felt so alone.  This was not something I wanted to advertise.  The bishop informed me of a local Pornography Addiction Support Group led by LDS Family Services missionaries where there was a wife’s group!

I went to my first meeting with much anxiety, wondering if I should turn around and go home.  I worried about a lot. I wondered if the meeting would be weird (yes, they do say, “Hi, my name is…”, but it helps you learn everyone’s names!).  I toughed it out and showed up anyway.  I was greeted by a sister missionary with a badge.  She had several helpers, called facilitators, who assisted her in running the meetings each week.  I found a safe place where I could share my pains and recovery.  I was able to learn from the other sisters.  I was able to get to know the Addiction Recovery Program workbook quite well.  After about a year, I felt stable enough to not attend meetings each week, but would still drop in a couple times a year to say hello.

After a couple years of just saying hello, a friend who was attending called me and said I needed to start coming again.  I learned that we had other family members going to the brothers’ and sisters’ groups regularly. I volunteered to become a facilitator.  I was introduced to new materials — a pilot program — for the spouses of addicts called Healing through Christ.  As of now, the book is being edited and approved.

The new book for spouses is amazing.  The Addiction Recovery Program book was good, but because it is directed toward the addict, it made it difficult to focus on one’s own healing.  The new book empowers the spouse (or mother or girlfriend) to get stable herself, to become okay, to not be so negatively affected by the choices of her husband (or son or boyfriend).  I wish I knew when the official book was coming out, but you can contact your local Family Services to see if and when they will send you a draft PDF.

I want you to know that if you are the spouse of a pornography addict, and are suffering, you don’t have to do it alone!  There is someone, a whole bunch of someones, just waiting to help and love you.  You can find the schedule for meetings here.  If you are not close to a recovery group, see if you can get the book. If you’re really ambitious, you can even find out about getting a group started in your area by talking to your local leaders and LDS Family Services.

To get the feel of a Pornography Addiction Recovery group meeting, here’s a recent video. I couldn’t imagine anyone could make a video short that could really convey the feeling of a meeting, but they did it.

We involved in this program pray for you; we pray you will find these support groups, if you need them.  Know you are not alone.  Since we can’t hold up signs saying, “My husband is a porn addict, and I need help,” be gutsy and come to a meeting.  You may like what you find.

You may be interested in this announcement from Citizens for Decency about a free conference on how to combat pornography that will be held this Saturday at various locations in southeastern Idaho. I understand they will be giving away 500 copies of the DVD “Out in the Light” to conference attendees.

Former Department of Justice Chief Pat Trueman to Address Idaho Anti-Pornography Conference

With big business raking in billions of dollars in annual profits from pornography, we in southeastern Idaho may wonder what we can do to protect our communities. On Saturday, November 5th, Citizens for Decency will join with local police departments to present the Idaho Anti-Pornography Conference, “Pornography – Private Problem, Public Solutions.” Patrick Trueman, Department of Justice chief under Presidents Reagan and Bush, will speak. Meetings will be held at three locations:

• Rexburg – Rexburg Tabernacle, 51 N. Center St. 10:00 – 11:30 AM
• Idaho Falls – Rocky Mountain Middle School, 3443 N. Ammon Rd. 1:00 – 2:30 PM
• Pocatello – Museum of Clean, 711 S. 2nd Ave. 5:00 – 6:30 PM

Patrick Trueman is the President of Morality in Media, and the founder of PornHarms.com – both of which focus on protecting families from pornography. His most recent success was shutting down the airing of “The Playboy Club” on NBC. He also served in the United States Department of Justice as Chief of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section in the Criminal Division. Since then he has worked to aid victims of child pornography and has helped municipalities limit sexually oriented businesses through zoning and licensing ordinances.

Citizens for Decency is dedicated to increasing awareness of the ravages of pornography and advocating policy change on local, regional, and state levels. In addition to other efforts, Citizens for Decency has conducted educational conferences, initiated “anti-pornography month” and “clean minds” week at local schools, and helped bring about Internet filtering legislation in public schools and libraries. Citizens for Decency, as part of their mission statement, seeks to empower others to take a stand against pornography.

Admission to the Idaho Anti-Pornography Conference is free. Printable tickets are available online to help Citizens for Decency ensure adequate seating. However, a ticket is not required to attend. For a ticket or more information, please visit citizensfordecency.org.

