How Do I Help a Recovering Porn Addict?
Hi everyone, I'm new here and in need of some advice, hope you'll oblige please!
Last month I discovered that a close friend of mine has been struggling for the last 5 years with a porn addiction which includes a preference for teenage and child porn. I am the only one he has told.
Despite my shock and horror, I felt an overwhelming desire to have compassion on him and help him. He was only a teenager himself when he first got ensnared by porn. He hates what he has done and could not be more sorry - his desperation to get free from this addiction drove him to tell me.
It's been five weeks since that point and I am very proud to say he's done brilliantly so far. He's installed accountability software which tracks his internet usage and sends regular reports to me. He has gotten rid of all his porn, destroyed and replaced all his hard-drives. Together we have been reading books about getting over addiction and porn, books on grace and forgiveness and I know he's on the way to recovery, he's left it all behind and moving on with his life.
But he's struggling emotionally - he's struggling to forgive himself and dreads the possible future consequences. I know he wants to get married and have a family one day but he daren't know whether he can trust himself to have gotten over this. He knows that he'll have to tell the woman he wants to marry about this, however many years pass between the porn addiction and meeting that person. He's terrified and sad and deeply regrets what he's done and that he may never be able to have a family because of it.
What can I say or do to help comfort him? I want so much to help him and would like to be able to reassure him that he hasn't ruined his life and will be able to have a family one day - but I don't know and I can't tell him comforting lies. My heart goes out to him - I hate to see him hurting like this and although I know he's responsible, he made some bad choices and mistakes, I do believe in forgiveness, compassion and second chances. And I know he's not an evil criminal - he was just a teenage boy who got drawn into a world of porn almost by accident when he himself was too young to understand the dangers - and from there it escalated.
What can I do to help him?
Thanks,
Suzi.
Research counselors in your area and find him a professional to talk to. See if you can find a local support group and offer to go to the meetings with him.
While I commend you for being such a great friend, you're not a professional and it's not your burden to take on. Put your efforts into finding him the help he needs. That would be huge.
Hello Suzi (and I hope it isn't your real name)
You have intrigued me for sure. Here is my first question: in what way was it an addiction, meaning in what way was it interfering with his daily life?
second: what is really the issue here, the porn in general, the amount of it watched or his specific choices of porn?
third: can he perform sexually without the need of porn stimulation?
child porn and "teen" porn are completely different from each other and let's not forget that when a site advertises teen porn, it is simply a 18+ years old, looking young with pony tails on... there is a lot worst than that out there.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a little porn in one's life and I don't know where you stand on that. So before I go on telling you all that I think on the subject, one more question: do you think porn is a vice?
cheers
If it's making him feel awful, then it's a problem for him. Doesn't matter what our opinions of porn in general are.
I absolutely agree... but to an extend. There are many ways to feel bad about ourself. If he feels awful on his own: there is a problem that needs to be fixed for sure but if he was made to feel awful (society, family, church etc.) I think that becomes a bit of a different territory.Originally Posted by sourpuss
I was brought to feel awful with myself for more than 10 years in my past relationship... 3 years later, and thanks so much to this forum: I have learned that I am absolutely not abnormal!
sometimes, a wrong intervention can be a lot more traumatizing and I was just wondering the details of his addiction before to suggest anything drastic.
cheers
Hi, thanks for your thoughts. I'll answer the questions:
Easiest question - Suzi isn't my real name!
The reason he has described it as an addiction is because it's something he doesn't want in his life but can't, on his own, banish it from his life. It's a compulsive habit rather than a hobby that he thinks he needs to cut down on. He doesn't like looking at porn, he feels that it's wrong, yet he hasn't been able to stop on his own. I think the 'real issue' as you put it Rakastaja is that he does feel addicted, he does feel that he's a slave to looking at porn - any porn - and it's making him miserable because he doesn't want to! The fact that he has been dragged into the murky waters of underage porn makes it worse - whilst the teenage stuff, as you point out, may well be adults dressing younger, the child porn is the real thing.
