My Journey To Freedom

I grew up in a hyper-fundamental home.  Most everything was outlawed as sinful.  Rock and Roll was of the devil, dancing was the gateway to sexual promiscuity, playing with cards was the surest way to fall into a gambling addiction, and movies would certainly cause the viewer to question God.  You name it and it was a sin.  Yet, for all the prohibitions, conflicts abounded.  My father was a preacher and a child molester.  My mother constantly complained about an abusive husband yet did not find the courage to walk away until 2 of 3 children were out of the house.  I am glad that she was able to get away when she did but, sadly, she could not be present for her son when he needed someone early in life.

I was introduced to porn at a very young age due, in part, to my father’s inattention to his children and, in part, to his use of it when teaching me about the birds and the bees.  So, I lived in an environment that both condemned and allowed explicit and implicit destructive behaviors.  I could not be good enough and it was clear that I would never be good enough.  I was abandoned by my mother to live this life with my father and because of her hatred of men it was clear that she could never be the person I needed for safe connection.

Learning how to trust enough to relationally soothe my traumas and wounds was an uphill battle to say the least.  Yet, safe people did exist for me.  My grandmother was particularly kind.  I suspect that she knew about her son’s destructive behaviors and intentions.  Her home was a refuge for me, and I felt safe there.  Summer camp was also something that I eagerly awaited every year.  Despite my social awkwardness and intensely shy turtle-like persona, especially to new people, camp offered an escape.  One particular year, a message went out to all campers that any poor behavior was sure to get us a ticket home.  That week I was accidentally in a building I was not supposed to be in.  When caught I ran, while screaming and crying that I did not want to go home.  The over-reaction surprised even me.  Looking back, I suppose the camp counselors knew that something was wrong because I received a lot of kind attention after that.  I never told them about my home.  Not only did I not have the ability to articulate my situation at such a young age, I also knew that if I did, I would endure significant consequences when I returned.  Those consequences scared the hell out of me.  All of childhood was like this.  It was a constant and confusing balancing act between the good and holy that my family represented and the darkness that lay inside the walls.

            Somehow, likely by the persistent prayers of people who knew us, I walked away from these experiences still loving Jesus and desiring to honor Him.  I could separate Him from my trauma.  But my relationship with Jesus did not immediately heal the attachment traumas of my youth and early childhood.  The emotional neglect and other abuses continued to take its toll and I found solace with pornography.  I was, in my mind, an irreparable loser of a human being who could never find real love on his own.  My father told me as much many times.  Yet, in my fantasies, the beautiful women in porn would do whatever I wanted them to do.  I could see in their eyes that they wanted me and desired me, and they would scream with pleasure when we were together.  They were my unholy “safe place” and as a result I began to isolate myself from reality more and more. 

            Feeling the real effects of isolation, I acted out and neuro-chemically and behaviorally bonded myself to a false connection.  Of course, I knew it was false, so I felt the sting of guilt and shame.  Remorse and despair became my new best friends – but I still needed connection.  The disparity between fantasy and real life brought about significant conflict for me, so I detached myself even further and grew numb.  All anyone ever saw of me was a flat, emotionless robot.  I had even prayed to become a robot on several occasions so that I didn’t have to feel the pain of my “reality.”  But I did feel it, and anger grew as I isolated even more.  On and on the cycle went: begging, pleading, trying, confessing – all to no avail.

            I tried many things to cast away the addiction to porn and improve my ability to communicate with others, but they all failed because my emotional needs were still unattended.  Moreover, the very few people that I let in to my world did not know how to help, were overwhelmed by the intensity of my experiences, and tended to make things worse by inspiring more shame.  After all was said and done, it was mostly trial and error and perseverance in the Spirit that helped me get to freedom.  That is not to say that I did it on my own.  Far from it! Trying to tackle this problem alone is part of what keeps people in chains.  My trial and error led me to the understanding that I needed others, that vulnerability was a key and essential ingredient to freedom, and that shame had to be properly identified and rooted out.  Praise God that it was and is.

