Article

Focus on the Recovery Process

I’m not sure if it was part of my mother’s overall plan to help keep me on the straight and narrow or not, but in my teen years I was assigned the task of spending the night in the hospital with an alcoholic uncle as he underwent a detoxification program to overcome alcoholism. That evening he exhibited increasingly more bizarre behavior and seemed to become further detached from reality. I watched, as he got angry, sad, wept uncontrollably, yelled, and carried on incoherent conversations.

Whatever my mother had in mind about teaching me of the dangers of alcohol worked magnificently! I have never had a drink in my life and while there are some days in ministry where I think that it could possibly help I have resisted the temptation. But she could not protect me from a danger that I, like so many other young men, seem to inevitably encounter. At age 9 I stumbled across a single page of a crinkled up hard-core pornographic magazine.

Fast forward to my early 30s and I’m a full-blown porn addict. The problem with detecting a porn addict is that the evidence is dramatically more subtle than alcoholism. There is no odor, no staggering, about. Pornography does its primary work on the inner life of a man or woman. The depth of my addiction would eventually become tied to anonymous viewing and acting out with Internet pornography.

Eventually my wife would discover my secret and confront me. This would ultimately serve as a major breakthrough though she would have to endure the agony of my repeated relapses. I believe it was fear that kept me ensnared for so many years – it is a deep fear of intimacy and of being truly known by others. Eventually porn’s grip was broken as I confessed my long held secret to a mentor and friend. Coupled with my wife’s earlier confrontation that confession set me on a path toward sobriety and recovery. Finally, I thank God for the strength each day to live free from the power of this addiction.

Bernie Anderson