When I was twelve years old I was practicing to be Michael Jordan at a friend’s house. Before we went outside to practice his famous “Five Fingers of Death” fade-away my friend gave me something. He said that if I was a man I would look at it- If I wouldn’t I wasn’t a man and I shouldn’t look at it. I said “I am a Man” I took it. This was my first introduction to the world of pornography.
If I could go back in time and grab that kid and tell him what the future held for me because of that horrible magazine. I would tell that boy how my teen years would be controlled by it, how I would break my dad’s heart, how I would almost completely destroy my marriage and the love of my life’s view on me.”If I could go back in time…”
Isn’t this a common request that we ask. Isn’t that something we all crave to have the power to control -time as we wish; but we don’t. We live our lives and we make decisions that sometimes results in a mistake. What we do after that mistake is the key point. I can’t go back to that day several years ago, but what I can now do because of that day is completely up to me.
As you can imagine that day when I was twelve years old, practicing to be the next “mike” was the day that changed my life forever. From it has led a very painful road and a hard road at that as I slowly learned that I had became a true blue addict.
To over view some main events in my story to bring you up to speed I will show you why my wife and I have chosen to take something so humiliating and painful and to make it our story to share and to help others who might be going through some of the same things we have felt.
When I was twelve I was introduced to it by a friend. From that day forward I looked at it and slowly became an addict. No one talked about this issue and so I only knew that it was something looked down upon; but for what reason and why I didn’t’ know. I continued on until my dad caught me when I was fifteen. I walked into my room and found him sitting on my bed waiting for me. The most wonderful, sweet hearted man who loved me and never let a day go by without letting me know how much he was proud of me could also look at you and break your neck at the same time. He was fierce, but loving. I remember my stomach feeling the exact same way as it did when I was on a roller coaster, I walked in and all of a sudden with these simple words “Sit down son, we need to talk about this…” he laid out before me some magazines a friend had given me on my bed and all of a sudden my stomach flipped upside down.
He was the first person to talk the truth about porn and what it would do to me, my family and my spouse if it controlled me. He would ask me the hard questions from time to time and I knew that from that day forward I would live in fear of breaking his heart again if this continued. But on July 17th when the brakes failed to our families RV while going down the Olympic Mountains just outside of Seattle in 2007; that accountability was gone when my dad was killed. I went through a lot of personal issues and showed everyone I was fine on the outside but I was being consumed by pornography on the inside. I hated the world and my faith- everything I believed in I threw out the window. Instead of drugs or alcohol when I was grieving I turned to pornography. It became my vice. With all other main addictions you could see side effects and people would know that my words weren’t true about being alright. With pornography no one had to know. I could disappear inside my own little fantasy world for hours at a time and no one had to know.
Unfortunately I took this addiction into my relationship with my girlfriend. She was what I now describe as my angel. See pornography tells you so much but gives you really nothing at all- emptiness. It was all fake, but my girlfriend was real. It took some time to get over the fact that she had feelings and she didn’t give me those things I wanted- ever. She showed me how to focus on things that mattered and how to build a real relationship not based on what every single one of those videos told me was important. The girls in my own little world did whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. Kailey had feelings and cared for me- knew my name, my likes and dislikes. The other girls didn’t even know who I was, she showed me the truth.