I am a porn addiction survivor.
It began when I was in grade school with “men’s” magazines and became an on and off thing until God called me out of it. I believe I was given a lot of graces because of my youthful ignorance.
I got married, and that lasted 12 years. I didn’t look at porn during our marriage, but my now ex-wife did. She had other baggage, so I assumed our marriage difficulties stemmed from that. It’s ironic that a past-porn addict couldn’t identify that he was married to a porn addict. She divorced, and I signed because I knew our marriage was invalid and a prime candidate for annulment. I was/am a practicing Catholic.
I work offshore and unfortunately got assigned to a place that had porn in the bathrooms. Based on my past addiction and my recent divorce, I was weak, chose not to trust God, and got readdicted. It was bad this time around — no youthful ignorance excuse. Eventually, I brought it home. My kids found out, and it cost me relationships with them.
I used g**gle to get the porn. I wasn’t signed in but most of the time I could search something unrelated and end up in porn in under 5 minutes. They would present thumbnails, and I would click on them to watch a 3-second gif. After months of this, g**g tried a new tactic. After looking at gifs for over an hour, g**g put gay porn in my feed. This wasn’t my thing, so I wouldn’t intentionally click on it. Some of the thumbnails would trick me with long hair that turned out to be guys. It kind of became a game.
After some time of this, g**g would present “barely legal” gifs. Then g**g started with obviously underage girls. They weren’t doing porn, but they were in bikinis at the beach in alluring poses. Because of thoughts of my kids, I would stop here. It truly disgusted me, but the tactic was obvious: g**g was trying to get me to look at kid porn. This happened about four more times before g**g stopped. It became part of my motivation to stop looking at porn.
I thank God for defeating this addiction in me and I want to give him the glory! For my part, I cooperated in 3 areas in which I didn’t give up. I went to Mass at least once a week with many trips to daily Mass. I went to Confession before Mass when I had the stain of porn on me. I went to Confession three times in one week in the depths of the addiction. Lastly, I continued to pray the Rosary daily. I may have started it late the following morning (1am or 2 am), but I didn’t give up on the Rosary.
Through these 3 grace-filled acts and our Blessed Virgin Mary’s prayers, God didn’t give up on me. Now, I’m remarried, happy, haven’t talked to my kids in 3 and a half years, but I am willing to wait on the Lord on this one. Feel free to talk to me about this!
Submitted by CT.