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As part of White Ribbon Against Pornography (WRAP) week, Voices for Virtue is providing an online discussion and Q&A session tomorrow, November 1, at 4:00 p.m. EDT. Dr. Michael Gardner, a therapist who specializes in sex and pornography addiction, who was a lead creator of the website Combating Pornography, will be talking about overcoming pornography addiction and the 12-step Addiction Recovery program of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

You can sign in to listen to and participate in this live discussion at this Porn Harms Facebook page’s livestream feature. (There are also archived videos you can watch when a livestream is not going.)

You will be able to listen to the livestream and also submit questions via chat, if desired.

This event was organized by Voices for Virtue as part of the Be Aware: PORN HARMS National Awareness Event in conjunction with White Ribbon Against Pornography Week October 30 – November 6. Visit www.PornHarms.com/beawarefor more info.

For more information about this event, see this page.

To do our part this week, we’ll be sharing some resources and links available on the topic of overcoming and healing from pornography addiction, with hope that it can help those who are struggling with this, addicts and loved ones alike.

As a start, below are a few resources available on the topic. We’ll be sharing more throughout the week.

- Read personal stories on our website from people who have dealt with pornography addiction — from women whose husbands have had sex addictions, and also from women and men who have themselves dealt with sex / pornography addiction.

- Watch a video, Healing the Broken-Hearted that shows several couples sharing their stories about facing and healing from pornography addiction. Experts on the topic also share insights and advice for those dealing with this challenge, and for people such as Church leaders seeking to help.

- Read research about how pornography addiction affects the brain, as well as other peer-reviewed research on the topic of pornography addiction.

Hello,

I recently started meeting with my Bishop to repent for other sins that I had committed. I was almost ready to get my Temple Recommend when Satan came at me with full-force. I began to engage in watching pornography and masturbation.

My Bishop is a wonderful man, but I am far too scared to tell him of the addiction that I am faced with. It is not a daily habit, but it is still a problem. I have prayed, and I have come to realize I cannot overcome this on my own.

I feel so awful and depressed after engaging in these behaviors. I want to be clean; I want to go to the temple.

Is there anything else that I can do that would be sufficient for the repentance process? I don’t want to tell my bishop, at all. I do want to overcome this addiction immediately though. Or at least be able to refrain from such atrocities.

Please help.

And my response:

Hi Samantha,

Much love your way. Thanks for reading and adding your comment. I commend you for your desire to increase your self-mastery. That’s a big deal. Some people are not bothered by viewing porn or masturbating. “It’s normal,” they say. In fact, we’re looked upon as being weird because we want to adhere to a higher moral standard commanded by the Lord and his servants.

I recommend visiting the sites I linked to at the end of the original essay. There is a lot of good advice to be found in those pages. Most of the comments I have added here over the years are intended to give hope and encouragement. I want to continue that in responding to your plea for help. I think I wrote this previously but I’ll share it again. This trial can bring you to the Lord.

I feel impressed to share something that may or may not be applicable to you. Perhaps it will be helpful to future readers. It has to do with responsibility and accountability. Going to the temple is a big deal. The temple is a place of revelation. When I go there I always come away knowing more about myself, what I really want out of life and what I want to do with my free time.

I’ll bet like most people who have written me about this problem, you’re fine as long as you keep yourself busy. If you’ve got a regular schedule of work or school or both, you do well in that structure. The difficulty usually comes when there are no pressing demands on your time and nobody waiting for you to do something for them – a teacher, a co-worker or a family member.

That’s usually when your thoughts turn to yourself and what you want. Those are the defining moments of life. Satan knows that, which is why temptation seems to strike hardest when you are pondering something like going to the temple. We grow and advance in our lives when we go to the temple. We come closer to fulfilling our purpose in life as we attend the temple regularly.

The best advice I can offer is to partake of the sacrament and ponder the promises found in the sacramental prayers. The key phrases are “always remember him” and “have his spirit to be with them.” I know you’ve probably heard this in every public prayer and perhaps you offer it your own private prayers – to have his spirit. But do we focus as much on “always remember him?”

There’s something special and wonderful in the Sacrament that even after more than fifty years I still don’t fully understand. No, it’s not magic. We don’t believe in that. But it is powerful and it is real. I feel hopeful after partaking of the sacrament with real intent. I want it to work in my life and because I want that, believe that it can, it does. My power is strengthened by the Sacrament.

At the end of every Sabbath day I feel empowered, partly through offering service but mostly because I have partaken of the sacrament and have pondered how I can better remember the Savior during the week. I think ahead to the moments when I know I will have down time and think what I can do to show the Lord that I do remember him and want his spirit to be with me.