            My personal steps to freedom came in three stages.  First, was the recognition that I could not accomplish the goal of freedom on my own.  “White knuckling” sobriety always ended the same.  I withstood the pressure for only so long, then collapsed in a back-slidden heap of shame, knowing in my heart that I could never break away.  This method was hurtful to me and those that I loved because all I could give them was an angry disposition and a cruel push-off so that I could maintain my shame filled isolation.  My initial intentions were to protect them from me and me from them because of my unsolvable brokenness, but the emotional distance hurt us both.  I had to enlist the help of others.  Just coming to terms with this alone began a good work in me.  When I reached out, hope started to have a voice.  It was also at this point where I learned about who I could share with and who I couldn’t.  I learned that there is no other Savior but Jesus and that no other person could or should be lifted upon that high a pedestal.  I didn’t just need anyone, I needed safe people.

            Second, I poured myself into reading and study about the nature of compulsory porn.  I learned about what happens in our brains and why.  I started to understand myself more deeply and to let God into the darkest places of my life.  His holy company was a stinging and fiery presence that inspired guilt and a desire to change that exceeded the previous pain of shame-ridden cries of hopeless pleading for a miracle.  The guilt was different.  I was exposed to others so that the light could shine in places I had previously worked so diligently to keep hidden.  Porn use no longer defined me.  It was reduced to something stupid that I did to assuage a real need for connection in my life.  It became clear that authentic connections with others would never develop as long as I was carrying around the unholy surrogate for what I really needed.  I needed to heal from the attachment traumas of my childhood and youth.  I needed to allow myself to get close to others and take terrifying steps of vulnerability, knowing that the people who loved me today were not like my mother and father.  I had to risk being misunderstood (and I was misunderstood many times), while pushing through the pain of shame’s lying voice.  It never stopped yelling in my ear and stirring up the fear that all of my vulnerable truth seeking was a fruitless endeavor that would cost me everything.  It told me that I would screw up my children, that my wife would leave me, and that I would soon be found out to be an extraordinary fraud. Yet, I pressed on with hope, borrowed from those people I allowed into my life. 

All of this study led me to a master’s degree in counseling and a post graduate degree in the larger topic of sex addictions (not just porn use).  These studies helped me to see the patterns that happen in humanity.  I was not alone.  Much of the skills I used to stay clean at this time were behavioral and though I was staying clean from sexual behaviors and from pornography, the internal struggle remained.  I was doing all the right things and had healed from my childhood traumas, but I was still not completely free.  I wondered if I would ever be.  Perhaps, the internal struggle was so innate that I would not be free from the pressures of the world around me until I met Jesus face-to-face.  I became settled with this “reality,” and even taught others the same.  I would be “bouncing my eyes” and stressfully refocusing my thoughts for the remainder of my days.  It was exhausting, but at least I was clean and sober.

            All of this takes us to the third and final aspect of my story of freedom, and the final impetus for writing this book.  Despite being free from the burden of poor behaviors, I was not completely free from shame, unnecessary guilt, and the accompanying anger at myself and others for having to deal with the internal battle I mentioned above.  Then it happened.  It felt like it happened all at once.  From the perspective of those around me, it appeared to happen all it once.  Yet, it was a lifetime coming.  As my wife and I began to speak seriously about some of the shame that was still embattling me, the topic of nudity came up.  That was not a topic that I had really studied.  The notion had not occurred to me though I really don’t know why.  It should have been something researched early on because of my extraordinary interest in helping people overcome sex addictions.  Yet here I was so many years later only just beginning to investigate the topic.  I wonder if I had researched it earlier that I would have come to the same understanding that I have now?  I may never know, but I do know that what I learned has forever changed my life.  I know that it is beginning to change the lives of those given to me by God for healing as well. 

What I learned about nudity is outlined in detail later in the book, but suffice it say for now that I no longer hear shame’s lying voice regarding my body and the bodies of others.  Objectification of others’ bodies has been erased by the transformation that occurred at the renewing of my mind.  I do not look to false images for meaningless and destructive connections.  I have those connections in Christ and with my brothers and sisters.  And, finally, I do not see anyone’s naked body as a threat to my purity.  Instead, I know that every body that I see holds a reflection of the divine glory of God.  We are not dirty and shameful.  We are made “very good.”