Sourpuss - I think you got it spot on when you said that if it's a problem for him then it doesn't matter what the rest of us think of porn. He's seen it as a problem for years. He's a Christian, as am I, and he believes that porn goes against what God created sex for. So after years of struggling on his own to become free from it he's finally told me because he's desperate for help.
I haven't thought of porn as a vice as such, but I do think that it's a cheap substitution for what the viewer really needs, which is intimacy. I do believe that being addicted to porn, feeling compelled to view it on a regular basis and reliant on it for sexual 'kicks' is symptomatic of a deeper problem of loneliness/lack of intimacy. I think it brings problems of its own too - I think it objectifies women, removes love from sex and encourages men to fantasise about women they have no right to fantastise about.
But more importantly, he thinks those things and therefore it's a problem to him. He's experienced the damaging effects of porn, he's worried about the effects of the future.
The only thing he hasn't been able to do which I've asked him is to find a professional counsellor. I think because of the illegal nature of some of it I don't think he dares trust a professional who may have to report some of what he might say. I have been encouraging him to speak to someone though and will continue to encourage him. But there's not a lot else I can do - I can't force him to go to one.
I hope I've answered everything!
Suzi
Whilst you are mean't to tell the truth, that can be to yourself, or to someone close or both it does not have to be 100% to a stranger.
It's natural that with his beliefs, he is gobsmacked at how far he has gone with this, to child pornography.
I think that is what is hurting him the most, from the sounds of it.
He has to ask himself questions.. Why, he started, what attracts him, what triggers it, when, why he went further to look at child pornography.
He may come up with, bored, no one in his life, curiousity of sexual positions, always at night, IDK, curious as I saw one as I was browsing..
But he needs to have the answers. Because with the answers, come exactly that, the answer of how to stop...
For instance, always at night, bored, no love in his life... as an example, so what can he exchange for being bored, how can he get out and start to mingle with the opposite sex more, what can he replace at night times.
That is just obviously an example.
But, as he may be looking at it as replacement sex, to assist with masterbation...
He needs to ask himself why, when...
Everyone who does things they do not agree with beat themselves up over it..
It's good that he has taken a first step confided.
You may find he's finding it hard because he's not replacing it, or getting to the root of why..
CW
Do we not realise that in order to find a soul
It doesn't happen over night
if truth were to be told.
Like everything in life that's hard to achieve
you must believe!
The above, is exactly what I am saying as well... What, why...
Ask him those questions as Rakastaja has pointed out as well, perhaps ask in baby steps.
CW
Do we not realise that in order to find a soul
It doesn't happen over night
if truth were to be told.
Like everything in life that's hard to achieve
you must believe!
Hi Chandler's Wish,
Thanks for your insight. We are talking about these kind of questions and what we keep coming back to for the reason why is that it provides some relief from loneliness. And of course, the deeper he got into this, the more lonely he'd get as he'd feel increasingly isolated from other people as the part of his life he'd have to hide became bigger.
It's early days, and we both recognise that, but he's doing so well. Just telling me has enabled him to change so much and I think the realisation that he can share this with someone and not be rejected has done a lot of healing because he's realised that he can be himself and completely open and honest and still be accepted.
It's just all this future speculation - which I know is pointless, but it's as if he can't help it. He's so worried that he might have ruined any chance to have a family - how many women would be ok with having children with someone who could be called a paedophile? I hate to see him hurting so much - what can I do?
Lessons are to be learned.. You don't beat yourself up, forgiveness starts with self, it was loneliness that started it.
He has to change the pattern, acknowledging is only one thing... Only.
Then he has to forgive himself, then as you know others will forgive but I would leave this as a skeleton in the closet to those whom he meets.
I would concentrate on forgiving himself and getting him out of the problem, loneliness.
CW
Do we not realise that in order to find a soul
It doesn't happen over night
if truth were to be told.
Like everything in life that's hard to achieve
you must believe!
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