For me, there is something of a miracle that takes place in those quiet moments. Because I have asked, the Lord reveals to me what I will be doing during those quiet moments during the week. I can see myself working on some writing project or some other activity that will be helpful to me and to others. No, it’s not guaranteed that I will do exactly that, but it’s clear that it can be so.

My desire to do good things and be good is strengthened. I am in a partnership with the Lord to make something special out of my life. It is in the quiet moments that my life really develops. But it doesn’t work unless I make the effort to remember the Lord. Every time I do, he gives me special sacred feelings that encourage me and help me feel like I can do all I’m asked to do.

I hope this helps. There is no easy answer. It’s not like you can turn off a switch. Sorry. You’ve got hormones and that’s a good thing. Without them you’ve have no drive or ambition in life. Well, I’m speaking from a man’s point of view. For a woman I suppose that without hormones you would have no desire to nurture and strengthen relationships. I thank God for the sex drive.

Please don’t be so hard on yourself. I have a theory about why we feel depressed or hopeless when participating in pornography or masturbation. I’ve shared it elsewhere. It has to do with the influence of unclean spirits – those who have no hope or light of Christ in their lives. It’s just a natural result of allowing them to use you, even for just a moment. You feel what they feel.

Of course if you don’t believe in the existence of evil or unclean spirits you’re going to think this is crazy. That’s OK. As I wrote at the beginning of my essay, I’m not writing this to those who are unbelievers. My experience in life has settled the question for me. They are real and I know of their existence through experiences too sacred to share. But let’s not dwell on that aspect.

Focus on the Savior. Focus on building hope. Believe that you can eventually master yourself. Be happy that you even want to. God bless you in your efforts. Nobody can do this for you. In the temple we learn all ordinances are personal, performed one at a time for each individual. No answer fits everyone, but I have found this plan has met with success time after time in others.

Good luck and God bless. You can do it.

Pornography Harms is hosting a Live Online Conference about Preventing & Overcoming Sex / Pornorgraphy Addiction. Watch live on Facebook @ 4pm EDT: http://on.fb.me/qbIz7j

A new website, ProtectFamily.org, has been created to serve as a resource to all parents who wish to maintain a safe online environment–protecting their respective family standards– while encouraging and allowing family members to positively and pro-actively participate in engaging the online conversation through web access, learning, and social media. Protect Family is a combined effort between the More Good Foundation and Ken Knapton, author and Cyber Safety expert.

Ken Knapton is the author of Cyber Safety: Maintaining Morality in a Digital World. Ken has over 20 years of experience in the high tech industry, leading up to his work as Chief Technology Officer at multiple software companies. He holds 3 patents for his work on enterprise security and anti-virus technology, and was named as the 2006 Chief Technology Officer of the year by the Utah Technology Council. Ken holds a Bachelors of Science in Computer Science and Information Systems from Utah Valley University, and a Masters of Business Administration from Brigham Young University. He currently works for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and lives in Pleasant Grove, Utah, with his wife and four wonderful children.

Ken’s site includes a comparative index of available safety filters for parental review. As updates occur and new tips emerge for maintaining a healthy online environment, those will be shared on site.

For more information on the More Good Foundation, an organization devoted to engaging the Mormon conversation online and reaching out to the spiritual seeker wherever they may be, please leave a comment or email us at email at more good foundation dot org.

“Not really.”

So I explained that part of what the speaker was saying was that technology is a blessing from the Lord so that His work might be better accomplished. So technology can be used for good. Then my daughter chimed up and said, “It can also be bad. There are some bad websites with bad pictures.”

“Yes, there are. Where did you learn about that?”

She then showed me the most recent Friend magazine, which had an article about what one boy did when he came across a bad website. She had just read that article earlier. I was happy that she remembered and understood what she read.

This led to a nice teaching moment where I taught her how to turn off the computer screen, or the computer if necessary, if she couldn’t close the bad website. Then I made sure that she knew what the most important thing to do was: tell Mom or Dad.

I thought that this was a great teaching experience for me, thanks to a BYU Devotional and an article in the Friend magazine. It was more powerful because she brought the issue of bad websites up as a counter to some of the positive uses of technology I was teaching her about.

I have to echo Bro. Egbert’s most important point from his BYU Devotional address – that as great as technology is, the best thing is reliance on the Spirit of the Lord. We need to live so that we are sensitive to His promptings. I’m grateful for a sweet daughter who is learning to listen to what the Spirit teaches.

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2. Exploring the New LDS Website
3. Tools for Gospel Students and Teachers