The weight of this testimony and the following description of two poignant dreams are foundational to the book you have in your hands.  It is written specifically for pastoral counselors because I believe that the real and best hope for men and women struggling with sexual addictions rests with them.  Hopefully, this book will challenge conventional thinking and bring about a resurrection of innocence to the helping process and to the hearts of struggling people everywhere.  If you are someone struggling with pornography or any other form of sex addiction and are reading these pages, then I encourage you to first pick up Sam Jolman’s book, The Sex Talk You Never Got.  Its contents are incredibly close to this book but it is written for the end user and not for helping agents.  You are very likely to get more from those pages than these.  Nevertheless, read this as well! 

Description of a dream

I don’t usually have dreams that are memorable in any meaningful way.  Most dreams engage fear or shame or embarrassment or adventure, but the two dreams that I am about to describe now held deep meaning for me and are part of the transformational change I seek to describe in this book.  I pray that they will carry some meaning for you as well.

I’m walking through mud and mire at the outset.  The environment stinks and though water used to flow, it flows no longer.  Beside me, panicked people (or something that looked like people) are frantically holding up a dam to keep the massive flow of water away.  The dam is leaking in places.  Sticks assist the fear driven people in keeping up the wall.  Tar is haphazardly thrown into holes.  It was clear that the dam would not last long and fear began to grip me.  The message was clear.  Hold up the dam!  Do not let it break!

I walked a little further and found another man.  He was calm and did not utter a word, yet when his slitted, yellow eyes looked at me, malice spoke clearly.  In front of him were cages, now empty but that once held victims.  Somehow, I understood that I worked with Jesus to set them free.  This confused me even more.  Clearly, I would not want people in cages, but why were they there?

I awoke disturbed and unable to fall back asleep.  The next day, I wrestled with the dream.  It occupied every thought.  I shared it with friends, desperate to find an interpretation that satiated my angst.  No one could offer me what I sought.  Fear and a desperate need to hold up the dam were the predominate results.  Of course, those results were the intention.  Though I believe that the dream was sent by the yellow eyed demon earlier described as so full of malice, it was allowed by God as a means to show me what was going on in the spiritual realm. 

I was not content with the result of the dream.  I know that God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind.  The dream produced none of that.  I bowed before God in desperate need to make sense of the dream and that night I received my answer.

I fell into the second dream with a splash.  The torrent raged around me, and I was sucked under with violent force, tossed about and helpless to adjust myself to swim in the forcefulness of the torrent.  I was afraid but not overcome.  After a moment, I relaxed, and the life of Christ flowed through me.  His love surrounded me.  I was dashed against the other side of the dam.  The pain awakened me and then I knew that the dam had to come down.  Salvation was in the river of life, not in the stinky mire.

The dam represented an agreement I made with the yellow eyed demon.  I agreed to construct the dam out of fear of the misunderstood torrent and losing my self-righteous identity, and he would then, “keep me safe.”  It was constructed of rules.  Rules such as “bounce your eyes” and “put up an internet blocker” built my wall brick by brick by brick.  I thought that I needed them!  With them, I was safe!  Yet behind the wall fear reigned. I really needed something better.  I had done some truly fantastic work in my heart and mind.  I was clean and sober and helping others to do the same as evidenced by the empty cages, but my heart was distressed.  All I could think about was keeping up the dam.

I didn’t waste any time, I spent much of the next day in prayer and visualized an incredible fight.  Within it, I crippled the demons holding up the wall and tore their legs out from under them.  I removed the sticks and planks.  I peeled away the tar and before I knew it, I once again found myself in the flood.  The swamp was cleaned.  The enemy was flushed away.  The mud was refreshed with crystalline water and joyfully I allowed myself to float until I eventually found myself within the innermost parts of my own heart.  I found the throne room of God in a little outpost of Eden.  I was made clean, and I was finally free.

I hope to make clear that every bit of this story has meaning and purpose.  If I were to remove any part of my healing process, then I would not be fully free.  I needed all of it.  So do our clients.  Many look to the third aspect of my freedom and try to skip ahead because that is what “worked,” but to do that is to sabotage the fullness of what God wants to give.  There is no cheat or shortcut for freedom in this process.  The final stage may occur like a switch, but if the work is not done to bring power to the switch, then the darkness will grow deeper.  It is unethical and irresponsible to cut to the end without the power attached.

I have been helping men overcome a large variety of sex addictions using the methods described in this book for well over a decade.  I am happy to say that they are now some of the freest people that I know.